Sunday 1. March

We arrived in Nagpur at 8 in the morning. The nature here is somewhat different, there are no palm trees. But there's plenty of other trees, and Benjamin says there are many orange trees here. Christopher and I slept in the upper bunks this time, and Glyn and Betty in the lower ones. We slept better than last night. The cockroaches didn't bother us either, even though we observed a few.

We were taken to hotel Hardeo, which was OK. There was a strong smell of disinfectant when we entered room 509, but we opened the windows and aired the room. The air is cooler here, but not really cold. But it will probably we warmer during the day, there's not a cloud in the sky, and the sun is already burning. Christopher had a shower while I got the laundry that Magdalena had washed for us in Hyderabad. What a service! We're still amazed, observing the service they offer us. They really have a servants mind.

We'll have breakfast at 9:30, and tonight we're going to churches to have services. Tomorrow morning, we're going to teach at the bible school, and tomorrow night we'll have meetings in local churches again. The english team has left us, except Glyn and Betty, but the dutch brothers are still with us; Jaap, Henk and Cornelius. My stomach is still a bit into disorder, but not really lax, so it's no problem. I guess I haven't been too careful with the Idoform tablets lately.

There is usually toilet paper in the hotel rooms, but in public toilets and trains there is nothing. Indian toilet rolls can be very uneconomical also, loosely rolled and with poor ability to absorb. The showers in the hotels are usually OK, but the water pressure may be poor, and there may not always be too much hot water, especially not in the upper floors. Usually there is soap also. But it should be noted that we've only stayed at luxury hotels. In Rajahmundry, for instance, we stayed at the best hotel in 150 km distance, and that wasn't actually luxury according to western standards. But the hotels where we stayed in Hyderabad were extremely luxurious.

At 12 we met at Glyn and Betty's room and had a time of praying together and singing some songs of praise to the Lord.

Beautiful girls in their sarees We had lunch at the bible school, in the house of the principal and his family. We had some really nice food; rice, chicken and some other things. Before we ate, we were wreathed with flowers by some bible school students. One of the daughters was very beautiful (Christopher's remark), she wore a nice, lilac saree. The Norwegian girls also wore their sarees today, they were really nice.

By the way, they also told us they could get a wife for Rolf Daniel in 24 hours if he would. And they told about a conference in 1996, when they had served warm food to 12500 people, 3 times a day. In one of the meals, they spent 2500 kgs of rice, 1000 kgs of chicken and 1800 kgs of vegetables. Pretty impressive! They had 500 workers to accomplish it.

Rolf Daniel rides the rickshaw. Tone sang an old, Norse poem, a stev, to give thanks for the food, and then we went back to the hotel. Rolf Daniel got to ride an autorickshaw for the first time.

When we got to the hotel, Christopher and I went out to make some phone calls, but unfortunately we asked Benjamin if there was any email possibilities in the city. So we were driven around in the city looking for one without finding any. We returned to the hotel, and our friend would check the yellow pages in the meantime and call us if he found any.

So we went and made our phone calls instead, I talked with Inger Johanne and my mother. They were both fine. It cost me about 12$ altogether, but I thought it was OK. There was a meter inside the telephone box, showing how long the call had lasted and the price.

We left for the service just after 18:00. We were 11 people in a Sumo jeep, it was rather tight, and Tove had to sit on my lap. But we got there. The service was in a large, naked room, and even at the outside we heard that we didn't have to worry about our singing being out of tune. Both the singing style and the sound equipment were of usual Indian quality, even though we've moved from Telugu to Hindi language.

When the worshippers in the church had been singing for a while, Lars Erik and Tone presented the team. We sang a few songs, and Tone, Lars Erik, Rolf Daniel, Sofia, Inger and I gave witnesses. I told about a boy who was healed from a heart disease in St. Petersburg and encouraged the people to be bold about praying for the sick.

Benjamin preached a wonderful sermon on the greatness, goodness and care of God, a real prosperity message based on Psalm 145. Both the congregation and we were encouraged.

After the sermon, we laid hands on everyone and spoke blessing and prosperity into them. We prayed for healing for those who needed it too, and a boy with epilepsy fell to the ground when Christopher and I prayed for him. He had an attack in the beginning of the service, so we were glad God met him. After a while, Inger also came and commanded the sickness to leave him, and when we were leaving he came and thanked us for praying. They said he had become much better during the last weeks, and he was obviously open for the power of God.

After the service we returned to the hotel to have some eggs and toast, it was nice. There was a hole in the cloth on the table next to us, so they put the cloth askew and put a vase over it.

Tomorrow we'll have breakfast at 09:30, and then Benjamin is going to share with us some more from his heart. We'll also have some time to spend with the Lord and to relax. And in the evening there's a service.