It's been several days since you have last heard from us and for that I apologize. It's been a bit of a hectic week here in Tenali-land. Five out of 7 team members were feeling some degree of sick with a cold that was floating around. I am happy to report that we have mostly recovered and are back to our regular full schedule.
Monday was our first full scheduled work day during which we visited the Ashraya house on the Harvest India campus and helped with a quick job of counting and sorting some fabric. Tuesday we braved our first day of teaching English at the Harvest India Public School which was a bit of a crazy adventure...but served to teach us some valuable lessons. We spent much of the day observing classrooms and trying to gain some perspective on the teaching style, which proved to be incredibly difficult considering all the classes were taught mainly in the regional language here, Telugu. It was a great learning experience as it forced the team to come together to answer some tough questions about our expectations, limitations, and goals since none of us are really equipped as teachers, especially not as teachers to students with English as a very weak (at best) second language. Luckily though, some of our team members are passionate about teaching and hanging out with the kids at the public school so we know that God definitely has a place for us there. Please continue to pray for that specifically as we learn to navigate how to make it work and to best serve these kids and their dedicated teachers.
Wednesday was Republic Day here in India which is very much like Independence Day for the US. It is a national holiday celebrating India's formation as an independent republic (more specifically the induction of their constitution) after the British Raj finally vacated the country. It's a big deal here and is celebrated with a day off from work and school. The kids at the public school performed dances and drills, and played special games commemorating their independence. Our regularly scheduled work day was halted as we were invited to join in the festivities. Thursday was a much needed day of rest as we recovered from illness and laid low at home doing laundry and running some errands. Yesterday we ventured out to the site of the new church Harvest India is building on their campus (it's still early in its construction, pictures to come soon). This is potentially the site of the future church RockHarbor will help support Harvest India to plant so we are intentionally seeking time out each week to meet at the site and pray for an extended period of time. We met up with our Indian Residency Team members and all shared a time of devotions and prayer. It was a solid time of connection with them and a time to refocus on our goals and the big vision for the Residency program as we once again put into perspective the reason we are here. Today we had a bit more unscheduled time so we decided to walk to the downtown Tenali market to check out the surroundings and buy a couple of needed items. On the way there we heard extremely loud fireworks up ahead and as we came around a corner we saw a Hindu funeral procession coming down the street complete with drums, horns, bottle rockets, and a corpse on top of a car with the head fully exposed! It was quite a shock and a sight to behold, albeit really creepy...and Crystal was able to discreetly snap a quick picture of it. Welcome to the unpredictability that is India!
We have a very full and awesome schedule for the coming week so we will be sure to keep you better updated on the days ahead. We love and miss you all!
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| Here comes the corpse... |
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