India Recap #7

2 Thessalonians 1:3 - "We ought to always thank God for you, brothers and sisters, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing."

   

Due to a clerical error (long story), we ended up needing to leave Pune early on Saturday morning despite our international flight not leaving until nighttime. So our last day in India was spent with a 13 hour layover in Chennai, a city on the west coast. We played tourist and visited the Bay of Bengal. Hanging out by the ocean was the perfect spot to begin processing all we had seen and done in India.

 

It was interesting spending time in a completely different region of India. Chennai was exactly what I had imagined India to be like before we came - hot, sweaty, dirty, and crowded. Not that Pune wasn't those things too, but it was to a different degree here in Chennai.

 

We visited a Hindu temple in Chennai. It was a huge, massive building overwhelmingly crowded with people. We stood at the entrance, but did not go in - way too many people and it's their place of worship so I didn't feel comfortable intruding.

We spent some time around the temple and had the opportunity to speak with some locals in the shops. Some of the children who saw our cameras kept coming up and asking for us to take their photo. Once it was taken, we would show it to them. Then they would run off to get more siblings/friends and come back for another photograph. Such gorgeous children!

 

Before we knew it, our time in India was over and we began our long airplane rides back to North Carolina. The flights were largely uneventful, just long. There were a few hairy hours when we thought we might be stuck in Bahrain for an extra day (two of our team were). But that is another long story with the short of it being: don't fly Gulf Air, ever. Brad and I made it safely home, and as exhausted as I was, it was straight back to school the next day. 

Beginning this trip, we knew our time in India would be too short. The week proved true - I wish we could have stayed for another 3 weeks and continued working with the ministry programs. There is so much more I feel we could have done to support these women and children - so much more God has called us to do. But I suppose there is always the next trip? Many of you have been asking if we'd go back and our answer is a resounding "YES." How could we not? 

 

We are enormously grateful to our friends and family for making this trip possible. It simply would not have happened without the financial and prayer support we received from so many! Brad and I are blessed to have had this opportunity to go on mission together, and we cannot thank you enough for your support. I hope we get to talk with all of you in person and share all the stories we don't have the space to blog about - the stories you helped happen. THANK YOU!