Incredible India

Namaste from incredible India!!! The group has arrived safely and is now submitting its first"communal" entry to the BVU blog site.

This entry represents more than just physical travel. Even though it took us only 36+hours to arrive at Lebenshilfe School it seems as if we have traveled through hundreds of years. The winding "highway" from the airport carried us past overloaded trike taxis, wandering cows, street merchants with wares on the side of the road and cars careening within inches of each other. The sights, sounds, and smells tell us we have arrived!!

And what an arrival it was. As we entered the school compound, the dancing tiger group greeted us and led into a main courtyard filled with several hundred children assembled to greet us with applause and endless smiles. Royalty could not have recieved a warmer welcome. Our exhaustion viturally disappeared as we eagerly jumped into a general orientation of the school. Literally falling into our beds that evening we knew this experience was going to be something special.

In our first day we were welcomed into classrooms and therapy sessions. Experiences and assignments are varied as we work with academics, dance therapy, physical therapy, yoga, drum therapy, prevocational skill training and assessment of incoming students...to name only a few!! Each of us has "assignments" but our wish list of what to see and do is endless. The time flies and before we know it we have moved from morning assembly to closing assembly. Seldom has a school day ever flown so fast.

We want everyone to know we are settling into a routine that is anything but boring. Our schedule is already packed as we look forward to upcoming conferences, teacher training and sharing opportunities, travel to rural villages, visits into homes, and some surprises we will wait to share.

Getting to technology so we can post is a challenge and we can't promise how often we will be able to do so. Things such as electricity are not always consistent. We do, however, want family, friends, and colleagues to know we are having an amazing experience. While we registered to "change the world" we never realized the first world to be changed would be our own. Stay tuned for more exciting information from incredible India.