Day 8

Namaste,

In the last two days it has pretty much rained the whole time, this is the joy of the monsoon season! The last couple of days have been interesting as the team have got over the high of arriving in Goa and are relying on God's strength to get them through the day.

At 8:45 we get picked up in a bright yellow bus by a guy called Lucky - what an awesome name - and we travel the short but memorable journey to the small boys home. As you drive down the hill supposedly on the left side of the road you are fixated on the colourful houses surrounded by cows, stray dogs and litter all over the floor.

Yesterday was the day that we finished painting a room in the small boys home. We also realised that the consequences of getting paint all over the floor was that we had to get down on our hands and knees and scrub the worst of it off!

In the evening we went and joined the worship team as we rehearsed for the service on Sunday morning. As we walked through the door of a small room cluttered with instruments and cables we were immediately struck by how hot it already was.

Then we plugged our instruments in and began to make some noise the stench of smelly boys (and maybe a few girls) became even more apparent. Though the smell was bad, it was incredible to join with worshippers from the other side of the world but yet still be united by one God.

Today we embarked on an adventure to a spice farm where we had a tour around 2 out of 150 acres of land and also had a bath on an elephant. This involved sitting on the elephant as it picked up water with its trunk, spraying it all over you.

As a team we would love you to pray for:
  - continued protection from sickness
  -  renewed energy
  - sleep
  - good quality time with the girls as we spend more time at their home.

We hope you are our well and we look forward to sharing with you again soon!

Love from the SMGoa team

Are men

Initial Thoughts

I'm really excited at the prospect of going on mission in the Summer of 2014. Since I experienced helping with my family at an orphanage in Kenya around 5 years ago, I have always wanted to go back and serve abroad. Up until now, I had not felt God calling me or asking me to take part in mission but since my confirmation, my relationship with Him has grown and after a lot of praying with family and friends, I really felt a strong sense that God could use me and I was so excited to be accepted as part of the team.

As well as growing my relationship with God throughout the mission, I am also really looking forward to serving the BLC and all the children it cares for. I am very excited at the thought of meeting the children and developing friendships with them throughout the time we are there and hope to maintain these whether that means using some kind of messaging system or just going back out to see them another year.

Although I am really looking forward to experiencing the different culture of India, I am also slightly daunted by the idea that I may not understand their culture fully enough and may accidentally come across as rude. When I was in Kenya I learnt about having put aside our response to cultural habits and see things from their perspective. However, to try and avoid this, I am going to do bit of research on the way they live and the differences in culture, as well as talking to past members of mission teams to see what advice they can offer me.

Last but not least, over the course of the next year and throughout our time in Goa, I look forward to developing relationships with the rest of the team. I know that we will be pushed to the mental and physical limits while we are in India and that we are going to need to be able to rely on each other for support and encouragement. I'm looking forward to praying and socialising together over the next few months before we leave.

I'm super pumped for this mission and am looking forward to get underway!

Dan