Todo, I don't think we're in Kansas any more!

Hello from Bombay! Thank you for all of your prayers...travel was long but no problems! I'm at D's parents' house right now and enjoying seeing them again. While I was travelling today, I was continually amazed at the sights that I saw...things that you would never get to see in the States. Here's a list of a few of the funny ones: ten cockroaches using my toilet as their community swimming pool, a lettuce sandwich (yes, just bread and some shredded lettuce), some goats playing "King of the Mountain" on a heap of trash, a person about every 2 feet as you go down the road, women carrying baskets of cut grass on their head that probably weigh more than they do, men urinating in public on the street, huge piles of wheat that women were harvesting by hand with only a small knife, 18-month-old children running around the villages by themselves, kids taking a bath in a hand-pump on the street or in the pond with the water buffalo, an elephant walking down the road, about 25 people in one car -- no kidding, and not a single white person besides myself since I saw S this morning! It's certainly not anything like Kansas!

Yet there was something I saw that was the same as at home: people lost and helpless, "like sheep without a shepherd." The difference comes when you realize that almost everyone I passed today probably has never even heard the name of Christ, let alone the gospel message. At one point, I looked up at all the faces around me and thought (as I rode with my Muslim and Hindu drivers), it is very likely that I am the only believer anywhere in my line of vision. It was a sobering thought to see these people so lost, and completely unaware of their lost state.

We passed lots of idol shrines and temples on the way with loud music blaring from inside. It was utterly heart-wrenching to look inside at these statues made of clay and paint and see people bowing before it or offering sacrifices. O, may they come to know the freedom and hope that are in Christ. "But how will they hear without a preacher?" Who will tell them if we do not? May we be obedient to His call on our lives!