The Westminster Abbey of the East

A couple of weeks ago we went to Sunday services at St. Mary's Church which is the oldest Anglican church in Asia, and also the oldest British building in India. Pretty neat.

It was built it 1678 on Fort St. George, and you can check out a little more history on it here.

One of my co-workers who has been here for about 18 months with his family goes there, and has even managed to start a Sunday school for all the kids. This appealed immensely to us since we haven't been able to enjoy a church service without herding kids since we got here.

But it just wasn't to be.

The first mistake was not turning around when we realized 5 minutes down the road that we forgot diapers for Micah. Oh yes, that decision would come back to haunt us. A couple times. The second mistake was letting the kids play in the courtyard/garden of the church before the service started. By the time we even had a chance to send the kids off to Sunday school they looked like we had found them on the street. They had dirt all over their faces and hands. They were filthy, even by local standards.

But even before that, Micah filled his pants with a terrible concoction that couldn't be ignored. Armed with nothing more than some pieces of scrap paper and old receipts, I cleaned up one of the top 10 worst smelling messes Micah has ever produced, in the hottest, most humid, bathroom I've been in to date. I kid you not - it wasn't one degree below 120 in there. I sweat through my pants before I finished the job. And when I did finally finish, I found out that the toilet wouldn't flush so I spent another 5 minutes fishing everything out with a toilet brush and putting it in an open trash can by the door. Of course, to top the whole thing off, I had to put the old diaper back on the poor kid.

Sunday school didn't exactly pan out since they wouldn't let Luanne out of their sight and behaved like wild animals, but they got to interact with other kids for a while so it wasn't a complete loss.

The service went a bit longer than usual, and Sunday school ended before the service was over. As usual, Luanne and I ended up in the back of church with the two kids, trying to keep them quiet while listening to what was going on at the same time. That lasted until Micah had another blow out and we had to abandon ship. There was no way I was going through another round of bathroom acrobatics again, so we made the long walk of shame back to our car and had Prem take us home.

We're going back this weekend for Easter Sunday.