What Christmas in this city really looks like and other things.

Looks like its Christine, Queen of Details to the rescue. The previous posts have done no justice in describing our past week in this crazy city, although admittedly, 10,000 words probably still couldn't paint an adequate picture. When we first came out of the train station almost 12 days ago my first thought was: O, help me God. Now, I am not ready to leave. Even if this place did take some getting used to.

Let me try and explain this to you.

Start with a dusty, uneven road. Every now and then along this road are giant holes where pipes are being dug up. On the sides of these roads are small market stalls perhaps selling vegetables and hot food, or there are simple store fronts. The air is smokey and dusty. People are lining the streets, milling around the stalls. The narrow road starts to feel claustrophobic as rickshaw wallahs impatiently ring their bells and autos beep their horns at you. A motorcycle narrowly misses you as it whips past. A range rover, completely out of place, joins the mix, and all cringe out of the way, but even the range rover must stop while a cow slowly moves out of the way of traffic. While keeping your eye on the traffic and ignoring the pleas of beggars, you're also trying not to step in the many piles of animal waste that litter the road. While avoiding stepping in poop, you narrowly miss stepping on the tail of one of the many dogs that line the streets, all curled up. As if all of this wasn't enough, everyone is staring at you like you're an alien, and the colour of your skin, or the style of your dress, screams that you don't belong.

And yet all 7 of us can now navigate these roads confidently, ignoring stares and jeers and hollering transport and haggling over prices like nobody's business. Kate and Von many a time simply left their rickshaw fare on the bicycle seat and later learnt they were actually ripping people off...

Transportation in India is something else. There are no road rules. This is the order of things: pedestrian, bicycle, motorcycle, rickshaw (cart connected to a man on a bike), auto (carriage built aound a motorcycle), car, bus, truck, cow. You'd better believe that traffic will stop for a cow. You'd better believe that cows are everywhere. I have an insane photo of a chaotic roundabout in which a cow is the centre of it all. These scenes are now normal to us. Suicidal auto drivers however, I am still struggling to get used to.

Interesting transport experiences aside, the people we have met is what has made this city bearable. Well, that, and fantastic little cafe's that have good food, free wireless and sell beautiful fair trade goods. God is at work in this, the most darkly spiritual city in all of India, and it has been an amazing privilege to see. The opportunity to actually participate in work with travellers has been by far the most rewarding part of this trip - we can safely say that the CHAI team has made itself useful and this really has been perfect for a short term visit. Christmas was the crux of our time here - it took days of preparation, buying food for 80 people is no small task in India. Christmas Eve was spent peeling, grating, chopping and cooking and Christmas morning was spent doing quite a bit more of the same. I admit -the 'Christmassy' feeling wasn't there. It felt like any other day, but we were all excited about how the feast would go and were praying earnestly for success - this was one of the main events for B & L for the whole year.

It was an amazing day and thankfully, all went smoothly. We started by singing together and I loved that even though many there weren't Christian, all these voices were being lifted to God. B's talk faithfully presented the gospel and after the formalities, we got into our feast!

And now we get to the interesting part. The conversations. This is what it was all about. But chatting to New Agers about Jesus in India is no small feat. I spent quite a bit of time trying to talk some sense into a group of people who were convinced that they had more than five senses and Jesus lived in India. The resounding idea was: all roads lead to God. Unless this God condemns you to hell for not believing in him, in which case, that's wrong and your path is wrong. Which therefore totally invalidates the argument for pluralism but I couldn't expect my audience to follow that kind of logic. I was told that I reminded this group of some of their other Christian friends who have the same 'problem' - not looking outside the box. But according to them - all roads lead to God and once you find the truth you're looking for you'll just know it. Well I can say safely I've found the truth and this way works for me but if theyre saying I need to get out of the box - well then theyre saying Christianity is wrong and the pluralistic argument falls apart again. I never knew how much I appreciated a good, logical argument until I came to India. Don't get me wrong, I love talking to all these travellers and hearing all their crazy ideas. They're so fantastically easy to smash to pieces. Which is really only satisfying if the one being shot down listens and understands the refutation but New Age spirituality is so convenient in being able to just pull from any religion to overcome the obstacles put in place by common sense. No matter, I've found that I could spend hours trying to convince a single person that the 'absolute truth' is so simple and so beautiful and it's staring them in the face.

This trip has been very interesting in that we're experiencing New Age hippy culture amongst traditional Hindu Indian culture. Its pretty trippy but we've all taken it in our stride. I think. We've gone to celebrations for the winter solstice, been roped into three hours of Shiva worship on the scitar, seen burning bodies on the ghats of the Ganga. Every moment here feels surreal.

Sickness however, feels very real. Continued prayer for the health of others would be very much appreciated, particularly as the next week will pass in a blur of train trips and perhaps a shared bathroom between 7. I'm trying to push it out of my mind at present.

Please, please, please continue to pray for B & L. They have not been feeling 100% since we got here and they have soldiered on and are now exhausted. They are truly amazing, godly people who are doing fantastic work here. It's hard to understand until you're in the thick of the city and have had several unfruitful discussions but this is their everyday reality - and they wouldn't want it any other way. Please continue to pray!

In only 12 days, I'm going to be so bold as to say I think we've made our mark on this city. With the travellers, with our hosts, on the traveller hangouts, at our places of voluntary work, through the relationships we've made. Everybody in India is interesting, they have a story to tell, or they're looking for something and life is more than just 9-5. I will be so sad to leave and get nothing but superficial email updates about how the Christians here are holding up, or how the 'spiritual quests' of the travellers are going. It's a busy, crazy city, but there is a tight-knit community here that I will really miss. There is so much still that I want to see, more people that I need to question, more to understand about myself and about God.

I don't care how corny it sounds, when I get on the train tomorrow at 4.55am, a part of me will forever remain here.