We have arrived.

After an incredibly long two days of travel. Krista and I made it to the Kolkata airport. The air here smells like what you would imagine a temple would smell like- damp air and earth. We got in a cue for a prepaid taxi and I have to say the taxi ride was amazing- though it does take a minute to get used to the traffic here. The buildings here are something out of a movie, and amazing movie with an amazing art director...all in disrepair but at one time regal and perhaps the aging process makes them more beautiful.

The beauty and the filth here are in sharp contrast . There is a photo op around every corner and oh how I wish I was a photographer.

We checked into our rooms at the Bely guest house which shares an alley with the Mother House. I could lean over my balcony and almost tough its gray concrete walls. Krista and i have a simple room with a bathroom which we share with two other girls and a balcony with lines for drying clothes- we are on the top floor so at night it feels a bit like sleeping in a bird nest with all the activity happening beneath you.

Last night- which ended for us at 6pm- that is 6am Nashville time...I slept better than expected though the noise of traffic is so foreign and unfamiliar. Traffic runs loudly until 2am when it abruptly stops and everyone sleeps- except for the street dogs which fight underneath our window. Then the muslim call to prayer begins at a low wail at 4am and traffic begins again.

Krista and i were up at 4;30 am and the mother house for prayer at 5. then adoration service til 7 and breakfast- which consisted of the best chai I have ever had- fresh bananas and bread. From there we got a day pass to Daya Dan- the house for mentally and physically handicapped children from 6-15 years old. We washed laundrey by hand in buckets and carried the wet clothes up five flights of stairs to be hung on the line. Then were paired off with a child for "school". I worked with a little boy with cerebral palsey named Bernard. Sweet spirit and sharp as a tack. I was teaching him how to spell "cat", and "cow", and "dog"- and then when I had my back turned he scribbled "Mother Teresa". He was bored with my lesson plan. Ha!

We left the house at 11am and walked to sudder street- the westernized portion of Kolkata where-as it turns out - is NOT westernized at all. No way to describe the streets here- winding and twisting like thin veins of water throughcracks in a sidewalk. And I have no words for the traffic- the wild dogs, the trash, the motorbikes, cabs, buses, auto rickshaws all competeing for space and people cooking, bathing, selling things, napping, begging, urinating....on the sidewalks. The storefronts all look exactly the same- no distinguishable landmarks so it is nearly impossible to navigate. but walking down the street is an adventure!

I am off to dinner with our next door neighbor, Verity,  who is from England and has spent the last 11 years volunteering off and on at the missions.

Keep praying for us! we need it. I feel as though I have been gone for two weeks already. I love you all and thank you a thousand times over for encouraging me to come to this place which is sure to humble and refine me in the ways only an experience like this can.

Ev