Someone recently described Indian culture as being the most opposite to American culture therefore creating culture shock more intensely. I knew in my mind that this was probably true but experience has now proved it.
Some of you may remember our dear friend, Paul Moses who we will visit in Chennai in a couple weeks. He taught “cultural studies” at ISLS in South Africa. During his training he spoke about the inevitability of culture shock and that one goes through 4 stages: romance, reaction, recognition, & resolution. I think that our experience of traveling the past 3 months has broken us into culture shock pushing us through the romance stage rather quickly.
In the first week of this new segment of our mission adventure we spent in Kalyan, a suburb of Mumbai (Bombay). We experienced several of the components to the second stage of culture shock, the “reaction” stage, according to Paul Moses: growing sensitivity, daily activities seeming to be huge obstacles, and even a bit of a desire to cling to our own cultural comforts. It has made me even more thankful to be sharing this experience with Hope. Instead of harboring irritation or avoiding the obstacles, we encourage and support each other to stay positive. Once again we seem to balance each other.
The food, on the other hand, hasn’t been a shock but a welcomed change with it’s abundance of spices. We’re especially the home cooking of our host mother Gracey and our new friends Margaret Auntie and Gracey Auntie, Manju’s aunts.
We had an 18 hour lay over in Jo’burg on Sunday (23rd) which we spent with Hope’s Rotary exchange friend Tammy & her family. Tammy insisted on throwing us a traditional braai in celebration of our leaving and of Heritage Day – a South African public holiday. The next day Tammy joined us for a quick visit with Cecile, Andries, Anelia, Marisje and Cecile’s mom. It was a truly wonderful way to end our time in Africa.
We flew into Mumbai just after 1:00am early Tuesday morning, and thankfully we were greeted by Pastor Jose, his wife Gracey, and his 24-year-old daughter, Anitha. We only received confirmation about this on Saturday night, about 48 hours before. God’s lessons of trust continue.
Since Mumbai is India’s second most congested city with 120 million, it took us almost 1 ½ hours to drive to Kalyan. Even at night time on fairly desolate roads, our hired driver had to dodge the occasional truck, motorized rickshaw taxi, cow or dog (the later 2 considered deities and freely roaming everywhere). Needless to say, exhaustion overwhelmed us.
Over the next 6 days, the Jose family graciously hosted us. Some of the highlights of the week, beyond Gracey’s incredible cooking, included
visiting Pastor Joy & his family in Geetanagar (one of Mumbai’s slums), taking the local public transportation (trains, buses, & rickshaws),
picking out salvar cummis (traditional outfits) in order to blend even just slightly,
traveling to Pimpri (outside Pune) with a variety of new youth-worker friends for evangelism and fellowship, stopping by St. Mary’s (a type of mountain retreat) at the Lonavala “hill station” and Tiger Valley at the Khandala “hill station” on the way back from Pune,
worshiping with Pastor Jose’s “prayer fellowship” church (which meets in a very small apartment where he preaches in the doorway between 2 rooms),
leading recreational ministry with their youth group, and sharing 3 very special fellowship meals with our newly adopted family and sisters & brothers of faith (Manju’s family).
After a 28-hour train ride in the second class sleeper “bogie” (coach), we arrived in Kochi (Cochin) on Tuesday, October 2nd, Gandhi’s birthday—a public holiday. We are exhausted but relieved to be safe, sound, and hosted by new friends and members of God’s family.
Once again we’ve been pleasantly amazed at how God has prepared the way for us… this time by designing our first, independent train ride in India. We began with our hosts (Pastor Jose & nephew Josh) personally escorting us to our train’s platform. Then “God-incidently” we shared a compartment with 3 wonderful ladies, 1 of which just happened to be traveling to our same destination. After keeping us and our stuff safe through the night, God set up a divine appointment for us to be welcomed by a second-degree colleague of our old friend, Julie Walkup Bird — Rev. Sunder Jacob, Associate Pastor of Church of South India Immanuel.
I wonder how long it will take me to learn to trust that He will provide as we continue to seek His will.
The food, on the other hand, hasn’t been a shock but a welcomed change with it’s abundance of spices. We’re especially the home cooking of our host mother Gracey and our new friends Margaret Auntie and Gracey Auntie, Manju’s aunts.
We had an 18 hour lay over in Jo’burg on Sunday (23rd) which we spent with Hope’s Rotary exchange friend Tammy & her family. Tammy insisted on throwing us a traditional braai in celebration of our leaving and of Heritage Day – a South African public holiday. The next day Tammy joined us for a quick visit with Cecile, Andries, Anelia, Marisje and Cecile’s mom. It was a truly wonderful way to end our time in Africa.
We flew into Mumbai just after 1:00am early Tuesday morning, and thankfully we were greeted by Pastor Jose, his wife Gracey, and his 24-year-old daughter, Anitha. We only received confirmation about this on Saturday night, about 48 hours before. God’s lessons of trust continue. 
Since Mumbai is India’s second most congested city with 120 million, it took us almost 1 ½ hours to drive to Kalyan. Even at night time on fairly desolate roads, our hired driver had to dodge the occasional truck, motorized rickshaw taxi, cow or dog (the later 2 considered deities and freely roaming everywhere). Needless to say, exhaustion overwhelmed us.
Over the next 6 days, the Jose family graciously hosted us. Some of the highlights of the week, beyond Gracey’s incredible cooking, included 
visiting Pastor Joy & his family in Geetanagar (one of Mumbai’s slums), taking the local public transportation (trains, buses, & rickshaws), 
picking out salvar cummis (traditional outfits) in order to blend even just slightly, 
traveling to Pimpri (outside Pune) with a variety of new youth-worker friends for evangelism and fellowship, stopping by St. Mary’s (a type of mountain retreat) at the Lonavala “hill station” and Tiger Valley at the Khandala “hill station” on the way back from Pune, 
worshiping with Pastor Jose’s “prayer fellowship” church (which meets in a very small apartment where he preaches in the doorway between 2 rooms), 
leading recreational ministry with their youth group, and sharing 3 very special fellowship meals with our newly adopted family and sisters & brothers of faith (Manju’s family).
After a 28-hour train ride in the second class sleeper “bogie” (coach), we arrived in Kochi (Cochin) on Tuesday, October 2nd, Gandhi’s birthday—a public holiday. We are exhausted but relieved to be safe, sound, and hosted by new friends and members of God’s family.
Once again we’ve been pleasantly amazed at how God has prepared the way for us… this time by designing our first, independent train ride in India. We began with our hosts (Pastor Jose & nephew Josh) personally escorting us to our train’s platform. Then “God-incidently” we shared a compartment with 3 wonderful ladies, 1 of which just happened to be traveling to our same destination. After keeping us and our stuff safe through the night, God set up a divine appointment for us to be welcomed by a second-degree colleague of our old friend, Julie Walkup Bird — Rev. Sunder Jacob, Associate Pastor of Church of South India Immanuel.
I wonder how long it will take me to learn to trust that He will provide as we continue to seek His will.
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