Meeting our World Vision sponsor child - 4

Last year I went to India. This is part 4 of the notes that I wrote back then, while I was over there, and since I wrote them to be shared with others, I thought I might share them here! Also, if you're interested in reading the previous posts, they complete the story so it makes a bit more sense :)
After a few days being just two more foreign tourists in the tourist hotspots, it was time for a journey off the beaten track, starting in Delhi and reaching to a tiny uncharted village in Northern India, only an hour or two from the Nepal border. The reason? Meeting a young boy and his family, a family supported by the amazing work of World Vision. We had had the privilege of being involved in supporting this family through World Vision for several years, and now would have the great privilege of finally meeting them. (For privacy reasons, I can't show pictures of the family, but I'll do my best to tell as much of their story as I know!). Also if the writing is in [square brackets] these are things I have added as an afterthought as I am transcribing it now. So without further ado, here is the story, starting from the day before...

Day 5 - Wednesday 28th September 2016, Delhi/Lucknow

This morning, I was a bit sick. I may have been so in Asha's garden [okay, I still feel pretty bad about that. It was such a beautiful little garden...], but then I felt alright after that [because I was sick from the doxycycline, aka anti-malarial drugs, and thankfully not food poisoning. Turns out you're supposed to eat before you take malaria pills]. We had some breakfast (western style) with Liz and her boyfriend whose name I can't remember. Maya very generously gifted me with a red necklace to go with my salwar kameez [traditional Indian clothes], and Asha declared me an Indian princess.

Sunrise over Asha's garden...

We left for the airport and caught our flight to Lucknow. We sat next to Atul from Allahabad, who later in the flight was very sick... but before takeoff we had a nice conversation in Hindi. The man in front of me also kept turning around to stare at me when he heard me speaking Hindi; I think he was hoping I would speak to him in Hindi as well! The landscape changed as we flew towards Lucknow; there were more villages and farms, and they seemed greener, although the air was drier.

We landed in Lucknow. It was very bright and dry, and as soon as we stepped out of the airport with the driver we'd hired, the difference between Delhi and Lucknow became apparent. It seemed, perhaps, poorer and less 'polished' [this is the general stereotype of this state in India, at least]. Our driver had his shirt half-open and chest hair sticking out. The whole way to the Mohan Hotel I didn't see any other tourists or foreigners, just everyday life. Water buffaloes bathed in puddles, and tents made from tarps and old plastic bags occasionally rose from the dust on the side of the street. Children grinned and men chuckled; women and babies held onto men riding motorcycles (for dear life sometimes) and schoolgirls giggled as they walked past. We eventually reached our hotel (opposite some dodgy sounding shops... for the sake of politeness I won't mention exactly what their names were).

When we arrived, it turned out the lady from World Vision had called, and so we called her again to organise our visit tomorrow. I'm so excited! I've been dreaming of the day for so long, now that it's almost here I don't really know what to do. It is up to God, what happens. I will trust Him. He has brought us this far, and his love will carry us home...

Little villages in Uttar Pradesh from the air

We rested in the hotel for a few hours, and I watched people in the street go by from our window. Then, in the afternoon we went out exploring. It was nice walking down the street in the chaos and rubbish and crowds of people, walking past shops selling bags and old dirty-looking kurtas, and smelling the scent of incense and coconut lassi and cow poo and construction works. We went down an enclosed alley of shops, and I bought a salwar kameez from a shop run by a Sikh man and his assistant whom he called 'black beauty' (a short young man). He charged us what he said was an Indian price rather than a tourist price [which was true, too, since I got a patiala suit there for rs.750 or so, less than half the price of the one I found in Agra!] We said goodbye and then explored another alley of shops where Dad bought a new belt; then we came back to the hotel. We had dinner, watched a movie [King Kong, I believe. Not the best idea I've ever had, because it ran late and we were getting up early the next day...], and then went to bed.

 Looking out from the hotel window at the street below

Donkeys!!!

And so ended the day of our travels to Lucknow - the next day would be the one we would meet a very special young boy and his family...

Day 6 - 29th September 2016, Lucknow/ Uncharted Village

I do not see poverty and dust and desperation, just beautiful souls, and giggling children and happy grins and approving smiles from dadis [grandmas].
We left the hotel at 8am with the lady from World Vision and drove for about an hour until we reached the World Vision office at Sandila. There we talked with the people working there and filled out some paperwork [they even offered me what I thought was chai. Turns out it was the first time I ever drank coffee - extremely sweet, Indian-spiced coffee, that formed a skin on top from the boiled milk!]. Then, a little later, we left Sandila and drove for another while until we reached the village. A crowd of children met us at the gate and we came to the house of Ankit's family - an extended family of 36 people! It was a house made mostly of mudbrick and was quite dusty. We sat down and met Ankit, who put some rose garlands on us and marked our foreheads with tilak [turmeric powder - a traditional Hindu greeting for guests, I think]. We met his mother and father and grandmother, as well as some of his father's six brothers and Ankit's many cousins. When we arrived, his sisters were still at school [the other kids had all been given the day off!].

Some of the family's water buffaloes

We ate some khoya (made from the family's own buffalo's and cow's milk) and talked with them for a while. The kids sang us a song, Ankit joining in a little reluctantly (I don't think he liked singing). Ankit said that he might like to be a soldier one day. The kids [cousins] there were one boy and several young girls. Two of the girls sung and danced another song, and I rather shyly did part of a dance for them [at everyone's insistence, apparently! I wasn't very good, and didn't have any music...] While Dad played cricket with Ankit for a while with the set we had brought for them, I sat down on the ground with the other kids and practiced my Hindi (much to their amusement and fascination and sometimes frustration). [I think they may have spoken a dialect of Hindi which was a little different, and I could only just understand what they were saying in my beginner's level Hindi!]

Later on they showed us their fields where they grew many different things like lemon, mango, corn, rice, peanuts (which I ate some of straight from the ground) and jamun [a type of berry]. They also had a few cows and water buffaloes. The kids would tug on my hand or sleeve saying 'Didi!', urging me to follow them, and then giggling mysteriously (when I asked why, they only said 'it's nothing!' and kept giggling behind their hands). We ate some roasted corn (and earlier we'd had some pakaudis, similar to samosas). We then gave some of the gifts we had brought for the family, and the family generously gifted us with a handmade pankha, an Indian fan made of bamboo and wool.

The village road outside their house

We [or rather I] took a long time to say goodbye. I didn't want to leave; one of the girls asked whether I liked it better there or in Australia and without hesitation I straightaway said 'yahan' [here]. I felt so welcomed and at home there; I was happier even than I have been in a long time. God is good. I told them I hoped to 'waapas aaungi' [come back], and they said 'zarur aana!' [come back, for sure!]. I hope I can come back one day. I said my final goodbyes, and then we left.

We stopped at a dhaba-like place for a late lunch [a dhaba is like the Indian version of a servo], and then stopped back at the office in Sandila. Then we filled out a little more paperwork, and had some interesting conversations with the staff there [we learned about the needs of the community, such as education to prevent malnutrition in children, because they have the potential resources but not the knowledge of how to feed their kids; and also the need for proper toilets, because I think only 7% of people in the area had access to a proper toilet. People otherwise go out in the open, which is not safe, especially for women, and poses hygiene issues to the community.]

Eventually we left and went back to our hotel in Lucknow, and had a bit of dinner and went to bed. I'm so thankful to God for the day we had, and the beautiful souls we met today. I felt, as we were driving back, that now my calling is surer. I love this country and I love these people; they are my heart. I need to come back, spend time with my 'family', and look after them in any way I can, with the love of Jesus.

A poster on the wall in the World Vision office of the area

Scaffolding, Beggars and Jesus - 3

Last year, I went to India! This is part 3 of my (mostly unabridged) account that I wrote while I was over there. If you like to start at the start, there are some previous posts that cover the first three days of my journey. Since I wrote a lot of stuff, I'm posting the stories in installments. Also as a disclaimer, as the trip went on and I got progressively more tired, my writing became less and less cohesive, and more of a stream of consciousness... so I'll try and fix it as much as possible to make it readable! Not that anyone really reads this blog haha :P I needed to type up all my notes though anyway...
In the last installment, I left off just after our arrival in Agra (we were going there to see the Taj Mahal of course... why else?) Personally I wasn't particularly interested in going to Agra just to see it, but it was something my dad wanted to do, and also apparently it's an 'essential' thing to do when you visit North India... so that's where we ended up going on Day 4. (And by the way, if I write stuff in [...] brackets, it means I'm adding it now as an afterthought). Anyway! Without further ado, here are some more stories from India...

Day 4 - Tuesday 27th September 2016, Agra/Delhi

This morning we got up early, before sunrise, to see the Taj Mahal [as a random sidenote, in case you were curious, Mahal isn't actually pronounced mahaaaaaaal, but rather more like mehel] . At the place where we bought tickets, we learned you couldn't bring any food in, and I gave the rest of our packet of biscuits to a man who I think was a beggar, sitting on the ground. He smiled.
'Thank you madam,' he said, and he waved to me as we drove off in the bus a few minutes later and smiled again.

The place you buy the tickets, and the man who got half a packet of biscuits is in the shot too.

So, the Taj Mahal? Very big. Pretty cool, I guess. A man showed us where to take good photos from, and when we wouldn't pay him he walked away muttering 'that's not fair!' [he hadn't mentioned at all beforehand that his advice wasn't free... tourist scams :P] We went around the Taj Mahal for a while, then looked out over the Yamuna River for a while, then came back to the Coral Tree Homestay after buying a fridge magnet and a little elephant carved from stone [souvenirs, naturally].

 A mischievous creature, which stole someone's apple when they weren't looking...

 Sunrise at the gate

And  of course, the star attraction... scaffolding!

There were lots of monkeys at the Taj; at one point a gang of them were chasing a terrified skeletal little cat across the grass. We came back to the Coral Tree after seeing the Taj Mahal, which I mentioned already [haha handwriting + memory skills there], and then we went out on a tuktuk to the Agra Fort. it was very hot there, although the architecture was interesting. Then we went to a clothes shop, which was expensive, so we went to another where I bought a patiala suit [the long shirt and baggy pants with a scarf that young women often wear in India, especially in the North] and a cushion cover with the Taj Mahal on it for Mum.

 Somewhere in the Fort in Agra

You can actually see the Taj Mahal from the Fort too, in the distance

We came back for lunch, and then I talked to two young women in their twenties [who worked at the homestay] while they put mehendi [henna] on my feet. I can't remember the name of the girl doing the mehendi but she was 21, had three brothers and three sisters, and lived with all of them as well as her parents and her grandmother! The other girl, Usha, was 27 and came from Shimla in Himachal Pradesh [a state right up in the North of India; it even snows there in the parts near the Himalayas]. I've discovered, as I somewhat expected, that I find the people, and talking to people, much more interesting than architecture. Usha only spoke one language - Hindi - and it was amazing to be able to speak and be understood by her.

Mehendi - traditionally only worn at weddings, but hey! One has to comply with tourist stereotypes

I love speaking Hindi, because I can talk to so many more people and hear so many more stories than other people who come to India and only speak English. God has given me a love for languages, and inspired me to start and continue learning Hindi. I'm glad that He did. When you talk to someone in their mother tongue, you talk to the 'real' them and not the image they might present to tourists. Perhaps then, people would be open to hearing about Jesus from a foreigner if the conversation was in Hindi; but really it is up to God to open someone's heart. Anyway, I love Hindi. I love God. We'll see what happens from there!

 [As a side note, in my limited understanding of a complicated issue, Christianity in India is generally associated with British colonialism - and especially recently with the growth of Hindu Nationalism and the widespread support for the BJP political party (which is quite nationalist). Christianity is viewed as a negative foreign influence, and many Indian Christians face persecution because of this. Evangelism from foreigners in some cases can do more harm than good, as it can reinforce the popular (although false) stereotype that foreign Christians 'force or trick Indian people into leaving their cultural heritage to join some foreign religion'. However, there are still technically more Christians in India than there are people in all of Australia! Anyway, as an open Christian myself I realised, as I began to understand Indian culture more, that it is important to be wise in sharing Jesus in a culture that unfortunately sometimes tends to associate Jesus with arrogance and oppression by white people. It is a good start at least to break down stereotypes, even by simply showing the love of Jesus in everything you do. And also to realise that it is not always up to you to save the whole world in the next 24 hours, and to ask God to lead you and grant you wisdom! This was an idea that was only just beginning to develop in my mind at the time, and I still inwardly cringe at my naivety every now and then. Anyway, back to the story!]

We relaxed for a while in the outside lounge, talking to our fellow homestay guests: the mother and daughter from New Zealand, and also a mother, father and two daughters (13 and 17) from New Zealand too. After they left, Dad went for a walk to the ATM and I fell asleep on the couch outside for a while. Then we said our goodbyes to the lovely people who ran the homestay, and took a car to the train station. I had a good conversation in Hindi with our driver (I think his name was Krishan Gopal or something. He was from Agra and four children: a daughter and three sons, the youngest of whom was four years old). He showed us a photo (while driving) of his youngest son. We arrived at the station and caught our train back to Delhi, eating some food on the train; I listened to some music on my laptop [okay so I may have brought my school laptop. Dunno if I was really supposed to... but I gave that one back a long time ago anyway!]. Most of the seats around us were filled with an Australian group from Sydney [all wearing bright polo shirts with the name of their trip printed all over it, too. They seemed to be discussing social media, and who liked who, and who's girlfriend did what? etc. It was like being back in school...]

A view out the train window between Agra and Delhi

Chaos ensued when we got off the train [back in Delhi], as we tried to look for a restaurant called Comesum outside the station where we would meet our driver to the next place we were staying. It turns out there were two Comesum restaurants [at opposite sides of the station too haha], and eventually we found the right one. On the way we were fought over by rickshawallahs. A little girl in a faded purple anarkali suit [traditional Indian dress] came up and tugged on my sleeve.
'Didi,' she said, and 'Bhaiyya,' for Dad. She was holding out her hand and looking up imploringly, motioning eating, saying 'das rupaye...' [das rupaye means 'ten rupees'. Also, 'Didi' means big sister, and 'Bhaiyya' means big brother]. Later on, as we were getting into our car, a thin woman in a sari approached us, holding a baby. She asked for some money to feed her baby, calling down blessings on me and my suitcase and looking up to the sky, then pinching her baby's thin cheeks to make it cry. As we left I asked her 'maaf kijiye' [forgive me], as I couldn't help her.

We drove through the streets and highways and stopped in traffic. A little boy with a bunch of balloons came up, asking for das rupaye. He rubbed his tummy and looked up questioningly. His friend did too. I could not do anything for them [and all the travel advice constantly repeats not to give to beggars, despite what your feelings may compel you to do], so after a while they moved on, and so did the traffic. We eventually arrived at Maya's Nest, a homestay in a Colony [a district where middle-class people live - they had an armed guard I think, outside the boom gate of the district], in a building up several flights of stairs. We had dinner here with Liz from the Netherlands, who had cycled with her boyfriend around Kyrgyzstan and was now in India for six weeks. Our host Asha was very hospitable. She had some strong opinions about things, especially when she heard we'd been on the Salaam Baalak Trust walk [see 'Adventures in India - Part 2']. She also had some very strong opinions about religion and politics and Indian history. But she was a good hostess, and looked after us very well, like a mother [Maya's Nest does mean mother's nest after all]. Liz's boyfriend joined us for a while but he couldn't eat much because of a toothache. After dinner we all talked for a while, and then went to bed.



And so ended the fourth day of our adventure, and the last day of being just another bunch of tourists in the Delhi-Agra section of the tourist triangle. Thank you for reading thus far! Stay tuned for some more adventures, of the less touristy kind...

Street Kids, Thumb Wars and Chai - 2

Last year, I went to India! This is part 2 of the [mostly unabridged] account I wrote while I was over there, so if you're interested to read from the beginning you could read the previous post (although it's mainly about Singapore on the way to India!). Looking at how much I have written about each day... this may involve quite a few posts! But I needed to type it up anyway really, so if I lost the hard copy I would still have it somewhere. And if anyone enjoys reading it, well, that's a plus! Anyway, the first installment only included about two lines concerning India... so here is day three, which is when I actually reached India :)

Day 3 - Monday 26th September [2016], Delhi/Agra

There is so much I could write, but I'll start with recounting this morning. I didn't sleep very much, and woke up several times. Then I found an old tim-tam in my bag and ate it (not the best idea I've ever had). I felt very sick. I leaned over the sink for a while, then lay down, feeling annoyed I'd managed to get sick even before eating any Indian food. [As it turns out, the reason I was feeling sick was because I didn't realise you shouldn't take doxycycline, ie. malaria tablets, on an empty stomach. But anyway, continuing with the story!] So I prayed. A few minutes later I sat up, feeling more or less fine. God is good! I am looking forward eagerly to the rest of today!

We had breakfast on the roof of the hotel [which had turned out to be a dingy backpackers place in Paharganj, but hey, I liked it... Dad didn't though! Haha the story is that it was my job to book everything, including hotels, and... this was the one time I didn't do so well in spotting a good place]. We sat at a table with three Brazilian ladies who were from an island near Argentina. Another tour group filled the rest of the chairs, and they were from a school near Lismore! Breakfast consisted of puris and bhaji, with a little muffin on the side. The air on the rooftop was warm and sluggish, although we were shaded by a roof and shadecloth, and fans spun slowly above us. It was quiet up there, although punctuated by the occasional car honk, and you could see the rooftops of the neighbouring buildings through the shadecloth. Next up is the walk. [A guided walk through the streets of Paharganj by Salaam Baalak Trust, a charity rescuing kids off the street. Paharganj is a district of Delhi. It is the 'backpacker district' but it is also sadly a drug area, glue mostly, and on the other side of the railway is the red light district where most girls living on the street end up. Our guides were ex-street kids themselves. The walks aim to raise money and awareness of the situation of street kids in Delhi. As I found out later, some middle-class Delhi-ites don't like the fact that the charity presents a negative image of Delhi to all the tourists...]

Right, so the walk! So much more happened than I could capture in words. We walked through the galis [narrow lanes], avoiding dogs and puddles and rubbish while dodging rickshaws and cars; the guide Devraj along with another guide who was learning, Rahul, told us about what life is like for kids on the street in Delhi and how they came to be there. They also told us their personal stories of how Salaam Baalak had helped them [I hope it's okay to share their stories here!]; Rahul (16) is from Bihar, but his mother had died when he was a baby so he was an only child. His father was alcoholic and beat and tortured him, so he ran away. Devraj (17) is from near Kathmandu in Nepal. His mother died when he was 14, and his father (who was a farm labourer and was on drugs) made him and his siblings go to live with his elder sister and her husband. [They both eventually ended up on the street in Delhi, but have found a safe place in Salaam Baalak Trust. They now lead these guided tours, and help kids who were like themselves.]

Walking through the streets of Paharganj

We visited a 'contact point' [where Salaam Baalak keeps an eye out for kids who seem lost and helps them either find their family or provides them a place to stay] for the kids at the railway station, and then we walked to one of the boys' centres. We met a few young grinning boys, all around 7 or 8 years old, and played thumb wars [probably taught to them by foreign volunteers, who often help out there for a few weeks at a time], and talked about cricket and learned some of their names. I talked to them in Hindi [I had been learning it from books and movies and such since I was about 12 and could hold a very basic conversation]; the only name I can really remember was Pappu, an 8 year old who beat me at thumb wars every time.
Then we walked back to the head office of Salaam Baalak Trust and paid our donation and bought some t-shirts [another fundraising venture of the charity]. I really loved being able to meet the people and hear their stories, and also walk around the streets with someone to lead us. I saw squirrels for the first time, and a monkey, and lots of dogs and rats and flies and ants. Some streets smelled like incense, others like a farm, and others like a rubbish tip - and then you would look down, and discover that it actually was a rubbish tip.

I absolutely love it here; I never want to leave. I love all the people, all those precious souls all around me. I love the smell, I love the people grinning at you calling out 'Ma'am! You want to buy?', I love the Hindi being spoken all around me. I love the kids, and the old ladies huddled over walking sticks in saris, and the rickshaw drivers hovering beside you trying to convince you to take a ride while trying not to run over your feet. I love our tiny, dirty room. But most of all, I love my Jesus, my precious saviour who has brought me home to the land my heart adores. All my fears are diminished; it is difficult to think of a time I have been happier and more at home except for the day I was saved. God is good!

Travelling to Agra...
We made it on time to our train to Agra. It had taken us a while to figure out where to go and what platform to find, but eventually we got to the right spot and found our seats. We had taken an  auto-rickshaw to get to the station, which after we kept walking the driver changed the fare from 60 rupees to 40 [still ripping us off a little, but hey, a guy's gotta make a living, right?]. We didn't really fit in with our luggage so my knees were hanging out the side and were nearly run into a few times. On the train I shared my bench seat by the window with a man who lived near Agra, but was a fly-in-fly-out worker in an oil company in Assam [one of the states on the other side of Bangladesh]. The train moved slowly out of the station, our compartment echoing with the merry laughs of some men nearby us who had apparently just told a very hilarious joke. We passed through station, with little boys walking alongside the tracks and older men [at the stations] going along with black grease covering their gloves. We passed crumbling slums and tents and washing lines strung up under bridges, barefoot children skipping after their mother and women in saris squatting in doorways. Mounds of rubbish banked the river, surrounding it on all sides, and as we go by on the train, rubbish is littered across the tracks.

 The train station before the train departed

Looking out the train window at the river

A little further along in our journey some people came through selling things: Pani! Thanda pani, pani! Bisket! Cake, bisket, chips...! Garam garam chai, chai, garam chai! [I'll never forget the chaiwallahs... always with their deadpan voices, saying chai, chai... garam chai...]
We buy a little paper cup of chai for 10 rupees each [about 20 cents]. Well, I say chai, but it is probably closer to being liquefied sugar... it is hot and delicious, and goes well with the biscuits we bought from a street vendor back in Paharganj.

The train is quiet and relaxing, a nice break from the chaos of the street. The only other quiet place was really the restaurant where we had lunch, a place called Tadka. A random man had helped us find the restaurant, being very helpful, which he then immediately followed up with 'you want henna tattoo? Only 300 rupees...'
For lunch, I had tadka dal with chapati, and Dad had aloo gobhi and garlic naan. There was more than we could eat, so we got it as takeaway and have taken it with us to eat on the train later [we never did eat it. It was a few hours old by the time we were hungry again, and Dad decided not to risk it]. We'll be in Agra soon, and I'm interested to see how it compares to Delhi.

In Agra...
Agra is smaller than Delhi [I think]. We arrived at just before sunset. A man from our carriage kindly helped us to find the exit of the station and our driver to the Coral Tree Homestay [I had also booked most of the taxis in advance]. This place was a sort of small, compound-like building with lots of artsy decorations and was considerably fancier than the Smyle Inn back in Paharganj. We had a home cooked dinner [and tried Petha, the local sweet made from a unique type of white pumpkin that only grows around Agra and nowhere else in the world]. We had the dinner with two German tourists and a mother and daughter from New Zealand, and then went to bed.

 View from inside the train

 This cow parked itself in the only free parking spot, I believe

The road outside our place in Agra

And that concludes the story of my first full day in India! Stay tuned for more adventures in India...

Home Is Where Jesus Is - 1

Last year, I went to India! While I was there, I wrote some things down. So I thought I would include a (slightly abridged) version of the journal I kept here, because there were a lot of stories I haven't had the chance to tell to everyone, and I originally was writing the journal with the intention for other people to be allowed to read it! And as a disclaimer, this is what I wrote a year ago :P I will admit that my writing is a little cliche at times. Also I think I'll do it a few days of the trip at a time so the posts aren't super long :) Anyway here it is, starting from day one, when I was still at home...

Day 1 - Saturday 24th September, Sydney/Singapore

How do you pack your life up into a suitcase? How do you decide what to leave, what to bring? There are always things you wish you could take that don’t fit in, even when you’re not even sure you will ever use them. And there is always something you forget to bring.
I have just had the experience of trying to decide what the important, essential things in life are. And what I have discovered is that while the amount of clothes and medicine and presents and books are all key things to packing a balanced suitcase, there is nothing I would hold on to more than Jesus. He is the first thing packed; Jesus is the non-negotiable. Wherever I go, Jesus is with me. I make sure to put space aside for Him; not just physical space for things like a bible, but time and love. Wherever I go, I am an ambassador for Christ; He walks beside me at every step, and I am following Him wherever he leads. It is my prayer that wherever I travel, people might see the light of Christ shining and be drawn to his beautiful light.

I will not be afraid. [You see, a lot of people were kind of horrified I was going to India nearly on my own, with only my dad. People said to my mum, 'how on earth can you let your daughter go there?', and I guess it was just because they'd heard all the horror stories. Anyway. Sorry for interrupting! These square brackets mean that I'm writing side-notes in hindsight. Back to the story...] God is my solid rock, my foundation. I will not be moved; I will not be shaken. I am going on an adventure with God, meeting God’s precious children and my brothers and sisters in Christ in the country of my heart. I will see challenging things, probably get sick, be constantly hot and sweaty, and by the end of the day probably more exhausted than I’ve been for a while. But this is my joy; because of Jesus I can bear these things as joys, as privileges, and not sufferings.
And as for feeling homesick - firstly, if ‘home is where the heart is’, I could say that right now, living in Australia, my heart is 10 000km away on the other side of the ocean [aka India :) ]. But even more than this, just like a family of Syrian refugees once spray-painted on their tent in the refugee camp: ‘home is where Jesus is’. And Jesus is always with us.

All packed and ready to go...

Day 2 - Sunday 25th September, Singapore/Delhi

Singapore. The first thing you notice as you arrive in the steamy air is the smell, that Singapore smell - faintly sweet and fruity. The whole city smells like this. Even the water seems to taste how the air smells.

Another interesting thing you notice is the diversity, but unity. A mosque, a church and a temple can all be found almost on the same street. Bus and taxi drivers display their miniature Buddhist prayer wheels or shiny catholic crosses on the dashboard, and on the same road, you can see hijab and shorts-and-singlets being worn.

We arrived at our hotel at about 1.30am, which in Australia time was about 3.30am. I was too excited and full of adrenaline to be tired. I was constantly glued to all the beautiful tropical plants as we drove past, remembering times in Japan and Sydney and concluding that Singapore seemed to be a combination of the two. I eventually went to sleep around 2 or 3am Singapore time, and since our room had no windows we only woke up at 9am. It felt a lot earlier than that.

So we set off down the street next to our hotel in search of some breakfast. I had wanted to visit a church, as it was Sunday, but this didn't end up working out due to travel times and how late we'd woken up. There was a shop beside our hotel selling hijab, and then further down was a fruit shop with bunches of bananas dangling overhead. The air was thick, but pleasant. We explored further down the streets into some markets. As we learned later, this was in the Malay area of town, which was why most of the women passing by wore hijab or scarves, and why that was what most of the shops seemed to sell. We ended up going back to a restaurant right next to our hotel, and were served our food by the same man who had checked us into the hotel. 

A fruit market near the hotel

After breakfast we packed some things for a day out. We hailed a taxi from the street outside and went to the Gardens by the Bay, where we explored the Flower Dome and the Supertree Grove for a few hours. Then we took a taxi back to the hotel, having an interesting chat with the driver. Then we checked out and took another taxi to the airport. The driver of this taxi was a friendly old man, and we chatted about the economics and politics of Singapore (and if we'd had a dollar for every time he mentioned that 'Singapore is just a small island, with not many resources...'). He was a very interesting person, acting as tour guide and telling us some interesting things about Singapore's relations with Malaysia and Britain and how their economy worked.

Eventually we arrived at the airport terminal (which turned out to be the wrong one), and after finding the right terminal and checking in our luggage we went to have some lunch at about 3pm. Then we boarded our flight to New Delhi. I was in a window seat, but it was on the wing of the plane, so I couldn't see very much.

Some flowers in the Flower Dome

It's funny how much bigger and smaller the world becomes when you travel overseas. You can see the world through different eyes, and you can marvel at the world God has made. I was reminded of a bible verse [note: okay so my memory wasn't perfect, I think I was mixing two different verses in my head but the principle still is pretty biblically sound!]:

'And I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth.' [I was pretty close really]

God is right there walking alongside us, no matter where we are in the world. God's sovereignty has no borders. And there is something we are called to do as well [again my paraphrased version, I didn't have a bible in front of me :)]: 'Go out into all the world, preaching the good news of Christ!' [Making disciples of all nations, that's what I meant]

When you are an ambassador for Christ, you cannot simply be objective. You engage with wherever you find yourself, and you are a vessel for the light of Christ.

I don't know what is to come, what the land I have dreamed of for so long will be like, and I don't know what I will be called to do and to be. But I am not afraid, because the King who loves His people and takes care of them, is the King who died for me, and holds my life in the palm of His hand. The truth has set me free. In His strength, I can face anything with a joy that never ceases. I am well loved. And my Father is taking me on a journey that leads home, home to India but also home with God in Heaven. I look forward to it with great joy.

Later...

India. It is like coming home at last, after so many years living away. It is an adventure, beautiful but perhaps a little scary. But my God goes with me, so I am not afraid.

[Okay, so this was my face when I looked out the plane window at the lights of India for the first time :P]