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Nearly 72 hours after leaving Mussoorie, we have finally arrived home safe and sound.

It was a 12 hour train ride from Mussoorie, followed by a 14 hour "layover" in Delhi, followed by a 15 hour plane ride to Chicago followed by a 3 hour plane ride home. Quite the marathon, but we are all in one piece, and excited to be back amongst family and friends (a hot shower with legitimate water pressure does AMAZING things for the soul).

Already, we have struggled with the desire to adequately describe our experiences with friends and family. I have already used the phrase "it's hard to describe" a dozen times just in chatting with DJ about a few stories from the trip. We are all identifying more and more with Ryan; it has always been difficult for him to adequately describe what his life looks like in India. It is a place that defies explanation in many ways. Hopefully now that we have four new voices to contribute, the picture can be made a bit clearer (especially after the jet lag wears off).

We will post more pictures soon, and are all looking forward to sharing some thoughts tonight at TNL. We will try to keep our loss of words to a minimum. :)
[Simeon Turner]

Farewell to Mussooire

We spent Saturday afternoon in the bazaar shopping for spices and teas, along with picking up a few gifts and hand tailored clothing for Dave (yes friends, that is correct – Dave Terpstra with two tailored shirts – at a wonderfully Dutch price of $6 each). There was a birthday for a 7 year old boy who is a part of Ryan’s church that we walked to and were able to spend some time in a normal Indian home – one room for sleeping, eating, and entertaining. Thanks to the generosity of friends from TNL we had brought several coats. Every coat but one was adult sizes. The one child size Colorado Avalanche jacket fit perfectly. His mother said he had needed a coat for the winter and that God always provides.

We had dinner with Matthew and Ivy, coworkers of Ryan at EMI. They will be married one year next month. Matthew has taken on Indian cooking with vigor and cooked the best Butter Chicken, rice, and daal we have had since being here. It was a wonderful evening of conversation as Matthew is a reader and kept Simeon and Dave intrigued with Russian literature and theology. Before we left we prayed for Matthew and Ivy, for EMI, and the community that Ryan works with everyday.
Sunday we returned to Friends of Garwahl Church for service. It began at 11am and we left shortly before 3pm. The congregation is in a season of deliverance and healing from much of the darkness and oppression they have come out of. The second part of the service was prayers by the pastors and elders for many of the people while others prayed or provided counseling to new believers. The music played throughout the time and from an outsider looking in it was quite charismatic in nature. As I prayed God allowed me to see a few parallels to home: even though we may not have overt spiritual oppression that we seek deliverance from, our addictions and vices, choices and compulsions keep us from fully knowing God’s love in similar ways; it is good for confession among Christian community, to ask for healing and for a better understanding of God’s grace; and finally that God uses the miraculous to bring others to Himself. In a society full of spiritual practices the supernatural here is evidence of God’s presence. In the same way, the way God frees us from our pride, lust, greed, and control His presence is seen and known,

We leave tonight on a 12 hour overnight train for Dehli – open air, public cabin – to get the proper Indian experience as Ryan says. We fly from Dehli to Denver Tuesday morning at 12:15am, arriving by 9:15am. We plan to be at TNL on Tuesday and hope to see many of you there.

Grace and peace.
[Jared Mackey]

Coneheads

Pinecones might not be the first thing one would expect to find in India, but here in the mountains of Mussoorie, the hills are covered with white pine trees. As a way to be a more self-sustaining community, and to build a little camaraderie amongst the EMI team, they go out twice a year to search for pinecones. They use the pinecones in the winter as firestarters to help heat their buildings.

Because Oaklands (the main EMI building) is on the top of a mountain, we began hiking down the back slope into the pine forest. It took only 20 minutes to get down with empty packs, but about an hour to get back up with backpacks overflowing with cones.

So if you want to get a picture of what pinecone hunting looks like, imagine a sheer mountain cliff with pastors, elders, architects and engineers holding on to a few puny blades of grass while they stretch and contort their bodies trying to reach a pinecone on the edge of a precipice. Once the pinecone is acquired it is then sent in a relay to other team members positioned in similarly dangerous locations along the windswept ledges.

In a land where there are no trashcans but the ground and the smog is generated at an alarming rate, it is great to see the small steps that EMI takes to be more self-sustaining and eco-friendly.

And as always throughout this trip, it was great to not just be outdoors, but to spend time with the entire EMI team and participate in their everyday activities.
[Dave Terpstra]

Haridwar & Rishikesh (A Journey to Hindu Holy Cities)

Today we took a trip to two Hindu holy cities on the Ganges river: Haridwar and Rishikesh. We piled into a taxi – quite literally – and left the now familiar and comfortable Mussoorie. Hindus journey to the Ganges once a year to bathe in the water to wash away their sin, and to deposit the ashes of their dead loved ones to give them favor in their next life. We traveled there (about a 2.5 hour taxi ride) to pray over these two cities and to remind ourselves that the India we have been experiencing in Mussoorie is not representative of all of India.

Both Haridwar and Rishikesh are dark places, in their own way. Haridwar is without a doubt the most oppressive and thirsty place I have been. Hindu people are very good at worshipping. The amount of energy and devotion poured out in Haridwar is impressive. But poured out for what? The atmosphere is overwhelming and the volume of darkness made this place seem without hope. Jared and I share the same physiological response to places like this: tightness in the chest and shortness of breath. Standing on a bridge over the Ganges, out team prayed for that city and these people. I personally prayed that God would intervene: to remove the blindness from these people’s eyes, to let his light shine through the darkness, and to glorify himself in Haridwar. It felt like one of the biggest prayers I have ever prayed.

After praying, we got back in the taxi and headed further up the Ganges to Rishikesh (about another 45 minutes). The drive took us through an India national park and was actually quite pleasant. The atmosphere in Rishikesh was similar, although the scene was quite different. In Rishikesh we found the highest concentration of white people we had seen since being here. Ryan explained that a lot of Europeans come here for a “spiritual” retreat – to tap into Hinduism without fully immersing in it. After the intense fellowship with God and the folks from EMI of the last two days, this town felt empty, dark and desperate. We walked the streets and prayed. God please come to this place. Purge it of this worship of false, dead gods. Show these people the wastefulness of their ways. Bring light. Again, the prayers felt large. We reflected over lunch (a fine menagerie of Indian and Middle Eastern food) that we were all so thankful to know the true, living God. Sim and I talked about how we have a new understanding of the stories in the Old Testament where God demands that entire cities and peoples be completely destroyed. Dave shared how he prayed that these people would remain thirsty, that the water of the Ganges would not fulfill them and that they might come to see their need for living water – much like the woman at the well. Jared shared how he fears our own world in the U.S. is just as dark as what we see here, we just don’t recognize it for what it is. The enemy is not stupid, and in places like this it feels like his grip is oh so tight. Our God is big though and there is hope.

The return trip to Mussoorie revealed some of that hope. My chest loosened up and deep breathes came easier. Maybe it was the cool, cleaner air. Maybe it’s because Christ has a strong hold here in Mussoorie. A place from which His light will shine forth into India and the world – join us in thanking Him for his presence here and in praying for His light to shine.
[Bobby Rinehart]

Community Defined

After two days of prayer and fasting, we had the exciting opportunity to share a meal with the people of Ryan's home church here in Mussoorie. His church is called F.O.G (Friends of Garhwal), and the BBQ was held at Ryan's pastor Edwin's home. We had what Ryan would describe as a "very proper" Indian BBQ, complete with a chicken liver appetizer and yellow curry chicken and rice. After two days of fasting, the team attacked the meal with different levels of enthusiasm, but all were satisfied.

After dinner, we all joined together in the living room to share in a time of worship, testimony, and sharing. It was quite fun to sing (or at least clap) along with the people of F.O.G., and we even got roped into some Garhwali dancing. Many of the members of the church shared their testimonies with us (translated through Edwin, or at times his Wife, Nivedit. Ryan tells us that most of the members of the church have been believers for 2 years or less, so it was exciting to see such vibrancy and excitement in their faces as they listened to both Dave and Jared share some thoughts.

The sense of close-knit community we experienced at Edwin's home was a fitting conclusion to our days of prayer and fasting. I found myself imagining a room similarly packed with new believers in the days of the early church, and I am sure this is exactly what it must have looked like (though I doubt they were drinking chai and eating ice cream with pancakes and syrup in the bottom of the cup). Seeing the people of F.O.G. thriving as a community reinforced in my mind the necessity of such community in my own life, and I found myself deeply thankful that I am blessed in that way. Best of all, it was wonderful to know that from an eternal perspective, the community I share at TNL and the community Ryan has with F.O.G are all part of the same community we share in Christ.
[Simeon Turner]

days of prayer and fasting

days of prayer and fasting at eMi2 have been a traditional of ours for about three years now, but this season was a little different for two reasons. This year is different for us, because we are celebrating 10 years of existing in India, serving ministries and serving the poor. As part of our office's collective efforts to mark this year as special, we gave these two days to simply praise and thank God for the greatness of his work through us and in us over the past ten years. Our days were also different this season because we had the four guys from tnl joining our team as we prayed and praised over the two days. It was significant for our team to have the additional covering of friends and partners from tnl and for Jared, Dave Simeon and Bobby to experience the more intimate time of prayer and worship with our staff here.

For me (and I think others too) the most significant joy in the days was our intentional setting aside of two, three-hour sessions (one morning and one evening) for worship and praise and prayer togehter. We specifically did NOT bring our personal needs and petitions, but instead only prayed out of our thankfulness and gratitude for what God has done. Let me tell you, this was a discipline that was not easy to hold myself to at first (because we so often bring our needs before God), but it was really beautiful to limit ourselves in this way. Two days out of 10-years previous, we chose to simply say thank you, and recount His kindness, provision and grace.

Although I cant speak specifically for the whole eMi2 team, I know for me, it was a great encouragement to have the team from tnl here to both see how we do this, and to simply agree with us in prayer in how we were exalting God. Though these guys cannot know all the details of how eMi2 thanks God for his work in us, we all know his character and how he has made this work possible. I feel refreshed by the team's time with us in those days, because they have now seen how our eMi2 team operates togehter, and what we are praising God for. It is good to know they have that perspective on my / our lives here.
[ryan k]

A Gift

Our day began, after the walk in the rain, with the staff of EMI in prayer and worship through song. The room was full of architects, engineers, and the four of us - not exactly musical geniuses. Today and tomorrow the staff of EMI planned 2 days of prayer and fasting with times of reflection, praise and worship through song, and prayers of thanksgiving for God's protection and provision. This year EMI India celebrates it's 10 year anniversary. As stories were told and prayers were said it became clear of God's blessing and purpose for the ministry of EMI here in India over the last decade.

Bobby commented on the obedience that each person sitting in the room had shown in being a part of the work God has done through EMI. In our short time here we have come to appreciate and deeply respect the staff who live here (most for over 5 years) and the interns who have given 6 months to 1 year to support the ministry here. Ryan shared his deep gratitude for the team and the community of TNL. He went on to express how unique it is for 4 people - 2 pastors and 2 who did not know him well (Bobby had not met him until the airport in Dehli) to come visit simply to encourage him. I told the staff and interns the story from our side. That two months ago when we were looking at schedules and task lists, finances, families and feasability, the timing was all wrong to come visit Ryan. I called him on a Friday morning to tell him that it wasn't going to work out this time. Yet in his voice I heard a clarity and a gentle nudge that although it looked wrong on the outside it was the exact right time from God's perspective. That decision would be confirmed with our incredibly affordable plane fare, the generosity of several who allowed us not only to come, but to come with financial gifts for the community here, and a community that has allowed and encouraged two of its pastors to come encourage our friend.

As I prayed later in the afternoon, I thanked God for the gift it is to Ryan, but also the gift it is to us to be here with him. When asked, "what did you do when you went to India?" my reply will be, "I went to see our friend, to pray with him, eat with him, laugh with him, and thank God for the work and life he has given him."
[Jared Mackey]