Chennai.

Well hello again!

I think I said it in the last blog, but Merry Christmas everyone! Thank you for your comments to these entries, it makes me smile to go back and read them; I'll be sure to pass it along to the rest of the team.
John Uncle and I were up around 5am and took off from Trichy by about 6:30. 5am may seem early but at this rate, the girls are starting to get used to it because there is a Hindu call to worship right next door that starts at 4:55am every morning until about 7am. It's annoying mostly because it's disturbing to our spirits to hear this Hindu worship blasting through their sound system into our bedroom. However, it has been a precious reminder-a call to worship our God, the one true God-for us each morning. I think each of us have woke up praying against these spirits every morning so far. It's hard but wonderful at the same time.

So anyway, John Uncle and I are here in Chennai at his sister-in-law's (my "auntie") apartment. We went straight to the airport during our drive up and PRAISE GOD they gave me my luggage without fees or struggle! They are even going to reimburse John Uncle for our travel up to the city :)
The rest of the team went back to do a program at Pastor Ellis' church (which is the same church we went to on Christmas day-yesterday). This church was drastically different than Jesus Our Lord church. This was sort of the "mega church" of the area...in a wealthier part of town with over 200 satellite churches here in Tamil Nadu/Madras (state) as well as Kerala and another state. These 200 some churches have sprung up in only the last 2-4 years!! The Christmas program at that church was wonderful. Their children did songs, traditional tamilian dances, and skits. At the end, they brought in Santa Clause for the kids. Santa ended up pulling Kyle, Xan and Daniel up on stage to dance around. It was HYSTERICAL!! (Yes, we have video.) They were such good sports. Ang, Em and I were so relieved that it's improper for men to casually touch women here because that meant Santa couldn't pull us up there to dance!

Tonight, the girls are staying at John Uncle's apartment with his mother-in-law since the help at CLM are out of town for the holiday. I'm glad this worked out because "Peepie" (our most amazing help/co-administrator at CLM) wanted to go see her family in her home village and I wanted that so much for her as well since she has been doing more than enough for us since we've come.

My dad will be in town in a few hours!! So John Uncle and I are going to go pick him up and that's when we will start our journey back to Chennai once again. We will be meeting up with the rest of the team at Steven's orphanage which I am so excited about!

Thanks again for your love! Please continue in your prayers and fasting. We love you all :)