We Made It!!

We made it! Nothing gave me greater pleasure than to write that next to our fundraising goal on our trip bulletin board at church, and nothing makes me happier than to write it now! We arrived in India about 1:05 Delhi time this morning, March 31 after a slight delay in Hong Kong. We were met at our gate by a representative from the hotel in the airport where we stayed last night. After clearing immigration with no problem we headed up to the hotel. By this point we were all tired and ready for bed. We got our first taste of Indian bureaucracy when we had to go through four separate security checkpoints just to get to the hotel. By the time that was all accomplished it was almost 3:00. We had never been happier to see a bed in our lives! I emailed all the parents and by the time I went to sleep, I realized that the Community Church 6am sunrise service was just about to start (Hong Kong time of course).

This morning we got up, ate breakfast, checked out, and went through the check in procedure all over again in the domestic terminal. We were fortunate that the airline opened up a desk to do group check in for our group. Some of the kids exchanged their Hong Kong dollars for rupees and we were off to security.

Nick, one of our (most prized, he says!) participants noted that the airport was really modern in comparison to what he thought. Many people in our group had McDonalds for lunch and according to him it was normal but salty. There were some new menu items that we had never heard of before and there was a conspicuous absence of beef on the menu. Nick also noticed that there were only women working there- his thought was that perhaps guys are funneled into more labor intensive jobs.

After that we headed to our gate and I (Whitney) was particularly impressed with the modernity and efficiency in the airport.

We're about to land in Bagdogra,but hopefully we'll update once we get to the children's home,

Blessings and happy Easter!

The Team