The main friendships we made in K-town were with youth and kids. Songita visited most days and recently found me via facebook and we reconnected! Thankfully she’d learnt some English!! She would bring her baby sister who was our baby Toby’s age, and we’d do things at home or go to the park nearby. Bapi and Shubash and other lads would also hang out most days. When I returned to visit in 2003 Bapi had married and they were expecting their first child. Back when we left, it wasn’t possible to remain connected so it was awesome to hear from Markus & Katharina recently that some of those lads had decided to follow Jesus. They were all from the slum attached to where we lived and were trying hard to make ends meet. Some went on to do trades.
K-town wasn’t an easy place to live. At least not in 2000/2001! There was little recreation, few other foreigners and few places to go for air conditioning! But the friendships we formed made it worthwhile. Not being able to get a long-term visa also made it unsettling for us and made it impossible to get our teeth into something – being only on tourist visas. There was virtually no internet, cafes were hopeless and our own computer didn’t work most of the time! So we were still writing handwritten newsletters and communicating via snail mail! It was difficult with a baby, as he wanted lots of outside time but outside of our own community, he tended to get pounced on by strangers wanting to pinch his cheeks! We were glad of the experience and very grateful to Markus and Katharina coming and continuing the work there, but in the end, it wasn’t what God had for us long-term.
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