I know I have been promising for a couple of months to write about our India trip. As time has gone on I have found it harder and harder to sit down and try to express my feelings about the trip. But here goes...
I guess the simplest way to put it is that we had an awesome experience. I feel so blessed that God has allowed me the opportunities that He has for short-term missions trips. Each one has been a different but rewarding and blessed experience. I have also been blessed to be able to experience each trip with Stephen. The trips are spiritually, emotionally and physically exhausting and it is so helpful to have someone that you are close to there with you to share everything with.
Traveling to and from India is long and tiring. Going out and doing the evangelism is hot and tiring. But I still loved it. Experiencing a completely different culture and meeting new people everyday is awesome. One thing I have discovered after traveling to Cuba and to India is that people all over the world are essentially the same. Personalities and characters are the same. And I'm beginning to think that everyone has a twin somewhere in the world. I saw so many people on this trip that either looked like or at least reminded me of someone back here at home or someone that I have met in the past. It's weird.
I'm glad that we were able to stay with my family while we were there. That way I didn't have to experience a third world hotel. They have a nice comfortable house and we felt at home there. It was nice to have home-cooked meals. We did go out to eat at a couple of different Indian restaurants though. I ate some Indian food while we were there but it is a little too spicy for me. One of the Indian men that lives near my parents made a barbecue out of an old rusty barrel and my dad barbecued chicken for us a couple of times while we were there. My parents invited another missionary family that they have gotten to know pretty well over for one of the barbecues. We enjoyed meeting them.
I enjoyed the trips to the markets. We went to a couple of nice stores and we went to some street markets. The biggest market we went to was the Hong Kong Market. It was so crowded and we had to learn to dodge the rickshaws and bicycles but once we learned that I actually kind of enjoyed it. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. It was quite an adventure. The chicken market was another story. There are live chickens in cages and you go and pick out which chickens you would like to have. They catch them for you and butcher them right there on the spot in front of you. I turned away because I didn't really want to see my dinner being killed. After they cut off the head and feet they stick them in a box until they stop flopping and then they skin them. No plucking off feathers one by one. They just pull of the skin and feathers in a few tugs. It was interesting to say the least. One thing to remember while at the chicken market; don't open your mouth too much or you might get a mouthful of flies. Just a word of warning in case you ever visit an Indian chicken market.
Of course while we were there I missed our children greatly. I couldn't wait to get home to them. But since I have been home I have found that I actually miss India. I mostly miss the people but I also just miss India. It's hard to describe what I mean and you might not understand unless you've been there yourself. I don't miss Kolkata and I would love it if we could avoid that city on our travels but we can't. I wasn't too fond of Kolkata. The people there were generally more rude and it is so crowded and I just always felt like we were in a herd of cattle everywhere we went. We also had a couple of stressful situations while we were there on our return trip. Oh well.
Like I said earlier, we had an awesome time. We hope to go back next fall and we might take one or all of our children. We're still praying about that. It would be very difficult but it is also very difficult to leave them here and be gone from them for 2 weeks. We'll see what God has in store for us.
