India

 On the first of November, our family traveled to India for the first time. We went to India for 2 reasons: to renew our Chinese visas and to visit some colleagues of ours who are working in the Tibetan/Himalayan regions of northern India. From southern China, we flew to Kolkata, India via Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. We had a full day layover in Dhaka, one of the world’s poorest cities. There was extreme poverty everywhere, even right outside our hotel. After our day layover in Dhaka, we flew to Kolkata, one of the largest and poorest cities in India. Kolkata is an intense city that leaves you speechless. It is the 8th largest metropolitan area in the world and while there are some fancy new shopping malls, overall the city suffers from poverty on a massive level. Tens of thousands of homeless people (supposedly more than 200,000+ total in the city), including many children, are found throughout the city. We walked with the boys all over the city the 4 days we were there. After getting our new visas for China, we took the train 575 kilometers (360 miles) north towards the Himalaya’s.

Josiah and Tyler

After taking a 12 hour train, we were met at the train station by 2 of our colleagues, including one who is native to the area. From the train station, we took a jeep 3 hours further north to the Himalayan town of Darjeeling. It was a bit rough on the kids to go from 12 hours in a train directly to another 3 hours in a vehicle, but overall they did quite well. The road from the train station to Darjeeling was extremely windy with almost no straight stretch of road. The fastest were were able to go was only about 20 miles per hour, with much of the way being around 15 miles per hour. We arrived at our hotel around 10:30pm thoroughly exhausted from a long days travel!

Kangchendzonga, the third highest peak on earth viewed from Darjeeling

Overlooking Darjeeling with the Himalaya's in the background

Darjeeling is a small city sitting at about 7000 feet above sea level. It is a popular tourist destination among Indian travelers and is famous across the globe for its tea. We met with some Christian workers based in Darjeeling and got reports on what ministries were going on among Tibetans and Tibetan speaking people (Tibetan language is used among several Himalayan ethnic groups and not just Tibetans). It was nice finding our more about the ministries going on among Tibetans on the south side of the Himalaya’s. All together, we spent 5 nights exploring Darjeeling.

Overlooking Kalimpong

Market in Kalimpong

After our time in Darjeeling, we drove to the small town of Kalimpong. Though the distance was  only 32 miles, it took us nearly 3 hours to get there because of the windy roads across the Himalayan foothills. Though only home to around 40,000 people, Kalimpong is a melting pot of Himalayan culture and peoples. Kalimpong has a long history of Christian mission work. Many of the missionaries who were forced out of Tibet in 1950 because of the Communist invasion of China went to work in Kalimpong. Because of this, there are quite a few discipled believers in this area including Tibetans and Bhutanese (the Bhutan border is only 20 miles away, straight-line distance). It was really encouraging meeting fully discipled Tibetan and Bhutanese believers! Bhutan is the only Tibetan Buddhist kingdom remaining in the world (Tibet was the other) and is an extremely restricted region. The only way to go to Bhutan is to be part of an organized tour that costs around $250 per day, per person (it would cost our family $1000/day to be there!). The area in and around Kalimpong has a sizable Tibetan and Bhutanese community with plenty of new believers in need of discipleship. We were able to go to church in Kalimpong and met quite a few local believers who are active in ministry as well as some foreign Christians based in the area. All of the foreign Christians we met were friendly and were active doing evangelism and discipleship. It was great to be in an area were there were Tibetan speaking Christians! It made us hopeful for what can and will happen among Tibetans in Tibet. Our 5 days in Kalimpong were amazing and encouraging.

Overlooking Gangtok, the capital of the Indian state of Sikkim

After Kalimpong, we drove further north to the Indian state of Sikkim. Sikkim was an independent country before becoming part of India in 1975. Its culture, history and language is all similar to Tibet, which it borders to the north. Gangtok is the capital of Sikkim and is only 20 miles away from Tibet, straight-line distance. Sikkim is a small, but beautiful state. It is full of glaciated Himalayan peaks, snow-fed rivers, forests and lakes. India has poured a lot of money into the state for development so it is actually more developed than most of India. We spent 4 days exploring this area and praying for the believers there and the few foreign Christians focused on this state. As far as we could tell, no foreign Christians live full-time in this area.

River flowing through Sikkim

Our 3 weeks in India were incredible! India (especially the Tibetan regions in the Himalaya’s) is a country that we both have wanted to go to for a very long time and we are thankful that an opportunity came for us to go. The boys did amazing considering we walked for hours and hours each of the 21 days we were there. It was encouraging meeting Tibetan believers and seeing their desire to preach the Gospel to Tibetans and to other Himalayan people.