cell groups

While we were watching our friend Nomi eat this afternoon guess what she found in her food mixed in with the meat........a dead little mouse. Me and Kate were happy with our decision 30 minutes earlier to skip the indian food and eat some cereal instead... poor little mouse. 

We have been attending cell groups/prayer meetings for the past two days, and they are so interesting. Yesterday we went with Attu and didn't really know what to expect. We all gathered in a small room (and when i say small, probably just a little bigger than your bathroom at home) and all of us was about 30 people, two men and the rest women and kids. We started by singing worship songs, and after that Kate and I shared for a little about ourselves, after that Attu spoke for a while. And then we ended the time by singing, and a lot of praying. And then today we went to the small group with mami (Daniel's mom) and Lolly (Daniel's sister) the house we went to was nice, and they had a dog!! Kate and I have decided that when we find the perfect puppy on the side of the road we are going to catch it and take it as our own and love it, and then give it to the family we are living with!! OK well back to the cell group, there was about fifteen women in the group and they started off singing as well, and then Kate and I spoke about what God has been teaching us while we have been over here. It was a really cool experience to talk to these women, and the prayer requests broke your heart.. I'll just mention one so you all can be praying for this ladies family too. Her family lives in Orissa which is where Pastor Daniel is originally from, it is another state in India. And this ladies sister's husband was at a church meeting, when a group came in and starting beating some of the members, they took him outside and cut off his arms and legs, and stuck him to a tree by a pole, all because of His belief in Christianity, he is still alive, thank the Lord. But there is so much persecution going on India against our brothers and sisters....We are so fortunate for our freedom in the U.S ...So please pray for that if you can..

Being here is teaching me so much, and even though i am only a little over 3 weeks in, i will forever be changed by what i have thus far experienced. 

Thank you for your continued prayers for Kate and I as we are starting to share our testimonies with these people, please pray that our words will touch their hearts, and lives forever... Although while we are teaching english, there is no way we will be able to give these kids all of the english language that they did to be able to communicate properly, i just hope that what we are able to give them, will help. 

 

Real Indian's

So FYI there is NO toilet paper in India. Seriously.. We had brought a couple rolls from home, but we ran out. And everywhere we go, does not sell toilet paper. So we are surviving on napkins from a fast food restaurant for now..

We were told today that now we can do anything here in India because we found our way to the bank and the office, they said that's all we need, money and people. hah. We are starting to venture out more on our own, which is pretty cool. We now take an auto rickshaw home from school each day and that is always a new experience. Today we crashed twice..but the ride's home never get old :) 

Everyone keeps telling me my blogs are too long (Matthew) so i will try and shorten them so my wonderful cousin Matthew can read them while he is in Africa!

I have gotten sick a couple of times now, so please if you can pray for our health and that the Lord will give us strength to keep on doing His work. 

"Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, i think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat."  MT

india india india

This is known as one of the most crowded places in the world

Kate and I in fron of India Gate a memorial for fallen world war 2 soldiers
Our room decorations
Some of the boys in our school (From left to right - Sankar,  Shiva, Prince, and Vishal)

In front of the Parliment houses
Kate and I inside a hole in the wall of a tomb of a King of India
This is the grave built for the King (the outside)
The outside of the mosque we went to
One of the kids in one of our schools

Inside another hole in the grave
Kate and Babu, Pastor Daniel's brother

Hi KYLE MARTIN RIGGOTT i added your name!!!!!!!!!!! because your special!!!

The thing about India that really amazes me is the lack of public physical touch between married couples, there is more contact between men with men, and women with women. As we walk down the streets men are always holding hands with other men, or something like that. To us it is so strange to see because of our culture back home. Someone even said that a husband would be much more ok with going to the bathroom on the side of the road rather than kiss his wife in public. You rarely see affection between man and woman. We are starting to really differentiate between our culture and the Indian culture. Tomorrow i think we are visiting our first temple after church, so that should be interesting. We were talking about how much devotion they have to their gods, if only we as Christians had that much devotion to our one amazing Father!!! They pray for hours on their hands and knees. I am sure i will be able to talk more about after tomorrow. Alright well now it is tomorrow night, i stopped writing yesterday and now i am writing again. Well we did go to a mosque today, two actually but only one that was still an active prayer site. It was a muslim mosque about 45 minutes in auto rickshaw from our church. Yes we rode an auto rickshaw those awesome green looking three wheeled golf carts that go insanely fast, and it was CRAZY!!!! The place were we went was supposably the most crowded place ever, and it was, i don't think i have ever seen so many people in my life. We also drove by the red fort which was so beautiful, but we didn't have time to go into it today, but i am sure we will soon..So at the mosque we had to walk up one billion stairs to get to this amazing building, it was breath taking. When we got up to the top we had to take off our shoes, and Kate and I had to put on this things i dont even know what to call them, pretty much like an old lady night gown with crazy patterns on it, and it covered our whole bodies except our heads. and we stuck out INSANELY alot, i am pretty sure everyone in there was laughing at us because we were the only ones in there wearing the crazy outfit. And then once we were inside, we tried to walk around but it didnt work out to well for us... we were like the center of attention..but we got to walk up and see the men praying, they were on their hands and knees bowing down to a wall and some were planting their faces on the ground. It was very interesting to see how they worship. After getting kicked out of that area by a very mean looking indian man, we tried to walk somewhere else and that did not go over very well either. So we basically got escorted out because it was prayer time and women are not allowed in there while prayers are going on. But we definitely were not ready for what was awaiting us as we walked outside. It was like we were celebrities, people had out their cameras, video cameras, screaming at us, grabbing us, trying to get out attention, it was OUT OF CONTROL.. i have no idea why they were doing it, but it was something else. While we were driving we saw some pretty heart wrenching scenes, i can't really even write about them it is much too graphic. 

Well Kate and I now have our own classrooms at the Kirby place school (the one deep in the slums) so we are getting used to have to entertain and teach the kids on our own, it is working out pretty well. I love teaching, it really is a rewarding job, and these kids want to learn and learn. We have been teaching them John 14:6 and in my class which is the 4th and 5th grade pretty much have it memorized. I try to do math and english games with the kids to encourage them to be excited about learning, and each day they are!!! In the other school that we are in we are pretty much BFF'S with all the kids, i am pretty sure they only come to school when they know we are coming. And some of the kids are so insanely smart it blows you away, while others struggle with just writing ABC. The state that some of the kids come to school in is insane, they are so dirty, and i am sure they havent bathed in weeks. Most days the teachers clean them up a little before letting them start learning, just because it is hard for them to concentrate in that state. We are really feeling like we are making a difference in these kids lives, so we know God has such an amazing plan for this time while we are over, and we are so excited to see how it unfolds!!

And mom, i ate tomatoes the other day, a bunch of them. Still don't like them though. But i am still trying :)

"Do not be rash with your mouth, and let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven, and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few, for a dream comes through much activity, and a fool's voice is known by his many words." Ecclesiastes 5:2-3

"It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great. You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn." Psalm 18:32

wedding

We experienced our first Indian wedding last night!! It was kind of a spur of the moment thing, but we put on our indian clothes, well tried to, and got in the car. We didn't actually go to the ceremony part of the wedding, we went to the groom's reception (the groom's mother goes to the church we are going to.)  A normal wedding sometimes lasts up to 7 days. They have all the before the wedding ceremonies like putting henna on the bride's hands and feet, and then they have the actual ceremony which normally takes place in their home state, and then they come back to Delhi for the receptions. The bride has one first, and then on another night the groom has his. We didn't get there until 9:30, but the party was just getting started. As we were walking in there were people dancing like CRAZY!!!! And the bride and groom had to sit and watch everything go on and take a bazillion pictures, neither of them looked very happy. The guy we were with said the bride has probably sat for seven days, they are not allowed to do anything but sit there. Doesn't seem very fun to me. After taking pictures with the bride and groom even though we didn't know them, we went into the back tent to eat, and the food was so spicy but good..! There were street kids who were sneaking in under the sides of the tent and trying to get some free food, the workers were trying to catch them and kick them out. But most of them got away with a good amount of food. As we were eating Kate and I started to hear some familiar music, they were playing reggaeton and 50 cent, but remix's of every song, so after hearing that we decided that we needed to join in on the dancing crazyness, and we did. We walked out onto the dance floor and everyone was watching us, probably thinking what are these white girls doing dressed in Indian clothes on the dance floor. But we made friends with these younger girls, and they taught us how to dance Indian! We had so much fun, it was an amazing experience. They had a video camera man and a photographer, and they were capturing all of our dance moves!!! Hah.

We are getting introduced to the idea of arranged marriage, it sounds like torture to me. The wedding we went to was an arranged one, and neither bride nor groom looked excited, we didn't see them even crack a smile. It is like getting married to a complete stranger...scary. Most families here marry their kids off at a very young age. I am so glad that we get the chance to chose who we want to spend the rest of our lives with... 

Before the wedding we had gone to church, which we were 45 minutes late to but the service still hadn't started yet. It reminded us of being in Africa and arriving 3 hours late to a college graduation and it still hadn't started. I guess that's how they do it in other countries!! :)  In church we got to see our first healing!!! It was amazing. 

Today we taught again at the Mahavier Enclave school, and we took the older kids, and in the classroom we had it was a small room but there was no lights, so we taught in complete darkness with the help of a small candle that burned out quickly and actually caught paper on fire (we almost burned down the whole place.) It was an interesting day...

valentines day

Slums

The first two pictures are of the school we taught at today; It was deep in the slums. The second two are of some kids in the other school we teach in. The next two are of Indian roads. The one with the two kids is on the side of the road, they were beggars but loved getting their picture taken. And the last one is our toilet!! It is in the ground, and pretty amazing. 

My heart broke today as we started driving deeper and deeper into the slums of India. The things we saw were unimaginable, the smells we smelt were repelling, and the state of the people living was completely unsanitary. And that is the only way of living they have ever known, i doubt they have ever even been given the chance to see how the Western world lives. We are so fortunate with everything that we have. As we walked through the piles of garbage, a goat watched us while eating a newspaper, people were huddled inside little huts/tents that were completely falling apart. They wore no shoes, and barely any clothes. And this is the other part of the world, that not many people know about, or even care to know. When we arrived at the school all of the children were outside sitting in lines with plates in front of them, if they go to school they are guaranteed a meal which may be the only thing they eat all day. After we were introduced to the kids, we got a tour of the school, there wasn't much there but there was a place for them to learn and a kitchen to make the food. They split the kids into two groups and Kate and I got one group. We started with ABC's and went on to writing out simple words, after that we went over numbers, and math problems. They knew so much less english than the other school, but our hindi is improving so we were able to somewhat communicate with them. They were so cute, and they just wanted to be loved. (I want to take them all home with me) I am so happy that we are here to help these kids, this may be their only opportunity to learn english, so i pray that God uses us in mighty ways. 

rain

It rained yesterday. It hasn't rained here in forever, but we got to see rain. All of the kids stayed outside and played in it, while Kate and I were locked out of our room and stayed huddled in the stair case. It got so cold too, so now we are pretty much freezing in our little room wearing lots of sweatshirts and layers of socks. 

Today we thought we were going to be working in the other school but ended up going to the first one, which was fine with us because we love the kids so much. Today there was almost a complete new group of kids, and only 4 of the older kids showed up (maybe because they thought we weren't coming today hah.) They are starting to open up alot more and feel more comfortable with us. I worked with this one boy on subtraction for a good hour, and he just wasn't getting it, but finally for some reason he got it!!! It was such a relief and he was so happy. These kids have nothing, they really do not have any opportunity in their lives, they probably will not go to school after they grow too old to attend the school we are teaching at. Most of the kids have many brothers and sisters, so once a child gets old enough the parents will send them to work in a factory or something like that to bring money home to support the younger kids. It is really sad because the kids have such potential, they just don't have the opportunity to get to use it. It really makes me think of how much i took getting an education for granted, the fact that my mom was able to stay home for most of my life and teach me was such a blessing. The condition the children are in just tears your heart apart, they are dirty and smelly and do not seem to have ever taken showers. But they are still as happy as can be. All of the kids call us didee which in hindi means close sister. After school we came back and watched hindi cartoons with the kids from the orphanage, it was funny to see the cartoons we normally see in english in hindi (like tom and jerry, and hannah montana) and then at 4 we helped  the kids with their homework and studying for tests, they are pretty good in english After that we sat and talked with the older girls and they were telling us about all of the movies they have watched from america in hindi, it was like all of them. We have just been trying to spend time with the girls because they have had a really hard life, and i think it is good for them to have someone to talk to who is only a little bit older than them. 

Well we just came back from dinner we ate around 10:30 pm, and we had goat!! It was actually really good. After dinner we sat and talked with Pastor Daniel, his wife Eunice, sister in law Isolet who we are living with, and Daniel's younger brother. They were telling us all about their weddings,it was so interesting. Over here weddings are so different than back at home.  They were saying how they normally last for 5 days, but sometimes go for 3 weeks. I can not wait until we get to experience one for ourselves. I think the next wedding coming up is on the 19th, and it is a hindu wedding, so the bride and groom ride in on horses. and also on the night of the wedding the husband gets to sleep in the bed while the wife has to sleep on the floor. (doesn't sound very fair to me) The family was telling me stories about my dad at a wedding while we was here, they explained it as a tall white man wearing a pink turban dancing on the streets like a crazy man, hah. we were all laughing so hard, for those of you who know my dad it is hard to imagine. 

 Matthew 16:24 "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."

"A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace." Mother Theresa

Please pray for me and Kate that we will be able to break through the communication barrier, and that we will stay healthy while we eat crazy indian food. 

Indian teachers

At the moment the noise coming in our window is prayer at one of the temples, they pray each day but normally at night, and the times change depending on the moon. It sounds like chanting and some singing, there are also different men saying different things at the same time.   This morning we had our first day of being Indian teachers in a slum school. It was an amazing experience, and i am excited for the months to come and to see the improvement in the kids. It was hard because of the language barrier, but as time goes on hopefully it will become easier. There was about 20 kids today, but not all of them were there. We split them into two groups, kate had the older ones and i was with the younger ones. We worked on the alphabet and numbers, all of the kids are good at writing the words or numbers, but when it comes to talking they have difficulty. After a while we brought the kids together and worked on conversational english, that was where we had a hard time. But today after we got home Kate and I sat for a couple hours and learnt hindi, we now know the basic words and hopefully will be able to communicate better tomorrow. We will be staying in this school monday, tuesday, and friday and then on the other two days going to another slum school and working there. The kids were absolutely gorgeous, they were really shy today, but i am sure that will change time goes on. The thing that i really love about India is the passion the people here have, they give everything their all without holding back. You can see in all that they do that put their whole heart into it, it is an amazing thing to see. And something i am striving to achieve in my every day life. As Americans i think it is so easy to just do a job half heartedly and be ok with it and not think anything of it. I struggle with it, but i want to have the passion that these people have. Also God is so real here, at home it is easy to get caught up in life and not fully depend on God (atleast for me) but here for most people their relationship with God is all they really have, all they have to look forward to. And they live their lives for Him and for no one else.  This is a quote by John Wesley that the family we are staying with has up on their wall.   "Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.” I think it sums up how the people are over here.  Oh and all the men here wear 70's style pants!!! It is so funny. Kate and I wished that all the men dressed like aladdin, but they don't :( oh well.

The picture above is of the kids in one of the slum schools Kate and I will be teaching in starting Monday!!

As i am writing this, i can hear so many different noises from our window. There are kids playing, dogs barking, people singing, music playing, horns honking, and pigeons making whatever noise pigeons make. The pigeons here are seriously on steroids, they are insanely huge. Oh and by the way when me and Kate get home we will be using the horns on our cars in excessive amounts. The driving here is crazy. that's the only word i can think of to describe it. There are way to many people/cars/bikes on the road at one time. And everyone tries to drive in the same lane. It is really scary actually. And while you all are home in the U.S you better be thankful when you are in traffic because it is nothing to what we are experiencing over here. To even go 5 minutes down the road it takes 30 minutes because of the traffic. You have cows, dogs, monkeys, people, motorcycles, little carts, and bicycles EVERYWHERE. I am honestly surprised that we have not gotten in a car accident yet. After being here i do not understand how people in America get into so many accidents, i mean in America we have lines, and normally the cars stay in the lines. Here, there are lines, but they pack 10 cars into the 3 lanes. Oh and there are no car seats here, the kids sit wherever in the car. And they even put new born babies on motorcycles being held in the mothers arms. and the mothers don't even sit with one leg on each side, they sit side saddle. It is scary to watch. The dust here is insane, Daniel was telling us yesterday that if you do not mop and sweep the floor for 2 days it will look like you have not done it for a month. Seriously the dust is everywhere. Me and kate hung out towels out on our windows to dry and a couple hours later we brought them in and they were covered in dust. Also the only time you ever feel clean is right after you take a shower, and even 5 minutes later you feel dirty again.

Yesterday we went and saw the India gate and the house of Parliment. The buildings are all so beautiful. The India gate is in memory of the fallen soldiers of world war 2. We also went to this market place where each state of India is represented, and there are different stands where you can buy things from the different states. Also different places you can eat. We tried momo's, which is daniel's brothers favorite food. Ah and the chili here, sooooo hot. We tried a tiny tiny bit, and it killed us. And the Indian's just shovel it in like its nothing. We also got our first encounter with the kids who beg, they followed us everywhere, we also saw one little boy who had his eyes gouged out (like in slumdog millionare ----which by the way we are going to see tonight!!! soooo excited) it was so sad.....it tears your heart apart. 

Today we had our first experience with an Indian church service. It was amazing how you could feel the spirit of God moving, Pastor Daniel did not speak because another Pastor who is traveling through India preached. He only spoke in Hindi so we had a translator but it was kind of difficult. His message was on the Glory of God. Everyone in the church was so nice to us, they had nothing but good things to say about my parents and how they wished they were here again. We dressed like real Indian women today, and got lots of compliments. Although the man we bought our dresses from tailored them a little small for both of us, we lived (barely, we could hardly breathe).

Tomorrow starts our work as teachers, but we may have the oppertunity to go to an Indian wedding in the valley, it is a 12 hour train ride. But is is snowing where we would go!!!!! I am kind of excited, and hope we can get the experience. Also to see snow in India will be awesome. 

Kate and I are still pretty jet lagged, at night we are wide awake which is the day for you all and then in the day here we are exhausted, we are trying to get our sleep pattern better but it is soo hard. We made a video of a tour of our apartment, but we cant get it to upload, so hopefully we can put it up soon for you all to see. 

India!!!

We are here, we made it. We had a good trip over here, the plane ride wasnt as bad as we thought it was going to be. We met a nice indian lady who sat next to us on the way to Delhi and she was telling us all about India, she kept saying i dont want to scare you but....and then would tell us something insane, like if you get in trouble do not go to the police. Once we arrived in New Delhi, we went through customs and got our bags easily. Daniel the pastor we are staying with was there waiting for us. It is amazing here, it is hard to explain in words. I took like hundreds of pictures but then somehow they all got deleted...ah. but i started taking more today. The apartment we are staying in is nice. We shower with a bucket that we fill with water and then use a cup to pour the water over our heads, the toilet is a hole in the ground but it flushes so that is good. It is so loud at all times of the day, there is never a quiet moment. We got to meet the girls from the orphanage this morning. we were supposed to meet them last night but kate and i ended up falling asleep at 6pm and not waking up until this morning. Today we had a tour around the city, it was really amazing. There is so much to see, and there are so many people everywhere you go. 

I am so excited to see what God has in store for us in these next couple months but we already miss home alot.