A whirlwind tour...

How many ways is it possible to travel by?

We went up to national conference of the Evangelical Medical Fellowship of India in Gurgaon 10 days ago (seems like a lifetime, an eon ago now...). Started off with an autorickshaw (2 actually) from Thane to Borivali Rlwy station. Then a train to Delhi. Then being picked up the next morning in a car by our lovely sister Neeru along with Stefan and her rambunctious son Ashish. Later in the afternoon, another auto to New Delhi railway station. Then a longish walk and an long hot bake in a bus while we waited for others...
Ashish was there with us for the journey - to get some valuable 'cousin time' with Asha and Enoch. It was a joy to have the little lad along - what a charmer!

After we were sauteed and baked enough to be garnished with coriander leaves and lemon and served as Tandoori Chicken, the bus finally juddered off through urban Delhi and out towards the conference site - Grace Bible College. It proved not to be in Gurgaon as we had thought, but way out in the Harayana countryside. Way out! A bumpy 3 hours later we pulled into the amazingly green campus of the Bible College as the sun was setting...

A wonderful 3 days were spent there - and then it was time to retrace our steps.

This time we saw the countryside from the inside of an air-conditioned vehicle.

With lots of rural machinery to ogle at for us city slickers.
And also the obligatory tire-puncture. Dr. Rajkumar - with whom we had the privilege of taking this trip - regaled us with some jaw-dropping stories of how he had found God faithful in his practice of being a surgeon in a very competitive corporate environment - the perfect sum-up of a conference at which Christ was the centre of all we were thinking about.

With the spare tire (the 'stepney' to be precise) safely screwed on in place of the errant punctured one we wheeled into Delhi and a few more precious minutes with our loved ones (including once again a lovely visit by Stefan, Neeru and Ashish) and then it was a taxi to the airport - and a jet plane to Mumbai!
The flight took 2 hours + another 45 min of flying around in the sky over Mumbai waiting to land. Finally we did at 11.15 PM and then into an autorickshaw to the Mulund Checknaka - and another one home to Happy Valley Homes in Thane.

We are so grateful for the many different ways we can travel - esp. for the magnificent help with the plane tickets from our parent trust. Asha's terminal exams were held the next day... what adventures we have as a family...