Monday was a beautiful day in Narsapur. The sun was shining, everyone was smiling, and the SFT workshop was underway.
Many preachers had come from a long way to attend this workshop.
Prabhu Doss started out the day translating for Gary because Moses, the man who met us at the airport, had not arrived yet.
Jyothsna watching over me! My little angel!
I'm sure we're talking about something very important here. If you don't know, we're pretty serious people. I'm sure I'm not asking Gary if I have a booger on my face or something, however, if I am that might explaing Moses's face : ) JK!!
On the right of us is Moses. He has been to the states several times and has great English. He even says y'all!! When he met us at the airport we were excited to hear that from him because we hadn't heard that word from anyone in a while (well besides the people I worked with from Nashville).
Jyothsna gave me my garland.
Moses was able to translate for the 2nd part of the morning session then he left. He drove about 7 hours to see us for a little over an hour. Now that's dedication!
I can't remember the guy on the right's name, but that's Moses in the middle before he left.
Check out all of those preachers!!
These are the pots they would cook in to feed all the people. They're HUGE!!
Gary and I weren't able to bring very many copies of the worksheets with us as we needed throughout the week, so Teja did have to run to make copies several times. By the afternoon session on Monday, however, Dharma remembered he had this big blow up of the pain processing sheet that went every where with us the rest of the week. Good thing Dharma's got our back!
This is Harnath Baba. He is actually a Hindu, but he came to the workshop to meet us. He helped Dharma build his house/church building. Dharma didn't have enough money to finish so Harnath just loned the money to him. He is a great man and we loved getting to know him and spend time with him.
I think here he is telling me that his daughter lives in Texas. I told him he needed to come to Tennessee and visit us next time he is in America!!
These are just a few of the preachers. There are several more that we couldn't fit in the picture.
Us with Dharma and Harnath Baba.
We have so many pictures of us with preachers. I wish I knew each of them by name, but it was only our first visit so hopefully it won't be the last time we see these guys.
Later that evening Pandu hung out with us for a little while. Even though we didn't understand what each other was sayin we still had fun together:
She kept eyeing the flower that was in my hair so I took it out. I was teaching her to smell the flower and to put it to my nose so I could smell. It was so cute so I went and grabbed Jyothsna to take our picture and then she was just acting silly. The pics are really cute anyway! Not really this one, but...
She was sticking the flower up my nose! HA!
This one is pretty cute, but fuzzy or something.
I love this one! It's sooo sweet!!
Once again fuzzy : (.
I love to play the "face game" with kids. Normally they understand me though so this was a little bit of challenge. I say a face to make (ex. surprised) and then show them and they make one. With older kids I just say the face and we have to make what we think of the face at the same time. It took a few silly faces from me to finally get her to make one.
You can't really tell, but she is making her surprised face!! So cute!!
That whole week I called her my girl. I would always ask Jyothsna where my girl was!
That night I also got a tour of the neighborhood, not on purpose might I add. We were going to Harnath Baba's house and I wanted to take Pandu home first. I walk out to the street, not knowing where I'm going, and some of the girls I had met earlier that week saw me and wanted me to come see their houses. I couldn't turn them down and they told me they were just up the road. Well, we walked and walked and walked. They told me who lived in every house on the way (how many of us can do that? I know I can't even tell you who lives 2 doors down from me. I know more people in my parent's neighborhodd than my own). Anyway, so we finally made it to this girls house and she just loved that I was there. She showed me her room, her parent's room, and was just so excited!! Jyothsna came and found me and said everyone was leaving while I was in the middle of my tour, so we had to cut it short. But it was so sweet of her to let me come and see her house! P.S. Pandu's house actually ended up being practically right across the street from Dharma's house. HA!
We went to Harnath Baba's house and Dharma wanted him to show us the IOU's he had for the money Dharma owed him. There were so many of them!!! However, Harnath is not pushy or concerned about Dharma paying him back. He has faith that when Dharma has the money he will do it. He knows that the building is being used for good. Like I said earlier, Harnath Baba is an amazing man!!! We were also able to meet one of his daughters while we were at his house. She is a lecturer at a college so we were able to speak English with her pretty well. We saw many pictures of his daughter that is in America. He actually has a wedding book that is very similar to our storybook type wedding albums that are popular in the states right now. He is supposed to be going to visit his daughter in Texas sometime next year and maybe he will be able to make it up to Tennessee so we can see him again!
When we got back home we had our dinner and then Teja wanted to give a gift to Gary.
INDIAN NAVY!! Teja is in the Navy and had this track suit that he just gave to Gary. Gary hasn't worn it yet because it's too hot here, but I think it's going to be his "going home to the states" outfit since it will be cold when we go home and that's the closest thing Gary now has to warm.
Teja decided he needed to turn around like Gary ; ).
Aren't they so cute!!
Later that night we were going up to our room for bed, as we passed the 2nd level this is what we saw.
Many of preachers just spent the night right where the workshop was happening. Now I can say that I have spent the night at a church building before and slept on a hard ground, but I'm not exactly sure that I could say I would be able to do that at some of these men's age and be able to walk the next morning. I wish that they could have all fit in our bedroom so they wouldn't have to sleep on that hard ground. They are so dedicated!
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