If I had Twitter....

What would’ve been on Twitter December 20th-21st...if I had Twitter.

Only 20 more hours in India - excited out of my mind!

I wish the water wasn’t freezing so I could shower and wash all this dead human ash off my body. I will never smell sandalwood again with out thinking of burning human corpse on the edge of the Gangas river.

Only 200K to the boarder, no big deal!

Tractors, food carts going to another location, motorcycles, wagons, camels, dogs, people, bicycles, water buffalo, elephants, rickshaws, cows, tuktuks, and our bus all on this 2 lane road - no wonder it takes 10 hours to go 200K.

I just wish the bus would rattle a little more.

The Nepali customs people are so nice - finally somebody who seems to care. I love Nepal already.

I hate Nepal.

The entire country is on strike? How does that even work? How does that happen?

Why didn’t they tell us BEFORE we left Varanasi that Nepal is on a 3 day strike instead of 2 minutes before we get off the bus to go into Nepal? I love spending extra days at this no place border town.

Moaists? What is going on? Should we even be here?

Good news! “We will definitely, probably, most likely will be leaving for sure at 12:30....maybe”. Huh?

It’s 1:30...shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up on that most convincing statement that we were leaving at 12:30.

Thanks Mr. French Man - I do feel VERY fortunate that we only have to be here for 1 day.

Robyn - we forgot to research lice.

Gotta go - bus is leaving in 20 minutes.

I’m back - the bus will be here in an hour.

On our way to Katmandu! It's only 5pm.

Is it customary for people to clap and sing when the lights go out? - I think usually that indicates it’s time to sleep.

Is this a bathroom break? It seems like we’ve been sitting here for quite some time.

Wait....the bus driver is taking a nap? How long is his nap?

No worries guys - we are back and running 2 and half hours later! He just needed a little nap to keep him going.

Oh good - we’re on our way - how long do we have?

Um....that is my arm rest. I don’t think you can make a bed in the middle of the bus floor with your 7 blankets and then sit up and decide to wrap your entire arm around my arm rest to keep you from sliding around.

Yes that is my hip bone get your elbow off of it!

Seriously - I mean it - get your arm off of my lap. I am pushing against it for a reason.

Wait....wait.....WAIT a minute, we were only 1 and half hours from Katmandu and you pulled over to take a 2 and half hour nap?

So here we are, 4:36am, dropped off on the side of the road, it’s dark, cold, and we have no idea where to go. Welcome to Katmandu.

Meeting an old friend

"Hey! What are you guys doing? I am starting at a call center on Monday and I would love to practice my english with you...Do you want me come with you where you are going? I know the buses so you can go cheap. I am just your friend, I don't want money, just to practice English. You need a sim card? OK, I can help you. Let's just talk. Have you heard of this place? I can take you there. If not, it's OK, I just want to learn more so I can talk to the people who call me".

Our "friend" Rahul showed us around Mumbai all day. I was confused but nobody else seemed to mind so I just kept my mouth shut. Night came and we parted ways. Titus and Caleb gave him a little money as a thank you but we made our way back to the hotel so happy we got to see so much in Mumbai. We missed Rahul at the next day as we tried to make our way through the city alone. What a good friend we made!

Fast forward a month later. Beautiful Goan beach, calm and peaceful water, sunshine, wonderful sand.....and Rahul's face sitting 2 or 3 seats away...next to another white guy! Maybe the call center he was starting the Monday after we met wasn't working out...maybe. I told Robyn it looked like Rahul but she didn't think much of it. As we swam we noticed the old white guy coming into the water with the Rahul look-alike. I mentioned it to the rest of our group it looked like him. We sat in the water trying to decide if it was him or not. Then, out of nowhere he turns around and holds his finger to his mouth to tell us to shhhh and gives us a wink and smile.

We got SCAMMED. Clever Rahul...but I bet you didn't expect to see us again a month later, 600K away, in another state, with your newest victim! I am not sure who got the better end of the deal! The little money he got from us....or us getting to see the look on his face when he realized who we were!

God is here

Sunset. Beautiful beach. Sand between your toes. Fresh and warm ocean air breathing over you. Contentment.

You will walk along the Goan beach of Anjuna and as you saver the splendor of nature around you, you can't help but notice a large gathering of people. Walking closer you begin to see the lives of wandering souls who meet together each evening. Some sing Hindu worship songs to the many gods around, others dance letting their bodies move with the beat, some stare off into the air. A group in the back twirls hula-hoops around their bodies while others sit tranced centering their souls. A man walks up and strips down next to the guitar player while another couple makes out to the music. One girl would sit perfectly still and suddenly start to contort her body into different stretches and then sit quietly back down into her sedated state again as if nothing changed.

The group slowly disappeared as the sun bends behind the earth. We made our way to a restaurant in town to meet our German friends who invited us to listen to a band they liked. Little did we know they were a Christian band from California traveling around SE Asia and India playing at different places and giving out free CDs of their music. After a handful of songs a man walked up front. Shirtless with a knitted vest, baggy pants with a leather belt hung freely around him, and his afro hair looked old and scraggly. His wife dressed as a gypsy walked up front with him followed by his 2 little girls - maybe 4 or 5 - one naked and one dressed. He strummed his guitar and sang songs to the Hindu gods. His little naked girl ran around while he played. After 2 or 3 songs he walked away.....

The christian guys came back up and although they played all their original stuff before they decided to sing a song we knew - "From the Inside Out". Everlasting your light will shine when all else fade, never ending your glory goes beyond all fame . A sweet breath of air but it also an awakening to me that the one true God is still here in the midst of all these people searching.

To be desperate...

There are a few people I cannot forget. An old man....I am assuming he was old by the grey hair but people age so fast here it is hard to tell the real age of anybody. The old man would wear a red and white checkered scarf each evening over his white robe. It was hard for him to walk so he carried a staff and pulled along a girl who was mentally handicapped. Each evening he would push his way to the front and go from person to person asking for prayer. He wanted healing for his little girl so badly. His eyes were so sad but hopeful. She didn't get healed.

A smile on the womens face showed me she had been completely healed from what she had gone through. She pratically ran up the stage to tell the crowd what had happened. She had a problem with one of her nostrils and for 3 years could not breath out of it at all. That evening while they prayed for healing she stood up in faith and asked for healing - she could now breath completely normal! Her smile I can never forget - she was so grateful!

Each evening we had 100s of people rushing up for personal prayer. They would crowd around you from every side pushing and shoving their way to the front. As son as you took your hand off of the person you were praying for, 5 others grabbed yours to place them on their heads. They were so desperate for a touch from God. The faith and trust they had - "if I could only get prayer God will touch me!". It reminded me of the women who was bleeding who thought if "I could only touch his cloak...". It wasn't the cloak that made her well it was the faith she showed. The trust that Jesus could heal her.

I couldn't pray fast enough to say all I wanted to, to each person. Each prayer was short and quick because it was already so late into the night. I had to entrust it to the Lord - the only one who could heal these people, He doesn't need me. They have so many aches and pains. We toured a hospital in the city one day...there is not much hope medically. I wish I could be that desperate for the Lord. I wish that at church each Sunday people would think - If I could just get prayer and a touch from Jesus then... I wish the front of our services were filled with so many people the prayer teams couldn't pray fast enough. I need that desparity for Jesus just as much as those people who came forward. If not for phyiscal needs - more importantly spiritual needs. A desperate people we should be!

First Thoughts in India...

Everything is old, it is aged with a dark texture that covers the weathered walls. Its uneven pavement is dusty. Horns honk constantly and you look up to see the only cars- black and yellow taxi’s covering the streets. Trying to cross to the other side between them is a bit of a challenge, they don’t like to stop for anything...even the little taxi plays chicken with the big buses.

Everywhere you look you see a beggar. Some just waking up from a nap, others pleading for a coin, some indifferent to anything. Walk down any side street and you’ll find the hundreds of shacks were they lay their heads. A tiny pole and maybe some plastic will make up the family home. If you are lucky you might have tin for your house...even better a room above the main room - the a 3-4 feet tall is the sleeping area....or a seat to look out at what is going on out your front door. Every block has a different smell.

We met Rahul today and he took us around the city. One of our stops was a Muslim temple. Both Hindu and Muslims can come here to worship - it’s not a big deal. After walking through the maze up people pushing through the street to get to the walk way we joined the mass of people heading to the temple that was built on the water. The poor lined the sides of the path to the temple. Lame, blind, children, deformed, sick, old, and young hold out the weathered hands to receive a small coin. Each looked up with a hopeful and lost look. How badly I wanted to reach out and pull them up like Peter did and tell them I had something better for them. 

The temple was even harder to see - the many people kissing and crying over some pile if silk blankets. They were so devoted but oh how I feel so sad for them. It breaks my heart. I suppose that’s why I’m here. It’s so big - I feel like we couldn’t even scratch the surface.

Journal Entry:
The air is hot from the 3rd story balcony outside of our hotel room. Down below the hustle that never seems to stop in a city of over 18 million. Today we took a walk among the streets near our hotel. We found ourselves among the poorest homes I’ve ever witnessed. And not a few blocks of them - it seems to go on forever. The old stone English looking buildings, probably spectacularly beautiful in their day, are little more than rubble aged by the rain and humidity. If you glance inside the holes you’ll see tarps, tin, plastic bags, anything that gives shelter, piled together to make a tiny hut. Beautiful colors are everywhere - bright greens and turquoise, reds and oranges adore the dark skin with the brightest smiles you will find! Women sitting sifting rice or peeling garlic smile bashfully as you go by. It goes on forever. Each roofless stone structure home to hundreds of shacks....Hundreds of roofless stone structures house tens in not hundreds of thousands. So poor but lovely. You could spend your whole life in 1 block...one mile....ten miles and not feel like you’ve made a dent. Why am I not one of the 18 million here? God you blessed me for a purpose - help me to make YOUR mark on this world.

emotions....

Oh darn…it’s started…the emotions. I’ve been good so far but today I actually started to get a little choked up thinking about stuff. I’d just like to be on with the trip so that I’m able to settle in to what normal will be for me during the next few months. I’ll skip right past all the “good-byes” thank you. It’s a weird feeling to be ending your life here while others keep on planning.

At work I’m trying to wrap up everything I’ve been involved in and make it clear and easy for the person sliding in. I’m not picking up new projects so in some way my end has come. The reality that I’m leaving a job I’ve been at for 7 years is sort of hard hitting today. Oh I am excited and ready to see what God has for me – it’s just weird when people say, “it’s the end of your time, when you leave, you won’t be here, etc..”. Oh but what I’ll see not sitting at a desk!

With friends and family – as they make weekend plans or get-away I’ll kindly tune out. It doesn’t bother me at all….its kind of nice to not have plans and to think through how my weekends through the end of the year are getting booked. They’ll be booked with other things – but I’m leaving that open to God.

When I stop and think about what we’re about to do I think that’s when I get emotional – it’s not what I’m missing, it’s not that I’m afraid, it’s not that I can’t live without the people in my life for a time, it’s not that I don’t have security, or anything. What makes me emotional is that God will allow me to be part of something so much bigger than I know how to do. That He has given me this privilege, this dream, this group of people to go with, and that He wants to use me to make an impact. When I start to think about the people we’ll meet, the lives God can touch, the possibilities of what this could become – that’s when I get emotional! It’s so big. And God would use somebody so small. It’s all Him - I’m blessed and honored.

To the loony bin...

Today I read an article in the Star Tribune entitled, “Bipolar Saul? Anxious Moses? Mental Woes are Nothing New”. The article was written by a mental health professional that is taking people from the Bible and diagnosing them with mental issues. Example: Samson has Aspersers disorder because he missed social cues and Joseph tried to exalt himself over his brothers so he must be a narcissist. They didn’t have those types of diagnoses back when these people were living but if they lived today we’d know why they acted crazy....

Of course it wasn’t because God was doing a great work in their lives - the world is labeling them as weird. I mean…I think if I remember correctly we are called to be a “peculiar people, set apart, different, not of this world”. The world won’t see it as that and will simply slap a label on it to justify the actions they see.

I’ve been called crazy for giving up my job in the most economically hard we’ve seen in a long time. Heck, I’ve even wondered if I was!!!! Hmmm....I think I'll diagnose myself....

-I hear a voice that tells me quit my job, pack a bag, and head to a world far away - shiczofrenia.
-I find it hard to focus and desire "normal things" - probably have some sort of attention deficit disorder.
-I doubt myself from time to time wondering if this is the right thing to do - I am probably depressed from my worry.
-I don't want to get sick overseas so I'm taking lots of medicines for different things that could go wrong - of course it's paranoia.
-Apparently believing you can do something so much larger than you actually can is classified as being bio-polar.
-I'm pretty sure I'll be completely changed when I get back - post-tramatic disorder.
-I believe I'm called to something greater than what I'm doing so there is probably some self-righteous narcissistic disorder as well.

So let's see...that would make me a crazy, schitzofrenic, pariniod, bi-polar, narristic, that suffers from depression and attention deficit disorder, and has strong tendencies to suffer from post-trammatic symptoms.

Or....maybe following God causes you seem crazy to the world. Set apart. Different. We could change the world with that!

The last few months...

With limited internet I've been writing down thoughts but haven't had the chance to post them. Here are 2 days from the past month that I want to share.....

I’m going to post something pretty personal. You rarely hear this stuff from people who are taking big steps for God but I’m sure they each go through something like this – having days or moments when they are confused. Whatever your step of faith is and whatever you “feel” like that day – just remember to cry out to God; He wants you to.

From my journal – September 3, 2009.
I feel like I made the dumbest mistake. I doubt I even want to go on this trip. Why can’t my life be cut and dry? Why can’t I have normalness in my life? Somewhere deep inside I know I’m stepping out into God’s best for me. That the doors will open wide and people’s lives will be completely transformed. You are already doing it!!!
I’m stressed out about the stupidest things – like when I get back. Who even cares about that right now? I worry about not finding a room-mate and disappointing people because of it. I feel bad about leaving work. I feel sorry for myself for not being able to be here for Christmas.
I fear failing……wow – I wrote that and realized that’s where everything is stemming from…I am afraid of failing, God. I’m risking everything I have on this trip. I’m scared to death and I feel like nobody understands. I have no guarantee my dream will be accomplished. No guarantee a book will even by written or published! I’m stepping out in blind faith – trying to believe that the voice I heard is real – that it’s worth the risk. That if nothing happens the way I planned it, it doesn’t matter because the only thing that DOES matter is that I obeyed. No matter how that looks in the worlds eyes or if they think I failed it doesn’t matter – I obeyed. Oh God please tell me it is right; that I’m not making a mistake. I want to obey you in everything I do and I just need you close right now.

September 26th, 2009
God amazes me. Four months ago I couldn’t imagine that so many things would work out the way they have been. I feel like every single day God surprises my expectations and proves Himself faithful. Four months ago I was praying God would bring another person on our team – God sent Robyn. I remember our first meeting and how we sat around my kitchen table and said, “are we really doing this? Where do we even begin?”. I was so scared to tell my parents I was quitting a great job in “this economy” to pursue the dream of writing a book – they backed me up fully and my dad is already asking how we can get it published. This last week was a week of big steps I’ve been fearful of making. I gave my boss the date I leave because we bought our plane tickets. We announced my leaving in our staff meeting. My job was posted with in our organization. Each step took my breath away and made me ask myself “Am I really doing this? Is this dream finally happening?”. After a few seconds of sheer panic I get this flood of relief and a smile breaks out over my face, “Yes, it’s happening!”. I can’t describe the joy I feel each day at the privilege I have to go and that God would allow me to actually do something I love so much. This dream has been so heavy on my heart for the past 5 years. At times it seemed impossible to reach, impossible that it would happen. And all that anticipation is suddenly bursting into life; the dream is finally taking shape! Following God is so exciting. I’m doing something so much bigger than I know how to do. I mean, I don’t know how in the heck to publish a book! I don’t know the first thing about it. But I think that’s how I know it’s God directing it. And each time I take that fearful step forward I feel like the flood gates open up with His re-assurance.