Beautiful downtown Delhi

I’m sitting in the YWCA in Sansad Marg, Delhi. We arrived in Delhi late on Saturday night and we’ve been having a ball.

After having no sleep for around 24 hours, we finally got into bed and crashed. Four and a half hours later we were up and ready for action. I preached in two Assemblies of God Churches on Sunday morning (not easy on so little sleep and being extremely jet lagged) and my messages were very well received.

Sunday afternoon gave us time to put our bikes together and a few of us headed out into Delhi traffic for a quick ride. I just loved seeing the reaction of the other team members to the traffic conditions. Back home you wait for a gap in the traffic and then make your move. Here, you make you move and that creates the break in the traffic. There’s nothing quite as exhilarating as suddenly lurching across 4 or 5 lanes of traffic, just centimetres away from a few columns of cars, trucks and motorbikes; not to mention the wildlife.

Today we started with a short ceremony at the Bible Society before heading of with our team of Aussie cylists and about 25 locals. We never really know where we’ll go next. We’re pretty much doing as we’re told but we do know that for the next 2 days we will do what we did today; riding around Delhi visiting churches.

On Thursday we will have a meeting with all who are doing the interstate ride. On Friday morning we leave Delhi and ride for 4 or so days to the capital of Punjab – Chandigarh. Once we finish that ride we will spend a few more days in Punjab before returning by train to Delhi. We hope to visit the Taj Mahal before heading home.

As my companions are now finding out, there is no way to describe India to anyone who hasn’t been here. It has sights, sounds and smells all of its own. And the food!! I finally got around to enjoying a Chicken Biryani yesterday at a restaurant named Ten. I’ve been waiting two years to try that dish again. I’ve convinced most of the Aussie team to try it as well. Everywhere we go we are served wonderful food.

The people here are the friendliest in the world. Everyone is so incredibly happy. They can teach us westerners so much. We’ve got lots of ‘stuff’ and lots of unhappy people. Over here, many people have next to nothing but they are always smiling. The children are gorgeous. A few of our team want to adopt every child they see.

I am desperately missing my beautiful wife and my 2 wonderful children but apart from that, life doesn’t get much better than this.

I’m not sure when I can post again. It might be tomorrow, it might be next week. That’s just how life is in India. I would have posted yesterday but the internet was down. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?

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Posted by Rodney Olsen

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