|PIC1|Popular Christian band Delirious? recently completed its second tour in India, performing outdoors in Bangalore, Mumbai (Bombay) and Pune and visiting children's projects in the slum areas of Mumbai.

The tour featured songs from their current and world-acclaimed DVD-CD, Now Is The Time Live At Willow Creek.

"Another tour, another crowd, another continent, another plane ride. So why does my heart feel like it has been pulled out, turned round and put back a different way round? Why do I feel like life can never be the same again?" asks Delirious? frontman Martin Smith.

As thousands gathered outdoors to worship with Delirious?, the band members began to see their dreams materialise in the middle of rural Indian fields.

"It's still a very strange experience to me that you can show up in a field in India and there is a bunch of people singing our songs and wanting the heavens to open above their city. This is what we sang about 15 years ago," reflects Smith, "that the streets would be filled with singing. I guess I should be getting used to it by now, but I'm still in awe and wonder..."

"We feel humbled to be received so favorably by so many," adds band mate Tim Jupp, "but even more humbled that we have the opportunity to play our small part in what God is doing in this incredible nation."

In addition to the concerts in India, the band spent time in the slum areas of Mumbai visiting and serving meals to children and their mothers.

"For us as a band," says Smith, "we are living in our dreams, our future is now and we are seeing what we longed to see. Having top twenty singles in the charts was a good part of the journey, but going to a slum in Mumbai and singing 'Rain Down' to those who own nothing is something extraordinary."

Before leaving the slums, the band rounded up and transported around 40 children and their mothers from the projects to that evening's concert. The families were able to sit towards the back of the stage and look out into the crowd as Delirious? led worship. During a couple of the songs, the children came out to the front of the stage to sing and dance with the band.

"We have played with some great artists," says Smith, "but none were as radiant as the children rescued from the red light district, dancing with us on stage with so much joy on their faces you would think they had one foot already in heaven. A more complete glimpse than I will ever have whilst down here."

Last year, Delirious? and legendary US evangelist Joyce Meyer travelled to Hyderabad, India, to join India's own Sounds of the Nations for one of the largest Christian events in India. More than 1.2 million people gathered to hear Delirious? play songs from its widely acclaimed new album, The Mission Bell.