We left the States on July 2nd, with all the essentials of course:
And every flight,
layover, and connection went according to plan! So that was great. We watched some great B-list movies on the plane, slept in quite novel airport chairs, and finally made it to Amy and Rachel welcoming us in I-town on July 4th!:
We got in at around 8:00 AM, so we took a few hours to clean up, nap,
etc., and then we hit the ground running going to lunch with Amy and Rachel at
a nice Indian place. After lunch we went
to their apartment to talk orientation for a few hours, then took some auto
rickshaws to the mall to walk around, get out in the city, and talk to some ‘localites’,
as they say here. We then went back to
Amy’s to have some BBQ and celebrate the fourth. It was a great way to spend the day as it
helped push through jet lag (I may have fallen asleep momentarily while Amy was
talking to us), and experience I-town a bit.
The next couple days were spent
doing orientation things as well. On the
5th, we had a scavenger hunt competition in the city. We split into two groups (#1: Kayla, Jill,
Anna Grace, Justin, #2: Josh, Anna, Amy Calfas), and had to find/do as many
things on the competition directions as possible (some items included noting
exotic animals in the street, finding the biggest pile of excrement in the
street, finding different “wallas”, going to local hotspots, etc. ). Unfortunately, walking an absurd amount
aimlessly through the city was not a high point scorer, and my team (2) lost to
team number one. Gotta hate that lack of
directional awareness (and I’ve even been here before :/ ). But, both teams got to see and experience a
lot of the city:
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| Authentic Indian food: great goin' in, questionable coming out |
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| Kay Kay getting some Mehndi (Henna) |
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| Amy and Anna with a priest at a Hindu temple |
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| Jill eating who knows what...her team won the scavenger hunt |
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| Brilliant |
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| Auto-Rickshaw magic |
We spent the next day traveling around the city to different places of worship and hotspots. Ended up catching an elephant as well:
We also got to help Rachel teach an English
class:
And we had the privilege of ending the day hanging out with a group of
national believers at Amy’s house. It
was great for me to see some of the friends I had met 3 years ago and to see
them doing well. These guys are filled with
joy, faith, and quiet strength and love to worship their Lord. Their relationship with him was and is a huge
challenge and encouragement to me. The
words, “being spurred on” have real meaning when interacting with them and
watching them worship.
Yesterday, we visited a few Sunday
gatherings (one in Hindi and one in English):
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| Rachel, Amy, Anna, and Amy |
It’s been a great first four/five days here.
Its felt a lot longer than that, but we've been able to jump into the
culture, meet new people, and get acclimated to the area.
I'll leave you with some other random pics of our team, the last one certainly not being the least:
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| Jill, Anna Grace, and myself in an auto |
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| Justin has been great meeting people and making friends |
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| India's turned him into a Diva ;) |
By: Josh Mitchell
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