Day Eight

The day began with a cold shower. My stomach was feeling something other than normal so I didn’t have breakfast. Today we were to take a boat to the backwaters of Kerala. I expected some type of jungle type cruise but it tuned out to be something much different. As we walked to the boat launch, we met Joseph Johnson and he took us to a very large boat. It was about 65 feet long and had two levels. There were of us and we had the whole boat to ourselves. It was an older boat that Joseph bad borrowed from a friend. It is typically used for tourists or parties. As we traveled the river we saw traditional fisherman in what looked like dug out canoes fishing with nets. They were in the same channel with super tankers, it was quite a sight. We traveled along the port seeing ship after ship and hotels and apartment complex’s lining the river. As we traveled along, we learned that Joseph owned a boat manufacturing company and that in 2002 he had won a national competition for boat design. He took us and showed us his land and shop along with a boat that his company is currently building. Jeffery has been mentoring Joseph and he was so appreciative of Jeffery and our being with him for the day. We had quite an adventure while at his shop. Whatever pictures are in your mind about his company, I can probably assure you they are not accurate. We docked next to an older Indian traditional house boat and then we had to navigate over to that boat and climb up on the boat that it was tied to. That boat was an old Indian Navy ship that Joseph wanted to restore and make into a worship boat. From their we had to climb up a ladder to the new ship that he was building and then climb down from there onto the shore. His land was full of spare parts, people working and one cow. We went into his shop and were served coconut juice in a fresh coconut. We then had to navigate again over three ships and a ladder to finally get back to our boat. We took off and Joseph asked us if we would like to stop by his home and of course we said yes. His home was nice and his wife served us chilled pineapple juice. We were not introduced to his wife so I can’t tell you her name. It is cultural here for the women to be in the background. It feels really weird. We took off from his home and docked at a nearby dock where a man got on board and brought lunch as we traveled back to our point of origin. The meal consisted of fresh fish and a chicken curry dish with rice and chaipatthy (flat bread). It was good and tasty. My dad thought it was our best meal of the trip that wasn’t pizza J. A good hamburger would be nice…I’m dying for a diet coke. Only the rich people buy diet cokes because being on a ‘diet’ is something only rich people are concerned about in this culture. Please pray for wisdom for me tonight (Wednesday morning for you) as I finish up some very important conversations with the national leaders here. I love you all and miss you deeply. I will post one more time during our trip while we are in Malaysia. There is wireless connection in the airport. I’ll up load the pictures once I arrive home. We have been going very hard (about 14 hours a day) since we left the states. We are all feeling the tiredness upon us. Please keep praying.