Assessment Thus Far...

This is Elijah's quick assessment of India before collapsing into bed for the evening. 

Flowers and Friends!

We landed in Chennai and were promptly met by good friends!  Featured here are Life Mission International (LMI) staff members Anand and Prema (aka "The General").  Anand runs all of the administrative, logistical and financial components of LMI, and has been a good friend since 2005 when we first met in Kanyakumari on a Tsunami rebuilding project where we partnered with our good friends at The Bible Leauge and Habitat for Humanity.  

Prema is the wife of D. Rajendran, our Director for LMI (who had pastoral responsibilities in Trichy and was unable to join us until Sunday night), and a formidible and phenomenal force for Jesus herself in Southern India.  Anyone who knows Prema simply knows here as "The General".  Though slight in appearance and warm in expression, Prema is a powerhouse of action and strength.  

We were greeted with warm hugs and fresh flower lai's, a symbol of Indian hospitality, and then promptly headed to the hotel for a decent, though short, night's sleep. 

No... Actually, It's Nothing Like Real Indian Food...

In my humble opinion, British Airways has the best airline food for the trek between Chicago and India, and it was Elijah's first try at airline food since he was just a little guy and we were on our way to visit my parents somewhere that required flight.  

And to his credit, he dug right in to red-bean dahl, yellow rice, curried veggies and rice yogurt when the attendant put it in front of him on our London/Chennai leg.  To his great delight (and surprise), he loved it!  

Only thing is, the freeze-dried, instant-warmed stuff that made it to his plate actually tastes NOTHING like the delectible delicacies he'll experience once we hit tarmack in India.  But at least it was a good start.  Better to have him love the Indian food on the plane and then be absolutely sent into an orbit of ecstacy when he tastes the real thing, than to assume that the airline food is actually representative of Indian cuisine and write it off altogether.

Good to Go!

Our neighbor took this quick shot of us loading up our Toyota Matrix to head to Chicago.  Elijah is sporting his new Star Wars Clone Trooper ball cap, which we are ABSOLUTELY certain will have tremendous cross-cultural value, Sami is comfortable and snuggly for the long trip, and i... of course... am dressed in my standard loadout plus warmer shirt.  We're prepped!  What you can't see, however, is enough video equipment and other gear to film "Out of Africa".  Poor Matrix... she's gonna need some suspension work after this trip.  

Zombies in Space: T-minus...

In about 48 hours, 3 of the 4 Magruders (me, Sami and Elijah) will be on our way to Chicago to begin our next adventure.  We'll be spending about 10 days in the three countries of India, Cambodia and Thailand, and we'll be posting here to this blog (as well as Twitterlinking) as much and as often as is possible along the way.  The following is a rough schedule of what we're going to be doing and how we're going to be serving our brothers and sisters in the Kingdom of God on the other side of the world:

India

*  April 3 - 5 - Travel to India/Acclimate

*  April 6 - 7 - Train latest batch of 50 church planters in final module of PDC (401).  Graduation and commissioning ceremony to follow training.

* April 8 - Travel to Phnom Phen, Cambodia

Cambodia

* April 8 - Arrive in Pnom Phen, Cambodia, meet National Cambodia Church Network staff and church planters (they are ONE Prayer network partners)

* April 9 - 10 - Travel to remote rural villages to film and survey ONE Prayer planter work going on there.

* April 11 - Additional filming in Phnom Phen for ONE Prayer, plus visit of Royal Palace and infamous Killing Fields.

Thailand

* April 12 - Easter!!!  We'll, i've never been overseas during Easter, so this will be a first.  We only have about 9 hours in Bangkok to just hang out, and I'm not sure what we'll be able to see or do in that timeframe, or how tired we'll be, but we're ABSOLUTELY going to try to enjoy some authentic Thai food since our whole family digs it!  If we're lucky, the real stuff might be as good as Noodle Alley in Mishawaka :- ):  Either way, though, we'll be celebrating in our hearts with everyone here back in the back in the US as we remember the signficance of the day as the first glimpse of the Kingdom of God in this world!  Happy Easter!

We get back on Monday, April 13th, and will be glad to reconnect with the Peri-berry then!  We're already pretty sure we're going to go through some significant withdrawal in not having her vibrant little light in our world while away, but we're already set up to Skype and web-cam, and are sure she will be having fun with her grandparents while we are away.

Elijah will be posting as well while travelling, so stay tuned as i'll be excited to show you his first impressions of the things he sees "from a kid's point of view".