Wednesday, September 30, 2009
First day in Pune
Good morning!
We got to Sylvia's home in Pune at 7pm last night (morning for y'all) and finally met Sylvia for the first time! She is so sweet and we are getting along really well. She has a room mate Claudia who is here from Mexico so we make a fun household. I think we should each have a night to cook for everyone a favorite food from our countries, lol. Sylvia's house is soo nice. Spacious and clean. We have a room to ourselves with a bathroom, a big bed and a big bowl of candy, lol. We feel pretty spoiled.
We traveled by bus and Huda, Gideon and I slept the whole 3 1/2 hr drive. Every once in a while I would wake up, mouth open and hair sticking up everywhere from rubbing on the seat and all the sticky humidity, see that we were still driving and konk out again...so the drive was pretty nice for us.
Pune is SOO nice!! The weather is way nicer than mumbai...breezy and much much less humid, I love it! The whole erea is nicer, very green and a little neater appearing than Mumbai. When we arrived we went out to dinner and there wasn't a single thing we tried that we didn't like. Huda decided he just wants to eat garlic naan bread every meal as well as a sweet chicken curry dish that I can't remember the name of. On the way back it began pouring like crazy, huge drops of water pouring down...Huda and I soaked our clothing (our only clothing beacuse we still don't have our bags) but Gideon stayed nice and dry under an umbrella, lol. Even tho we were all wet we loved it...rain feels like home in Oregon!! Some neighbors of Sylvia's were soo nice and brought some clothes for Huda and Gideon and Sylvia lent me some clothing, so it all worked out. I'm afraid I don't remember thier names, but the neighbors are so nice! they came to visit us this morning and Gideon just fell in love with the husband. He got down and just played and played with Gideon and then he gave him chocolate so, you know, now he's Gideon's friend for life. He is skinnier than Huda but he had a random pair of jeans that he had bought that were too big but just Huda's size...he said GOd must have had him buy them just for Huda. He invited us to come to a youth meeting tomorow and share out of the word and think of some games to play...Huda is nervous but agreed to do it. Hopefully we will bless the youth. I guess it is a holiday tomorow so a group of youth gather for worship and fun.
So, everything is going well! Gideon isn't sleeping at night which is difficult but I'm sure he will adjust. We have been up with him since 2:30am...fun. But he LOVES it here! He is charming every person he meets and loves the food. He ate Guavva and banana and lots of Indian cashew cookies for breakfast!
We are still waiting for word on our luggage which I am starting to get a bit anxious about, I am really hoping they call today.
Well, we are going to take Gideon on a walk so I better go (we are trying to keep him from going to sleep as long as we can! I even fed him chocolate this morning!) We are hoping to meet some more people with Hunduo today and try a coffee shop here (my instant coffee with milk this morning was actually quite tasty)
Love the Mckay's!!
We got to Sylvia's home in Pune at 7pm last night (morning for y'all) and finally met Sylvia for the first time! She is so sweet and we are getting along really well. She has a room mate Claudia who is here from Mexico so we make a fun household. I think we should each have a night to cook for everyone a favorite food from our countries, lol. Sylvia's house is soo nice. Spacious and clean. We have a room to ourselves with a bathroom, a big bed and a big bowl of candy, lol. We feel pretty spoiled.
We traveled by bus and Huda, Gideon and I slept the whole 3 1/2 hr drive. Every once in a while I would wake up, mouth open and hair sticking up everywhere from rubbing on the seat and all the sticky humidity, see that we were still driving and konk out again...so the drive was pretty nice for us.
Pune is SOO nice!! The weather is way nicer than mumbai...breezy and much much less humid, I love it! The whole erea is nicer, very green and a little neater appearing than Mumbai. When we arrived we went out to dinner and there wasn't a single thing we tried that we didn't like. Huda decided he just wants to eat garlic naan bread every meal as well as a sweet chicken curry dish that I can't remember the name of. On the way back it began pouring like crazy, huge drops of water pouring down...Huda and I soaked our clothing (our only clothing beacuse we still don't have our bags) but Gideon stayed nice and dry under an umbrella, lol. Even tho we were all wet we loved it...rain feels like home in Oregon!! Some neighbors of Sylvia's were soo nice and brought some clothes for Huda and Gideon and Sylvia lent me some clothing, so it all worked out. I'm afraid I don't remember thier names, but the neighbors are so nice! they came to visit us this morning and Gideon just fell in love with the husband. He got down and just played and played with Gideon and then he gave him chocolate so, you know, now he's Gideon's friend for life. He is skinnier than Huda but he had a random pair of jeans that he had bought that were too big but just Huda's size...he said GOd must have had him buy them just for Huda. He invited us to come to a youth meeting tomorow and share out of the word and think of some games to play...Huda is nervous but agreed to do it. Hopefully we will bless the youth. I guess it is a holiday tomorow so a group of youth gather for worship and fun.
So, everything is going well! Gideon isn't sleeping at night which is difficult but I'm sure he will adjust. We have been up with him since 2:30am...fun. But he LOVES it here! He is charming every person he meets and loves the food. He ate Guavva and banana and lots of Indian cashew cookies for breakfast!
We are still waiting for word on our luggage which I am starting to get a bit anxious about, I am really hoping they call today.
Well, we are going to take Gideon on a walk so I better go (we are trying to keep him from going to sleep as long as we can! I even fed him chocolate this morning!) We are hoping to meet some more people with Hunduo today and try a coffee shop here (my instant coffee with milk this morning was actually quite tasty)
Love the Mckay's!!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
We're here!!!
Our adventure has begun!
Our first exciting experience was at the Minneapolis airport. We got there a little bit later then I wanted due to the fact I left my camera charger in Canada and drove all over Minnesota (well a couple towns anyway) looking for a charger. One walmart had something but we wanted to look around a bit more and when we didn't find anything in that town or the next we went back to walmart but in a different town and they didn't carry the same charger! God was so good and we found a perfect charger at a camera store that was twenty dollars less then one we found at walmart AND it had a converter so that we can use it in Indian plugs. yay.
Anyway, we had an hour and half before our flight left so we got in line to get our baggage checked. Ten minutes later we checked our baggage and then was informed that we had to pay an infant tax and purchase tickets for him despite the fact that the website told us that we did not have to pay and we even called the airline to double check. So we got in another line where we stood for twenty minutes and then waited forty minutes for the lady helping us to figure out what she was doing and get us set to go. we were left with ten minutes until boarding time and twenty for our plane to take off (plus $150 poorer) and we hadn't even gone through security yet!! so we rushed to another line, got our bags through security and then stood while a security officer took all Gideon's sealed baby food out and checked each one to be sure each were sealed...ahh!! We ran so fast to our gate (that was of course about as far as you could from the security line) that we were pouring sweat and panting like crazy people when we got to our gate where, of course...our plane had already left us! Wondering what in the world we were going to do one of the airport workers walked up to us and asked if we were the Mckay's, "Yes we are" we replied a little sheepishly. "You missed your flight." "yes, we know" "Well, you guys got screwed over pretty good." "Oh yeah?" "Yeah, its going to take some doing but I am putting you on another flight that makes a lot more sense, a layover in chicago is just dumb, this flight will take you right to Amsterdam and then to Mumbai but it leaves in ten minutes so you guys are going to need to rush."
God is so good!!! We ran back to the other side of the airport and made it just on time for our flight. Praise God!
Gideon played nicely the first couple hours and then slept the last 3 1/2 hours, I got to watch the new Star Trek and we ate dinner and then breakfast on the plane. We arrived in Amsterdam at 5:30am thier time and about 11:00pm our time, drank a $6 cappichino (that didn't even taste that great) and waited about three hours for our next flight. It was so great because they changed our seating at the airport and gave us awesome seats in the front with double the leg room and just two seats for huda and i so we weren't crowded by other people. We had an awesome flight attendent who was a believer (named after the angel Gabriel) and kept bringing us stuff from first class. We sat near a really nice Indian couple with a super cute eleven month girl. They lived in the states but visit India often. When we landed they said, "Welcome to India, your in for some big surprises" lol.
Our first surprise came when we couldn't find our bags. We figure that because we changed flights our bags got mixed up somehow. So we filed missing bags report and they said they will send them to us when they are found. I am hoping that goes smoothly! Besides the annoyence of not having clean clothes to change into it kind of works out to our favor (provided they actually FIND our bags!), It is much easier looking after our carry-on bags then all of our lugguge and the airport will send our bags to Silvia's at no charge this means we can take a bus to Pune (MUCH cheaper) instead of a taxi.
So here we are. We met up with Hundo, our contact, with little complication. He set us up with a great hotel which we arrived at around 1:45am Indian time where Gideon decided he was very awake and didn't fall asleep until 4am! We met Hundo at 9am and ate breakfast and walked around for a bit. It is soo hot and humid!! Like going in the alligator room at the zoo! Our room has airconditioning though which is awesome! Gideon and Huda are napping next to me right now which is looking pretty good. Our room has cable and the only english station is Nick so I am watching sponge bob, lol. Huda and I have gotten a kick out of the Indian soap opra's though! At 2pm we will head out with Hundo to Pune. Its about noon right now.
Oh yeah, a funny little thing...Mumbai has a power cut around ten every morning so the power all over the city just shuts off for a while, well Hundo had told us this while we were walking back to the hotel but when we got on the elevator the power cut decided to hit, lol. The lights went out in the elevator and it just slammed to a stop. We banged on the door for a while until someone let us out...pretty funny. Anyway, Nick, Zack and Ryan, I know you will like that story. We joked about opening the door on top and manuvaring around outside the elevator like in an action film...I could hear the mission impossible theme song.
I love you guys!! and even though I am enjoying myself I am already dreaming about coming home. Every once in a while I get hit with this feeling like "What am I doing here!" "What got into me!" But I know God has some reason for this trip and if nothing else to teach me Faith and Trust. We are so out of our comfort zone and we are a lot poorer than I planned...the best laid plan can't always hold up to the unexpected things that come up requiring more money than you thought possible but God knows and just like he took Gideon in the bible, CAUSED an impossible situation and proved Himself victorious just so Gideon could trust and see that God is in control, I believe God is allowing us to be in a place where humanly it seems impossible that it will work out so that He can test our faith a show just how truley worthy He is of that faith, of that complete and utter dependence on Him. Sometimes God's will takes us places we don't want to go but I am willing so here begins our adventure!!
All our love and (((hugs))) and kisses xxx to all,
Jaime, Yehuda and Gideon
Our first exciting experience was at the Minneapolis airport. We got there a little bit later then I wanted due to the fact I left my camera charger in Canada and drove all over Minnesota (well a couple towns anyway) looking for a charger. One walmart had something but we wanted to look around a bit more and when we didn't find anything in that town or the next we went back to walmart but in a different town and they didn't carry the same charger! God was so good and we found a perfect charger at a camera store that was twenty dollars less then one we found at walmart AND it had a converter so that we can use it in Indian plugs. yay.
Anyway, we had an hour and half before our flight left so we got in line to get our baggage checked. Ten minutes later we checked our baggage and then was informed that we had to pay an infant tax and purchase tickets for him despite the fact that the website told us that we did not have to pay and we even called the airline to double check. So we got in another line where we stood for twenty minutes and then waited forty minutes for the lady helping us to figure out what she was doing and get us set to go. we were left with ten minutes until boarding time and twenty for our plane to take off (plus $150 poorer) and we hadn't even gone through security yet!! so we rushed to another line, got our bags through security and then stood while a security officer took all Gideon's sealed baby food out and checked each one to be sure each were sealed...ahh!! We ran so fast to our gate (that was of course about as far as you could from the security line) that we were pouring sweat and panting like crazy people when we got to our gate where, of course...our plane had already left us! Wondering what in the world we were going to do one of the airport workers walked up to us and asked if we were the Mckay's, "Yes we are" we replied a little sheepishly. "You missed your flight." "yes, we know" "Well, you guys got screwed over pretty good." "Oh yeah?" "Yeah, its going to take some doing but I am putting you on another flight that makes a lot more sense, a layover in chicago is just dumb, this flight will take you right to Amsterdam and then to Mumbai but it leaves in ten minutes so you guys are going to need to rush."
God is so good!!! We ran back to the other side of the airport and made it just on time for our flight. Praise God!
Gideon played nicely the first couple hours and then slept the last 3 1/2 hours, I got to watch the new Star Trek and we ate dinner and then breakfast on the plane. We arrived in Amsterdam at 5:30am thier time and about 11:00pm our time, drank a $6 cappichino (that didn't even taste that great) and waited about three hours for our next flight. It was so great because they changed our seating at the airport and gave us awesome seats in the front with double the leg room and just two seats for huda and i so we weren't crowded by other people. We had an awesome flight attendent who was a believer (named after the angel Gabriel) and kept bringing us stuff from first class. We sat near a really nice Indian couple with a super cute eleven month girl. They lived in the states but visit India often. When we landed they said, "Welcome to India, your in for some big surprises" lol.
Our first surprise came when we couldn't find our bags. We figure that because we changed flights our bags got mixed up somehow. So we filed missing bags report and they said they will send them to us when they are found. I am hoping that goes smoothly! Besides the annoyence of not having clean clothes to change into it kind of works out to our favor (provided they actually FIND our bags!), It is much easier looking after our carry-on bags then all of our lugguge and the airport will send our bags to Silvia's at no charge this means we can take a bus to Pune (MUCH cheaper) instead of a taxi.
So here we are. We met up with Hundo, our contact, with little complication. He set us up with a great hotel which we arrived at around 1:45am Indian time where Gideon decided he was very awake and didn't fall asleep until 4am! We met Hundo at 9am and ate breakfast and walked around for a bit. It is soo hot and humid!! Like going in the alligator room at the zoo! Our room has airconditioning though which is awesome! Gideon and Huda are napping next to me right now which is looking pretty good. Our room has cable and the only english station is Nick so I am watching sponge bob, lol. Huda and I have gotten a kick out of the Indian soap opra's though! At 2pm we will head out with Hundo to Pune. Its about noon right now.
Oh yeah, a funny little thing...Mumbai has a power cut around ten every morning so the power all over the city just shuts off for a while, well Hundo had told us this while we were walking back to the hotel but when we got on the elevator the power cut decided to hit, lol. The lights went out in the elevator and it just slammed to a stop. We banged on the door for a while until someone let us out...pretty funny. Anyway, Nick, Zack and Ryan, I know you will like that story. We joked about opening the door on top and manuvaring around outside the elevator like in an action film...I could hear the mission impossible theme song.
I love you guys!! and even though I am enjoying myself I am already dreaming about coming home. Every once in a while I get hit with this feeling like "What am I doing here!" "What got into me!" But I know God has some reason for this trip and if nothing else to teach me Faith and Trust. We are so out of our comfort zone and we are a lot poorer than I planned...the best laid plan can't always hold up to the unexpected things that come up requiring more money than you thought possible but God knows and just like he took Gideon in the bible, CAUSED an impossible situation and proved Himself victorious just so Gideon could trust and see that God is in control, I believe God is allowing us to be in a place where humanly it seems impossible that it will work out so that He can test our faith a show just how truley worthy He is of that faith, of that complete and utter dependence on Him. Sometimes God's will takes us places we don't want to go but I am willing so here begins our adventure!!
All our love and (((hugs))) and kisses xxx to all,
Jaime, Yehuda and Gideon
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