Saturday, June 5, 2010

What happened to India

I should have written sooner but life just seems to fly by.
We did not go to India after all. Here is what happened:
2 weeks before we were suppose to leave I started to feel sick. Instead of getting better as time went by I just kept getting worse. I went to the Doctor and he gave me some medicine and I still was not better. It finally came down to having to make a decision. My Doctor ( who is also a friend) told me to call him on the Friday before we were to leave. ( we were leaving on Monday). At that time he and I would make the decision as to whether I was well enough to go or not. In the mean time I was packing and making our plans to leave.
Then early Thursday morning ( I mean real early, like 4am) Steve got an email from the company who booked our tickets. They said to call them ASAP!!. Steve, for some reason, was up early and called them around 6 or 7am. British air had canceled our flight. We were flying American from New Orleans to Chicago to London then British Air to Hydrabad then King Fisher from Hydrabad to Rajamundry. British Air employees decided they were going to go on strike the night we were to arrive at Hethrow so all flights were canceled.
This became a big mess since American and King Fisher were NOT canceling flights . Steve ended up staying on the phone for over 3 hours trying to work out connecting flights but nothing was working and in the end both British Air and American agreed to refund our money and the trip was canceled. We did loose money on the flight within India but thats ok.
We wondered why the Lord would have wanted our trip canceled but we didnt worry too much we figured He had a plan.
A week after we were to leave we found out from Williams ( the pastor in India ) that a cyclone ( hurricane) had hit the area. I went on line to find some news about it and found out the cyclone hit just south of Rajahmundry on the day that would have been our first full day there. It traveled up the coast and knocked out power and caused flooding in the villages we would have been visiting. 23 people lost their lives. The old orphanage was severely damaged. Thankfully the new one is almost finished and the children will have a roof over their heads in just a couple days.
In addition to the cyclone, India has been having a heat wave with temps near or over 121 degrees and 2 trains have been bombed in North east India near Calcutta.
It is our hope to return to India this year. Maybe in the fall if the Lord wills. Right now we continue to pray of the believers over there and are waiting on our refund so that we can afford to go.
Paul ( Williams brother) will be getting married this Wednesday. Steve would have been there for the wedding but thats ok. WE will be there in spirit. Wednesday is our anniversary too! Thanks to all of you who have been praying for us.
We will wait on Gods timing