Last day!

Hey guys, this is going to be a quick one today as we are going to leave the YWCA in about 3 hours!
Todays events was a really nice way to finish such an amazing week, we got to have a lie in (which we were all glad to have) we then went to the humayun tombs, this is where the inspiration for the taj mahal was taken (not the lodi gardens as we previously said, sorry.)
Then we came back to have lunch and get all glammed up for the big do at Kanak Durga with the opening of the clinic, was a great time yet sad to say goodbye and i'm sure that the whole team will hold this experience close to their hearts!
We'd like to say a final thank you for all of your support! we were saying earlier that even though things might be tough or we may be feeling under the weather we know we have support back home which did help brighten our spirits!
Please pray for Sarah and Chelsey as they have come down with the viral bug that seems to be coming round and that they have a comfortable journey home. Also pray for libby as she's still not top notch but is feeling slightly better. Before we forget please pray for a safe journey home.
Thanks again! God bless team two!

day 7

As day 7 draws to a close, the end is most definately in sight for the st stephens delhi experience!

We started off after brekkie and the morning meeting touching up a few paint bits in the slum that hadnt been finished and painted some furniture but there wasnt that much to do really except enjoy the sun and chat! Nick has made friends with the general Asha handyman Simon and they were on the roof all morning, supposedly working but mostly chatting and drinking tea!Then once they were ready for us we salwar kameezed up and went off in two teams for a prayer walk round the slum. We can only speak from one teams experience but the others seemed to have a similar one. We went into the women's homes and they told us what they wanted prayer for, sometimes sickness or often for their kids to get an education or do well in their current one. they are not always Christian, mostly Hindu I believe, but it is very spiritual all round i think, there was a really sense of the Holy spirit going with us and before us. In one house we got accosted and stayed for half an hour drinking chai, and they gave us biscuits which we couldnt refuse but equally couldnt eat, and so all came up spontaneously with ingenious ways to hide them! among these were camera case, trousers, hiding it under a cup and sneaking it back onto the plate! the women are all so kind and eager to share what little they have, it is such a privelege to pray for them.

after lunch on the sunny and newly mint-green stairs we started on the kids! liz and ruth revealed how good at being teachers they are when they taught all of us and loads of Indian kids some english songs with few words but lots of actions! we were all a bit exhausted by the end of the hokey kokey but the kids loved it all. after that we sort of split off. the boys got a cricket game going which the girls could not join in with and so they took Hannah and Geni off dancing and wouldnt let us stop! they are all very good dancers and we looked so silly doing bangra with them but it was fun. other activities involved making bead bracelets and face-painting, and as the team sat on the mats they were absolutely mobbed! the children loved every second of it and barely let us stop at the end. It was a great time in the sun, so joyful and happy, and just for us to be touching these kids is breaking barriers of discrimination because rich people in India never would, so they grow up thinking they are inferior which is not a good start for trying to equip them to improve their standard of living.

after a couple of hours chilling at the hostel we have just been for a great meal and got back in auto rickshaws that were great fun with slightly emptier streets! like a roller coaster or bumper cars. and haggling the prices is fun too. Debbie and Jane, and Nick and Liz in two separate rickshaws both just got hijacked and abducted and taken off to the wrong place and eventually got back after about half an hour of visiting wrong places first! Their adventure involved going the wrong way round a roundabout (nothing special for India but they were all terrified!) and have just come into the internet cafe to tell us to stop worrying, they are back safely, when actually we were completely oblivious to their disappearance!

Libby is still very unwell, basically there is a virus sweeping Delhi that is getting everybody sick, the offices etc are all half empty, an epidemic type thing, and she has sadly got it and so hasnt been seen all day. Please pray for her speedy recovery, as she would love to go to the inaugration party tomorrow and definately needs to be a lot better to fly. The rest of us are all feeling a bit weird with various sniffles or ailments and I think everybody has what we have coined GBT, or general bodily turmoil. Tomorrow is the inaugration party where we unvail the clinic properly and it should be a great event, please pray for that.

Thank you so much for the support, this is quite likely to be the last blog post as we leave tomorrow evening, so if you have been faithfully reading them and praying, thank you SO MUCH, we cannot emphasise enough how much we appreciate it, without prayer support from home and knowing God is with us every step of the way we would all feel massively lost and insignificant in the face of so much need and the constant threat of sickness etc, but it has been an incredible, lifechanging experience and we have all been having a great time most of the time, and it has been a real privelege to come. So thank you so much for making it all possible!

We want bangers and mash!!! (Day 6)

We are all having a great time bonding out here, and mark and libby seem to be recovering well with the help of antibiotics but still not top notch, we had a full van today for the first time in two days! yay! but do please keep praying, it is very much appreciated!

However the cravings are now kicking in, few of the adults (Nick in particular) are wanting gin&tonic, and every one else are craving bangers and mash with a load of veggies on the side (so we'd like it on the doorstep when we return please! thank you!)

Today was another great day, hottest so far we think! we have finished murals and have started outside the building, few of us decided to have a minor paint fight while the Indians stood round and watched with horror and mild amusement, we were covered in mint green paint. Not such a good day to do it on because as soon as we had called a truce we had to wash off the paint so we looked slightly presentable to the Deputy high commissioner's wife. It was still a laugh.

On the more not so pleasant side of things, at the beginning of the week we thought we'd have a hole in the ground as the toilet but pleasantly surprised that it was a sit down one. However e didn't realise where it went. we found out today that it just goes through a pipe to outside on the ground, pleasant eh?! this is also where the people who live in the slum, go to the toilet as well, they sit of the rubble of the broken down toilets (we found that a tad ironic!)

After the high commission where we told them about Asha and we met another english team. Was a beautiful late afternoon, with cucumber sanwiches and scones! Their garden was huge! we reckon that we could fit a whole slum in there. She was a lovely lady (her name was Wendy). It was also lovely to have a bit of quiet and clean grass. We then went to another market where no one would follow you round getting you to buy stuff, you had to actually pay to get in, it was lovely!

We've just had dinner at the YWCA, so now we're rather full and tired! A day playing with the children is i store for us tomorrow will be a great time to show that they're equals and we're all loved by God as his children!

Thanks again for the support and keep the prayers rolling!

DAY 5

DAY 5

Hello from Team 2 on day 5!

First things first, we have been hearing that David doesn't believe Ruth is here. Well David, your sister is here and working hard and doing great :)

Today was totally different from yesterday. Wheras yesterday after most of the day painting we went to Zhakira which is much worse than Kanak Durga, having had less Asha-ing, today after painting we went to Ekta Vihar which was the first one Asha went in to and it is amazing in there.

But backtracking a bit, the clinic is looking great! the dinosaur room is all but finished, the fish are nearly there and the rest of the walls are already looking bright and colourful and clean. everybody that saw the clinic before it was cleaned up for us to work in said that it was a very dank and depressing place, but its certainly not any more! we have loads of mad cartoony dinosaurs and beautiful intricate fish surrounded by bubbles. we are being very well looked after by the CHVs of the slum, every day they make us chai (YUMMY!) and then later on we have a diet coke break, and if we don't stop work and drink it we get in trouble. There is one lady in particular who is very strict at making sure we have a good break, so everyone drops their brushes when she comes by and hastily picks up their cans! they are fantastic women, so empowered and inspirational. the kids were teaching geni hannah and liz how to do the bangra dancing as well! which was funny, us trying to copy them, getting it all wrong in our old clothes covered in paint and them doing it so fast ad looking amazing!

after that we changed into our salwar kameezes and hopped on the bus to ekta vihar where we went to their clinic for another welcome, with flower necklaces again, and a talk about what the slum was like before and what it was now, hearing from the women and kids. asha has improved it SO MUCH! it used to be horrible, typical slum before intervention, dirty, unhealthy, disease ridden, sewage everywhere, no kids in school, men drunk all day n women too scared to come out of their houses type thing, we hear the same from every slum, but now its not even classed as a slum any more, but a colony! the most advanced one, ekta vihar women now own their land, so they cant be demolished (a constant fear for the other slums) the houses are all in the womens names to stop their husbands throwing them out for another woman. (charming!) they are small houses with two floors, stunning compared to slum huts. hearing them talk, so confident and organised and empowered. after all being a bit depressed yesterday seeing how bad zhakira is, ekta vihar was a big encouragement because thats what the future holds for the other slums!

after all the talking, the kids all started singing to a small piano thingy and a drum and first one girl started dancing then they all pulled us up out of our seats and we all started dancing! michael and jez included, we were all shaking our booties and doign all the indian hand wiggles etc. it was fantastic! so much fun, and the kids all loved it.

after a quick turn around into fancier salwar kameezes we went out (looking gorgeous all!) for a posh meal with Freddie and Dr Kiran Martin, which was amazing! so much great food, we are all absolutely stuffed now! the rest of the team are now in bed in fact in a foody stupor.

nicks hand is healing fine, jez is now fine on antibiotics and mark is feeling a lot better, he has a nasty bacterial thingy but has also got some antibiotics, he came out with us this eve. it was nice to see him again! however, libby has now fallen ill and so we are in great need of prayer for her.

and all of us, it is only gods strength that keeps us going in the face of SO MUCH, so lots of prayer please!

if you have any questions or comments please leave them, it would be great to see some response!

god bless you all too!

p.s. prepare to hear a LOT of us going on and on about our experiences when we get back!

xxx

Day 4...

Oh my word! (this is definately todays phrase used by the whole team!)
We carried on with the painting again, having loads of fun and getting really excited seeing the room transform from boring white walls to either lots of dinosaurs or fish or even block colours on the hall way of the clinic. They're looking fab!

However we realised today, how much we actually have left to do! we still need to do another room AND the whole of the outside of the clinic...that's alot of painting. We also had two minor accidents today, one of the sinks in a room where we are painting it pink, fell while Liz lent on it very lightly so it gave everyone a bit of a fright who were in the other rooms so were worried if she was hurt..LUCKILY she didn't get hurt at all! However while Nick picked up some pieces of the sink, he cut his hand quite deeply and seems to causing a few problems. We've had it checked though and it seems to be alright, just in an awkward place for it to heal quickly.

Also two of our members (Jez and Mark) had to stay at the YWCA, with flu like illness and very upset stomachs! So alot of prayer would be mostly appreciated for them and that they'd get better soon so they don't miss too much!

Today we also visited another slum called Zakirah. This is the slum where last year's team worked at, you can see how grubby it actually gets in just one year! Asha have only been there for about four years now, so the difference between the slum we're working in (Kanak Durgah) and Zakirah, is mind blowing! Alot of the team found this hard and it really hit home what these people don't have and what we're lcuky to have; a proper sewage system, clean water, proper houses, everything we take for granted every day!

The houses were even smaller than the ones we described before, i bet the room your sitting in right now reading this is alot bigger than some of the rooms we went in today. They were about 1x2metre big, and they still slept a whole family! There was also a train track running right by this slum and we were told before Asha came alot of the people were getting hurt and even loosing limbs. The women's attitudes still amaze us, even though they are wearing dirty clothing, fly's every where, tiny houses that were dark, damp and dirty they still greeted us with warm smiles and food (alot of it!). in the middle of the tiny lanes (about 2ft wide) there were pillars with a dangerous amount of electrical wires running everywhere, was scary going anywhere near it.

So as you can see, today was emotionally and physically draining, this means alot of prayer for us please! We are visiting another slum tomorrow so alot of strength will be needed. Please also pray for our stomachs and our health, it's starting to cause a few problems but we are staying strong!
Thank you for all the support so far, God bless and we'll report back tomorrow!

day 3

day 3

hello from team two at the end of day #3! today we started the painting, we decided on an under the sea theme in one room and dinosaurs in another. We were all so driven that we've got loads done already; 2 bass coats, another layer for hills AND plenty of dinosaurs in just one day! Fish were bright and colourful, both rooms look gorgeous already and we can't wait to do even more. The children were very helpful too, although decided to go over our green hills with a bit of purple..woops!

at the end of the afternoon, 5 of us and two interpreters went for a prayer walk through the slum to a few houses where the people had requested a prayer visit. we only went to four houses but were so moved and exhausted by the end, the stories were so sad and yet encouraging. one woman's husband had just passed away of TB last month and she had no family or anything and wanted us to pray for her, and then when we'd finished also mentioned that she had cancer, as if it wasn't really a big deal and most of all she just missed her husband. there was antoher old woman who 4 months ago had got hit by a car in a hit-n-run (not surprising really - you should see the driving - im surprised there are many Indians left!) and had fractured her shoulder which had healed but also her leg and she was supposed to go in to hospital every month to have the metal thing sticking out of her leg cleaned up and stuff but she couldn't afford to go, and was totally bed bound in a house that literally had room for a tiny mattress that only just fitted her minute frame and about 2 shelves and that was it. i dont think there were any windows either, and thats where she has been for the last 4 months. we prayed for them for a bit, and recieved some pictures for some of the women which was encouraging, which were then translated and told to them. a really encouraging family was one where the woman was a christian and every friday and saturday held a prayer meeting in her tiny room and wanted to grow closer to Jesus and also to educate her kids. but that was really encouraging, to see God working and spreading His light in this place. The whole thing was a really spiritual experience and even though they didn't know what we were saying, the women were really greatful.

After that we visited a massive emporium for gifty bits, and now off to dinner. health seems to be deteriorating a bit all round, most people will grumble about something or other if you ask them, so lots of prayer for physical strength please! As we have only just started our real work here.

God Bless

Day 2...Sightseeing & shopping

Well where do we start...
Today we had a day of tourism although we haven't actually done that much yet. Firstly we looked at a monument of the march with Ghandi, with lots of posing and copying the statues to make the pictures all the more interesting.
We then went to the president's palace with lots of things surrounding it. It was beautiful! There was a huge arch (we have forgotten the name of these places so we shall get someone to fill you (and us!) in, for the next blog! The architecture on the building was a real mixture; British, European topped with an Indian twist. In the van more animals were seen especially monkeys...although Nick had trouble spotting them, so he got very excited when he eventually saw one!
Afterwards we went to the gardens with buildings that Inspiration had been taken from to build the Taj Mahal! Was beautiful, the Indian version of kew Gardens but better!
After a spot of lunch (In TGI Fridays!) we went to a market. My Gosh we've never experienced such a busy, crowded market ever before! Us women spent just over an hour choosing Salwar Kameez's each while the men looked around the rest of the market. Some found it quite hard with the beggars and people selling stuff in the street (the kids are so persistant), but we all got through and ended up having to restrain ourselves from buying anymore Salwar Kameez's. The choices were just overwhelming, think of any colour with any pattern and it would be there!
Such colourful, bold surroundings, London seems a little dull after while.

Tomorrow we're off to start the painting in the clinic, even though we are already very tired, we are raring to go! So prayer would be appraciated very much for a good nights sleep as some of us aren't getting enough due to very uncomfortable matresses and just generally can't sleep. Strength also as we spend our first full day of 5, that will hopefully transform some part of their lives! God bless and we shall report back tomorrow with lots more exciting news.