So I landed in India only to spend most of my first day at the airport waiting for friends to arrive. Around 11:00pm, as I stood waiting at the arrivals for my friends Olivia, Chelsea and Katy, I heard someone yell “Olivvvv…” at a girl coming out, I too thought could have been Olivia. I overheard this young girl talking to her male friend, and I went over to her and said, “Are you hear picking up three Americans?” She said, “I’m picking up four.” And I said, “I’m the fourth.” We laughed about it and I introduced myself to Erica and David, two young Indians with “anglo-names”, as they put it.

Finally, the girls came out and we went to our first of many fine American establishments that have found their way onto Indian soil—McDonald’s. I don’t know why I find myself in a McDonald’s after landing in these foreign countries, but I do. And more than once, it seems. After word they took us to our hotel in Northern Mumbai and we got some rest for the next day.

The next day, we met up with Jonathan, one of two brothers whose mother runs a school that teaches slum children. They teach the kids basics so that they can have a way to enter into the Indian school system, as there is no other way they would know the basics while living in the slums. This school is Christian and the parents know this, so we went in and I was asked to teach a Bible story. I told the kids about David and Goliath and got to act it out with one of the little boys. He was David with a slingshot and he knocked me down and killed me! Afterwards, the students sang a song in Hindi about David and Goliath. We then got to hear them sing a song to us, and then one of the girls later taught us the song. It was a great time hearing from the Joshua’s mom how they have been doing this school for 14 years now. Some of the kids have come back to thank them after they have graduated from school. It’s an amazing to hear that there are lives be changed, one by one, through education and Jesus.

You can see some of the photos of the kids in my other post.