Ok, I'm sitting in an internet cafe at the train station. It's 10pm-ish, our train isn't here till around 11:40, at which point we will have about 2 minutes to dive on somewhere before it starts going again. If we miss it, we're...well, lets just not think about that, shall we?

Yesterday, I spent most of my time with the pastors and Bible college students. I met another Job (making 3 or more of them) that runs an orphanage in Manipur. He teaches the pastor training course they give here every year and travels 6 days by train one way to get here. He's probably one of the coolest guys I've met so far. Very friendly, energetic, and very funny. He's the kind of guy that always seems to be smiling. He's 33, recently married and runs a hostel while taking care of 3 orphans. I think Allison has their names written down somewhere. He was telling us about them, but I'm absolutely horrible with names. haha

The people I've been most interested in are the Naga, which are related to the people of Nepal. Asian in appearance, they speak hindi primarily and apparently are mostly Baptist. I found it particularly interesting that I met so many from there this time. Job, Jaison's wife Melona, over half of his orphange, and several of the helpers, teachers and bible students are from that region. They've managed to keep much of their traditions without appearing to compromise on their christian beliefs. I don't know...something about that area has grabbed me from day one.

I was pretty excited to meet him as I've wanted to go to Manipur since I first got introduced to the idea of India. Manipur is in the north east region, on the other side of Bangladesh. It has been closed to outsiders for years (barring a special visa) and is considered a UN hotspot due to tribal fighting. Job has assured me that if we wanted to come, he could get us the approval and that the fighting has died down significantly. I'm planning it in my head already. (;

Today overall was pretty cool. We visited the bible college, talked to the students briefly, did some worship and listened to one of the teachers share his testimony. It was amazing and words are hard to find that would describe what I saw.

The school is an old run down house, concrete floors, very sparse and utilitarian. The front room was the classroom, students stayed on hard beds lined along the walls in another room and the teachers/professors stay in a seperate room off to the side. The kitchen is in the back, which consisted primarily of a gas stove, some counter space and all the non-refigerable food laid out on burlap sacks on the floor. I think there was a small refrigerator, but I'm not exactly sure. It's pretty crazy by our standards, for sure.

The best part was listening to Mukesh, the "warden" (Dean?) of the school share his testimony after we sang some worship songs. I kept looking over to Mary thinking "you're recording this, right?" His style strongly reminded me of the Black gospel churches in the states, and while I couldn't understand much of what he said, it was hard not to get into it or not be encouraged by what you heard.

Jaison and Trevor had referred to him as the biggest man in Goa, even though even I seemed to dwarf him. It became obvious why very quickly. He was passionate and his story was amazing. He talked about how he actually started at the bible college before he was a christian. He grew up very poor, and a pastor in his home town would come by every so often and feed his family. He didn't know God, but he felt he should repay him for helping his family, so he went to the bible college when the pastor asked if he'd like to go.

Mukesh could not read, write or speak any language but Hindi. He didn't even know John 3:16 when he was asked what it was 1 week into the school. On June 19th, 1998, he committed his life to Christ and was baptised. Furthermore, his embarrassment at his lack of education spurred him into working very hard to overcome those obstacles rather than becoming discouraged, and within 3 years, he graduated with his class able to speak at least 3 languages, read, write and had an indepth knowledge of scripture. Just his accomplishments alone were amazing, but it's even more amazing to see him become a leader inside the very school that gave him a chance. He does it with great joy and thanks God every day for this amazing opportunity.

Today was also the first day I got to really talk to the kids at Jaison Job's orphanage. I've been running around with the adults and the students. It's a great group of kids. I'm sure the rest of the team will be pouring in tons of details, but from my perspective, they were great! They all were very happy, full of personality and some of the coolest kids I've ever met. Some of the younger ones will kill you just with a smile (Of which I think is all Pough does...He and another Jaison are the cutest boys I've ever seen, but I don't think I heard either of them speak once!)

We took them to the market to get clothes, hung out with them, played badminton and taught them things we never should have taught them (I hate the Gators!). We also did some other stuff that I don't know if I'll discuss quite yet, but Jalali is going to love it. All in all, it was a great day and none of us really wanted to leave.

Oh yeah, and Cliff: You were right. Malona is an amazing cook. We made her day when we told her you had made a big deal out of that and she proved to definitely live up to the hype. (; I don't think I've had food that good at any point here and I doubt I will get food that good before I leave.