Oh Happy Day

Update: Tammy's surgery went great and they were able to go in microscopically, which means she can return home on Monday! Praise Jesus! Thank you for all your prayers.
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I thought I'd give you a little illustration of things seen while on our 30 min bus ride and short walk through to Tamil-speaking church.

Laneless roads where the first car in a space gets the right of way (after the roaming cows, that is).

Entire families on motorcycles (the most common personal transportation) with Dad driving, wife side-sitting with infant on her lap, and two small children squished between... one helmet, if you're lucky.

Kids playing and laughing on the side of the streets.

Long stretches of dumps with sewage rivers running through... from which arises the most putrid smell you can imagine.

Women dressed in an array of beautiful colors and garments of sweeping cloth.

A dead rat the size of a small cat, pointed out to me by one of the girls.

Street vendors pushing their fruit and vegetable carts... or a million other things.

Men going to the bathroom openly on the side of the road (yes, grown men).

Beggers, young and old, wandering between cars during stalled traffic with outstretched hands.

Temples decorated with many of the thousands of Hindu Gods.

Trash everywhere, and a constant smell of trash... sometimes with a few child or adult rummagers, looking for something edible.

Muslim women in full burkah, sometimes a complete black shroud, others with their eyes peeking through the fabric.

Cows, ox-carts, and donkeys roaming the streets.

Men covered from head to toe with soot as they work in the roads.

Stray dogs rummaging through the trash, some with huge open wounds.

While riding through the city, I sit in the home's bus, looking at the sites and listening to 15-year-old Jemi sing along next to me as the music plays ... "oh happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away... oh happy day". I sense Jesus's love for this place and am drawn to it in the way I often am to third world places. Amidst the trash, poverty, and confusion there is a God who's glory covers the whole earth as the waters cover the sea... and I find myself meeting Him most often in places like these... Oh happy day, when Jesus washed our sins away. Oh happy day...