February 25, 2010

We left Kolkata at 2:45am for our flight to Germany. When we loaded the plane it was like we were in a bad dream, there were mosquitos everywhere and I mean everywhere. It was horrible. But as soon as we got in the air, it was like they hid somewhere, weird. I managed to sleep some on this flight which was good. We landed in Germany and had about 3 hours until our next flight. We debriefed a little and I could barely hold my eyes open so I grabbed a few seats and slept for about a half an hour. We loaded the plane and I had a hard time on this flight for some reason. It had a lot of turbulance which I could do without but I managed to sleep most of the flight which was a huge blessing. We landed in San Francisco without any problems-good to be back on US soil. I think we had a couple hours in San Francisco and then loaded our little puddle jumper to Fresno. This flight was so short and we landed in Fresno 20 minutes early. Our homecoming at the airport was so wonderful-all the families were there. Katelyn, Bradley, and Kennedi made signs for us, so sweet. We said hello to everyone, grabbed our luggage, and we all headed home. It was sad to leave our team after being together for 11 days. We all bonded and became such good friends on this trip and I will never forget the time we shared together. What an amazing experience. Before leaving someone told me India stands for I'll Never Do It Again but I completely disagree. I hope to one day go again and see all these people we met. Just think-I almost backed out of going because of fear! These people have so little yet rely on God so much. They are much more blessed than I think we here in America are. We have too many distractions to keep us from leaning on God and relying on Him to take care of things. They worship so freely, it's so refreshing. I went to India feeling sorry for these poor people and came home wanting to be like them. I think they made a bigger impact on me then we made on them. They changed my life for sure and for that I am so grateful.