Christmas in India: Days One to Three

DAY ONE - THREE
Departure and travel

Heather:
The time leading up to our departure for the trip was very stressful for me. . I was so busy, I kept getting called into work, I was putting up Christmas decorations, I was packing, and picking up toiletries at the store, and getting leggings to go under the Indian clothes I would have to buy. I was running around like the proverbial Chicken with its head cut off.
It began to concern me that my focus was not in the right place for a trip to India. My focus was so deeply on the temporal when it should have been on the spiritual.

I bought a journal with my favorite Bible verse on the cover: Isaiah 40:31,"Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not be weary, they will walk and not be faint." And I started to document the time leading up to the trip, I wrote down my prayers for God to open my heart and to help me focus on what was truly important here. I am referring to this journal as I write these posts, as I kept it for the entire trip.

The night before the plane's departure I had a severe infection in my finger under the nail bed. My lovely boyfriend and traveling companion for the trip Mac had to take me to urgent care. I was so stressed, and I really felt as though Satan was putting something in the way of us doing something great for God. I was up late at Urgent Care, and I had to have my finger lanced several times, so when it came time to pack I was moving so slowly, and with one hand, that it took me all night. I was barely finished when Mac's family came to pick me up. And I didn't have time to clean up the mess I had made organizing everything into the bags! 

It's amazing how often the physical gets in the way of our focus being where it belongs.

We made it to the airport with just enough time, it was close and I was worried. My fears were instantly alleviated however, when our gate was the first one after security and the rendezvous with our team was almost ridiculously easy. I could tell I was going to like the people right off, they were kind and friendly. We boarded our first flight, to Amsterdam, scattered throughout the plane and settled in for a long ride. a 9 1/2 hour flight, the second equally long. Then, we thought, a short two-hour flight to Hyderabad and the super comfortable stay at the Hyderabad Westin.


Mackenzie:
I wasn’t sure what to expect from my travels to India.  The only thing running through my mind while on board the eight hour flight to Amsterdam was, “Oh crap, my foot's asleep again….” 

The fact that I was on my way to a foreign country, my first ever, hadn’t quite hit me yet.  When we landed in Amsterdam it still didn’t hit me.  We were welcomed warmly by security there and made our next flight without issue.  On the next flight I didn’t think about much at all.  I had been awake for 20 hours straight at this point so while Heather, my girlfriend and lovely traveling companion, watched movies, I watched the inside of my eyelids.  Riveting. 

We landed in Mumbai where the welcome was much different.  As soon as we walked off the plane, two soldiers were there to greet us with AK-47’s.  It was then that I began to understand just how bad things were over there.  The security measures they took continued to shock me throughout the trip.  We boarded another plane in Mumbai (Bombay) for northern India (we stopped in Bagdogra, then took another flight to Kolkata) where we drove five hours to stay in a Hotel on one of the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains.  

I was getting tired of the long rides on the terrible roads and had already fallen asleep multiple times throughout the bumpy mountain rides.. Having a wonderful girlfriend like Heather who usually lets me fall asleep on her shoulder  made me forget the cultural rules of India.  In india, even married couples cannot show any public affection, even holding hands is frowned upon. Heather and I set out to be very well behaved. But in the case of a car ride, it did not occur to us that leaning on her shoulder would be a problem. So it was nice being in a car with the pastor (the leader of Angel house ministries in India, since we cannot post his name for security reasons we are going to call him Pastor Paul) because he was used to how Americans interact.  Or so we thought.  

That night we opened up our first home. 


Heather: 
Our first home was at the top of what was basically the equivalent of three or four flights of stairs, and we had to climb in semi-darkness. The home was built on a small plateau into the side of one of the Himalayas, and my goodness did it have an incredible view. They pointed out the border to Nepal and the border to China to us. The border to Nepal was discernible by a cluster of lights, and the border to China was discernible by the absence of light, as it is not settled in that area.

The house was two stories, made of what in the US we would call white stucco, with open windows, and a long porch across both floors, although only the upper floor had a banister. There were exterior stairs to the top floor.

One of the members of our team, Phil was a 70-something year old who had come the year before. He had had a home built in honor of the memory of his wife. This year he was with us to dedicate the second floor of that home in honor of his parents. It was so sweet. Angel House puts up a banner at each house opening with a picture of those to whom the home is dedicated as well as a Bible verse of your choice and their name. They not only had the banner for his parents out, but they had also brought out the banner with his wife's picture on it. It was so beautiful.

First Phil spoke, it was so sweet when he broke down in tears and just embraced the kids because he was beyond words. 


Mackenzie: 
Twelve little girls and boys cheered as the ribbon was cut and their first home was officially open.  With this home came a set of parents, someone they could call mom and dad for the first time ever.  They were also given beds, and backpacks filled with school supplies and clothes.  These are also things they had never possessed before. The man dedicating their house, our team member Phil, had brought a stuffed animal for every single child. Heather talked, or rather gestured, the kids into giving her a high- five with the stuffed animal's hands, an idea which had clearly never occurred to them before. The joy in their eyes was inspiring.

The kids had been given the chance to choose their own stuffed animals, girls then boys, and it was nice to see no one bickered or griped, and even those who chose last seemed pleased with what they got. That kind of unselfishness is sometimes unseen in the US in children. 

The night seemed to be going perfectly for the Angel House team and these kids but when we left that night, I couldn’t help but feel like my efforts to make those kids feel welcome was not enough.  I dismissed the thought, as I assumed I was still recovering from the flight.  We went back to the hotel where the Himalayan foothills were glowing with the lights from the streets and houses.  We could see the border to Nepal on one side, and these lights stopped about three quarters up the hill to show the border of China, as they had no buildings in that area of their border.

I had fallen asleep on Heather’s shoulder on the way there, and back.  Unfortunately, so did Heather.  So when we returned to the hotel after dedicating that house, the Pastor was the one to wake us.  Neither Heather nor I figured it was a big deal, but the next day Pastor Paul was talking to Heather.  Just as I walked up to them I caught the pastor asking Heather where her husband was. Needless to say, I was flattered.  



Heather: 
But I was somewhere more in the school of concerned. We were loading up the car and he had been asking where my husband wanted the bag to go. I tried to clarify,  and said that he wasn't my husband, but I think he thought my no meant that that was not where the bag should go, because he promptly moved the bag to the other car. I was a little worried that Mac falling asleep on my shoulder had been a serious cultural faux pas. But thankfully throughout the trip this proved to not be a serious problem. Pastor Paul was used to Americans interacting and as long as we didn't slip up in a way that would be seen by those for whom we were supposed to be setting an example, he didn't mind.

Understand this was just accidentally falling asleep on one another's shoulder. Had our slip up been something more inappropriate, like a hug, the result may have been different.

When we woke in the morning, we met with some other Angels from one of the local angel houses. Phil (one of the members of our group) knew the woman who had dedicated the house, and had a letter from her and some gifts for the little kids. I had also brought hats a friend of my mother made for the kids in the mountains (where it gets pretty cold) and we handed them out. Unfortunately, we were short. Again we saw the gratitude kids had there. Even though not everyone got one, no one complained or talked about how it was unfair. But I felt really upset by this. I didn't want to hand them out if we didn't have enough, but one of the local pastors insisted. It worked out anyway because we gave them to the littlest kids first and I promised the kids that I would make some hats for them, and deliver them to the local pastor to deliver to them before the end of the trip. Thankfully I had yarn intended to go to Christmas gifts for my mother and my brother. I was sure they wouldn't mind getting late gifts considering the cause.The kids seemed even more cheered at that news.


Mackenzie:
A day later we made it to Hyderabad, following another 6 hour drive through manic roads in the mountains, another delicious Indian meal, and a flight from Kolkata to Hyderabad. The streets were filled with litter.  Bottles, cigarettes, and other trash, lined the roads.  To get rid of this, they bulldoze it into large piles or set it on fire because there is so much of it.  People would seemingly wander from one side of the street to the other and back.  Others began setting up their huts or tents for the night.  The entire time we were in Hyderabad, which would make up the remainder of the trip, I felt a sense of hopelessness. I couldn't help but feel that no matter how much work we put in here, it would never be enough to make a measurable difference.


Heather: 
My impression of the area was not quite so bleak as Mac's, perhaps since I had been in areas which were recovering from weather tragedies before (once in Hispaniola and once in Jamaica) that I could see that many of the people still seemed to find joy or satisfaction in their lives. People didn't seem quite so listless to me. But the living conditions were often still deplorable, and the dichotomy between how some people lived and how others lived was almost astonishingly severe. Regardless, this discovery did not render me hopeless, instead it inspired me to work harder and to do more to help.