March 1st

-Boarded the plane to London at 5:30pm

 

March 2nd

-Arrived in London at 7:30am. I watched the movie The Legend of Zorro on the way and supped on lasagna. We boarded the Madras plane at 9:20am

 

March 3rd

-We arrived in Madras at 1:00 am. We were met by pastors Samuel and Christudoss.

 

March 4th

- We stayed overnight at the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association). We woke up at around 8am. We had a breakfast that consisted of a flat egg, two slices of toast, a fluffy pancake like substance, and hot tea with milk and sugar. Pastor Christudoss came over at 10am and took us on a small sight seeing trip as we left Madras. We saw the chapel of St. Thomas where he is buried and took some pictures of that. We also got to go up to the Mount of St. Thomas and see where he was stabbed to death with a lance. At both these places, we had to remove our shoes as a sign of respect. They also had a lot of relics there, at the mount they had a piece of Thomas’ bones that you could see, that was put inside the Bleeding Cross, which is so named because it is reported to have bled on December 18th each year a few years back. The chapel also had a relic, this one was of the lance head which killed Thomas and a fragment of his bones imbedded in it. On the way to the chapel, we got to drive past what Christudoss said was the world’s second largest beach which has a garden type area next to it which houses all the national figures, such as Gandhi and the person who first fought for Indian independence from the British.

 

- We then left for Ambur around noon. We stopped at the Annamalayar Chettinadu a/c restaurant for lunch on the way. We ate a mutton briyani, in which lamb is mixed with rice; it is a little bit spicy. We also had Panner butter which is cheese curds mixed in a type of sauce, which is spread on tortilla type bread.  We also ate Naan which is onions mixed with tripe. All of this was served on a banana leaf. It all cost us 199.00 rupees. One US dollar is equal to 44 rupees. We arrived in Ambur around 5pm. We went to the church and dropped off the books and medical supplies we brought in the action packers with us. We then went to the hotel and had dinner with Pastor Christudoss and his wife around 9pm.

 

March 5th

            - We woke up around 6am and went down for breakfast. We had a breakfast of an egg omelet, toast with butter, corn flakes with hot milk and tea. We then were met by Christudoss at around 10am and went to the hearing church, named Zion Lutheran, where we participated in the worship service. This was different then a normal service in the US, based sole on the music, for music they used a slight beat and sang the tune instead of relying on a hymnal or a piano. Another way it differed was in communion, the pastor did everything, from putting the wafers on the person’s tongue to pouring the wine in their mouths. The articles used also differed, the wafers were thinner and dissolved faster, the challis was like the kind we use here, but had a spout at one end. A surprising thing was that the wine wasn’t in a regular wine bottle; rather they were in one liter water bottles. Dad did the sermon. At the end we received a shawl and a long necklace as their tradition to honor that we were there.

            - After the hearing church, we went to the deaf school. There we met the headmaster, Dr. Alexander, who told us about the school. It has 240 students, and of that 243 three are Christian, 11 Muslims, 229 Hindus. Surprisingly enough the parents have no problem with their kids learning in a Christian school, they do it for the good character it develops, that and the 100% employment rate it has. There again we got a shawl and instead of a necklace, we received a huge garland of white and purple flowers.

            - We then went to the hotel and rested for a while and then left for the deaf church around 7pm. We participated in worship there, with dad once again doing the sermon. Here we received something different; we got an “I love India” pin and a triad of two pink roses and one red one, which was wrapped in a garland of jasmine flowers.

 

March 6th

-         We woke up around 8am. We had a breakfast of Vada, which is like a rice donut, plain dosa, which is like a rice pancake, and idly, which is like a steamed rice ball. We then went over to the church and had the inauguration ceremony.  It was fun; they robed us in a huge flower garland again. We then began training, starting with baptism. We then went to lunch, which consisted of biriyani, a type of sauce with rice, baaji, a type of potato mixture, onions and we drank the mixture. We then went back to teaching, and had 2 tea breaks. We ended around 8pm and then went back to the hotel and rested for the night.