Days 5, 6, and 7...I think... the 9th-the 11th: The tea states

Sooo, I’m losing track of the days here so I’ll post the dates from here on out, this is what went down the 9^th through the 11th

The three days we spent in Siliguri were very humbling and I am proved once again that God seems to be teaching me something every day here in India.

On Saturday we woke up early and met Mr Singh and travelled to the airport. My dad has been telling me all along the way that things are much nicer now then a year ago, but I tell ya, the airport in Delhi is Very nice, far better than Boise, and almost better then San Francisco. All new buildings and smiley personnel. After seeing the long line in the domestic side dad decided to hop into the first class line which had no one in it.

Passing through was uneventful for the most part, and we came into a food court area that puts most of the airports I have been in to shame. Just the quality of the area felt very high class.

We found the most familiar restaurant food so far, subway. It was 80% there but still, like everything else, it was just different from home. While having breakfast God sent us a meeting we did not expect. We were sitting near the elevator on the second floor of the food court when we saw an American women with her three kids, my dad leans over and says ‘May I ask where you are from?’ She replies, ‘We are just moving to India.’ ‘Where in India?’ he asks. ‘Siliguri.’ ‘Do you know Nathan  Shank?’ ‘Yeeeah we’re staying in his house.’ ‘No way, so are we!’. It turns out that her family has been house sitting for Nathan Shank while he was out of town caring for his wife and her newborn baby. They had no idea we were coming so us being able to run into them gave them a warning that they were about to have company. What a “coincidence”.

On our flight we were able to see out of our window the Himalayan mountain range, Very cool. Our flight was typical for any domestic flight, except because they don’t have stewardess unions in India the stewardess’s are actually attractive and nice. Very different then i am used to back home.

 

We landed in a town outside of Siliguri called Bhedogra, in the state of west Bengal. This area is a few miles away from Darjeeling where the famous Darjeeling tea is grown. We were picked up by a guy named Keith, but because Indians have a hard time saying the ‘th’ at the end of his name he goes mostly by his middle name, Robert here in India.

We passed dozens of plantations where bushes that are quite literally hundreds of years old grow. In the tea bushes the top three leaves of new growth are what is needed for tea, and since they have not yet invented a machine that can pick only the top three leaves of growth tea can only really be grown in areas with extremely low labor costs.

We got to know Keiths family while we were here, Keiths wife’s name is Susan, his daughter Natalia, and his son Judson, Great kids.

We stayed in Nathans house and met again the family we saw briefly at the Delhi airport.

The next day we were picked up by a guy who drive us around named Lim Singh (no relation to the other Mr Singh in Delhi) and we set out towards one of the villages in the middle of the tea gardens at the base of the Himalayas. Along the way we picked up a man named Rejesh who is one of the Master Trainers. The church that we went to was one of his first church plants 6 years ago. To get to the village we had to cross a dry riverbed past 15 kids playing cricket.

We were a bit late getting to the church so they were finishing their time of worship by the time we got there. They had us sit at the front of the church in plastic chairs while everyone else sat on the floor on blue tarps.

Were given these silk lays if you will that were symbols of honor and welcome. Dad was invited to speak and he spoke for about 45 minutes with the help of Rejesh translating, and them I got up and spoke for 10 minutes. I guess you could say that this was my first sermon. I spoke on Psalm 23 and how God brings peace, I was very brief and direct with what I taught, and things went very well, the spirit was definitely at work there. Afterwards we talked with the pastor, Rejesh, and a young man who was at the beginning of the spirit using him, I saw in him the potential to become a church planter and likely a master trainer one day. The holy spirit has done amazing things in this village, 6 years ago there was not one Christian among them, but now in a village of 70 families, about 250-300 people, 75% are now followers of Christ. Praise God.

After we went to Rejesh house which is build on top of cement stilts because at night the elephants would come and knock down his house. ( I have an awesome elephant story if you want to remind me when I see you next, just ask me about the ‘Avenging Elephants’ ) We had lunch at Rejesh and we talked about his vision and he told us about how he has trained people and through him and the work of God through him 52 new churches have been planted in the last 6 months! So with an average of 20 in each church (which is a conservative number) at least 1,000 people have been reached through him in the last 6 months. How many people have been affect through your church in the last 6 months? Food for thought.

After we left Rajesh we went and met with a man named Chandra, he has planted 66 churches in 1 year, he shared with us his goals and his plans, these men have incredible vision and ability to reach tens of thousands of people with Christ.

Later that night we met with Surajit, Keith, and another guy i don’t know the name of, a lot of talking about strategy and vision in that meeting.

The next day we met with a couple who are in a Journeyman program, that is they are kind of ‘feeling out’ so to speak the idea of them being missionaries. The couple were named Emily and Nick, they do a lot of videos and promotional stuff for the missions things going on over here, if I find some of their work I will post a link later in the comments.

After the meeting with Emily and Nick we met with another master trainer names Alok, he has similar vision and does work in India, the kingdom of Bhutan, and Napal. Here is his family, his wife Bandna and his daughter Niki. This man is a great man of vision and has incredible potential to reach the lost people in India and the Bhutan gateways to China.

When we had finished talking to Alok and hearing his vision we headed out and met with Keith and made our way to the train station. On the way we stopped at a vender to pick up some Darjeeling tea. Now this isn’t the regular tea as we think of, this place measured its tea in kilograms and this is the absolute best Darjeeling tea in the world that we picked up at this place. We got 2 kg’s of tea (4.4 pounds) at a rate of 600 rupees a kg ($13.5). We later found at the airport that they were selling the same tea, packaged, at 550 rupees for 20g, so we got 25 times the tea for our money and thats only at a indian airport, i wonder what the price per kg is the the US? Great deal, better tea :D if your nice I may share some with you when I get back J

Now of all the experiences in India few are as infamous as the Indian train system. We got to the station and after finding a parking space ¼ miles away we worked our way through the peddlers, rickshaws, cows and cow dung. We were on time but our train was very late, Keith was awesome and walked with us and helped us sort out where our train would be when I pulled in.

In this station there were solders Everywhere, in the booths, at nearly every corner, just walking around, they were everywhere at this station. The funny thing is, that half of the solders have guns from before WWI, I’m serious, they have ancient bolt-action single shot weapons slung over the shoulder. It’s little wonder the Mumbai terrorist attacks were so effective.

Anyway the train eventually came and we parted ways with Keith. We were lucky enough to have a sleeper car that was calm and not overly packed. These compartments were four fold out beds, two low, two high. My dad and I had only one little Indian man as a partner in this area. It was not too packed, and there was only really one complaint I would give, the AC with the top bunks blows non-stop right onto your head, so you step out of 85 degree humid weather and hop onto a freezing cold bunk.

The ride went all night and we arrived in Calcutta at 7:00am ish. But that day is for another post. I’ll fill you in on the next post. See ya later,

Rick.