This became the craziest day I have had in India and this place is so wild it takes a lot to qualify as the craziest. We went to a neighboring village to have Sunday morning church service. Everyone at the orphanage wakes up at 5:30 every morning. By the time we had church at 10 am the little ones were starting to doze off. Several were nodding off while clapping to a song. I asked Mike if I could grab one of the boys who kept falling forward and almost hitting his mouth on a concrete step. Mike grabbed him and sat him in my lap. It took him about an hour to get comfortable and relax in my arms and sleep. Once he fell asleep he was out.
Meredith also had a girl fall asleep in her arms. Her little one would not wake up when church was over. So she rode with us to pray for the pastor of the church who was having some sort of paralysis. After we prayed we piled in the Jeep that holds 10 with 10 adults and 15 children. On the way home the little girl Meredith was holding started throwing up. We were so crammed and the road was so narrow there was nothing to do but keep going to the orphanage.
When we returned to the orphanage Meredith and I asked KK if we could take a rickshaw back to the hotel to change. We found a rickshaw driver who said he knew where our hotel was but really just brought us to the center of town. That was ok because the hotel was just around the corner. We ran inside but the power was still out so we found more clothes in the dark, ran back to the rickshaw, and continued home. There was a festival about to begin so things were kind of crazy in town and felt more populated than usual which is hard to say because this “small town” is double the size of the Beaches population. Our rickshaw driver was an older man and very very skinny. Our ride there and back took longer than we anticipated.
The man took us back to orphanage and we paid him. As we walked away about 20 feet we heard loud honking behind us and a commotion and then shouting. We turned to see our rickshaw driver rolling on the ground and his rickshaw turned over and a taxi speeding away. Everyone was rushing to him and shouting. We didn’t know what to do. Meredith walked over to see if he was ok and I ran inside to find KK. We came outside to find they had moved him off the road and we gave him some water. Miraculously he was only scraped up but his leg hurt. Two men put him in the back of his rickshaw and took him to the hospital.
Meredith and I came inside and joined the boys at lunch who were oblivious to anything that had happened. We were very shook up and ate very little. It was such a surreal thing. The man’s face kept going through my mind.
We then took a 45 minute ride to an orphanage and played with a lot of kids. They had a lot of older kids at this orphanage. There was a different dynamic trying to interact with older kids versus younger kids and without knowing the language. We try out the words we have learned but they look at us like we have three heads. I guess we have really bad accents.  This was not my typical day!!!! The people who go to India have always said T I I – This Is India…but this day made it so real.

Posted by Brooke Townsend at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we are preparing for the pastors conference. We will have to run a VBS for 200 kids that don’t speak the same languages and do not know English. We have gone shopping many times for supplies. The market here is insane! Small open shops one after the other. One time we sat in the Jeep for twenty minutes waiting on the pastor. He got in and drove twenty feet to a shop and stopped. We all started laughing. T.I.I. –This Is India was all we could tell ourselves. Once you find the shop you need communicating what we are looking for is interesting. We attract quite a crowd. You spend five minutes looking in a shop and turn around and twenty people have gathered to look at you.
We spent time in a remote village yesterday afternoon. The countryside is beautiful! We were 30 km from the Bangladesh border. Meredith and I brought paper and crayons to the girls. They took us to their room and we spent a long time drawing things and asking how to say it in their tribal language. It was a good way to break down the barriers. I drank water from a village well. I didn’t know they took one of our empty bottles and filled it up. Thankfully I have lived to tell about it today.
Indians are so hospitable. Every shop you go to they insist you sit down. They bring you soda in glass bottles. They villages always make you the hottest tastiest chai tea. At meal times you are always being served more. I am walking, playing, sweating a lot and I will still gain weight here because they feed you so much. You haven’t lived until you’ve had egg curry in the morning!!!
Praise the Lord!!!!

Posted by Brooke Townsend at 6:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here I sit on my third plane ride in 36 hours…that’s a lot for this Florida girl who can count on one hand the number of times she has been out of the South. Last night on our ride to the airport it was surreal looking out the window at Delhi at night. The extent of my overseas travel experience has been what I can see from my couch watching The Amazing Race on TV. It does not feel real. I am excited that we will be in Calcutta in less than two hours. That will be the start of our official India experience. I realize how American I am. I am not sure how I will deal with the lack of sleep and lack of hot water. I am glad to be going through this; I need these challenges in my life. To be taken out of my comfort zone is a good thing for me. I like my routine and doing things my way.
I am most excited about being with the kids. I think it will be lots of fun.
I miss my baby. I hope being around all the kids doesn’t make me cry all the time. They will think this American is nutso.  Enough said.

Posted by Brooke Townsend at 7:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Here I sit on my third plane ride in 36 hours…that’s a lot for this Florida girl who can count on one hand the number of times she has been out of the South. Last night on our ride to the airport it was surreal looking out the window at Delhi at night. The extent of my overseas travel experience has been what I can see from my couch watching The Amazing Race on TV. It does not feel real. I am excited that we will be in Calcutta in less than two hours. That will be the start of our official India experience. I realize how American I am. I am not sure how I will deal with the lack of sleep and lack of hot water. I am glad to be going through this; I need these challenges in my life. To be taken out of my comfort zone is a good thing for me. I like my routine and doing things my way.
I am most excited about being with the kids. I think it will be lots of fun.
I miss my baby. I hope being around all the kids doesn’t make me cry all the time. They will think this American is nutso.  Enough said.

Posted by Brooke Townsend at 7:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)