on top of the world...

It is about 7:30 am here and we just finished up eating breakfast. Yesterday was a good day. Dad met with the guys from India, and us other folks headed out on rickshaws to Commercial S treet. We were afraid about shopping on our own, but we sure did get it done! We bargained with the best of them. Emily could get whatever she wanted with that blonde hair. Actually, we were thinking about just letting her walk down the street with a bag of basketballs and attract a crowd...that might work! While shopping, we would pull the old, "We will tell our friends about you if you give us 40% off". I am not sure if they actually believed us or what, but they gave us the deals and sent us off with their business cards. We also would say, "This same elephant is 150 rupees down the street! I have his card!" That worked as well. So if any of you blog readers out there are planning a trip to Bangalore, I got some shops for you. I came back bragging about our deals to Uncle Mohan (the big dawg over here in charge of the Indian missionaries), and he said, "So, you are getting the deals and hurting our economy at the same time". I said, "That's right...now we are in the same boat." Gotta love Uncle Mohan. It has been awesome having him here with us.

One of our rickshaw drivers said he would wait for us to finish our shopping and take us back. So we did some shopping, and looked behind us, and he had been following us the whole time. It broke our hearts...one rickshaw ride from the hotel to Commercial Street is 20 rupees, which comes to less than 50 cents. He spent the whole morning following us for 50 cents. Wow, just shows you how much people can get by with around here.

When we got back, we went to a Thai restaurant near the hotel. The food was AMAZING and they treated us like royalty. Bringing us washcloths to clean our hands, putting food on our plates, etc. They even brought out the cake we got for Dad with a candle lit on it, and they had decorated it with their own flair. That really made Dad feel special. You can see it in his eyes...he loves the attention! He needed a little pick me up. As of 2:30 yesterday (before we went to lunch), we thought we had nothing to do all day. That was such a disappointment. It has been great to visit and look around Bangalore, but that really is not what we came for.

Luckily, something came through at the last minute. God doesn't leave you hanging. At 3:30 we hopped on a bus and headed out to a Compassion International Project, and pumped up basketballs on the way there with a foot pump (we didn't have a needle until then). We had an incredible time. You will not believe the conditions these people live in. We had over 300 kids, and we had a BLAST. First, we split into about 3 groups and played with them. There really wasn't an open area to play, so we had them passing and dribbling in the streets. I had about 50 of the younger girls and one basketball. They don't care, they just like having you there. No need to entertain. We then headed inside and sang some songs, told/acted out a story, and then Dad shared with them a Bible story.

Probably one of my favorite parts was their dinner time. Everyone jumped up and pitched in. Mom, Em, Christina, and Gladys walked around helping the women serve (see their food in the picture above). We then passed out Dum-Dums for dessert. They loved the suckers. It was incredible and such a humbling experience to see what a typical afternoon for these children is like. We were also able to encourage their leaders just by spending time talking to them and even just sending a smile their way. We did have one major incident while we were there: Mom had to use the restroom. Not once, but twice. Talk about an experience...but you will have to ask her about that one.

India is great, but we are still praying that God would send opportunities our way. This is not an extremely open country, so going out on the streets talking about God would get us in trouble. Which means we have to find areas where people can come to us and be brought to us. We are still praying...and still hopeful. Even if it is hard to believe, we know it is all a part of God's plan.