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

  

Why we are doing this trip

Here is a very general map of India. This nation is a third the size of the US and has over Four Times our population. I'm going to be flying into New Delhi in the light blue state near the top. If you think of India as a ice cream cone I'll be going in and around where the rim would be.

Here is a video showing a picture of the mission field in India and how one man named William Carey began the modern view on missions in India.

Within India there between 250 and 300 million people known as the Dalit. These people are essentially slaves within India. If you want to know why they are slaves you will need to do some homework of your own to better understand the Indian caste system. Or you can go to the dalit freedom network via the link below.
http://www.dalitnetwork.org/

Its hard to imagine there being as many slaves in India nearly the entire population of the US. But these people are there and with the place they find themselves they are without hope for escape. These Indian people are very spiritual and in terms of the harvest these people are ripe to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. I would encourage you to help in any way you can. Out of 1.2 billion people less then 2% are Christians and the place where I am going it is less then 0.05% of the people.

When the bible tells us in Revelation 5 & 7 that members from every tongue tribe and nation will be around the throne of God. That means that there will be members from every tribe and people group in India that are without the word of God will be there with us. My prayer is that you will learn more about this and begin to help in whatever way you can, whether it be prayer, going on a trip someday, or telling your missions leader at your church about this void of the Gospel to so many people.

So that is the main reason I am going to India. What God is doing in India is incredible, 100 churches are planted every day! thousands are coming to know the Lord, mission exists because worship doesn't. My desire is that in what God does through us in this trip will cause others to love Jesus more and give their worship to him.

Anything you wanna see?

Hey guys. So while I'm in India I'm gonna have a chance to take some pics of some crazy stuff, so if there is anything in particular you want me to look for to either take a picture of or a picture with let me know, whether it be a camel, a elephant, a Indian soldier, anything. feel free to let me know and I'll do my best to pull through.

First Post / 5 days till take off

Hey, so this is my first ever blog. Its kinda my test run to see how it looks and stuff.... so yeah in case you dont know this is a blog i'm setting up mainly for my overseas travels, namely India. My dad and I are going to India to meet with some church planters and master trainers ( the guys who train the church planters ) and along the way i may be able to see some cool stuff like the Taj Mahal and the city of Varanasi and other fun stuff. So have fun reading :)