Travel Day

My final day in India was spent travelling. I said goodbye to a group of much loved ones with a prayer at 6:30 Sunday morning and caught the sunrise as we taxied down and around and around the mountain to the train station.
The train journey was 6 hours to Delhi, and then I had an hour taxi ride to the wrong International terminal. They of course are both called International terminals, but one is domestic, and the other is for the international passengers, anyways, I made it there with plenty of time. I even saw one of my students from ISH there who wanted to come and say hello.

From Hyderabad I ran out of time, and it was all a little close by the time i got on the airport a/c bus back to the compound and then picked up my things and ordered a taxi back to the airport. The speed of that taxi was like lightening, thankfully there wasn't too much traffic on the road. Back to the airport, there was plenty of time, and i checked straight through and got onboard.

And now I'm going straight to the boarding gate in Singapore for the final leg of my trip home, as it DOES close 10 mins before departure.
Tomorrow morning according to the will of the Lord, I will be at home in Adelaide.

Mussorie

The weekend was lovely. The brothers and sister in North India are very outgoing and friendly, as were the contacts. I think the difference was also that there were so few people there that we could get around and at least get to know everyone in the same age bracket.

Friday morning before everyone arrived, Sarah Aunty, Esther, Cathy, Justin, Sarah and I headed out for a quick walk. Thankfully Sarah dragged me cause I still didn't have much strength at that point to be doing serious walking. We didn't get far before it started raining, so headed into a local hotel and had hot drinks. It continued to rain, so Sarah with my help chose an Enid Blighton book by the title 'Binkle and Flip' and both Sarah and Justin chose chapters to read from it. It was a quaint experience. The only thing missing was a fire in the cut off grate.

Brother Anil ran the weekend, and I've come to the conclusion that the prerequisite for a Dr's training is that the candidate must be jovial. Or maybe they develop their jovialness along the way? Anyways, he was a laugh and a half as was his wife Sonia.
Lucky led the games afternoon, and him and Arvand were nearly unbeatable with their games of Koko. I managed to play my first game and it was just wild. I can't explain the rules, but I've watched it so many times and just felt completely bewildered by it, and decided with a smaller group it was time to learn. You just have to be on your toes and watching for the runner/catcher. When your team is catching, you bob down until someone pushes you forward and then you have to chase the other team around the line of people facing alternately in and out which is your team. Anyways, it poured down with rain half way through, so we took the group inside and tried to teach them how to play naughts and crosses on chairs. The teams were divided into male and female and the males just couldn't get it!! They'd never played naughts and crosses, but they still couldn't pick it up. Sarah and I spent the entire session in stitches of laughter. In Indian style, some of the their team left, but they didn't tell anyone, so when a number was called, the men couldn't remember who was filling in for what number, or what number they were themselves, so 3 men would come at the same time and sit on a chair. COMPLETELY AMUSING!!!

In the breaks we had fun playing table tennis. I hadn't been able to play since the Shunem table got packed up after Andy Galbraith left in January, so it was very cool to exercise my skills against Justin and Tim Uncle.

Saturday afternoon after the afternoon study there was an hour free so a group of us headed down and up the mountain to where a Tibetan Temple was. I'd never seen one and it was quite interesting, but what I want to know is why we don't build ecclesial halls on the tops of mountain with terrific mountain views on every side.

There was an extra little climb to the very top and we managed it and had a 360 view of the mountains surrounding Mussorie. Incredible. Our God is an amazing creator.
Thankfully I made it.

Thud, thud, thud

Normally when I'm awakened before 6am by loud thuds on the roof, I'd turn over and go back to sleep. However, Friday morning at Mussorie 6000 feet up I wanted to get up and watch the Monkey tricks. The monkeys were incredible. It's like giving all the monkeys at the zoo and electric shock and then watching them play. These guys were thudding all over the roof, and hurtling through the branches.

The North Indian Bible weekend, as I had heard it called ended up being a Bible Truth camp as there were only 4 baptised Indians in attendance. The speakers didn't know this fact in advance, and modified their classes accordingly. Tim Uncle was amazing. I got to 2 of his classes and taught SS for the 1st so missed the background.
From Isaiah chapter 45 we delved into who God is, prophecy, what God says will happen will happen, His plan and purpose, Christ inheriting all things from God, us being called children of God, and therefore inheriting the promises, the purpose of suffering. I was staggered. It was a perfect study for baptised and non-baptised and presented without any notes.
The opening line was: What did God want to tell a man who knew nothing about him?
My favourite part of the study was the side study on suffering. Tim Uncle talked about our life before the kingdom is like us being in a gymnasium. The more weight a body builder can take, the stronger he/she becomes. The same applies to our faith lives; the more pressure God gives us, the stronger we become and the more our character is prepared for the kingdom. It was a very good lesson with me about to head home, and being a little uncertain about the beyond India life.

All around the conference venue were scriptural or Christan quotes. It was really lovely to be surrounded by God in the mountains.

One of the quotes only the wall seemed especially appropriate to me, 'What seems like an ending can just be a new beginning'.

Into the Mountains

Due to some very poor planning, when Sarah and I met up with the group from Hyd on Thursday morning we were forced to pay some exorbident (sp?) amount to drive the supposed 6 hours from Delhi to Mussorie. Had it been actioned about 2 weeks earlier when some suggestions were made, we could've all had a lovely train ride to a place an hour away from the conference venue, and then just taken a taxi the rest of the way.
Anyways, it's not to be undone, and I had another of those scary bad India driver trips. I felt justified for my scaredness of the road conditions when Tim Uncle spoke to the driver several times asking him to stay on the left side of the road and not overtake round corners and to just follow the other traffic as he was a completely unexperienced mountain driver. It was just madness.
On our arrival, a heartfelt thankfulness for our safety was made to our Father.

Oh, what a delight. Though feeling completely done in after being sick and travelling from 11am til 8pm in the back of a four wheel drive it was incredible to be up high in the mountains and feel the cool mountain air.
The conference venue was a Christian retreat, and had been built by an incredible British a long time back. The 2 floors were full of wooden pannelling which gave it a very western feel.
The most exciting thing for me on arrival(apart from learning there would only be 30 people attending the weekend) was my spotting of the table tennis table:-)

Agra to Delhi

I was devastated not being able to partake of the famous Hotel Sheela pancakes, in fact, I couldn't really trust myself to touch anything except for the standard Indian 'cream crackers' that really aren't cream crackers at all, but of the plain variety.

By mid morning I had enough strength to drag myself off to visit the Red Fort. Strangely, I found it more fascinating than the Taj itself. The Taj was absolutely magnificent, but I never took a guide, so didn't find out all the interesting details. The Red Fort on the other hand is huge, and you travel all the way through it (actually only a quarter of it is open to the public and the other 3/4s the army lives in) and it took us 2 hours to see just a small part of it. Our guide was interesting, and Sarah enjoyed his discourse. I struggled through it, sitting down on anything I could find in every room when he started his raving and only just made it through. Shakti Laydu.
The part I liked the most was that the man who built the Taj Mahal (I forget his name) was locked up in the Red Fort by his son (I haven't come to a conclusion yet as to whether it was before he went mad or afterwards) in a room where he could see his Taj across the river.
The room where he stayed was filled with mirrors and the Taj was reflected from every angle into his room. Maybe that's what sent him crazy???

Wednesday afternoon, Sarah and I caught a train to Delhi and found a dive of a hotel to stay in but it was too late to do anything else. I never cease to be amazed at how cheaply you can put yourself up for a night in India.

Sick in Agra

Most people go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, I got there and missed out on the opportunity and poor Sarah who came from Hyd so we could visit together ended up heading out there by herself.

After 30 hours and 2 egg curry's I arrived in Agra not feeling like I wanted to eat anything. I met up with Sarah at the incredible Hotel Sheela and we spend the afternoon visiting the mini Taj, and seeing the Taj Mahal from the 'sunside'. It wasn't quite like seeing the Taj as the sun was setting, but it was the river view, and there was a brilliant reflection which I hadn't seen before, so that was cool.
By the end of the afternoon, my stomach was seriously heaving, and by the time we arrived back I knew that dramatic events were going to occur before I recovered.

The next morning, after being up most of the night my legs were like jelly and my head was spinning and Sarah headed off by herself.