India

Our time in Thailand is over and we are now experiencing all the wonderful things of India. We arrived in New Delhi on the 14th, with very little idea of where we were going and what we were doing. With a spirit of encouragement that our parents left us in Thailand we were feeling optimistic about this friend who replied to Daniel's email. This in itself showed great promise. We got ourselves involved with a small business that sets people up with tours around northern India, in order to book ourselves the best way to meet with our contact. We began to to experience the smooth side of Indian business people who are willing to be your best friend before selling you anything. This new best friend of ours explained our best route to Darjeeling... that we would need to swing by very close to the Tashma Hall, as we waited for our train there. So when we did arrive in Agra we spent our night in a hotel he had booked us in. The next morning we were ready to meet our driver for our tour of the town and of Tashma Hall, followed by getting on our train. The problem was, our driver explained to us there was no train for us to get on, and that if we wanted to catch the train he booked for us we would have to go straight back to New Delhi to make it in time. We had no time for tours, we just had to get right back in that car and drive four hours back. On the way back after driving a while our driver gets another call that we don't need to rush the train we are booked on now is going to leave the next day. We weren't very impressed with the situation and were not very willing to turn our car around to do the tours for the day, so we decided to continue back stopping to see different temples along the way. It was beginning to quite hard to keep that positive excitement that gets you through the hard times. Along with India's cultural differences, like crazy traffic, car horns that seem to be trying to cause people's ears to bleed, and a high expectation for foreigners to leave a hefty tip for every act of service. We were in serious need to find a place to chill (quite literally, 42degrees) and really find some people who were following their hearts by serving God. Our contact here was exactly what we were searching for. We came way up into the mountains into the city of Darjeeling, where our friend met us and helped us find our way around. This city is now in it's warm season as well, but we have found it to be the coldest place we've been in the last six months. These mountains are within viewing distance of the largest mountains in the world, (even Mt. Everest which I've decided to climb, maybe..) So we have now connected with the Christians in this area, and we hope to find a way to keep our days filled with work, Bible studies with the locals, and just meeting the people who live here. There are teams here also doing different programs, which has been a way for us to find good fellowship and have times of worship with them. We're praying God's blessing and protection over you guys as you move on through India. Take care. Kenton. Side note: we're looking into finding a map of this city for our friend to have and we're not very computer inclined, if anyone would have suggestions of how we could piece together a big sweet map of Darjeeling from the Internet, (maybe a good website) let us know...