Mackey and Nellie outside KFC at the mall.

Mall in the morning, Jewelry and Sewing in the afternoon.

Friday morning, Nellie, Mackey, and I decided to go to the mall to buy baking soda for my bread baking and some Indian clothes. Gathering our things, we scurried down to the street and marched down the road until Mackey waved down an auto. When most auto drivers see white people, they try and charge them a fixed rate for a ride instead of using the meter, but Mackey will have nothing of the sort. I thought she might slap one man after he tried to tell her that his meter was broken, but then quickly turned it on when she began to walk away. The three of us squished in the back of this little yellow auto-rickshaw, and I was sandwiched between Nellie on my left and Mackey on my right, and though we were speeding and swirving down roads without rules, I could not have been happier. At one point, our driver turned suddenly to the left and Mackey had to catch herself to avoid falling out of the auto. Nellie leaned across me and said, "Mackey don't you worry now. If you hadda gone flyin out, I woudda grabbed me one of your bird legs and Emily woudda taken the other." I nodded through a burst of laughter.

As the day went on, I decided Mackey and Nellie were the female versions of Hub and Garth, the two great-uncles in Secondhand Lions, and I was the girl version of Walter, their great-nephew who gets dropped off at their house one summer. We got lots of looks in the mall, two hollerin old ladies and me waddling up stairs and escalators, through the aisles of a bookstore, grocery store, and clothes store. In the bookstore, I went off to find someone who could help me look for the movie Ghandi, and returned to find Nellie and Mackey crouched over a box of nailpolish. "Emily-lookie here! I done found me some polish for 15 rupees!" exclaimed Nellie. I congratulated her as we walked out of the store and over to KFC. Yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken has a store in the mall in Bangalore, and Nellie told us that's what "we was havin' for lunch", and Mackey and I didn't dare to argue.

So the three of us sat at a table with our fried chicken and coleslaw, the two of them drinking chocolate milkshakes and eating fries as well, with Nellie askin us if we didn't mind if she had some of the skin of our chicken 'cause that's her favorite part. After lunch we headed to the grocery store, and while we were standing in the spaghetti aisle, one of Mackey's favorite songs came on the speakers in the store. She jumped off the ground and turned to Nellie and said, "Oh Nellie, dance with me!" And I watched as the two old women laughed and chuckled, waltzing down the pasta aisle together. What a sight it was to see.

After our outing, Nellie went to take a nap, so I met up with Stephanie. We helped some of the Indian women who help teach the Rahab's Rope jewelry program by organizing beads and string for a few hours. Later, we walked down to Anatoly's apartment to help her take apart a sewing machine that Rahab's Rope bought for a sweet woman named Pushpa. I spent most of the time playing with Anatoly's little boy named Ezekiel. My heart melted as we played together, taking pictures of each other with my camera and laughing about how silly we looked, and I had to fight back tears when I thought about his mother's suffering and pain and horror-filled past.

"Aint no reason to worry about connecting with nobody. God's got a plan, and He's gonna do with you what He wants."-Nellie B.

45 years ago, two young mothers sat side by side at a church meeting in North Georgia, listening to the testimony of woman named Pearl Jenkins. She served the people of India for several years, and her stories about healing and compassion and sacrifice had the two women impassioned to join her work. One of the young mothers turned to the other and said, "Oh, me. I want to be just like Pearl Jenkins someday." And her friend said, "Me too."

The two women left the meeting and back to their busy homes where their responsibilities as mothers of four kids took over their lives, forgetting about Pearl Jenkins and their covenant to each other that day.

40 years later, one of the women heard about an organization named Rahab's Rope that served and loved sex workers in India, and she decided to join the team and live in Bangalore for 2 years. She began to write stories and reports about her experiences and send them home, and one day she received a response from a fellow church member who said, "The stories you're telling remind me of a woman who travelled and lived in India years and years ago, and she used to come to my church to tell us about her time in India. Her name was Pearle Jenkins." The woman leaped from her chair and praised the Lord with tears of joy as she remembered her conversation with her friend years ago, and how they had promised each other they wanted to be just like Pearle.

Just a few months later, the other woman was at a prayer meeting when someone mentioned a prayer request for their friend serving in India. Realizing the woman in India was her friend too, she was flooded with the memory of her covenant to her friend to go to India one day and serve the people, and so she emailed her friend in Asia and they reconnected when she returned to the United States for a few months. Now, the two old mothers are living together in Bangalore for 6 months, fulfilling their desires to be like Pearle.

The two women are Mackey and Nellie, and Mackey is the staff member of Rahab's Rope while Nellie is visiting to build a playground for an orphanage. They are the cutest, sweetest, funniest friends, and if I'm half as cool as they are when I'm in my sixties, I'll be set :). I told Mackey that I wanted to be just like her someday and she said, "Careful now, Emily. You just watch what you say out loud now, 'cause Jesus will send you to India in 50 years like He did me! Oh you done it now, can't you just hear Him smilin' and laughin' up there?"

Latha and I shopping for an oven.

Mackey and Latha outside the store where Nellie bought her supplies.

A Beautiful Woman with Beautiful Bananas.