Churachandpur!

I am writing this report from Trinity College and Seminary in Seilmat, Manipur.

To some of you that means nothing... for others you know that it means I am in Churachandpur, the area where a huge majority of the India Children's Choir kids come from.

We were supposed to arrive here yesterday, but if you have been reading this blog, you should know by now that not nearly everything goes according to plan.

I posted the update from the "hills" while sitting at the Silchar Airport in Assam, a neighboring state to Manipur. We were expecting to fly out, but no airplane showed up. Our flight time came and went... and still no plane (in the entire airport!) The finally announced that our flight was cancelled due to fog in the city the plain was supposed to come from.

So back to Hmarkawlien and Goa's house we went. We spent the day just chilling out... visited one of the local pineapple gardens (NE India pineapples are BY FAR the best pineapples I've ever put in my mouth), and just took it easy.

This morning, we again made the forty-five minute trip from Hmarkawlien to the Silchar airport for our 7:35 AM flight. Soon after arriving there, a plane landed... and it was our plane! But then the announced that the visibility where we were GOING was bad and there would be another delay. Fortunately, it did not last long, and we were on our way.

We landed at the Imphal airport around 10:00 AM. We started driving away from the airport, and I got the feeling that I was coming home! I am not gonna lie... I was so excited, I had butterflies. This is my "family" that lives here!

We arrived at TCS (the seminary run by Bibles For The World) around 12:00. This is where we will be staying for the next two and a half weeks. The 2009 India Children's Choir is training here, and so we went and hung out with them for a while.

And then the kids started coming... and more came, and more came. I was having the time of my life. There must have been twenty or thirty of the kids from former ICCs that came along with some other kids that I knew from here.

We spent the afternoon hanging out with them and then went to the home of Roland Chonzik (Ella's family, for those of you who got to know the 2007 choir) for dinner.

After the dinner, the Seilmat youth group was putting on a big Christmas play, so we attended that and then hung out with the kids some more.

It's gonna be a good two weeks! We have been here for half of a day and already have five or six meal invitations. I have a feeling that the next two and a half weeks is not gonna be long enough!