Woke up at 5am again to the Muslim call to prayer.  Ate my roll and orange, left-over from the airplane, for breakfast and got dressed to go to a church in another village with the rest of the team.  Discovered that I had diarrhea...  My roommate, Lisa, also confirmed that I had a slight fever as well.  I would have tried to go with them anyway if it weren’t for my diarrhea issue.  They don’t have toilets or even outhouses in the villages.  You just use the open countryside!  I wasn’t “cultured” enough yet to do that in broad daylight, especially among my American friends.  So I stayed at the hotel under a heap of blankets trying to sweat it out, using charcoal powder for the diarrhea.  The shower wouldn’t get cold enough to do a hot/cold shower...  prayed for a quick recovery and patience, as it was frustrating me to have to miss out on things.

At one point that afternoon a big wind came and blew dirt around until the air was thick, like with fog.  Looking out my window I saw fewer people in the streets, but some still pushed their way against the wind trying to cover their faces.  An oxen-drawn cart with some big rolls of some kind of material was having a particularly difficult time.  The rolls wanted to blow off the cart and the drivers were having quite the time holding on to them.  The power went off for about 5 minutes.  I guess it was an Indian version of a dirt blizzard.  It lasted about an hour and left as quickly as it came.

Ate an orange and some almonds for lunch and didn’t have any “rumbles.”  I did feel like someone had punched me in the stomach, but at least I was safe to travel by meeting time that night.  The drive felt shorter and cooler tonight.  

[The college kids were supposed to arrive today, but the church officials kept them at the conference office in Hyderabad because there was a riot going on in the city and it wasn’t prudent to drive a car load of luggage and white-faced people through town.]

Children were waiting for us.  I played thumb wrestling with some of them and learned a few names.  One girl, about 12 years old, did some sort of strange wave/salute to me.  I tried to imitate it.  She was a very forward girl always pushing her way to the front.  She would make a good leader someday, if she learned to be kind.  I taught them “God is So Good” in English, and the translator taught it to me in Telugu.  The ladies put jasmine flowers in my hair.  We were meeting outside the church tonight.  A stage sort of thing was created for us to stand on (watch that last step!  the wood wasn’t securely nailed down on that one, and my first trip off the platform was nearly a crashing one).  A sheet was hung for a screen and some sort of power supply was rigged up to the light pole to run the projector and PA system.

Our stage and projector screen in Ballawallan.

While we were singing, there was a scream and brief pandemonium as a scorpion came out from some rocks and scuttled onto the plastic tarps 6 feet from where I was sitting with the women.  I tried to appear calm as I went over to stand near Pr. Kelly!  He got a better look at it than I did and said it was the largest one he’s ever seen (like the size of his fists).  I would have liked to get a better look, but as fast as it moved I couldn’t bring myself to move toward it!  The men chased it off by throwing sticks at it.  I guess you don’t kill a scorpion as it may be someone’s relative (the Hindus believe in re-incarnation). 

Pr. Kelly had the children’s story about Daniel and the lion’s den and talked about alcohol.  Several people pledged to not drink alcohol after his candid explanation.  I shared about where evil came from and why God gave free choice to His angels and humans.  The translator was pleased and said it was very clear.

At one point in the children’s story a little girl next to me tugged at my sleeve and wanted to whisper to me (they were practicing their English on us tonight - all 8 words of it : ).  As I leaned down she accidentally spit a little, trying to pronounce our words.  A drop of spit flew right into my eye before I could blink.  I wanted to run for my water bottle and rinse out my eye.  But I didn’t want to offend her or interrupt the story by standing up and walking across the crowd.  I couldn’t rub my eye because my hands were filthy from shaking all the kid’s grimy hands.  So I blinked a lot and let it water.  Yuck!

The ride home was uncomfortable as every bump jolted my sore stomach.  But Pr. Kelly kept my mind off of it by having me tell my life story to him.  Slept good that night.