This update is overdue for several reasons, Internet access was hard to come by in most of the places where we stayed in India and now that I've been out of India for about 1 1/2 weeks and already busy with Mercy Ships in Madagascar a report on both places is definitely needed.
My time in India was incredible! We experienced God at work though out the entire trip and as a mission team we met many amazing people and saw the tremendous beauty of rural India. The month spent traveling around India was divided between about 4 different locations and I'll try to give a few highlights from each place.
The mission team met in the Hyderabad, India airport and included 10 people from across the USA associated with my Karen's church and their Foreign Mission group. From there we flew to Rajahmundry where we stayed with a medical doctor and his family while helping with medical clinics/camps offering free basic medical screening and medications. My main job was blood sugar testing and no one was very excited to get their finger stuck with a needle so I got a reaction similar to providing dental care :) Evening services were held after the medical part and many village people attended staying late into the night. Unfortunately about half of our team got sick, but thankfully it was during the part of the trip when we were staying with a doctor and he was able to fix us up again with lots of pills and shots. Mine was a bad chest cold with a deep cough and 4 shots of antibiotics helped get me better rather quickly. The whole team was able to have much more compassion on the sick patients who were receiving medications during the camps as we could all relate to needing those same things to feel better in India.
The next location was a children's home in a small village where we stayed and also did medical/dental clinics, training for the local pastors, street meetings and just playing with the almost 50 school kids living there. The children were super sweet and captured the hearts of the whole team, trying to get out of their homework in the evenings by having us come over and "help" them then just playing games and taking pictures...I'm definitely guilty of being a distraction to lots of the kids!
The third destination was a town not too far away where the services started before we even arrived and the local pastor kept us busy the entire time, even squeezing in a program for a tribal mountain area about a 4 hour bus ride away which turned out to be quite the adventure. My brother Jay also celebrated his 25th birthday there and we learned the tradition in India of feeding cake to the lucky birthday person...of course as Americans we had to take things one step further with Jay having more cake on his face than in his mouth and ending with a full out cake fight. Annie, our nice little Indian hostess put together a great surprise for Jay and was probably even more surprised at the mess we all made.
India part four happened after Jay, Karen and I said goodbye to the rest of the team in Hyderabad again and set out on our own for a few days of sight seeing. Rural south east India where we had been ministering was so beautiful but the northern areas around Delhi, Agra and Jaipur were also gorgeous in their own way. The highlights to this part of the trip was the train ride in a 3 bunk sleeper car, the Taj Mahal of course, unofficial tour of the forgotten city with a local guide, riding an elephant into the Amber fort in Jaipur, the many eating and shopping experiences along the way, and finally WARM WATER for showers at the last hotel. After weeks of cold bucket showers, hot showers (and toilet paper) had to make the highlights list.
My time in India was incredible! We experienced God at work though out the entire trip and as a mission team we met many amazing people and saw the tremendous beauty of rural India. The month spent traveling around India was divided between about 4 different locations and I'll try to give a few highlights from each place.
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| Team India 2015! |
The third destination was a town not too far away where the services started before we even arrived and the local pastor kept us busy the entire time, even squeezing in a program for a tribal mountain area about a 4 hour bus ride away which turned out to be quite the adventure. My brother Jay also celebrated his 25th birthday there and we learned the tradition in India of feeding cake to the lucky birthday person...of course as Americans we had to take things one step further with Jay having more cake on his face than in his mouth and ending with a full out cake fight. Annie, our nice little Indian hostess put together a great surprise for Jay and was probably even more surprised at the mess we all made.
India part four happened after Jay, Karen and I said goodbye to the rest of the team in Hyderabad again and set out on our own for a few days of sight seeing. Rural south east India where we had been ministering was so beautiful but the northern areas around Delhi, Agra and Jaipur were also gorgeous in their own way. The highlights to this part of the trip was the train ride in a 3 bunk sleeper car, the Taj Mahal of course, unofficial tour of the forgotten city with a local guide, riding an elephant into the Amber fort in Jaipur, the many eating and shopping experiences along the way, and finally WARM WATER for showers at the last hotel. After weeks of cold bucket showers, hot showers (and toilet paper) had to make the highlights list.
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