A Life-Giving Day in Bangalore

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Today (Monday) was such a life-giving day for us! We probably won't update the blog this much; however, I felt it was necessary to do so since it was such a great day and we had some extra down time!

We left our hotel around 11:30 AM in search of some food and we were planning to visit the Bangalore Palace after getting food. I thought McDonalds would be a great idea to try out, but Denae wasn't hungry for chicken. And we both weren't feeling Subway. So we went with what we know--Dominos pizza! 

We took a tuk-tuk, also known as a "rickshaw" to Dominos. That was a very fun experience!

Us in the tuk-tuk

A tuk-tuk

While we were walking to Dominos, we noticed a sign that said, "Bible Society Of India." That immediately peaked our interest as we were curious to what it was. We ate Dominos and then decided to check out the Bible Society. And we were so thankful we did!

The Bible Society of India began 210 years ago and they are responsible for publishing Bibles into various languages. They had a small museum here in Bangalore that was amazing! We were blown away walking through the archive section as a man showed us all the copies of the Bible that have been translated into several different languages/dialects in India... they had over 400 Bibles there in translations from languages all over the world and many of them were the original Bible translations from the 1800's! Some we're even written by missionaries by hand. What a privilege to be able to see some of the very first copies of the Bible in Indian languages! 

They had a lot of information about "the father of modern missions",  William Carey, who was a very influential missionary to India. He attempted to translate the Bible into 40 different Indian languages and we were able to see some of his original translations and many letters he wrote. Here are some pictures from our time at the Bible Society
A picture of Serampore College that William Carey started as a Bible college

Some of the Bibles that Carey translated


The flag from Serampore College with a popular quote by Carey

Kannada is the most common language spoken in Belagavi, Keerti's city! 

This entire picture is the Gospel of John written out. We had to use a magnifying glass to see the words!


All in all, our time at the Bible Society was such a blessing! It was really cool to know that for the past 210 years, this Society has existed to bring the Bible to the people of India. What a blessing! We were also able to travel down the road to the Bible Society store and purchase a Bible from them in Kannada as well as a children's picture Bible in Kannada, Keerti's main language. We hope this will be a treasure in our house for years to come!

When we got back to our hotel, we met our two guides--Alex and Dolly. What a blessing it was to finally meet them! Alex informed us that we would have supper at the hotel at 6:00 PM. 

We went back up to our hotel room and got some rest. 

At supper, we met two other Lifeline families (our adoption agency's name), one of which is traveling with us for the remainder of our time in India and whose daughter is from the same orphanage as Keerti. It was great to share a meal together, to talk with them about life, adoption, etc. Such a wonderful blessing! We are so excited to have another family with us throughout this trip and to get to experience India together. We also think it will be so wonderful for our girls to get to play together and will hopefully help them as they transition into our families to have each other!

And then we were able to Facetime with our boys! We miss them so incredibly much but they looked like they were having so much fun and we got lots of smiles and giggles out of them!

Thank you everyone for your prayers! We are grateful for a day of rest and relaxation! Now for some sleep and waking up early for the passport appointment tomorrow!




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