Sunday, January 18, 2009

India--Day 4/5


The team and all our luggage made it to New Delhi. They had a 3 hour delay in Chicago so they got into New Delhi at 12:30am. They got to the YMCA around 2am and then up at 4am and off to the domestic airport to catch the flight to Jabalpur. Tired and weary, they caught up with Mark, David and the Nistlers there in Jabalpur. We all went to a "satsang" with Nokilall and around 75 other house church leaders. It was awesome to watch them worship even though we didn't quite understand everything. We then went to the girl's orphanage and spent time with 23 orphans there. The girls sang for us, we gave them crayons and balloons and then took a tour of the orphanage. We then took most of the team back to the hotel around 4pm to crash for the evening. Mark, the Nistlers, Drs Alan McCarty and Larry Schaeffer convinced David that they needed some ICE CREAM! Wow! We ordered 2 chocolate sizzlers which is served on a sizzling fajita plate, brownie, a layer of vanilla ice cream, lots of hot fudge, a huge dip of chocolate ice cream, and then more hot fudge and almonds to top it off. It didn't take long to inhale both of them. The funny thing was that the first one came and everyone dove in, spoons dueling for hunks of brownie, David got a phone call and stepped away. By the time he got back--sizzler gone! The second one came and again spoons went digging into the brownie and ice cream. David again got a phone call and stepped away--and again, I am ashamed to report, we ate it all! Poor David didn't get a whole lot of sizzler--we'll blame the lion's share of the eating on Suzette! Alan and I swear she had two spoons going!

Day five was our first VBS day in a remote village called Sukha. What a fantabulous chaotic experience. I really think there were more adults there than kids and they loved the stories and Hindi version of Veggietales Dave and the Giant Pickle which we projected on a large screen. A whole lot of us were quite overwhelmed. I (Mark) was once again that I am not in charge...God is. Almost every plan we made was thrown out! And everything went just great anyway! It was so chaotic and out of control...but God knew what needed to happen. We planted seeds. We got to be the first white people to ever be in this village. There is a part of me that is quite concerned that we are now the image of the entire white race that these kids will have for the rest of their lives :)! I mean, the image of Ron Nistler as the model of the white race is now stuck in their heads forever! Poor kids! We're doomed! Even more I think they were interested in the technology of the white people more than anything else. We took lots of pictures and tried to print alot of them out for them. They would bring their whole families up, kids screaming and all, to have their picture taken. That was the first photo most of them have ever had of themselves. There were just way to many to print out while we were there. We'll keep printing them out and send some more back later. Judy read Lucado's "You Are Special" book and David translated it for us. All in all, it was quite an experience. Then off to Jabalpur for lunch (Chinese again, my 6th time since arriving, but it was still soooo good!). We have just arrived in Damoh and had supper, moved into our rooms and are trying to catch up on emails and skypeing to the fams. Tomorrow is VBS in Ghandigram and tours of the MICM compound. We stay in Damoh for the next few days and will have better access to internet service. Until tomorrow.

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