Calcutta Day 0.5 - July 26-28

The adventure has begun! This will be my 2nd trip back to India and Grace's 1st. As I write, we are some 40,000 feet above ground on our flight to Calcutta. I was planning on getting some sleep on this leg, but I happened to come across the World Cup final replay on teh tiny tv screen in front of me. Despite my love for soccer, I actually missed most of the game so I'm happy to finally watch the full 90+.

So since I'm awful at updating my blog, I wanted to quickly share how the preparations for India has been like. This trip came together somewhat late for various reasons, making it a bit more stressful on our end as we tried prpeare with such little time. But I realize that even if we had more time, we would never fully be prepared for what we will see and what we will do. With EMC's feedback, we've built a high-level framework to structure the workstreams we think we will be focusing on, but the how of tackling those workstreams are quite fuzzy, and quite frankly, the framework we've layed out will probably change once we meet with EMC in person in just a few hours. But, such is the case in life in general. that's why we need to fully depend on Him, and my prayer is that He would teach us and challenge us on tha tduring our time in Calcutta.

Even in just the preparations leading up to today, I'm amazed by how smoothly things have seemingly just fallen into place, from raising funds and gathering support, to our transportation to JFK and giving us the rest and relaxtation we needed before embarking on our journey. Seeming coincidences and occurrences that could not have been orchestrated by human minds if we even tried our hardest to. It's these things falling into place that continues to give me the assuracne and confidence that He wants us in Calcutta for His purposes, despite our gameplan still being a bit cloudy. We honestly do feel the support of your thoughts adn prayers, and are encouraged by our friends and family journeying with us virtually through your support, thoughts, and prayers.

We boarded teh first leg of our flight from JFK to Dubai with nervousness and a feeling of homesickness (we're both the baby's in our families), but also confidently trusting Him and His plans for this journey. 14 hours later we arrived in Dubai where we were unexpectedly presented with 2 food topions in the terminal we were in - Cosi or Burger King. Following our BK feast, a couple of laps of the airport to work off the grease that was coating our arteries, we sat down for some coffee and a nap, and boarded the flight that we are now on enroute to Calcutta. Spain just scored in overtime and clock is winding down as I write.

I'll do my best to update my blog throughout our journey. Talk to you more in Calcutta!