Back to India

After the Philippines and a quick 12 hour stop in Thailand, I--along with John, Jada, and Julie--flew to India. Here is the four of us in Bangkok. We managed a whirlwind five-hour tour of the city before our connecting flight. (The other seven hours were spent sleeping!) Once we got to India we met the rest of the team: Phil Wilson, Lana Wilson, Bethany Helmes and Matthew Impola. Dennis Hilman met us a week later.

We started our trip in Rajahmundry with the doctor and his wife. During our time there, the pastors on the trip were invovlved in pastors' training and the youth were teaching in a small slum school. In the evenings we all attended big services. Teaching in the slum school was fun--but really quite chaotic! One day we told the story of Jonah and them made origami whales with the kids. It was really great to hear them retell the story with all the details at the end of the day!

The big services were, well, big! The smallest was about 800 people and the largest about 12oo! That's not including the people that could hear from their houses due to the loud speakers! On the last night everyone came forward for personal prayer and we spent almost an hour praying for people. I struggled a bit with this because a few days previously I lost my voice and it hadn't quite come back.

During the last few days with the doctor, we had a myriad of activities: visits to the A.H. Mission Hospital, A.H. clinic, Little Lambs orphanage, and the site of several wells donated for poor Christians. We also had baptisms, food distribution to lepers, and even some time for a bit of shopping!

After our week in Rajahmundry, we were off to Kapileswarapuram to stay with Pastor K and Ruth. It was so great to be back there again and to see all the kids that live there! Our time was busy as usual with kids' programs, pastors' training, women's Bible studies, evening services and lots of visiting at the ALC Home or throughout the village. I especially liked hanging out with the kids--some of them I've gotten to know fairly well as this is my thrid trip to the ALC Home!

One of the highlights of the trip for everyone concerned is the trip to the river. The kids' are allowed to have the day off school and we all head out to play at the river. This year the kids had a cricket set, hula hoops, frisbees, a homemade kite...and that doesn't count the readymade "toys" of sand and water! Instead of taking the boat back across the river, John, Bethany and I decided to swim! It was great fun!

There are more photos and stories of Kapileswarapuram from my point of view at the foreign mission blog (see link below picture) so I'm going to move on. Our next stop was the Vizag area where there was a church dedication, several baptisms, more pastors' training and more services. Unfortunately, much of the team ended up sick while we were there, so only John, Dennis and I went to our next stop at Pastor M.P.'s. We only stayed for a weekend, but in that time there were services, kids' programs and church visits. A very busy final weekend. (F.M. blog: http://www.foreignmissionnewsblog.blogspot.com/)

We ended our trip with one more night at Pastor K's before heading off in different directions. I'm off to Bangkok for a few days with friends--more about that soon. :)