highlights from hyderabad.

the three days we spent in hyderabad were three of the most fun days i've had in a long time. the majority of our time was spent preparing for and attending a WEDDING--we got to go to an indian wedding!! how fun is that?! i could write forever about our time there, but i'll try to stick to bullet points again...

• meeting sagar and his family. sagar is a truett alum that has now moved back to india to minister to the banjara people with his family. they have an incredible story and are just overall really great people. his laugh is so contagious and his wife is one of the most graceful people i've been around. his brother, vijay, was the one getting married. keep reading...it gets really fun.
  
• shopping for indian clothes. all the women in india basically wear two types of clothing: the shalwar kamis and the sari. (go ahead and google image those. so cool.) most of the girls that have come with stroope on past trips have purchased a shalwar kamis, but we also got to get saris for the wedding! they're absolutely beautiful. the entire shopping experience took at least 2 1/2 hours--there were no two shalwar kamises alike, so of course it took forever for us to pick out our favorites, then we had to pick out material for our saris, get measured for the blouses, then buy petticoats to match. sagar's sweet wife, kalyani, helped us through the whole thing--it was crazy, but so fun!
• eating at a kfc in india. fried chicken never tasted so good.
• attending a 10 year anniversary service for a church in the middle of the slums. incredible people. they sang for us, we sang for them, stroope gave a message, we did a skit...it was way fun.
  
• hyderabad is the major city for islam in india. this was my first encounter ever with islam--mosques everywhere, women in burkas....it was really interesting.
• conversations with sagar and his wife over chai and cookies at their apartment. america needs to pick up this afternoon goodness.
• HENNA TATTOOS!!! all the women were getting henna for the wedding, so of course we wanted to too. both hands and both forearms are covered. it's SOOOO cool. i absolutely love it. (don't freak out, sarah. it should be faded by your wedding...)
• preparing the bridegroom (vijay) for the wedding. the night before the wedding the family and close friends have a big celebration to prepare the bridegroom, and we got to attend! they asked dr. stroope to give a blessing--he did an amazing job. every guy needs to hear his thoughts on marriage. unbelievable. okay so then it turned into a paint party. basically vijay got covered in yellow rice and a yellow curry/paint concoction. then everyone joined in on the fun--yellow paint on the feet for all the women, on the face for everyone....it was so unreal. then it turned into a dance party!! some of the indian girls taught us some moves, which you know i absolutely loved...and i may or may not have ended up having a dance off with an indian boy named kisho. it was SO fun!! i thought it was all fun and games until he brought his dad to meet me....what?! no thank you, arranged marriage...
• shopping at charminar--the main marketplace area in hyderabad. the central point is a roundabout, and from there stem all these different streets full of little shops. the street we went to was bangle row....i mean, shop after shop after shop of BANGLES!! every woman in india wears bangles everyday--so for a wedding they really bring out the bling. so again, of course we wanted to participate. i probably spent too much money, but come on, you can never have too many bangles, right?
  
• getting ready for the wedding felt like we were getting ready for prom. a sweet indian lady helped us put on our saris--it took about 20 minutes per girl. crazy, huh? we were so pumped. saris, bangles, earrings, henna tattoos, make-up (for the first and only time the whole trip)....we were lookin' good....and the boys looked pretty sharp in their kurtas, too.
  
• crashing the wedding. seriously. all attention was on the 13 white people wearing indian garb. ha! but the family loved it. everyone wanted pictures of us and with us. it was crazy! the wedding itself was pretty interesting. both families are christian, so it was held in an anglican church. the reception was outside--probably about 1500-2000 people there--oh and don't worry that they just let random people off the street come join the party. kinda crazy, but kinda cool, huh? lots of food, lots of picture taking, lots of music....so fun.
• mango party. it's definitely mango season here and hyderabad has some of the best mangoes in the whole country. dr. stroope surprised us with a ton of mangoes one night during our team time. they were absolutely delicious!
• long delay in the hyderabad airport waiting for our flight to cochin. spent lots of time at the coffee shop...definitely some much needed down time. this country needs to increase their intake of brewed coffee...just throwin' that out there. i told dr. stroope i was addicted to coffee and he said, "as a fellow coffee addict, i like to think of it as a devotion." yep. couldn't agree more.
  

sorry that was long, but i hope you got a glimpse of how much fun we had in hyderabad. pray for sagar and his family's ministry. they've got incredible vision and they're doing some really amazing things.

now we're in cochin--a city on the coast of the arabian sea (OMG!) and the most southern city we'll visit on our trip. it's absolutely beautiful. can't wait to see more of it tomorrow. thanks for reading these long posts. hope to write again soon...