Day 4 - Would you like some ruby? sapphire? emerald? (Revised Version)

Oh my goodness, what a day. So much to describe and so little time to describe it in. We decided to spend this day in and around the city of Delhi, do a little sight seeing before being whisked away to another few days of full meetings and relation building. My dad has had a very good driver in the past when has been in Delhi, so  we called him, Mr Singh is his name.  He drove us around all day today all across  the city. So we wound up leaving Randy’s house at 9:00am and went off in the direction of the red fort.

Now Delhi is the capitol of India and has deep history reaching all the way back to 300 BC, on our way to the red fort we passed the hub of India government, very much comparable to D.C. but… India style.  We passed the presidents palace, the avenue of embassies (we didn’t drive through, just near), the ministry of defense, the ministry of finance, and the gate of India.

We got to the red fort and once again I was blown away by the scale of this place. The red fort is a massive fort build by one of the mughal emperors in 1648 and was made the capitol of the mughal empire.

After we bought our tickets and passed 4 stations with armed guards and machine guns in pillboxes, we found a guide to walk us through the fort for 250 rupees ($5), we saw the British barracks from their occupation, we saw the throne from which the emperor would listen to arguments and pass judgment. We saw massive beautiful palaces built for the women, fountains where dancers would perform. There was one common theme all throughout the complex, these areas where the royalty would reign from were all at one time inlaid, incrusted, or covered in gold, but all has long since been looted. Just imagining this place in all its glory just takes your breath away. Maybe I’m the only one that’s like this, but when I see something that is in ruins or was once grand my mind thinks of what it once was, I see in my minds eye the glory of this place, and then I see that it is in ruin. In the end nothing that humanity builds for its own glory will remain, all will fall. One of the mughals once said ‘If there is anywhere on earth that is close to heaven, this is it’, though I wonder what he is thinking now.

Long story short in this place was filled with history at every corner from the throne room to the latrine, the imprint of greatness is all around.

 Afterwards we decided to take a bicycle rickshaw through the spice markets in Delhi, we found a man named Taslim, who I do NOT recommend you ever take a ride from, I’ll explain why at the end of the story, anyway we went through narrow alleyways with literally hundereds of power cords hanging everywhere, the type of place you would expect to see in a movie set of some sort. I’m not even joking, over head there were thousands of wires held onto the buildings by the absolute minimum of rope, nails, or whatever, we actually saw a man pull down a loose wire, strip it, and plug in his phone! Crazy stuff.

The buildings of the area are really facinating, the arches, the support collums, every aspect of these buildings felt anchient.  But the thing is they plaster over the amazing architecture billboards and advertisements, and all these posters so that you have to look hard to see the incredible design underneath. These buildings look like they would have belonged in a Aladdin movie set 150 years ago, but now they are very much run down and in disrepare. Anyway we passed through these 10 foot wide alleys in a 5 foot wide rickshaw until we popped out in a larger road in the middle of the spice market. This was obviously a hub of trading and activity, there were dozens of karts with 30+ big burlap sacks of peppers, and tea leaves, and any kind of spice you can imagine from saffron to cinnamon. When we passed the ally where they crush and process the peppers I could hardly breathe the smell was so strong and so wonderfull at the same time.

We hopped out at one point along the way and bought some spices, I got some chocolate tea along the way as well, I cant wait to try it :D We then wrapped up our tour of the markets at the original Karim’s restaurant. Great food, not so great service. This area that we had lunch at, the Karim’s place, is the place where I felt the most disliked so far this trip, and here’s why. Literally on the other side of the street from this place is India largest mosque. Every girl I saw was in complete black dress with everything but their eyes covered, and the men wore those odd skull cap things muslims wear, and everywhere I looked I saw disdain in the eyes of the men towards the westerners on their midst. Anyways, it just wasn’t friendly to a small town conservative white American boy.

Now we get to the part where I tell you why you should never take a ride from Taslim the rickshaw driver. When we set out from the red fort we agreed to 100 rupees ($2.22) a piece for the whole trip, which was supposed to be 20 minutes long, but it turned into 2 ½ hours, a very good 2 ½ hours but far longer all the same. When we sat down in Karim’s he demanded 1,500 rupees ($30), we wound up paying him 1,100 rupees ($24) to get him to chill on the issue and after lunch we went on our way. When we got to our cab driver he said that the normal pay for a driver like Taslim is 30-50 rupees. One dollar. To contrast this we paid our driver for a entire day of driving 2,000 rupees. $44.

Now I generally try not to make generalizations when it comes to people, but certainly when dealing with foreigners, never trust a muslim. I just look back and laugh at this, but this man not only set out to cheat us from the get go, but he screwed us over 5 times again. *sigh* just make sure if you’re in a situation like that, set the price in stone, or you may pay 25 times what you need to. Foreigners all have a big target on our backs to people who wish to have a big payday.

And that isn’t even the best part of the day, oh no not even close. After we went to a market called ‘Pahar Ganj’. Now this place is where Europeans come to get high and return home with all the dope they want, and it’s also where you can find great leather workers, pharmacies, and all sorts of merchants of any kind you can think of for a fraction of the price in the states. We got some amazing deals and saw some very high white people. One of the white ladies I saw seemed to be backpacking her way across India with a backpack larger than she was. I could almost see the thought bubble over her head saying “It was such a good idea at the time” J

Some of the deals I shall reveal when I return, but the one I will share is a exciting one, we stopped by a leather dealer and put in a order for a leather jacket for me :D for 3400 rupees (about $75) you can get a custom made leather coat made within 24 hours, all kinds of coats, biker style, fine occasions, old western style, and everything in between.

While we were in this place I was offerd at least 5 times some of the drugs they were selling the other white people there, the one that stuck out to me was when we were heading back to meet our driver and a man came and began walking along with me and said “Can I offer you some

There I saw what a great opportunity there is to importing in things from India, the cheap labor makes craftsmanship not hard to find and in abundant supply. I tell ya if the Indian government did not have the restrictions on foreigners doing business there that they do business men from the west would be running every angle imaginable.

After we had finished we called our driver and had him take us to a hotel near the airport, he highly recommended a place called the ‘OM palace’. Now this is something I have seen many times and it boggles my mind every time I see it, in India, certainly with hotels, the concept of location does not matter when building, this place was in the middle of slums 300 yards off the main road. I was a bit concerned when we stepped out of the car, but the hotel turned our actually being very nice, a clean well kept place with a TV and cheap room service. Of course everything feels inexpencive in India in comparison but it just felt good.

So that is the sum of the day, busy and filled with amazing sights, there is something I saw that shook me to the core but I’ll let you know about it later. For now here is what I did and what I saw, my deepest thoughts I assure you will come shortly.

Rick.

Days 5 and 6 (short version)

So i really dont have the time to collect my thoughts at the moment and let you know all thats going on, what i will say though is I am safe, i'm at the house of a guy named Nathan, we met with many church planters today, i gave a sermon at church, we met with two master trainers, and yeah, things are good, i will post in detail when i have a few hours to collect my thoughts

Also i left out a few details on the last post so i will post a revised version as soon as i can.

See you later,
Rick

Day 4 - Would you like some ruby? sapphire? emerald?

Oh my goodness, what a day. So much to describe and so little time to describe it in. We decided to spend this day in and around the city of Delhi. My dad has had a very good driver before and we called him and had him drive us around all day today. So we wound up leaving Randy’s house at 9:00am and went off in the direction of the red fort.

Now Delhi is the capitol of India and has deep history reaching all the way back to 300 BC, on our way to the red fort we passed the hub of India government, we passed the presidents palace, the avenue of embassies (we didn’t drive through, just near), the ministry of defense and the ministry of finance, and the gate of India.

We got to the red fort and once again I was blown away by the scale of this place. The red fort is a massive fort build by one of the mughal emperors in 1648 and was made the capitol of the mughal empire. After we bought our tickets and passed 4 stations with armed guards and machine guns in pillboxes, we found a guide to walk us through the fort for 250 rupees ($5), we saw the British barracks from their occupation, we saw the throne from which the emperor would listen to arguments and pass judgment. We saw massive beautiful palaces built for the women, fountains where dancers would perform, places that had at one time been encrusted with gold. Just imagining this place in all its glory just takes your breath away, one of the mughals once said ‘If there is anywhere on earth that is close to heaven, this is it’, though I wonder what he is thinking now.

Long story short in this place was filled with history. Afterwards we decided to take a bicycle rickshaw through the spice markets in Delhi, we found a man named Taslim, who I do Not recommend, I’ll explain why later, anyway we went through narrow alleyways, the type of which you expect to see in a movie of some sort. I’m not even joking, over head there were thousands of wires held onto the buildings by the absolute minimum of rope, nails, or whatever, we actually saw a man pull down a loose wire, strip it, and plug in his phone! Crazy stuff.

The buildings of the area are really cool, but the thing is they plaster all over them billboards and advertisements, and all these posters so that you have to look hard to see the incredible design underneath. These buildings look like they would have belonged in a Aladdin movie set 150 years ago, but now they are very much run down. Anyway we passed through these 10 foot wide alleys in a 5 foot wide rickshaw until we popped out in a larger road in the middle of the spice market. There were karts with 30+ big burlap sacks of peppers, and tea leaves, and any kind of spice you can imagine, when we passed the ally where they crush and process the peppers I could hardly breathe the smell was so strong.

We hopped out at one point along the way and bought some spices, I got some chocolate tea also J we then wound up at the original Karim’s restaurant. Great food, not so great service. This area that we had lunch at, the Karim’s place, is the place where I felt the most disliked so far this trip, and here’s why. On the other side of the street from this place is India largest mosque. Every girl I saw was in complete black dress with everything but their eyes covered, and the men wore those odd skull cap things muslims wear. Anyways, it just wasn’t friendly to a small town conservative white American boy.

Now we get to the part that you should never take a ride from Taslim. When we set out from the red fort we agreed to 100 rupees ($2.22) a piece for the whole trip, which was supposed to be 20 minutes, but it turned into 2 ½ hours, and when we sat down in Karim’s he demanded 1,500 rupees ($30), we wound up paying him 1,100 rupees ($24) to get him to chill on the issue and after lunch we went on our way. When we got to our cab driver he said that the normal pay for a driver like Taslim is 30-50 rupees. One dollar. Now I generally try not to make generalizations when it comes to people, but certainly when dealing with foreigners, never trust a muslim. I just look back and laugh at this, but this man not only set out to cheat us, but screwed us over 5 times again. *sigh* just make sure if you’re in a situation like that, set the price in stone, or you may pay 25 times what you need to.

And that isn’t even the best part of the day, oh no not even close. After we went to a market called ‘Pahar Ganj’ this place is where Europeans come to get high and come home with all the dope they want, it’s also where you can find great leather workers, pharmacies, and all sorts of merchants of any kind you can think of. We got some amazing deals and saw some very high white people. One of the white ladies I saw seemed to be backpacking her way across India, but the thing is her backpack was larger than she was, I could almost see the thought bubble over her head saying “It was such a good idea at the time” J

Some of the deals I shall reveal when I return, but the one I will share is a exciting one, we stopped by a leather dealer and put in a order for a leather jacket for me :D for 3400 rupees (about $75) you can get a custom made leather coat made within 24 hours, all kinds of coats, biker style, fine occasions, western style, and everything in between.

There were many many more things which happened here but I am too tired to remember the details right now, maybe I’ll fill in the blanks later, but for now I am signing off. Thanks for reading all the way through. I’ll see you next post.

Rick.

Days two and three

Its crazy being across the planet, i'm still having a hard time thinking that its morning here and evening there, though this is the smallest of the differences, here quite literally Everything is different, the cars, the roads, the buildings, the people, the soda, everything has a different flavor, though it all seems to have a western feel to it.

On my second day in India we went back to the Good Shepard campus and saw yet another way of how the spirit was working in ways we didn't expect. We came again in the middle of a session and from what a gathered what was happening is they were teaching on baptism, and it turned out that many ha not been baptised, so they gathered them all on stage and decided to baptise them that day. Now this sparked some controversy that i don't have time to go into detail on but long story short they could not baptize them on the campus. So they went a few miles away to do the baptism, it was awesome seeing the joy in the room when this man named Kumar called them to baptism. The baptism itself was video taped on my dads video camera and i'll post it as soon as i can :)

After that we met with Surujit, a master trainer, and talked with him for quite a while, he is going to be supported by a church in the states that my dad is associated with so we shot some video of him telling us what he was about and why he was doing what he was doing, very cool stuff.
One other thing that i have observed is that India seems to run on a drink called Chai, a very hot very sweet tea that they serve every day whether it be 60 or 130 outside they roll out the chai.


The next day was very uneventful, I woke up feeling like i had a flu, I wasn't too bad off, but i dint leave the house much that day, Except for lunch :) We went to a muslin restaurant named Karim's were their slogan is 'The secrete to good mood, a taste of Karim's food' and they were not far off. This was a hole in the wall place by any standard, and the food was amazing, we met a man there named Depok who is a pastor with a vision for church planting. We had food like Afghan chicken, and butter chicken, and a mutton stew, all very good, and as a cruel joke our friend Randy decided to get us a drink known as 'Lassi' its pronounced 'lussi'. He described as a 'Yogurt type vanilla drink, now to get the best flavor you need to really take a deep gulp' Thankfully i only had a sip, i can only describe its flavor as a sour cream and spoiled milk shake, i do not recommend this drink, Beware o.O

Later that day we had house church at Randy's with a few of his friends, it was good, very much different from what i am used to.

God is doing incredible things here in India, Every day he is showing me something new, i'll try to keep you posted, we are leaving Randy's house today and i don't know when i'll have Internet again but i'll keep you posted when i do.

Day one in India

So we got to Dubai and New Delhi safely, our plane landed at 2:45 am local time, which is 3:15 pm Idaho time. We saw a Lot of interesting people Shaikhs, Sheik's, Muslims, allot of Hindus, and a monk or two along the way. Anyway along the way I got to hang out in the nicest airports I have ever been too. All of the airports were recently re-done, Dubai had a mall in the terminal which was very interesting to see. (btw the burger king menu is totally different internationally) 

When we got to New Delhi passing through customs was a breeze. Picking up our bags was a hassle but no biggie. After recharging our Indian cell phone we eventually found our cab driver to our hotel, the hotel star. He didn’t speak a word of English except hotel star, which we hear many times. He knew what he was doing, and other then driving down a one way street the wrong way for a 1/4 mile it was a safe ride.

Had an interesting experience the first hotel, nice place with.....character :). 

After a nice breakfast we were picked up by a friend of ours named Randy. We drove with Randy for about 30 min until we reached a place called 'Good Shepard'. 

Now I have to tell you strait that I have no idea where or when we are going on this trip, and what i saw today completely blew me away. We came into the compound called 'Good Shepard', about 5 acres or so of buildings similar to a campus of a community college from the 50's. We walked through the main gate and immediately the sound of Indian worship music filled our ears. We walked to the back of a large chapel building and saw 300+ Indians the building singing songs then listening to a lesson. From what I have gathered this was much more then a church service. What I was witnessing was the beginning of a 3 day long training conference for church planters, there are around 500 church planters being trained this week. After lunch they met and had a lesson on the parable of the sowers. They then broke into 4 groups and began more in depth lessons, now they broke into four groups because in the 500 + people there are 11 languages the people speak.

In India there are basically two categories, the first is engaged people groups where there is at least a 2% christian population. The other is unreached people groups. In India there are around 600 unengaged people groups, we are talking hundreds of millions of people who in there entire culture there is not a christian presence whatsoever. Now we as Christians have an obligation to help reach these people, what these people are trying to do is not to send missionary's from the west to India, but rather make the Indians themselves missionary's. The goal is to train church planters who will go village to village and preach the gospel starting churches. In this way the people that the west can help are the master trainers, some of whom I got to see in action today. The people known as the master trainers are the people who train the Indian Christians to be church planters and spread Gods work like wild fire, the ultimate goal of this is not simply church planting (CP) but to spark a church planting movement (CPM) a CPM is where after a church is started and has matured a bit that they would then go and start other churches in neighboring villages, and they would in turn start other churches. This exponential growth is not just an idea, there are church planters who have seen churches started beyond the 4th generation. I was honored to see some of these master trainers in action today.

Its incredible, in these people there was a group who I believe were at a conference like this one last October, in this group of 30 or so many had started up to 8 churches since! Its estimated that there are 10 churches planted every day in India and these people are how the Gospel is being reached to a dark nation.

So after lunch today we were all standing around not sure when the next thing would start so a Asian guy from Texas named Toni decided we should try to play a game, the next 30 min were filled with me and Toni trying to explain the rules of the 'human knot' game, after much confusion we finally unraveled and no one was hurt :)

On the drive to Randy's place we passed by many slums among the rising sky scrapers.

Shrines to gods on corners, and a few grand temples. The one above is the 'Hunuman' Temple, this deity is the monkey god in Hinduism.

So far the trip has gone very well, God has blessed us with friends and amazing opportunities to see what he is doing with men and women here in India, And this is only day one!

One down, fifteen to go. Please pray for the men and women being trained this week here in New Delhi, they are the men and women who God is using in India.

(More details of the stories shall be furnished upon request)

About to leave the US

Right now I am sitting in the San Francisco international airport about to hop on a Boeing 777 for a 16 hour flight, completely out of my comfort zone right now, but that's what this trip is all about so it good.

Today I am reading a book called 'God of the untoucables' it explains really well the Hindu mindset and tells the story of a young man growing up in Hinduism and becoming an amazing Evangelist in India. I highly recommend this book.

I have a very strong feeling that most of my posts are going to be in reflection of this trip after the fact, since I barely have time to give an update while waiting for a plane. so I guess expect a real time description of whats going down and I'll fill you in on the details after I get back :) till then please pray for God to show me things on this trip and grow my faith through this.

Time to get on the plane, next stop Dubai.

Getting ready

   So we leave home in 4 hours and Boise 19. Our bags are nearly put together, the netbook is running good, the batteries are charged in the cameras, ipods, and phones, so much yet to do and so many unknowns about what to expect. I confess that I am very nervous about leaving, not nervous that we might be hurt or anything, I know God will take care of us, but I think I'm afraid of not knowing what will happen, I'm nervous about not being in control or having a say about what will happen when we step out of the western style comfort zone and into the street with the masses of people flooding around us.
  
   I need to remember that God is in control, that I need to listen to him, I can get so concerned with the What-Ifs that I too often lose sight of what could be.

   If you could pray for me through this trip I would really appreciate it. For peace, for protection, for boldness and for courage. Thanks.
  
   I end this post with a song that will be my prayer through this trip, I ask that you listen to the words and dwell on, meditate on the words. Against the power of Christ no one can stand, please pray that power will be given to us as we enter into the largest mission field in the world