India journal writings - Sept. 3, 2012

As promised to some out of town family and friends - I'm going a bit back in time to cover our trip in a series I'll call India journal writings, in date order.  God is at work in all things and it's neat for us, even now to look back and see all the miracles. 

September 3, 2012
We left yesterday with great excitement to enter into this amazing adventure.  We were so excited to get the bags checked and get onto that first airplane :)  Here in the jetway getting ready to board the plane.

We arrived in Mumbai, India what we realized was a day earlier than we expected. Slight panic on the airplane because all we ever talked about was arriving on Tuesday and getting Anjali on Wednesday…so to discover it was actually Monday evening – and we were in India – we questioned each other on whether we thought we’d have a hotel booked for the night. A bit of panic set in.
We got through the airport seamlessly and all our bags arrived, we exchanged money and prayed we’d find a hotel driver holding our name on a sign. Problem is… the location where drivers were waiting is OUTSIDE the airport … and our last chance for a pre-paid tax (if we needed one) was just INSIDE the airport doors. And of course, guess what…once you are OUT you can’t go back IN! I looked out the door the best I could only to see tons of drivers holding signs… it was like the “red carpet” of Hollywood – everyone waiting to see someone…and I couldn't read all the signs from this view. I told Brad, it’s a step of faith – through this entire process JOH has been on top of it in ALL our arrangements, details, etc. They had our flight info. they must have booked us a room for Monday night, right?

I felt incredible peace as we stepped through that last door into the unknown as we began to search for our name… this would be our first step of faith in this journey. As we walked the line, name after name, we finally saw Mr. and Mrs. Blunt – and we were joyful. So happy to see that once again our God provides and JOH is on their toes :)

Brad told our driver we wanted to get a cell phone (we left all our phones at home…. this will be important later in our trip…make note :)  ) The driver said, “yes” and then proceeded to walk us to his car …. Passing by all the various kiosks. I’m reminded that like Kenya, the people say, “yes” when they don’t want to disappoint you and also when they don’t understand you….. we left the airport without a phone.

India traffic lives up to it’s claim. It is crazy no doubt. Cars are tiny, the little motorcars on 3 wheels are everywhere (these are the ones in last year’s season of Amazing Race). Brad and I feel like this journey is our great amazing race… a trip and adventure of a life time. Similar to Kenya there are people walking everywhere and there are cars inches away from hitting each other and street vendors with colorful signs selling all kinds of things…but we clearly notice the products for sale are mostly necessities. India is colorful.

It’s monsoon season so it has rained every day. The street people and homeless are dirty and some even sitting in rain mud puddles – babies in a make shift tent under the overpass run naked as hundreds of cars pass by locked in traffic. It’s amazing how these babies know to stay close to the tent and their momma.

We arrived at our hotel Monday night around 10 pm and soon got a call from Meenal – she’s our Mumbai contact. She said we could go to Bal Asha on Tuesday instead of Wednesday – that proved in the end to be a blessing to have an extra day before flying to New Delhi. Brad and I looked at each other with great excitement of knowing we’d be meeting our daughter the very next day.

Our hotel in Mumbai became a safe sanctuary from the busy streets of Mumbai - plus it was really nice - but most importantly, the people there -- know how to love - they were AMAZING and became our local family.  More on them later :)