Harvest time

Busy times. We finished our ladies conference on Wednesday, and on Thursday Rose, Elnora, and I went to 3 meetings. The first was in a small church, the second and third were home meetings. We are told at the 3 day conference that there was a total attendance of 750. These ladies traveled from an hour to four hours for the meeting. Travel is not easy here. Some walked, took buses, then taxi to reach us. And they arrived dressed beautifully and smiling, eager to hear God’s Word. At each meeting there were several interested in further study. On the final day of the meeting, 6 women were baptized along with one young man. 
At one of the ladies home meetings(picture below), we had 9 ladies request further study and baptism.

The desire is great here.
Each day of the conference, Rebecca spent time with the children teaching them, singing and playing games. They have had a good time.
The loads of fruit, sugar, and various other harvests, that they are able to pile onto small vehicles is amazing, and you would think you would only encounter them in rural areas, but they are everywhere. You also see shepherds with their flocks of sheep and goats, water buffalo, cows, monkeys, dogs, and chickens everywhere.
Vijayawada is going to become the capital of Andhra Pradesh, which is bringing a lot of interest from foreign countries. This should provide many jobs eventually. There are many schools and colleges here, so there is a highly educated workforce already in place. With all of that, there is a lot of poverty here. One thing that I think is different from the U.S. is that the poverty is in the open, right by the luxury. There is a diamond exchange and gold exchange not far from the hotel, large, secured, beautiful buildings with valet parking, but on either side are many tiny shops that look like they are just made of scraps, but every nook and cranny of them has something for sale. On the streets, you see people of every walk of life, together.
I will try to post some pictures of these stark contrasts later.
The Thompson’s 3 in India.