bodh gaya!

whoa! what a week we had! bodh gaya was amazing! we have only seen the cities in inda, which are cool, but seeing the country made me realize how beatitul india is. we took a ten hour train ride to get there, which i can, with all confidence say that it was the scariest time of my whole entire life, its like being in prison, but worse because you put yourself there. we arrived wedesday morning and took a tour of the city, it is where buddah was enlightened so its a pretty big deal. there are a alot of temples and the biggest statue of buddah i have ever seen. they took us to where we were staying which was amazing! it was a guest house with small room, we only had two to a room. which may not seem like a big deal, but when you have had six roomates and one bathroom for a month your appritiate the small things. i roomed with claire, it was so refreshing, she is probably one of my favorite people in this world(which i believe accounts for more now that i have been in a different country). during the days we were able to rest, which was just what we needed considering we have all been sick for awhile(p.s. we are all doing a lot better, we are all at least able to eat) then at night we would go into differnt villages and share with them about Jesus and what He has done in our lives. it was the first time i had ever used a translator in front of a large crowd. the places we were going the villagers had never seen white people before, that was kinda cool! the response was great,many people got saved and we were able to hang out and play with kids. they would always make us dinner afterwards, the cool thing to do was to eat on rooftops, which is always fun and exciting! real indian food made by villagers, kinda sketchy, we just didnt ask any questions about what we were eating...its better that way, both for our politness and our emotional stability. so all in all the week was amazing! however we did end with a very interesting train experience. so just a tiny background about indian culture and the way things work here, there is not rhyme or reason to how things work here, people just seem to go with the flow and whatever happens happens and nothing is completely dependable. something else to keep in mind, peoples lives are not very valuable here like they are in america. so we arrive at the train station at 9 p.m. our train does not get there until 9:50 so we wait patiently. the train is late, however this is not unusual here so there is no announcment as to when it will be there or why it is not on time. my friend(who will remain nameless) lays her head on my lap to rest because she has taken a sleeping pill to lessen the pain of the ten hour train ride that awaits us. i notice there is a bug in her hair so i got to pick it our and notice about five others. come to find out about half our team(including me) has lice! this is our life...lol. the excitement doesnt stop there, the train arrives an hour and a half late, something else you should know is that they dont stop for long and will not wait, we cant find where we are sopposed to be and we are trying to get there before the train takes off. the train starts moving. twenty white people including four kids take off running, we get split up and have to jump on a moving train with all of our luggage! we have no idea who has made it and where everyone is, most dont speak english..awkward. our friend mackenzie to the rescue, she and three others managed to find our car, she spots an emergency alarm and pulls it, the train stops long enough for us to jump off and run to our spot! crazy! no one got left behind and there were only a few cryers. so we've got lice and crazy trains! what next? so we settle ourselves down get out our beds and try to rest peacefully with the rats and cockroaches only inches away while there are a plethra of indian people staring at us. we finally get to sleep and we hear a scream, all of us jump out of our beds and run to find out what happened, at this point we are thinking the worst. come to find out kortney a girl on our team had a man reach in the window and take her purse with her passport in it! we prayed and asked the Lord for peace, we could not change our circumstances but knew we would need a miracle both so we didnt go crazy on the train and also because we were leaving for thailand in a couple days and did not want to leave her and another team memeber here in india until she could get another passport. the rest of the train ride was ok, we did not sleep too well, but we all made it safely. it was one of the most challenging parts of our trip, i needed the Lord to be very real in those moments because there were circumstances that i so desperately wanted out of, but could not, i needed the Lord's peace and for Him to change my heart towards the situations we found ourselves in. He was faithful and showed me how He is in control and that He will always have the victory, kortney got her passport the next day from the ambassy and we have all emotionally recovered, and we are in the process of getting rid of the lice. whew! we are back in kolkata now and will be leaving for thailand tomarrow morning! i am so excited for what the Lord will do in and through us! p.s. i rode a mechanical bull today! i love you all! thank you for all your prayers!