Meeting and Greeting (Vanakkam)

Today was a little bit more relaxing. We visited the internet cafe here earlier on to post onto the blog. We now have a litlle extra time before dinner at 9.00pm, so I’ve taken the advantage to write a little about today.

We had the privelige of visiting Kennedy School and what a welcome we received. Have a look at some of the pictures. This is a Christian School  which is open to all faiths and seeks to give moral guidance to all their students. It is run by one of the pastors i meet last time i was here. Unfortunately Mathew is very ill at this time and everyone is praying for his recovery.  If you are reading this will you please pray for mathew.He has spent a great deal of his time and finances in setting up this school.  It may be that we can develop links with Kenny School and one of our World Without Walls partners. Perhaps even an exchange programme where students could come to Scotland.

After attending the school we were stuck in traffic for what seemed to be hours before we met up with Shanti Davidar. Shanti was over in the UK last year and spent a three month sabbatical working with the Church of Scotland in their Crossreach Social Programme.  Shanti is working on a programme helping women who sell themselves for money. She explained how she has been working closely with these women and that many of them are now in a good and safe place, making real progress in their lives. It was so encouraging to meet some of these women and see the difference that Christ is making in their lives. Afterwards we were treated to lunch by the Davidars and the picture below was taken outside the Club where we dined before returning home today.

The accommodation we live in is fine, but we’ve been having some trouble trying to agree how the bill should be paid. for some reason dollars seems to be the preferred currency. I said the manager of the house,don’t you think it a bit starnge that an Indian wants a Scots man to pay his bill in dollars?  Anyway I think he’ll just have to take what we have a mixture of all three currencies.  This is proving to be a very special trip for us all. Everyone is getting on together and enjoying the whole experience of India. I’m going to try and get Jackie or Johnny or Rae to finish off this part of the blog with their reflections.

It’s Rae here…

One of the things i’ve been struck most with is the amount of deprivation.  Many people live in poor conditions and the streets are full of rubbish.  We’ve seen people washing in the street and people living and working on the streets.  It’s amazing the amount of traffic and people that is in Chennai.  The traffic is very scarey to travel in and i wouldn’t like to drive in it.  When we’ve been going out and about we always have our cameras with us and all the children love having their picture taken and then seeing themselves on the camera, they want their picture taken over and over.

anyway have to go for now, will post again soon