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That was pretty much all I heard the last two days
Two days ago, we went to visit a Pastor in a village that I can neither spell nor pronounce… Adam or Herb have it written down. We were the first American’s to visit their village. The kids were amazing. As soon as they figured out I had a camera they swarmed around calling out “One Please!” and pointing to themselves. Whenever I would try to take a picture of one, they would all crowd around him - usually until I couldn’t see the original kid anymore! Lets just say I didn’t get any rest
The village itself was very poor - its about what you would think of when you think of thatched huts. Very beautiful and very poor.

We spent that night and last light in Vijayawada and visited Pastor Emmanuel (Veer’s hilarious replacements as our translator) and his fathers’ churches yesterday. It being sunday they were having church services, so of course we went to them. Herb even got to get up and deliver a short message (well it would have been short except for the translating). It was a lot of fun to sing praise with them.

The kids at both of these churches apparently had friends at the last orphanage, because as soon as I brought out my camera cries of “One Please!” went up again.

This morning we went to visit a slum. This slum is situated on the river and actually floods about 7 feet every year during the rainy season. During this time its inhabitants have to relocate to bus stations and other areas. This area was very difficult. There were many many more kids than adults. It turns out that the main form of income in that area is from prostitution. Because of this many of the adults have HIV and die early, leaving the kids, most of whom also have HIV, to fend for themselves. We met a small family of 5 (4 kids and their father). The father works as a bicycle mechanic and the oldest daughter (about 6) works as a dishwasher in one of the bigger houses. Their house was about 5 feet hight - we stooping to go inside (not that we all fit). Two of the kids in their family had HIV as did the father. Its heart breaking to see them.

This afternoon we are going to anantapur to visit O’Palush.

I’ll write a again when I get a chance. Thanks to everyone who keeps up with us. It helps to know there are people back home reading.

Mike

It sure feels like we have been here a lot longer than the 6 days it actually has been.

Yesterday we visited the Pastor’s orphanage and school. He has 8 orphans and a school with 180 students. We brought the kids crickets bats and soccer balls.

Of course after bringing all these toys we just had to play with them. Yep I played my first game of cricket! Once you play it, its really not as incomprehensible as it seems.

The Pastor’s group of orphans are all boys. It was heart warming the way they swarmed (and I do mean swarmed) over the toys we brought. After we played with them for a while, they sang some songs for us and we did a couple of skits. After the skits we prayed for them and veer.

Right before we left all the orphans gathered around and prayed for us. There is nothing quite like having 8 orphans praying aloud simultaneously in hindi for you. You can’t tell what they are saying, but i think that just adds to it.

Today we are going to the Pastor’s school to hand out report cards to his kids. Its kind of a little publicity stunt for the school. As i said Veer has 180 kids enrolled at his school right now,. He has been praying for 1000 enrollments this year. Hopefully we can help (in our small way) to make that happen. He says that with 1000 enrollments he could easily support 20 orphans and his family without any uotside help.

Then this afternoon we are driving back to where we will be boarding a plane. It was 110 degrees in the sun yesterday. I can only imagine how hot it will be further south!

Thanks for you thoughts and prayers.

Mike

We went to a leper colony today. Its part of the Pastor’s ministry. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people absolutlely struggling to live. They barely had running water. Like women would stand for half an hour at a dripping faucet to fill a bucket with water. To solve their water problem they need to frill a deeper well, it would be guaranteed for the next 10 years. All it would take is 100,000 rupees or ~2,500 dollars. Its amazing how much of a differnce this (relatively) small amount of money would make to them.

Anyway they support themselves by making sheets and cloth. I bought a couple sheets from them. Beautiful stuff :). As a team I think we bought 105 sheets. We figure we can give them out to the orphangages as we travel around.

There was the most beautiful little girl there. I think the hardest thing I saw was this older lady with leprosy taking care of a perfect beautiful little girl.

On the way back the Pastor took us by some of the slums he ministers at. One set of slums run along this narrow track of land that follows a drainage ditch for sewage. The only way the people could wash their clothes was in the sewage water.

We walked through another slum and visited a free scholol the Pastor had there. As we left they rang the bell and about 50 kids started to pile into this tiny room.

As we were walking out there was a man with a mongoose doing tricks. It was a little disconcerting to be more interesting to the local kids than the talented mongoose

Well I’m off to dinner. Tomorrow we are driving to visit another orphange.

Mike

And no one is sick yet!

We had a wonderful time at the House. I can’t get over how energetic and happy the kids were. I guess kids are basically the same where ever you go.

At one point, one of the little girls got very sad during one of the prayer sessions. She missed her family terribly. As soon as the other kids saw something was wrong they swarmed around her and told her all sorts of wonderful things. Within an hour she was back on her feet with a smile on her face. It was amazing to me how the kids cared for their adopted brothers and sisters.

There were two other, longer term groups working there when we showed up. It was cool to hear them talk about their experiences and how they ended up here. No one’s story is boring

Yelp… I’m off - More later if we get a chance.