Glenn, "Second Donny," and Shibu

Well, we had to say goodbye today. After 3 _ days at the orphanage in Raipura, releasing the grasp of some of those bonds proved more difficult than expected. It seemed as though everyone made contact with one or two “special” friends on the first day, and those same kids sort of gravitated toward you the entire time. My two were “Second” Donny (on the left) and Shibu (on the right). Shibu was my English-speaking pal and followed me around the entire time practicing his English and helping me learn Hindu. I’m actually not that bad, if I do say so myself. I’ve got the basics, “What is your name” “How are you” “Good Morning” “Good Night” etc. not to mention, I can count to ten backwards and forwards. “Second” Donny was like my sidekick the entire time. He introduced me around (I met “First” Donny and “Third” Donny as well, even though “Third” Donny claimed he was actually the rightful heir to the surname “Second” Donny. They didn’t seem to mind sharing names, though). Every time I would appear in public, “Second” Donny pop up out of nowhere asking “What is my name!?!” He was thrilled when I shot back, “SECOND DONNY!” Last night, our last night, we got to tuck them in to their beds and say goodbye as we would be leaving the next morning while they were in school. Weston, Justin, and Austin led a little impromptu prayer session slash send off, as all 300 or so of the orphans pilled out into the main hall of their hostel and we all prayed together. Then we said our good-byes, and I played a final game of chess with Raul. He beat me the previous night (badly) and I vowed to purchase him a new set. So I was able to deliver the set we got in town, and they were elated. With a little help from the peanut gallery, I was able to avenge my previous loss, and felt I could walk away with a bit of dignity beating a 12-year-old boy at least once… and Raul wasn’t even the orphanage “champion.” I got to give away the hats I made on the trip including some I had brought with me, and I received several thank you letters from the kids. The previous night, I walked into one of the rooms and they were rehearsing for a talent show that would occur the upcoming Wednesday, and they gladly “performed” the sections they had rehearsed. They needed some candles as props for their choreography, so I was able to get some while in town, and delivered those as well. It was incredible to see how appreciative they were because I brought them 10 candles that cost less than a dollar. Yet they all sat down as the room leader led them in a “thank-you” session and asked me to pray over them as a room. What a moment.
As it turned out, we had to say goodbye twice because while we were loading our luggage into the bus, school released for a morning break, and the children flooded us as we gathered our things. After more tears, we were off, but certainly not forgotten.

Cultural Tastes

Well, we've been experiencing some fun bartering on the road. Here, we had some aggressive shop owners when we stopped the bus to use the restroom, and they wanted to dress up all the ladies, so we figured it would at least make for a good photo op. We ate Pizza today at a restaurant that also serves Baskin Robbins, so we couldn't resist. I got a kick out of their dinner mints. They have an interesting set up where they have a bowl of like rock-sugar and a bowl of like mint seeds that taste sort of like black licorice. You scoop a little bit of sugar and a little bit of the mint seeds in the palm of your hand, and then pop it in your mouth and chew. I had a fun-time forcing some of the girls to try it. They weren't as adventurous. Oh well. We brought Simon and George along. George (pictured here) is a nurse at the clinic next to the orphanage in Raipura. He's awesome and takes good care of the children giving them checkups and taking care of medicine for them. He cam along with us so that he could help Sandra at the pharmacy. Keep praying for our health. Ansley's fever is gone, and Sandra's broke last night and they are both feeling much better.

Going to Kota

On our way to Kota, we stopped in Tonk to visit an Emmanuel School (and use the facilities). “Baby” Thomas is the pastor here and they have facilities for 700 students and about 35 orphans. I say, “they have the facilities for…” because even though they had that many in the past, due to the problems this past year (see the post from my trip in January), many students and orphans left. Currently, they have 350 students and 10 orphans, but they are expecting 10 more orphans to return within the month. Slowly as confidence rebuilds, hopefully the school will fill back up. Traveling through northern India, we’ve seen several Emmanuel Schools spread out, and upon arriving in Kota, we met Alex who works in the main office of Emmanuel Ministries who told us they have around 50 Emmanuel Schools all over the country. What an amazing ministry to raise up orphans and send them out to plant schools. “Baby” Thomas was another example of an orphan raised up through the ministry and put through Bible School to begin again multiply the ministry. Cool stuff!
When we arrived in Kota, we met Dr. M.A. Thomas and his son, Dr. Sam Thomas at the Bishop House. The Bishop House is where the Thomas’ live, but it also serves as like a missionary hotel for guests. Several of the orphan girls who have come through the ministry run the hospitality, and Rose’s beaming face met us with a wonderful meal. I can’t even count how many times Mrs. Bowen said, “She is SOOO cute!” They truly were joyful servants.
After a meal, we headed out to the tailor to check out the clothes. Ashok (the owner of the store) met us and was actually very involved in helping us get our measurements and find just the right materials. He even showed us a DVD of his son’s wedding (just happened 3 weeks ago). Although, he only showed us clips since he had 8 HOURS of footage. It was quite an ordeal… these traditional Hindi weddings. Just to give you a small idea, he reserved the Umet Palace in Kota for two days… all of the rooms… AND had another hotel on top of that reserved for two days for all of the guests. Needless to say, they go all out.

Cultural Driving Lessons and Skype

Spent a lot of time on the bus Thursday. Driving through the country-side, we saw several different perspectives of how the people lived. We went through a brick manufacturing village where they sun-dried mud then burned them in these tall furnaces to make them solid and red. Then they’d load them on a cart and a camel would cart them off to be sold/delivered. Speaking of furnaces, it felt like we were walking through Bible times. The furnaces reminded of Shadrack, Meshack and Abednigo. We saw shepherds herding their flocks, women drawing water from wells, fields of wheat being gleaned, and then children and poor mothers going through the fields gathering the leftovers… just like passages we’ve read about in the Bible. I could just picture Ruth out there in Boaz’s field. With the lepers and orphans, it was sort of surreal… like walking through a time-warp. At one point, it was easy to blame the government for not progressing and for poor leadership keeping the country in poverty. It was easy to feel sorry for the woman trudging through town with a water jug on her head. With a little technology, I thought, they could improve things, get running water, … something. But then you think that as easy it is for us to judge and say, “I would be miserable living like this” in the dirt and dust. But they’ve been living like this for centuries. Our civilization may have running water and electricity but we also have divorce, depression, suicide, etc. In the words of P. Diddy, “the more money we come across, the more problems we see.” To see these orphans happy with just a cricket ball, or kids on the side of the road playing in the mud makes you wonder if you really need an Xbox to be happy. These were some of the thoughts/feelings/discussions that came out of our devotion time that Joelle led after the trip on Thursday.
It was a pretty full day all in all with the driving, so we were exhausted when we finally got to the hotel. Jon and Veer risked their lives in a taxi ride to retrieve us Pizza Hut for dinner. We got our second wind as the whole team crowded into our room to eat pizza and video conference with school chapel on Skype. Lots of parents came to the school and some people on the team here in India got to see and talk to their families on the internet. What a great end to the day!

Elephants and Palaces

We made our way to Jaipur today and stopped in Amber (pronounced "ahhm-bear") to visit the palace there. To get up to the palace, which is set up in the hills, we rode elephants! Weston and I shared an elephant, and were only a little nervous when the "driver" kept telling us to 'scoot back for balance." We were certain death loomed on numerous occasions. Needless to say, we all survived and enjoyed a tour of the palace there atop Amber. There was an interesting wall (12 miles long) surrounding the palace much like the Great Wall of China. In the group shot, you can see us in front of the gate of the palace. While the Taj Mahal had stone inlaid into the marble, here the gate was decorated with frescoes-meaning they plastered the gate and painted designs.

How Big Is It?

Thanks to my students for posting questions about the Taj Mahal. We had a fun time "scavengering" for answers. Some of the questions warranted responses on the blogs, while some of them got us some strange looks from the tour guide. I'll tackle a few here and see if I can't answer more when I return.

1. How many stones were used? We weren't sure if you meant how many different types or physically how many rocks. To answer the first, the main stone is white marble, though black onyx was prevalent in the decorative inlay work as well as several other semi-precious stones. To answer the second, our tour guide Ramesh laughingly skirted it by saying, "It took 10,000 elephants" to carry the marble from Jaipur (about 165 miles away) to Agra. He rounded it off to about 1.4 million tons. That's a lot of stones. It took 20,000 craftsmen working 24 hours a day 22 years to complete it. So, yes, it is pretty impressive that Mr. Brooks was able to hold the entire structure in his hands (per the picture).

2. What would it cost if it were built today? We had fun doing some math on this one. This is how we broke it down. In the 17th century when it was built, a gram of gold was worth 5 rupies. Today, a gram of gold is 10,000 rupies. That's 2,000 times the value. The Taj Mahal cost 40 million rupies back then. The exchange rate is about 43 rupies to 1 US dollar. So if you do the math, that would mean that to build another Taj Mahal today, it would cost roughly 1.9 BILLION dollars.

You can see some more pictures from our trip if you visit the Team India blog at http://fcsindia.blogspot.com. When I return, I'll try and tackle some more questions such as "How old do you have to be to be a securiy guard there?" and "Do they have wifi?"

Our first Orphanage

Tuesday was probably a great sampling of what our trip is all about. We spent the morning and early afternoon at the Chawla Orphanage in Delhi. For the most part, we just hung out and played with the kids. That simple time we spent throwing a football and swinging a cricket bat lightened up the faces of those kids. You could just read it in their eyes: "Someone cares about me."
We rounded out the day with a bit of shopping - visiting a rug store and getting a feel for the culture and history.
The highlight of the day, though, was meeting Tannu, Aliyash, and Hardeep. They sort of "claimed" me and christened me "uncle." Tannu made it his personal duty to introduce me, or rather, introduce everyone else to me (like I was his best friend he was showing off). I also received the full guided tour. Tannu and Aliyash wanted to show me where they are learning to preach. They showed me their pulpit, and even gave me an impromptu sermon. It was touching to hear them share Psalm 27:10 - "Though my father and mother abandon me, The Lord will receive me."
Wow. They embraced it and shared it with me like it was part of them.
Hardeep ran and brought me his testimony he had written out in English. The three of us huddled around as Hardeep shared how his father squandered their family's money on drugs and ended up dying young leaving he and his two brothers fatherless. he came to Christ as the church embraced him and he saw Christ heal his sick brother (he used the words "raised from the dead"). It was incredible to see his passion to become a preacher and share his story.
I found this picture Mr. Brooks happened to snap of Hardeep sharing his testimony with myself as Tannu and Aliyash peered in.