Merry Christmas!
Trip Start
Sep 28, 2005
1
39
103
Trip End
Jun 24, 2006
Delhi,
India
Monday, December 26, 2005
Miles travelled: 25917
After a 3-1/2 hour delay due to fog, we arrived via 15-hour train back into Delhi, which seemed a clean, efficient, cosmopolitan city after our experiences in more remote areas. Unfortunately, our tour hotel was out in an outlying suburb, so getting back into downtown was more of a hassle than we wanted to deal with. It was Christmas Eve, and we wanted to see if we could find a church service to attend on Christmas morning. We went on the web, found some back in the city, but didn't want to spend hours driving around trying to find it. Then tried asking the front desk, they had no idea. (With Christians only about 2% of the population, churches aren't to be found on every corner.) Finally, they told us that one of the taxi drivers "remembered seeing a church"
01 Church of the Ephiphany
. With no idea of the name, denomination, service times, or even whether it was English-speaking, we hired the taxi and went at 8:45 am the next morning.We arrived at a cute little church that was padlocked. But, there was another uncompleted sanctuary being built next to it, clearly not in use yet. A few people standing outside didn't speak any English. We stood around, uncertain, until a man in a suit motioned us *downstairs* and said "nine-thirty". Just about perfect timing. We went downstairs into the fellowship hall which is being used for services and enjoyed a bilingual English/Hindi Christmas Day service. The pastor sang off-key and the accompaniment was a wheezing keyboard and bongo drums, but we joined 200 others in a packed, standing-room-only crowd to proclaim Christ's birth. It was moving to sing the familiar carols in a completely unfamiliar setting on the other side of the world.
