Paul's Trip to India

It was a long fight - 10 hours! But it was worth it, we arrived @ 2 am India time. Minus 5 ½ hours for British time.
We were picked up by the Pastor & ministry team we were spending the 1st week with. They dropped us off @ our 3 star hotel to sleep, freshen up & chill until 4pm. When they took us to the children’s home, the children were ready for us having finished school – lined up both sides of the entrance road to the home with plates of flower petals ready to throw in front of us & @ us as we walked up to the home it self, `wonderful`. The rest of the children were in their main hall singing as we entered. They then presented us with a garland to wear. After we introduced ourselves we we were escorted to chairs @ the side of the room with a red carpet under the chairs. From there we enjoyed an evening of dance etc from all the different age groups of the 300 children there. Wow. Yes it was very good even if we couldn’t understand a word that they sang. What a welcome. In the Sunday morning service after Steve & I had shared and the service had finished we were asked to sit on the front of the stage (I wondered why & soon found out) they said could we shake hands with every child haa… I tried to say something to every child as well, one dry throat later…but soon after there were bottles of Pepsi cracked open 4 us.
The next day we went with some of the team to a remote village which was still under water from the rains of November 05. It was some 10 feet deep back then; they had lost everything except the clothes they stood in. The water was now about 12” deep & their church was now above the water line, they had cleaned it & were holding their 1st service since the rains. The rain which fell was equal to eight years worth in one go, it had devastated everything. So this service was a very powerful time for them a privilege beyond words for us to b a part of. After a message of encouragement from the Pastor & the service was over the people came forward for prayer we (i.e the team from England 5 of us) were asked to pray with them & we did. Then we handed out large bags of rice to every family there & the Pastor said when his wife is back from visiting her family she will bring new clothes for all of them as well. In the bible there’s a story of a woman about to eat her last meal with her son & die because it had not rained for so long, when a prophet came to her & said give me to eat 1st then for u & your son. That sound unfair but what the prophet then said is, because u gave to me 1st your pot of oil & your jar of flour will not run out until the rain returns. 1 Kings 17v14 Knowing the story & the truth of it. I prayed that prayer over every bag of rice I handed out, the reverse of course that the rice would last until the floods caused by excess rain had gone & they were able to fend for themselves again. We wept with them as they rejoiced over the encouragement, food & I think us coming all this way..
The next day Dave & I were in their workshop seeing if we could b useful, well they spoke Tamil we not surprisingly spoke English, but we persevered Dave was teaching them wood working tips & I was teaching one of them English ho ho. Later that day we went to the coast where the tsunami had struck, it traveled in land about 6 miles in places, 20 ton concrete breakers that had been set in the shore line were bowed over. We went & met some of the locals we had contributed towards new fishing boats for, it was an almost eerie feeling standing there; it made me feel very small very powerless, I prayed a lot that night. Back @ the children’s home just before we enjoyed a meal with rice, (eyes watering) mega spiced rice & green & red chilies hot hot hot & hot – Pepsi less than useless, yogurt brilliant for cooling the mouth. NOT FUNNY!! That’s me on the right Pepsi in hand. But what did bring a smile back was after dinner outside when we saw the way the smallest girls kept in line when crossing the play ground, they held on to each others skirt.
Next day we went to a toddlers home aged 18 months to 5 – (no parents or abandoned) about 20 of them, they sang & quoted bible verses from memory wow… we then sat on the floor & played with them, probably we were the first white people to have ever made time for them & played with them, I had four bouncing on my lap at one point. It was heart wrenching & brilliant to b with them. Afterwards we went to a farm they have, which provides a lot of their vegetables they hope to have enough cows (not as we know cows) to cover all there milk, 10 would give them about 100 liters of milk. They also grow lots of other stuff such as coconuts we had some coconut milk straight of the tree it was a bit early in the season `yuk` “lovely thank you” well they had just climbed a tree to get us some so I was very good & drank it… I do normally like coconut milk. Well this is the end of the 1st week so ill stop for now.
Thank u again for the tremendous experience and enriching time I had being part of your ministry.
Paul