MADURAI

Saturday morning, 4 AM, and I stepped on a bus in Southern India headed to a city of 2.5 million people: Madurai. Why, might you ask, was I up before the sun? Well, from Coimbatore the bus ride is roughly 5 hours! 

The weekend in Madurai was packed with so much!! On Saturday we had a tour of the Monastery that we would be staying at. The campus was absolutely beautiful! 

After the tour, we loaded back on the bus and went to an old person's home, where the elderly go if their family cannot take care of them. =( Then a ways down the street we went to a home for abandoned girls who made bags and cards. 

Our next stop was the Gandhi museum and then on to the Thirumalai Nayak Palace where we watched a light show after it got dark! (It was rather cheesy, but at the same time I loved it because the architecture of it was beautiful!) 

(Sorry the above picture isn't very good. It was dark. But trust me, it was amazing!) 

The next day we did a small Sunday Service in their Chapel and then we were off to Meenakshi Temple! I wish I could post ALL the pictures I took of this place because it was beyond description! There is so much I could write about this place, unfortunately this would end up being an essay and no one would read it! haha But I will be sure to tell you all about it when I get home! =) 

Our final stop on the way home was to a home for HIV Positive children. For about an hour we got to play with the children on the playground and see what the house provided. I feel this was the perfect way to end the trip because it showed us all hope. In a city that is centered around worshipping thousands of gods, this organization offers hope through the Church to people who would otherwise be 'untouchable'. Sadly, I was too busy playing with the children to take any pictures. So that is up to your imaginations as to what that looked like. =) 

Now I am trying to recover from such a long weekend and need to catch up on homework, so it might be awhile until my next post! Thank you all for reading =)