Trip notes #7

730am- wake up (Early, I thought) but while I was in the Shower/Toilet combo our doorbell was already ringing.

"Josh , get the door!".... "Come in!" he says.....



Our flight to Hyderabad is at 11:55am we are expected at Samuels home for breakfast at 9am.



830am- bags packed, ready to go. The cars should be down stairs waiting.



9am- saw Samuel, but no car. We took all of the luggage to the lobby.



I noticed the newspapers here are full of actual information and good news stories. Very different than America.



9:30am- made it to Samuels ate breakfast.



More waiting..... We really should be going.

10am- the cars show up.



10:15am- kinda hanging outside, not sure where some people are or what we are waiting for.



11:15am- rush into airport only to be stopped at baggage claim. When we flew in it didn't cost extra but now it's 3000 rupees. ($60 ) It's a bribe, our plane was about to board and they wouldn't budge. We pooled our money and got on the plane.

(This is the man who took the money. We noticed that it didnt go into a register but instead was paperclipped to some paperwork.)


Additional Note:  The plane was a propellor plane..... When we boarded I was excited to be on it....

But when we began our decent....... I swear it felt like our pilot was a Kamikazi  pilot going in for a last chance bombing run.

 I turned as white as a sheet, sat straight up and grabbed for the air conditioning controls, (I stole Josh's air as well.) I began to sweat and then Kevin reached over the chair. "Hey Tom, are you ok?"  I said I was fine......untill I heard the guy eight rows back start to put his complementary baggie to good use. I immediately reached for my baggie and prepped it....... luckily we landed before I needed it.


1:30pm- land in Hyderabad, picked up bags. Heading toward Paradise restaurant.

2:45pm- not sure if the driver knows where he is going.



3pm- made it to Paradise! It was kinda unnerving to have a metal detector at the front gate, a bag search and a pat down. (Just heard that the lady frisking the women was maybe too good at her job). Ordered the Chicken Biriyani extra yogurt sauce.

To manager- " You will have to excuse us, we like our drinks chilled, we are spoiled Americans."

Manager's reply- "Yes, yes, I know."

430pm- shopping...found some great deals and then some not so great deals but it was fun.




-Note of interest - McDonalds smells exactly the same no matter where you are.




7:15pm-stopped by to see a mega church with pastor Sonny, there was an original small church on the grounds that was built in the 1800's. That old church was one of the oldest christian churches in India. (the photo below is of the new church which holds 3500 people)

Surrounded by the rest of the buildings including a larger church and a bible center/prayer center.



We are heading to the orphanage, trying to get there before they go to bed.


Girls on one side......

guys on the other.....

815pm- arrive at orphanage. Introductions. Hand out clown noses and glow sticks... Big fun.

Got to see the dorms for the boys and girls.

9:45pm- We were served dinner.



Everybody wants to feed you here. I think when I get back I'm going to want to go to Wendy's for a nice burger without any spices on it...just a plain old burger.



10:30pm- checked into Swagath Grand.

Trip notes 6.

9am- breakfast at Samuels home. Good bland breakfast.



Chomped down on a few bananas for a little intestinal binding.



11 am- been on road for an hour, heading to the jungle village.



The road changed drastically as we are starting to get further away.

12 noon- we just switched our passengers around, Samuel doesn't want any of us up front as we get further away from civilization.



Rules for jungle village - Stay together , no wandering off. They have never seen white people before so they might be afraid.



1pm- just passed a jungle market.

I'm having a problem staying hydrated and not having to pee every 5 minutes...



130pm- the village in the jungle was different than I expected. It was more remote than primitive, they had electricity and a few houses.



The clothing they had was just like everywhere else here in India with the exception of the Saris the women wore. It was a different sari for a different region.

MONKEYS!!!!! MONKEYS!!!!! I SEE MONKEYS!!!!!

2pm- village church. Held at the small house where Samuel grew up.

After that we went out back to hand out mango trees and chickens.... Have you ever blessed a chicken?



Today I blessed a whole mess of chickens.

What do you say when blessing a chicken ? I have no clue what I said, I think Kevin recorded it.



LIFE AIN'T KICKIN UNLESS YOU'RE BLESSING A CHICKEN!!



3pm- leaving jungle village to come back to Vizag .



After saying a prayer over the chickens Kevin says" It's time to go." I turn to follow and I find myself right in the middle of a group of women and children holding little jars of oil again.....
( I was more at ease this time, I didn't feel so overwhelmed this time. I was still the last one to the vehicle but I was learning to keep the prayers short......especially for the little old ladies that get back in line several times. It made me chuckle, they are so sweet.)


As we were sitting in the car, a couple comes to the window holding their little girl. She was different than the rest of the children, we all did a double take. She had great big pretty brown eyes, really light skin, and blonde hair.

Oh I almost forgot, if you ever find yourself in a remote jungle village in India and a kid fist bumps you.....I was there.

6pm- We are back at 4 Seasons for dinner. Tonight I'm looking at pizza and French fries.

830 pm- standing outside 4 Seasons waiting for the cars to pick us up to do some shopping.

Randy mentions that he would like to go to the hotel instead so I join him. We decided to walk.



Man, nothing attracts attention more than a couple of tall Americans walking through town.



1030pm- Satish, Eswar, Abi, and the Bellhop came to our door with fireworks for us. I don't care if any of you ever heard me say, "I wish we had better fireworks here.". ..... I was so wrong, I think I will stick to the wimpy North Carolina approved fireworks. The ones they have here left me cowering in the corner with my fingers in my ears crying, "No more booms, no more booms!



11pm- try to sleep.

Trip notes #5

9am- leave to pick up Sekher to experience his ministry.

10:30- Helen Keller Memorial School for the blind - Sai was one of the children living here. Residential school for the blind.

Jagsnadham is 15 years old but looks like he is 5.

I'm very proud of Josh, he did a great prayer for the students at the home. There are 17 students living at the home.



This was a very emotional visit...the car was completely silent for the first few minutes after we left.



11am- second village, beautiful building built by the donations of the congregation. There was an amazing carved door on the front.

This building was very nice and held about 100 people. We were told it cost about $6000 to build. Can you imagine? What else could be built with such a small amount in the village? A well? Public wash rooms?

We were welcomed with flowered leis again. These things smell awesome.


11:30am- next village, greeted with fresh coconut juice straight from the tree with a straw sticking out of it

The church was smaller but the greatness flowing out of it was just as grand .

(Now this church had something that I had not seen in the other churches so far. A baptismal)

Im not sure if it was because of the gum I was chewing or what, but fresh coconut juice was not my favorite.



12:30- another village. I think I'm losing count, the later it gets the more villages we have to see.

Really quick blessing on a small church building, closed building/ no service.



I think by having me squished in the back of a small SUV with 8 grown men is Gods way of showing me that I need patience.



1pm- last church. Really cute little church, there were no more than 20 people there.

- Okay.... So I don't even know where I am (besides India) ..... But as I roll my aching body out of the SUV and begin to walk to the church a rickshaw passes by and I hear someone yelling, "Tom!!! Hey Tom!!!" and we all turn and there are three guys waving as they pass by. I'm not sure who it was but it was kinda cool considering how far from Vizag we were. (I love it! It's like when you see Bigfoot for the second time in your life....there's no doubt about it......yep, that's Bigfoot!)

There were only a couple of men here at this church. We were told that is how it was, the women come first in most cases then the men join them after a while. There were about ten women that said they would like bibles ( the rest already had one), the pastor asked Keven to pray about it, we were able to come up with enough monsy to give to the pastor to buy the bibles. Sekhar has since sent a picture of them recieving them.



Somehow on the way back we found another church to visit, this one was a large hut in the middle of slums, undeveloped land and high end condos/flats.

Oh, and if you haven't noticed by now or I haven't mentioned it, shoes come off before you enter the church and the men sit on one side....

...and the women sit on the other side.

230pm- dinner at Sekher's house then meet his congregation . His wife Sharon, (not pictured below) made the best meal we have had since landing.

5pm- return to hotel, we haven't really stopped for a break since we landed here, it was really nice to have some bonding time and a few laughs with the team .



Diwalli, is the festival of lights, the whole town was setting off fireworks ALL night long....it was cool....for a little bit anyway.

Trip notes #4

* I have to say, this day was a day I will never forget as long as I live. The village that we visited on this day took every part of my heart, my spirit and my soul and stretched them all a hundred different ways all at once. It affected me so greatly that I have tears in my eyes as I sit here and type this.  I will write about this day in a future blog because this was the day that wrecked me, this was the day that I knew I was exactly where God wanted me to be...



8am- village excursion- pray over a future site for conference center for pastors meetings and support network.




Visit village drilling site to pray over a well being drilled.



Two hour drive from Vizag. One of the locals became car sick. Not used to longer car rides.



Starting to see the poverty contrast more the further we go.



The horn seems to be the most important part of the car.... Even in the country side.



Leave it to me to have to poop as soon as we get to a poor village with huts and no plumbing. (After a lengthy discussion...... "No"......... about how I don't feel comfortable going behind the back drop where my other team mates are sitting, or near the cow that was standing off to the side or even near the giant pile of hay with the chicken colony living in it and the 6 old men standing around I was able to convince them that I was a shy American and needed privacy. We jumped in one of the vehicles we arrived in and I was taken about a half mile away to sone trees near a rice patty field, I was past the point of caring when the driver handed me a bottle of water and pointed to the trees. I didn't even care about the crowd I was beginning to attract.......not sure where they came from.....)

First example of village development project. A bore well is currently in place, next step is purification, sanitation, bathrooms and sandals for all it's people along with medical needs, schools and crops.

After the service we were shown the church that the village worships in, it was nothing more than a tent structure with palm fronds covering it. It was very small but from it great things were happening.

Time truly stood still in this village.

When we came out of the little church it looked like everyone in the village was standing outside waiting for us to come out.

Now, if I haven't mentioned it yet let me just say that I seem to attract a certain amount of attention from a particular group no matter where I am here.... Debi gets the cute kids, Laurie gets the younger women, Kevin gets men and other pastors, Josh has teens to twenties, Randy has a good mixture and I get all of the...... Older widows, they just flock to me.

Funny observation- the little old ladies will come through the line for you to pray for them then they will cut back into line so you can pray over and over for them. Randy prayed over the same lady four times today.



When we walked out of the church this little old lady grabbed my hand and began to shove this clear jar with a yellow liquid..... Laurie noticed my panic and told me they wanted me to anoint them. I looked at her confused and panicked, thankfully, she explained....it's oil.



When we arrived in the village I had a bunch of questions and our local friends were having issues with the language.



I didn't notice a young pastor named John until he walked beside me and took my arm in his. As we walked toward the village he answered every question and cautioned me on where to walk (there are things that are done on the side of the road that you wouldn't want to step in)

It was really odd to me, every time I would start to get into a panic in the crowd John would be there to help whether it was an encouraging nod from across the crowd, a hand on my shoulder or to take my hand and casually walk me away saying " You have a good and kind heart." when a little old lady began to pull me toward food she was making he said, "Sometimes it's okay to walk away. You can't eat that."



I spoke with John for a while, I feel like I was supposed to meet him there, I am grateful for his help through a rough visit for me.

4pm - We stopped for dinner on the way back



6pm- made back to the hotel for rest and quiet.



8pm- back to Samuel's for church, then hang out on the roof speaking with our new friends and their families- this is my favrorite part of every day.

10pm- hotel to sleep.

Trip notes #3

9am- taken on the great breakfast adventure. They eat breakfast at 11am around here so nothing was open.

Rode on the back of a motorcycle through Vizag..... It was AWESOME!!! It was so cool I asked Satish to take the long way back because it was so fun.

1130am- Pastors conference starts. About 250 pastors from surrounding region in attendance . There are so many people here that they can not all fit in this small church, there are people sitting in chairs outside surrounding the church.

Vizag's full name means City of Destiny.



I have to mention a little chuckle I had. Our names to them are just as hard to say for them as their names are for us. For example Laurie was introduced as "Larry". HA! if you think I'm not going to grab on to that one and have fun with it then you don't know me. She will either love me or stuff me in checked baggage for the ride home.

Romans 1:16-17- Kevin speaks. Then showcases the technology that is used to spread the word.



130pm - break for lunch and meet & greet.



230pm- second session of conference.



Kevin puts out a plea to all of the independent Pastors to join a fellowship to encourage a supporting network to further their ministry together.



I have never seen such a large group of people get along as well as this group is. We could learn a lot from their mutual respect.



Demonstrated the water purification system .

4pm- conference over.



It's amazing to me, I think I have actually shook the hand of every single one of the 250 visiting pastors.

Their stories were amazing



After the pastors all left Satish came to get me and asked me to hang out upstairs.



Satish, Achula, Vijay and Prasad introduced us to Satish's father and brought Randy, Josh and I tea.

We sat up on the roof for two hours while they tried to teach us how to speak in Telugu while all the kids giggled .



Even the tea is good here, there was only one thing that was served to us on this trip so far that I haven't liked and that was a chicken burger with cole slaw. They didn't mention Cole slaw on the menu.



Transported on motorcycle again. They have awesome control of these things it is both fun and scary in the same breath.