Blogs from Tamil Nadu, India, Asia - page 154

Hey everybody, We finally got the internet back up and running at the hotel! Some services are not very reliable here. Thanks to everybody reading this and praying for us. I have a question for you. How does a church of 215 get 160 visitors? I was really hoping that we could get online last night so that maybe it could be announced at church. I know we are trying to focus on outreach. Saturday we split up into pairs and went to disciple's homes to encourage them and get to know them. Then we left and went to their neighbor's homes to invite them out to church. Jen and I invited almost a whole street! A lot of it was "Hey, look at the white people!" But aside from that, most of these people have ... read more

Hey everyone, Well it's day three and we have been to three of the most incredible places that we could have imagined. The first two projects were great and today we went to a home for women and children with HIV/AIDS that have been shunned by society. We were able to play and eat with them and touch them to let them know that they are loved. I will let the others share their own feelings about that as well. We also went into town again to do more shopping and the experience of walking on the street is overwhelming. Riding in a van can make you numb to reality and not 5 seconds after we step on the street we had people asking us for money. The brothers and sisters here are more accomodating than ... read more

Divine promises, dancing Gods and devout princesses …all come together in one celestial nuptial at The Meenakshi Temple, Madurai.(This ones not a fairy tale.) In the Athens of the East, as the city is called, life is built around myth and legend …literally. Located at the core of Madurai, the origin of The Meenakshi Temple goes as far back as 1600BC which is also, the time around which this temple factory of a city flourished Walking through the streets of this blessed city among lazy traffic blocking cows, furiously honking drivers only obeying the ‘horn ok please’ in front of them, tobacco chewing balloon sellers, and old women sitting under umbrellas selling lemons for 25 paisa, procrastination can be a very attractive deal. And so as we keep walking, taking in the details, ahead of us ... read more

Today we flew to Tamil Nadu - a state in the south of India. Specifically we were headed for a little town called Mamallapuram just 50kms south of the capital Chennai. We had to catch a taxi from Chennai to Mamallapuram so we got to see a bit of Chennai. It was amazing - quite a culture shock. There were cows everywhere - on the street, in the alleys, standing in the doorways of shops, and sometimes even in the middle of the road. Since cows are sacred here, people make way for the cows rather than the other way. Thus we found the taxi quite often performing some last minute swerves to avoid a rather stubborn cow mooing in the middle of the road. It was also quite sad to see the level of poverty ... read more

Wow where can I start! These last two months have been absolutely mind blowing and I’ve been so busy absorbing everything around me I’ve not had a chance to write anything down, and now the task seems phenomenal! The first thing that struck me like a great big hammer was the noise. Chennai is never quiet, the auto rickshaws blare Tamil uber-pop straight into your ears at a hundred million decibels a second and all the vehicles have snazzy little messages like ‘Be horny round the corner’ emblazoned on their rears. Indians take it seriously and sometimes the roads sound like an experimental brass ensemble from the sixties. Not even death is quiet here, on my first week I saw a huge procession of people banging drums and shouting while pulling a huge float decked out ... read more