Well, It's been a little while since I've given you an update and a lot has gone on since I last wrote to you. I'm going to attempt to give you a few snapshots right now and hope that I can get a "meatier" blog out to you soon…
The four of us guys headed East from Dehradun to a small city called Nanitall which is a pretty beautiful city surrounding a lake in the mountains while being surrounded by a few mountain peaks. The weather was pretty cold but we got an opportunity to hike up Naini Peak which is over 8,500 ft… While up there we were snowed on which eventually turned into rain during our descent. Regardless, it was a gorgeous city and a beautiful hike that kicked off our time of rest and listening…minus an attack of a monkey literally larger than the average dog in the US.
We were in Nainital for a few days before taking off to a Christian Ashram in Sat Tal. This place was set further into the mountains and had a number of small lakes nearby. Surrounded by nature, Miles and I quickly found out how afraid Branden and Nic are of spiders…seriously? These days were filled with chats and conversations and chewing on "Freedom" and "New Covenant" stuff. I sent you the links to Anth Chapmans "The truth about Freedom" series which served as a basis for a lot of questions, seaching and debates. I'm still forming a lot of my opinions about some of the things he says through it, but there are some serious truths that he states that hit us all in various ways. We're still learning to walk out this "glorious freedom" business and have a ways to go, but we're confident we're on to some life changing and life giving truth. God has been revealing a number of things to us through this journey while taking us deeper and I'll hopefully get a chance to share some more of that in a blog or two with you later.
While at Sat Tal, the boys saw a black panther accross the lake on a mountain…At dinner the locals told us that there were many around those parts. Perhaps that is why all the watchmen carry big ole guns and rounds of shells…just a thought! Anyway, the next day I was on a hike through the woods to just spend some time with God and hash out some thoughts and definitely spooked something much larger than a monkey about 25- 35 yards from me…Maybe the big cat tracks or scat should have warned me off from that place but all in all I'm thankful for His favor and protection.
Last Saturday we decided to head south and join up with a man named James. Seth Barnes first told me a bit about James and there was a world race team that partnered with him recently. A blog about their time can be found here: http://ruthwilson.theworldrace.org/?filename=amber-alert The second half of her blog talks about her time with James in Ongole.
Anyway, we hopped on a 5 and a half hour bus ride to Agra which actually took over 12 and was headlined by Nic throwing up a half hour in and literally having to poop out of the window about 9 hours in…haha, good times. We arrived around 6 am and were engulfed in the big hustle called Agra. After some of the most frustrating hours of my life in recent memory, seeing the Taj Mahal, getting attacked by a horde of monkeys (literally maybe 10) for the second time in two weeks and being surrounded by an agenda we bounced on the next train south. We literally didn't even stay in Agra for a full 24 hours even though we hadn't really slept the night before. We were done with it and the sandals were swept clean. It's probably the most overrated city I've been to in my life. Catching how much I like this place because I'm laying it on pretty thick 🙂 Haha, but seriously we bought tickets to Hyderabad via train to find out at 2 am that there are about 3 million people who ride each train…
It seriously took me about an hour and a half before I got more than 3 steps into a box car. The next 12 hours of our lives consisted of pretty tight quarters, tons of people…many of them sick, staring at us and coughing all over us…The night passed and we were still quite cramped but feeling alright to go on for quite some time…I did a quick check in with everyone and we were all good to keep chugging it out…Then Nic who like 2 minutes previously wanted to knock the whole thing out in one fell swoop was like.."umm, yeah lets just get off here."
So we looked at each other and were down with the decision so we all hopped off in this unknown city. It was a beautiful day and we decided to check into a hotel and get some grub. Miles made it to the room and within 10 seconds was throwing up and nearly poopin' his pants…He got hit really hard with some bug and we were all grateful that we decided to hop off at that point because it would have gotten real messy in a hurry if Miles had stayed on that train.
We stayed the night while Miles got over a fever, nasuea, throwing up and diarhea…Branden Nic and I got to walk around and get a taste of this city which really is one of my favorite places currently in India. I loved the life in the town and the laid back hustle and bustle. It felt like a small town and that felt real good coming off of Agra and the train.
Yesterday morning we awoke and Miles was feeling better even though we still had no clue what city we were in. We were originally going to hop back onto the train and keep heading south but decided to stop at the bus station. While there we just decided to hop on a bus for a few dollars each to head to Nagpur which for sure would be on the way to Hyderabad. This bus was full of people but the crew working it took an instant liking to us as we did to them. All day we traveled on a bus and it was one of more enjoyable days I've had in awhile. I can't tell you how enjoyable the day was yesterday even though all we did was sit on a bus and travel through the country side.
Regardless, they hooked us up with a good hotel for the night and a guy who would take us to the bus station tonight to get us on the right bus to complete our journey to Hyderabad. So, today we find ourselves in Nagpur India which feels much more like my expectations of Delhi…We'll travel through the night to Hyderabad and hopefully sometime tomorrow we'll catch up with James and figure out what this next weeks looks like.
SO…that's a bit more of the logistics of the previous week and a half and hopefully I'll get out a blog soon with a bit of what we've been challenged with. Thank you for your prayers and I'm hopefull to get back to people's emails soon.
