Day 4 part 2

Okay so now it's Monday afternoon and we just left one village for another. Since the debacle with the taxis earlier in the day put us behind schedule, we didn't have time to eat lunch. We snacked on a few things in the taxis, but it was only an hour until we reached the second village.

Because the road we needed to take to the location of the footwashing was down a less-than-promising-and-quite-crowded road, we got out of the taxis on the main road and then walked down said street. Fortunately or unfortunately, at this time in the day there were a lot of children and teenagers walking home from school and it was obvious that many of them, and other men and women on the main road, had never seen white people before. The staring in this village was unlike anywhere else we were in India.

As we walked down the side street, we literally had a growing crowd following us down the street and into the field where the ceremony was set up to take place.

We started right away when we sat down and had a small amplifier that emitted a surprisingly loud sound of our singing and talking across the field and thus brought even more people off the street and over to hear what we were saying. The crowd grew and grew. I noticed a deep sadness in a lot of the faces--this place was noticeable different from the previous village. The people seemed oppressed and weighted down. I prayed hard as we sat there before washing feet.

When we began washing feet, the women were shy but there were enough of them in the crowd that we were busy. So many young men were taking our pictures on their cell phones that I tried not to get distracted from my task of praying over the women whose feet I was touching and washing. Sometimes someone came alongside me and translated what I was saying, but not always. I just remembered to let my face show my heart and show God's love (as best I can) to each woman, man, and child.

When we finished we had quite a crowd eager to follow us up the road to a school where we locked ourselves in so that we could use the toilet before the long car drive back to Agra. We managed to leave the crowd safely - I don't exactly think that having an entourage is as glamorous as one might think.

I started feeling carsick on the ride back to Agra - I swear the roads got bumpier on the way back! About 2 hours there in the dark, still sitting in the back seat, we got a flat tire on our taxi and had to stop on the side of the road until the men could change the tire. I opted to take a middle seat for the rest of the journey back to Agra and slept the whole way!

Even though it was relatively early in the evening, I walked up to our room in Agra and slept on my face for 40 minutes before reviving for dinner downstairs. Everyone was exhausted from the travels and emotions of the day so we quickly ate and went back to bed. One of the girls gave me some pills that helped me sleep through the night for the first time - it was awesome!

Day 4 done!