Tuesday...

Monday will have to wait for its own post...

On Tuesday we ran a kids' camp, ate at Karim's, and visited a Sikh temple.

The first day of kids' camp went pretty well, even with a visiting rat, a vomiting child, buckets of rain, a power outage, and of course, miscommunication.  However, I think the kids had a good time and we learned a lot that we can use tomorrow at kids' camp.  All obstacles aside, our team did well painting faces, applying tattoos, telling the story of Peter walking on water, giving a hygiene lesson, singing songs (the Hokey Pokey needs some help, but you can ask Todd and Aimee about that...haha!), and playing games.  Today we are going to get feedback from the full-time children's staff; that should help it flow more smoothly and help us help them do what they need to do for these slum kids.

After the kids' camp, we took a few cars to Old Delhi to eat lunch at Karim's, touted as the best food in Asia!  It was pretty good, as Darren will tell you.  Cara found  the pit toilet at the restaurant, but no one else wanted to follow up on her discovery.

Next we visited a Sikh temple.  We had to cover our heads with bright orange bandanas and remove our shoes.  Our team walked through the temple and was even invited by one of the men to take pictures from the front.  We declined and walked on to see the temple's kitchen where copious amounts of food are prepared for the needy in the community.  We walked through a lot of dirty rain water, but we survived that, too.

After the Sikh temple we went to the Red Fort where the first Indian flag was raised.  We took a picture and left.  Unfortunately there was no time to explore.
Returning to our hotel, we had some down time before the girls headed to the Malakars' house to put together folders for our upcoming retreat.  The guys headed to the resource center for a forum on "hope" followed by dinner from one of the local restaurants, Ramble.  The girls joined the forum when we were done with the folders.
Tuesday was a trying day, but we made it through.  Look out for another post later concerning Monday's trip to the Taj Mahal and our plans for the rest of this week!

Hudson and Greg captured the rat, while Aimee stood on a chair and wanted nothing to do with it!

Hinduism...

First, a shout-out to Robin Lichtenstein!  The VBS materials worked great this afternoon!  Pictures to come!
Todd spoke on fear this morning to an appreciative audience.  Pictures were taken of him standing at the front, making his typical gestures during his speaking. ;)
After our meeting, we went to Peter and Heather's house for a lunch of Chinese food!  During lunch we spoke to a former Hindu about Hinduism, the main religion in India.

Several interesting facts have come to light:

+Red or orange dots in the middle of the forehead mean that a woman is married
+Yellow dots mean that the girls just want to be attractive; they are unmarried
+Reincarnation is part of Hinduism, with man believed to be the final stage before heaven or hell
+Reincarnation is believed to occur 8.4 million times before the final stage of man
+There are 33 million gods in Hinduism; there are many major gods and many minor gods
+Shiva is one of the major gods, worshiped out of fear, called the Destroyer
+Chili peppers and lemons are hung from bumpers of cars, front gates, and other things because they are believed to protect people from evil spirits or evil "eyes"
+Another reason children have eyeliner or dots on their faces is because it is believed that it will keep them from the evil "eyes"; this happens mostly frequently in the slums
+Hindus might kill others because they say that sin cannot be eliminated without eliminating the sinner
+Other religions are viewed as a threat to Hinduism and are treated as such

This religion is alive in India.
We in the States have no idea what it is like outside of our comfort zones.  May we not cease to be thankful for what we have in both freedom and possessions and to remember those who experience hardship.  May we sacrifice our resources, our time, and even our lives in order to bring help and hope.