After 24 hours of travel we landed in Chennai, India with a tired excitement and expectation of a new country and culture to take in and experience.

The first thing that I think we all noticed was the very distinct smells coming from every direction, whether it was the smell of curry from a nearby food vendor or diesel exhaust from the hundreds of cars and motorcycles driving in organized chaos on every street.

Another thing that seems to be commonplace is a sort of randomness to everyday life, mostly we’ve experienced this from riding in vehicles and sitting back in awe as horns and lights seem to not mean anything at times and sometimes they mean a whole lot. That’s why we leave the driving to them, the way they drive and navigate the cities is quite amazing.

Today we attended the Coimbatore Pastors Conference with approximately 700 pastors in attendance, the guys from High Valley led the group in a couple songs of worship and CCI President, Ray Wieler and Pastor Tim Sawatzky from Victory Family Church Altona shared words of encouragement.

The amazing thing is, only about 200 of the pastors are currently working with Children’s Camps International (CCI), the other 500 are waiting for the opportunity to join as soon as the funds are available. This is a real motivation for us at Harvest for Kids and CCI to raise awareness and finances so these pastors can be equipped to reach hundreds of children in their communities.

Looking forward to the youth conference tomorrow and experiencing more of the Indian culture. Please pray for us on this trip and pray for this nation!

One week until we board an airplane and take off for Chennai, India and the excitement is continuing to build for all who are going. If you haven’t already, you can check out a little more about our trip, including our travel route by reading the last blog post.

If you’d like to stay up to date with what’s going on while we’re in India, I will be posting blogs whenever an internet connection is available. You can also follow team members Derek Unrau and William Knelsen who will also be posting as they experience India.