Early this morning, Friday, we left for the airport for our flight to Mizoram. We flew an India Air subsidiary which was crowded and left late. It was only a 50 minute flight over Bangladesh to what is called the Aizawl airport, though it takes about an hour to drive through the hills to the town from the airport.

On arrival we had to register with our RAP (restricted area permit). There was once an insurgency here, with the Mizo people trying to gain their independence - aided at some period by the CIA. That movement is essentially over but there can still be occasional violence, thus the required permit. The Mizo are a mongoloid people closely related to the hill tribes of Burma and Thailand. In fact they reminded me a great deal of the people I taught in northern Thailand in 1981. C.P. Lalvuana and two other Church of God - Israel men met us at the airport and the five of us piled into a Markuti Suzuki jeep for the long drive to Kolasib.

We first had to drive to Aizawl which was a good hour south, the opposite direction from Kolasib. Mizoram is located in the hills region, foothills to the Himalayas which are located another four hundred kms north.

The hills are very steep, making for some breathtaking scenery. We had to check in with the local authorities in Aizawl which is perched 2260 meters (7000 feet) up on a mountain crest. PHOTO_ID_R=aizawl-in-mizoram.jpg]There was no problem with the formalities at the police station, and we were quickly through the process.

We then stopped to see a family that Dave had met on his one previous visit to the region about a year and half ago. The daughter, Christina, spoke pretty good English as was very happy to see Dave again. They are Sabbath keepers though they don't keep the annual Holy Days as we do. To have a westerner visit is an exciting event, so they were thrilled that we stopped to see them. The visit took longer than we hoped which put us late into Kolasib around 7:00 pm, and well after dark. Traveling the mountains roads was a white-knuckle experience since the roads were narrow, there were no guardrails, the drop-offs were fatally precipitously, and the vehicles large, traveling quickly, and all over the road.

Still we made it safely, and checked in at the tourist guest house and dropped our bags, then to Lalvuana's house for dinner. They had just finished a Friday night church service, but the members were excited about our arrival so they had all stayed to welcome us. We spent several minutes with them in the living room, and were introduced to everyone, before having dinner in the kitchen next door. Lalvuana's mother said a prayer of thanksgiving for our arrival, getting down on all fours as she prayed. Then the rejoicing began. They remembered Dave well and were really overjoyed to see him again.