Tidbits from India journey continued...

Day 4 (Sunday, 8/2/09): After a good nap yesterday afternoon & a good sleep last night, I think I am on India time. Hotel Devi Towers has a western-style bathroom, w/ flush toilets & somewhat of a shower--yeah! Our team divided into 2 groups, to go to 2 different churches in different villages. Our group consisted of Jenn Archer, Deb Thompson, John Baldwin, Dana Anglund & myself. Before church, 4 of us took a walk through part of Salem. Man, did we get a lot of stares & rubbernecking! People there are not used to seeing white people, so we attracted a lot of attention.

Today we got to travel by motorized rickshaw to get to church, again quite the experience. We went to the village of Thirumalagiri, to Pastor Job's church. There were about 80 people crowded into a small room, singing as we arrived & continuing to sing for another 30". They even had learned 2 songs in English for us, that we knew and could sing along to--that was so nice! We each had an opportunity to introduce ourselves, and give a short testimony.
Pastor Job The church service

It was Friendship Day, and after church we were mobbed by the children who tied these little bracelets around our wrists as gifts. One little girl didn't have any bracelets left, so she gave me what looked like a flattened marble. We were mobbed by children in the neighborhood as we went outside to wait for our ride back to the hotel. Most have never seen white people before and again, we attracted a lot of attention. They loved having their picture taken & then looking at their pictures via the digital camera--you would have thought you had given them the best present ever.

Back to the hotel for lunch...very hot & spicy food there, but good food.

In the evening, we all went back to the village of Thirumalagiri for a celebration service. The intent of the service was to invite the whole village to meet us, and to introduce that there would be a health camp the following 2 days, for anyone to attend. Members of the church put on a couple of skits, and a couple of song/dance routines by younger girls in the church, plus a short talk by Pastor Job. I swear we were treated like rock stars: people put flowers in our hair, everyone crowding around us & asking us our names, shaking our hands. You could not have been made to feel more welcome. Vanakum! (which means welcome in Tamil).