Enjoying Every Moment!

Friends and Family,
There is SO much to say and it has only been a few days, but most importantly I want you to know that I am loving being here along with the people. My love for India and those I'm surrounded by multiplies by the day! Lets begin with Thursday, I think that is where I left off. We had an incredible breakfast that day, potato curry. We have some kind of curry at every meal along wtih either chapate or another breadish thing kinda like a pancake. I really am enjoying the curry dishes, especially the vegetarian ones. We eat with our right hand at every meal, it is SO freeing! I love it, I think we should all have a meal togehter like that when I return, or try it out now! Also, they have jam at every meal that we can place on our chapate and this helps out a lot with eating things! :) They even gave us Peanut Butter the other day, INCREDIBLE! Back to Thursday...that morning we went to visit our site coordinator's grandma down the street with Kingsley's sister Getsy. Getsy and her grandma are such an incredible blessing. As we were leaving her house we saw a family upstairs that was watching us so we went to visit them, they are Hindu's and they rent out the house from my site coordinators family. They were so sweet, they served us lemon juice, which sounded sketcty (who drinks straight lemon juice??) but it really was just SUPER sweet lemonade. One of the girls at the house gave each of us a Maindi (like Henna) tattoo on our hand. We returned back to the house and Getsy taught us a Tamil song so we could sing it in church. We got to meet the children for the first time Thursday, it was interesting to try to play games and interact when we couldn't even talk. I played a board game and I kinda got the hang of it but I'm pretty sure I messed up a lot and they let it slide! Then when they had refreshments and were all sitting down Kingsley had each of us come up and tell about ourselves and our family as he translated. Each of us got a rose from a kid, they are so sweet. This experience with the children has already given me a desire to learn another language...that is something stirring in my heart, I want to be able to communicate more cross-culturally. I might take a spanish class next semester or something. We also taught the kids Deep and Wide, they were so cute! That night we went to visit families houses in the church, which is what we are going to do on a regular basis. Kingsley said that we have 50-60 different houses to visit while we are here! Aubrey, Mysely, and Getsy went to a house together and after we shared our testimony, sang, and prayed the family asked if they could take us to the event down the road. We stinkin' went to a Indian carnival type thing. It was SO fun, I couldn't stop laughing as I was riding a sketchy train in the middle of India in a circle. Funny...Every night we have a time of debriefing with my team and Thursday we found our favorite location. We can get onto the rooftop, which is flat, and stay there and talk at night. It is beautiful and by the tme we get around to it it is really a nice temperature. Friday was a very challenging day and I got pretty discouraged, but the Lord pulled me through. After breakfast we had a weekly time of prayer. Getsy did ours with us in English instead of joining the church. I've really enjoyed getting to know her, unfortuntally she leaves for school tomorrow morning. Pray for her as she journeys. Following prayer Kingsley told us that we were visiting 4-5 houses that night and each of us needed to have a devotional prepared. We all went our own ways to prepare and I went to the Prodigal Son. Kinglsey wanted to see our outline and ideas that afternoon so when I brought it to him he really tore it apart. It was so challenging, it really broke me of all of my pride. He is very knowledgable and wanted things to have a structure and everything. I think my devotion was more of a sermon type thing, so maybe that is why he was harder on it...I don't know but basically he asked me to make revisions to it and that I wouldn't share that night and I would share Tuesday. All of my other teammates shared, but the Lord really used this to help me grow. My prayer for this trip is 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 and this reminded me that I need to continue to rely on the Spirit and not my own wisdom. This experience did exaclty that because I had to rely on the Spirit to guide me in what to say and I really feel at peace with where I've been led. The Lord also reminded me that in my weakness, then He is strong. Please pray for me as I am going to be sharing Tuesday with a larger group, not just a home. It really has turned into more of a sermon, like 20 minutes, but I really think it will be a good thing-it has definitely stretched me. Please don't get the wrong idea, Kingsley is a great man and very involved with us, I'm so thankful for that...it was just a breaking of my pride. He even told us later as we encouraged us that he can tell how far he can push each of us and he wants to do that individually...so I think it will be good.The church visits that night were great, the people are so wonderful. Everyone wants to give you something in hospitality when you visit, so by the end of the night you are STUFFED and then we return home and his family feeds us, kinda intense! But the last house we went to was SO interesting...They didn't have a drink so the father went out with a machete or something and cute coconutes down, chizeled them, and then put a straw in the hole- we drank straight coconut milk...Don't be misled and drink it for fun-it is horrible. Friday night was a wonderful time of debriefing with my teammates again on the roof and openning up to them about how I felt about the day. We have been split into two different rooms for sleeping and my roommate is Aubrey so over the past few days I've had several opportunities to talk with her more. I'm really enjoying getting to know her, she is such a blessing. Today we went to Trichy, the city about an hour away, and shopped. I got two indian outfits but by the end of the day I was wore out! We ate at a super authentic place, it was really fun. You would all be proud of how adventurous i am, and I'm acutally enjoying most of what I eat! We ate our food on a banana leaf, i can't wait to show you pictures! Indian food definitely tastes better than it looks! That is about it...it was really long but I was really wnating to share the details with you while I had time. We have been given the opportunity to travel by train 28 hours with Kingsley to Mumbai at the end of the month for 5 days to attend a Nazarene Convention, I'm very excited about that! Please be praying for my teammates and I as we are struggling wtih trying to be respectful and eatting enough food. They really desire you to eat a ton and even if we like it it seems that the best way of showing is eating crazy amounts. We are struggling in that area. Also, please pray for continual unity in the team...that we will have the Spirit's guidance on when to be assertive and when to let things slide. Thank you for all of your prayers and commits. My teammates and I feel your prayers and are so thaknful for our support system. You are all a blessing. I love each of you and can't wait to share more of this expeirencein person!
Grace and Peace-
Jennifer