Gigi's Hideaway: McHappy Day!

McHappy Day!

Today we are in Nashik at the state leaders conference for the state of Maharashtra (which was possibly misspelled on the last posting due to five thousand different spellings of everything here. Ha).

It was a long day of teaching as the conference went until 8:00pm. These women are joyful and sweet and fun to be with. It was especially fun to see all the groups who came from different parts of the state. Each group stood as their area was announced and they were so proud; especially those areas who sent a group for the first time. It is clear WWM is growing! Very cool.

This is the state where Prati was born and raised and it was awesome to see her with the people from her home country. She was nervous to speak, because she wanted to speak her native language (she usually speaks in English with an interpreter), but she has been in the state of Tamil Nadu for over 30 years speaking mostly Tamil. She was afraid she wouldn't remember her own language quickly enough. Sounded good to me! Ha.

When Prati speaks everywhere else, she is respected as a woman of authority and position. She is Mother India to the women and they adore her. Today, however, I saw a side of her I hadn't seen publicly. She was vulnerable and innocent and related more to these women on their own level. She even came off the platform and stayed on their level among them. Very unconsciously symbolic. Truly she was their sister, not Mother. It was beautiful to see her affection for them.

Dana spoke next on the importance and power of prayer, and was awesome. She is definitely gaining experience as a leader for something.

Vicki followed her with a teaching on a specific kind of prayer, Lectio Divino, using scripture to listen to God. It was an amazing teaching and gave the women a tool to take back and grow with.

THEN WE WENT TO MCDONALDS FOR LUNCH!!! What a hoot! We ate food we wouldn't normally eat back home, but we all loved it! Watch out for their SPICEY McChicken Sandwich though! Of course, the whole menu is chicken; no beef- cows are sacred here! So don't try to order a Big Mac. Funny scrolling billboard in the restaurant read:

SHAME. SHAME.

Unpardonable potholes

People could sink!

No lie! I just don't have a way to begin to comprehend that whole thing. (Who is shaming whom? Who is responsible to fix unpardonable potholes and how would they EVER begin that impossible task!!!??). Hilare.

After our calorie fest at Mickey D's, we headed back for an afternoon business session and Belinda closed out the conference after tea break with an incredible message on surrendering those things that stand in the way of our doing ministry. Very powerful. I loved her experiential touches that the women will remember. She brought 250 white flags all the way from home for each woman to write on what they were surrendering. They loved it!

Late dinner at our hotel was quite brave as we all experimented with new things (Way to be brave, Dana with that mac and cheese!). Ha.

Tomorrow is another long day and we were all up late rewriting our talks based on some feedback and requests from Mother India. :)

More tomorrow, I promise! (In the meantime, check out my friend Belinda's blog at: www.belindakendall.typepad.com/)

Warm welcome