My “fly and build” mission trip spanned 33 days, and then it took me 3 days to recover.  Within the last 6 years, I have been on similar outings, however this Christian journey touched my heart and spirit in a special way.  I felt it physically, mentally, socially and in an enormous spiritual way too.

I travelled with a team of 10 people and stayed in a remote area in Andhra Pradesh, India, where things were at times challenging because of the lack of consistent electricity and inability to communicate regularly with the outside world.  But the team I spent my time coordinating, travelling, working, shopping and worshiping with had the makings of God’s inspiration and God’s hand of love and direction.  Along with me were Pastor Janusz Jagiello, Jared Jagiello, Tess Ferreira and Stefan Farkas of Pendle Hill Polish and Daniel Jagiello from Warimoo Church.  The team was blessed by various professions, from recent university graduates to a pastor, elder and builders.

The purpose of our journey was to build, renovate and paint, but we also spent a significant amount of time in hut visitation, running a Week of Prayer at the Blind School and conducting nightly meetings in the remote village of Piridi.

For us, some of the highlights of the trip included sponsoring five major dinner events, supplying all the Asian Aid blind students with shoes, baptising one of the students at the Asian Aid Blind School and participating in a challenging, physical and breathtaking encounter of Kabadi, India’s version of rugby without a ball.  We played against the young staff members of the school at the Republic Day Sports Prize Distribution day. Thefinal score, after 30 minutes of play, was a tidy, close fought 1-1.

Our team has expressed an interest in doing a ‘fly and build’ again in another part of Andhra Pradesh or elsewhere in India or Nepal, provided there is approved land to build on. If this does take place, I hope to take my wife Jennifer and Kristina Jagiello (Pastor Yanusz’s wife) with us to experience the wonderful work we can do for God’s people, His church and the poor.

Contributed by Eugene D’Costa; Kellyville, Australia