October 20th

Our first day in Kolkata we got right into things. We had the opportunity to attend an NF board meeting. The best part of the meeting was when GF attempted to present the NF board with the “millionth dollar” raised for them. Over the years, GF has raised money and sent it to NF for ministry purposes. This year we reached the milestone of having sent a grand total of 1 million dollars. Pretty impressive I think. However, the NF board did not get it at all. They were completely confused by the presentation. At best, they thought it was a symbolic pledge of 1 million dollars to come in the future. None of them understood. It was relatively funny. Of course, you really had to be there.

Saturday night I had the opportunity to walk around Gobra (where the P-Family lives and where the NF office is, which is where we will be staying) with Don. We had a great time. It was quite an experience. I do not think it possible to even to begin to describe Gobra. I will try in the future, bit by bit, to give you a full picture of the conditions. I wrote in my diary, “Honestly, it…I don’t want to say scared…it just astounded me. Poverty is amazing. It is very similar here to the way it was in Guatemala. I am grateful for that experience. It was decent preparation for what we are now facing.” So for those of you who have heard our stories of Guatemala or have been to a third world country yourself, you have a pretty good idea. There are honestly a ton of similarities between our Guatemala experiences and this one. As Don said, “You can only get so poor.” Poverty looks similar here. People have very little in Gobra. I wish I could really describe it. I could take pictures, but they never really seem to do the situation full justice. I will try to paint decent word pictures in the future.