Adventures In India

Greetings from Ooty India!

It took a total of 34 hours to get here, but each and every minute was so worth it!!
My team and I left the US on November 4th, traveled by plane to London Heathrow from RDU. Had a 6 hour break/layover in the grand royal city where we walked around and enjoyed delicious non-airplane food (hooray!). From London we caught a flight to Bangalore and from there boarded yet another plane to Coimbatore. I will confess that the last leg of our journey was a tough one; I made a wretched mistake of consuming Indian mango yogurt (lassi) and I think adding that to the lack of sleep and airport food was a bad idea because it made me feel extremely sick to my stomach. But anyways, when we landed in Coimbatore a Freedom Firm volunteer named Sarah came to meet us, along with Ray, a father of another volunteer. We all packed into two taxis and travel 3 more hours to Ooty.

When we arrived in Ooty I was so very thankful and also extremely happy - we had FINALLY made it!! :). We settled at the Farley Guest House (a quaint little house that us Americans are so blessed to be staying in) and then ventured out into the city for shopping and dinner.

On Sunday we met the Palms (more Freedom Firm volunteers) for breakfast at Holiday Inn where we munched on authentic Indian breakfast, but had the option of some American dishes as well. At 11am we attended the English service at Union Church where most, if not all Freedom Firm workers in Ooty attend. It was such a blessing to partake in the service and see the similarities and also the differences of culture and so forth. It was rather refreshing. After church we met with Mala Malstead for coffee and talked about the upcoming week at the Ruhama workshop. I personally left feeling so extremely excited about this next week because it was so evident that God had orchestrated everything, every little detail and each desire, and we were all on the same page.
For lunch, which wasn't until after 2pm, we got to journey to the aftercare home of the rescued girls (called Roja) and ate lunch with the caretaker and two of the girls. What a pleasure. It was a joy to meet some of the girls and spend quality time with them, especially before jumping into the art and craft projects and training sessions.

Today I have to explain in short (need to get to sleep!), but it was our first day at Ruhama. We started organizing the space and establishing relationships with the 5 girls. We also started working with the girls to discover their skill sets at jewelry making and also began brainstorming about all the projects we want to accomplish this week. The girls were so welcoming and as sweet as can be. A few of them asked if we could stay for forever, but we will see if they say that at the end of the week ;).

I wish I could go on, but I really must go.
Much love,

Rachel Grace