Day 10

India Time: 11:30 PM (July 4, 2013)

CST: 1:00 PM (July 4, 2013)

This morning we got some disappointing news.  Brother Santosh (one of the gang) went to the hospital with severe back pain.  While it is nothing overly severe and is treatable, he will be heading home to his village and will not be finishing the trip with us.  Please pray for his healing and recovery and thank God for his faithful service and time.  This also put us in a conundrum as he was one of our drivers.  Pastor Jyothi drove tonight, so we will see how these last few days go.

Last night, we had made Brother Solomon a banner for his snake slaying skills.  We were really excited to give it to him this morning and he was very excited to receive it.  :-)

We went to the beach early this afternoon and again experienced a different beach from Chennai or Ongole.  This time the waves were very calm and the water was extremely shallow.  We had a lot of fun throwing sand at each other (sorry Moms, you really did teach us well!), wrestling with each other, and practicing our flips.  We had just enough wave to do a little body surfing as well.  Pastor Jyothi bribed us back to shore again with ice cream (a welcome treat) and from there we headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up.

Meals are a little goofy here since the hotel restaurant doesn't open until 11:30 and there aren't really an restaurants close by.  They also stop serving lunch around 3, serve tea until 6:30 and then dinner until around 10:00.  This makes meals a little goofy for us since we are usually gone by 6:30 at night.  Tonight, Brother Nathan and I had a healthy dinner of ice cream and Maaza (mango juice).  While we were there, we had a little chat with the waiter who has been taking care of us during our stay in Bapatla.  He asked if he could buy an American Dollar from us and we found that we didn't have any singles!  We finished up and ran upstairs to buy one from Sister Jennifer and then quickly ran back downstairs to give it to him.  He was thrilled!  He had a huge smile on his face and as we were walking out the door we heard him bragging in the lobby, "I GOT A DOLLAR!"

The drive was entertaining as always.  We went through a lot of areas that probably have never seen white people live before.  As we drove through one village a young boy's jaw dropped and he pointed at us and yelled, "AMERICO!" absolutely amazed that we were even travelling through his village.

This posed a small problem when we finally got to the village.  (I say finally because  Chna Kakumanu is way out there!)  As we sat down in the church, the kids very sheepishly came in.  Pastor Jyothi explained that this was the first time white people had EVER been to their village!  We must have looked so ridiculous to those children!  We started our high fiving and hand shaking and they started warming up to us.  We also sang some songs with them which really got them going.

The program went well, and we enjoy the extra things Pastor Jyothi makes the children do to make us laugh and smile.  He gets this great smile on his face every time he looks back as us after he knows he made the kids make us laugh.  We sang A LOT tonight, which was GREAT!  The children didn't really have any songs prepared, so apart from Father Abraham, Pastor Jyothi asked us to sing a few other "VBS" songs while they collected the offering.  We happily obliged singing "I Just Wanna Be A Sheep," all of the verses to Rise and Shine, and Jesus Loves Me (with sign language).  Every time we would finish a song, the congregation would ask for one more.  It was great to have a tired voice after the service!  

Brother Nathan and I have talked about a sense of familiarity that we are starting to feel with India.  While it feels like there is no was we could've already been here for two weeks, it also seems like we are getting to know the culture well enough that it seems like we've been here much longer.  We are not in any way tired of it!  In fact, as the novelty wears off and the familiarity starts to set in, we find ourselves enjoying India that much more!  

~Becky Haddad