India: Our First Day on the Ground

Our first full day on the ground has been eventful and in some ways exhausting. Thirty-six hours in airports and airplanes with 5 flights tends to take it out of a person. And watch out for the fruit in the yogurt. Actually it wasn’t a piece of fruit, it was a pepper that looked like a cherry and felt like a hot iron. It took me about an hour to recover.

Madurai reminds me a lot of the Philippines. Driving in the city is just as exciting, maybe a tad more exciting here than there. The honking is incessant and the driving distance between people, bicycles, and motorcycles simply doesn’t exist. The sheer mass of people is amazing. Imagine taking every city in the United States times four and you would have India. Big Timber would suddenly become 6,500, Billings would be 440,000, Bozeman would be 120,000, and the greater Las Angeles area would be 51.6 million or more. There are open spaces but the cities are packed with people. 

We have driven by several slums where the poverty is obviously staggering. The river bed, a muddy shallow waterway, was filled with people bathing, washing their cattle, clothes, dishes and everything else you can imagine. Needless to say disease must be an issue in these situations. We will continue to post regular updates and would like to say more now, however getting some sleep is pretty important right now. Tomorrow we will spend the day visiting the orphanages.

On Friday, Pastor Samuel has organized a community gathering and invited the public to join us. The picture in this post is the lot where it will be held. I took the picture from the front window of where we are staying. The woman you see in the picture is using a screed to get fine sand. On Friday, a stage and sound system will be set up for our event in this area.