INDIA August 2004 Wow� where do I start?!?! We arrived in Chenni, India, Thursday night, and no matter how much you try to prepare yourself for what you are about to experience, it still really hits you! The heat and humidity, the smell, and the poorness, and that was just inside the airport. When we got outside, there was more! The noise and the people, there were soo many of them. The trip to our hotel was amazing, I ran on pure adrenalin. I couldn�t take enough in. The people walking the streets, the housing conditions, the homeless people just sleeping on the side of the street, the cars and bikes�. everywhere�. I thought in my mind, where are they all going to?? They seem to be heading � somewhere� but where. The next day we were up early to catch a train south to Maduria. We had first class seats, they were very basic and certainly not first class compared to Australian standards. It was a 9 hour trip, and the senary was amazing. It constantly changed, from just dirt, to mini villages, to fields and huts. You didn�t really want to sleep, just in case you missed something. On arrival we checked into our five star hotel and headed out to our first crusade. CRUSADE 1 It was an hour drive, to a small village, where the majority of the people were Hindus, and there had never been any westerns before! As soon as you step out of the car, people are drawn to you, we had 700 eyes glued to us, it was like you were a rock star arriving at a concert. They even wanted our autographs!! But they soon shifted back to their worship, which was amazing. It was like it would have been back in the Bible times, out on the street, dirt and dust everywhere, a wooden stage (where we had to sit facing the people all the time), lights attached to bamboo frames, where if one of them went out, some one would just climb up the top, no safety harness or anything. They were so high that they would sway in the wind! The second night, someone complained about us being there and what we were talking about. So on the last night, we had police there, which was a bit scary, but greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world!! Working with an interpreter was a little bit difficult, as you often lost your train of thought. And sometimes, they didn�t quiet understand you, they knew english, but some words they were us, they had no idea what they meant. So the language barrier was a huge thing for all of us. Over the next 3 nights, we seen over 1200 Hindus come to know Jesus, Many got healed, and on the last night, over 600 came to be filled with the Holy spirit and anointed with oil!!! Praise the Lord!! God really moved in an awesome way in that little village! YOUTH MEETING The Saturday morning, we attended a Youth meeting, which ran from 8am-5pm (but we managed to get an early ticket at 1pm, cause it was so hot). Where over 2000 young people packed a theatre and were totally on fire for God. This really blessed me, as it is my dream to see the youth of Campbelltown like this. To be excited to be in church and praising God! SUNDAY CHURCH Both Sundays, we held 3 church services, starting at 8am and finishing at 1pm. The second one was an English service, which was a real blessing, but that is also the time that they have Sunday school, which Mel and I both took, so we missed it both weeks. SUNDAY SCHOOL But Sunday school was awesome! All the children from the orphanage came in for it, they sang many songs for us, wanted us to sing to them! And wanted us to tell them stories. We shared Bible stories to them both weeks and taught them a few songs. The songs that they sang were awesome! Even though we didn�t understand them, we could recognise the tunes, and realised that they were singing songs that we sang when we were young!! BEING SICK Ahhh� the joy of being sick and away from home! Its something that you try and prepare yourself for, you take all the medication, hoping and praying that you will be fine and when you hear of stories from the last trip where no one got sick, you think, ah we will be fine! But we weren�t! I was the first, and the rest soon followed! Except Dale, he seemed to escape it all! We all suffered from diarrhoea, vomiting and fever. Seemed to be the right time though, in between the 2 crusades, so it didn�t have a huge impact on the work load, which was good! NEXT |
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