I'm back!

Doing his job, like many others - and took-tooks are in the background

the streets of Chennai (that girl is in her school uniform - can we change our school uniform? I want one like that!)

This is Indian traffic - at least I didn't have to drive in it!

some of the gorgeous kids we met at the Royal Kids place

Some of the awesome youth at the conference

Driving past people's shelter

there were a pack of them behind this one

Aussies!

I had an awesome time in India, especially with the Australian team (Chris, Jane, Buz and Tim) and all the other people we got to hang out with. That was the best part: having fun and being encouraged by all the people there from around the world. There were kids and youth from South Africa, Malaysia, Egypt, England, USA, Kenya, Mali, New Zealand, Cambodia, Jamaica and of course Australia - and there were adults from heaps more nations too. I even learned a few phrases in different languages, and we taught some people a few Australian phrases!

Indian culture was interesting ... the traffic is crazy, and there are heaps of trucks, motorbikes and took-tooks (spelling?? they're 3 wheeled yellow and green vehicles, kind of like taxis) and cows on the road. There are almost as many dogs as cows, and there are also monkeys, camels, and we saw 1 elephant! There's a lot of rubbish by the roads, and some people are incredibly poor. The hardest part was that there are a lot of beggars on the streets of India.

On the other end of the scale, God did some pretty amazing stuff while we were there ...

* God reminded me of how much I'm dependent on Him. In Australia, we're really rich and we have everything we need, (materially,) so it's easy to forget how much we need God. It was good to step out of that culture for a while, and remember that I need to rely on and trust only the Lord.

* The conference was really encouraging. There were so many people from everywhere, all
living for Christ, and it's always cool to see that. We had some pretty significant prayer times, praying for each other and different nations.

* One time, Buz and Tim got really sick, and they were lying on their beds in agony, and we prayed for them and a few minutes later they were talking and laughing and feeling heaps better! Another time Buz got really bad 'Delhi Belly', but she's better now. Thanks, God!

* I loved spending time with people - I got to catch up with some who I haven't seen for months or, in some cases, years, and others I met for the first time but got to know them. It was a really relaxed atmosphere, so it was easy to switch from "being spiritual" to joking around.

* The worship times in the conference were great. There's something special about standing in-between people from Malaysia and South Africa and Jamaica and England and Kenya and everywhere around the world, and all of us worshipping the one and only God.

* We got to go to the Royal Kids' Centre - it's a place where they take orphans and abused children and give them shelter, an education, food etc, and bring them to know Christ. It was great to meet kids there, even though they couldn't speak much English, and I couldn't speak any Tamil. We got to pray for a few of the kids, and my favourite bit was when one little girl said to me in broken English, (with hand actions to help me understand,): "Me, pray, you?" When I said yes, she put her hand on my shoulder and prayed for me. It was a string of Tamil, so I couldn't understand it, but it really impacted me.

After the conference in southern Chennai, the 5 of us Aussies travelled up north to New Delhi and Agra. We did a bit of sight-seeing, and spent some time just us. They're a great bunch!

The trip highlighted that as Psalm 139:9-10 says:

If I ride the wings of the morning,

-or the wings of an aeroplane =]

if I dwell by the farthest oceans,

-e.g. the Indian ocean :)

even there your hand will guide me,

and your strength will support me.

God definitely looked after me and gave me an awesome trip. And now I trust that He'll help me to settle back in to Australia - including the time difference, and the cold winter, compared to the heat and humidity of India! I already miss people from the conference HEAPS... but at least we had an awesome time together for a while.