Day Five

I again woke up at 4;30am – it is tough for me to get fully adjusted to this time zone. I will probably get fully adjusted the day before we head for home. I took another sponge bath and this time I used a hand towel for a washrag. I won’t tell you how dirty that hand towel looked when I was done…yeah it was that dirty. Bud and I are sharing a room at the hotel so we ordered room service which comes with the cost of the room. We each ordered chicken omelets with toast and “separate coffee”, which means black coffee. Bud doesn’t drink coffee but I wanted two cups (oh, give me some Starbucks!) so we ordered two. After breakfast, we had a friend here come and pick us up and take us to our next destination. As we rode through Delhi, it was apparent that it is much different from Bombay. For one thing the climate is cooler with less humidity. It doesn’t seem as crowed and there are certainly not as many taxis. It is somewhat cleaner that Bombay with less street vendors, but much is the same too. At the church we were at, the worship leaders were really good. They were two younger ladies, maybe 20ish and they did a fantastic job. One thing that is really good about the Indian churches that I have visited is that the teens and children are very involved on the worship teams and are always sitting in the church learning alongside the adults. They don’t complain and in fact they are very appreciative of the teachings they receive. After the team taught (10am – 5pm), the team headed back to the hotel room to freshen up and then at 7:00pm we were to go to dinner. I was in the mood for another great Indian meal but we ended up at Pizza Hut again. Some in our group just don’t like the Indian style food. The pizza was ok but our time together was fantastic. One of my new friends here, Titus and his wife Patricia were the ones who picked us up. They had an 8 year old daughter named Rachel. Right away we got attached to each other. I became a sort of Uncle to her and she was like a granddaughter to me. At lunch, we sat next to each other and she would teach me some Hindi words and I would tell her about the States and showed her some pictures of my family. Our time in Delhi is short, we fly out in the morning, and my fondness for Rachel was growing quickly. As we parted ways with our dinner party, Rachel asked me to please come back to India. This is question that has been asked too many times of me. I invited Rachel and her family to visit me in Peoria. Who knows! Gifts were exchanged between friends and then went to a Indian dessert deli to taste some Indian desserts. I found them very sweet and one could not partake of too many Well I need to close and try and get some sleep. We have a long day of travel tomorrow. Delhi is in Northern India and we are flying to Mumbai and then on to Kochin in the state of Kerala. I have been told that is beautiful and is God’s country. The people of Kerala are suppose to be more middle class and a really nice place to visit. We’ll be in Kerala for three days before we begin our trek home. Keep on praying.