Wrapping up in Thailand

It's been a great couple of weeks. I'm happy to say that the kids and staff of Asia's Hope Thailand are thriving under the leadership of Tutu Bee, our national director. Tomorrow, we leave for a couple of days R-and-R in Bangok, and then we're off to India.

Tonight Xiu Dan is hanging out with Tutu, while the rest of us head to the city with her son Daniel to grab some dinner and hang out at a Jazz club. 

On Sunday, we spent the morning worshiping with the kids and staff at Wiang Pa Pao, and enjoyed the scenic drive back into town. 

Last night, we spent the evening with at our Doi Saket 2 home, and played takraw and volleyball with the kids much to their delight and amusement. It's probably not necessary to say that neither Kori nor I will be trying out for any takraw teams anytime soon.

This morning we joined all of our Thailand staff except for those in Wiang Pa Pao (it would be quite a drive for them) for a meeting, prayer and a delicious lakeside staff appreciation lunch.

I feel so blessed to call these guys my friends and co-workers. I'm going to miss them, but the calendar says it's time to move on. Pray for us as we embark on a few days of travel. Aside from some colds and an occasional bout of the squirts, we're in sound body and spirit. 

Next up, Bangkok. 

This little piggie stayed home

Tomorrow will end our three day visit to our campus in Wiang Pa Pao, a project we sometimes refer to as “the farm.” While we do have some crops growing here – lychee, pumpkins, corn, chilies, cabbages and mulberry trees (for a small-scale silk production) – it’s the people that we’re here to see.

Tutu’s parents live here as caretakers, along with 7 widows, 8 other staff and two homes of 20 kids each. The homes are both sponsored by Wooster Grace Brethren Church, which has been a generous partner for many years. I remember when the property was fallow and abandoned, the large house which is now the Wiang Pa Pao 1 home in disrepair. Today it’s in great shape, something always under construction, and filled with laughter.

Last night we had dinner Tutu’s parents’ cottage – home-grown chicken, mountain rice and the best mangos you’ve had. We played soccer with the kids and watched them leap through the air catching a rubber band rope with their toes in a game that I could barely understand, much less attempt. We sang songs and walked hand-in-hand through the mulberry orchards.

Today we showed up around 11am to find that the pig for this afternoon’s barbeque had already been slaughtered, an apparent concession to the my kids’ western sensibilities. We didn’t complain; we’ve been present for the pig’s demise on a number of other occasions, and it’s a fascinating, but nasty business.

Staff and kids worked together to butcher the beast, and before long, the meat was portioned into large bowls where it was combined with garlic and chilies grown on our property, honey, soy sauce and other secret ingredients. The meat was hung on hooks inside a grill made from a cleverly-converted 50 gallon drum and cooked over charcoal and wood until the outside was glazed and crispy, and the inside tender.

Demonstrating once again the superiority of the New Covenant, we feasted on pork until we felt like pigs ourselves. We then escaped the afternoon heat, retiring to the newly-constructed chapel to play games and enjoy the two new keyboards bought by one of the members of Wooster Grace Brethren.

After exhausting ourselves, we returned to our rooms at a local mountain-side hotel and enjoyed a dip in the pool. Right now, Kori’s reading a book and all three kids are working on their summer homework. Tutu’s coming to pick us up for dinner soon, although I must confess I’m all that hungry. I just hope pork isn’t on the menu.

Tomorrow we’ll worship together, have lunch and then return to Chiang Mai. We’ll spend the evening with the kids from Doi Saket 2, and then before we know it, our time with Asia’s Hope Thailand will be over. On Wednesday, we fly to Bangkok for a couple of days of r-and-r, and then we’ll be headed to India for the next phase of our adventure.

I still have quite a few meetings with staff and visits with kids before I leave, but I feel like I have had a productive trip thus far. Beyond that, it’s been enjoyable. My family travels well together, and aside from a few surly moments from each of us at different times, we’ve not let stress on our bodies and minds discourage us or turn us against each other. I’m sure that before this is all finished, we’ll have our moments, but for now I’m feeling extremely blessed to be able to taste and see the fruits of the last decade’s labors. Thank you for your love and support.

Three Cheers for Cricketeers

Anytime one of our friends in Thailand use the words "cricket" and "dinner" together, my kids get a little nervous. But tonight's fare was unrelated to the protein rich members of family gryllidae. It was, rather, a celebration of 9 students who have competed at the highest levels of cricket in Thailand and Around the world.

Eight of our "cricket champions" joined us for dinner; one of our boys -- Narabed -- was unable to pull away from studies to do so. The kids voted unanimously to eat at an open-front, roadside restaurant called "The Pig Pen" (The name is justified by the unlimited servings of raw pork, fish, squid, chicken and beef you can grill on gas-powered braziers in the middle of each table.)

Among the nine, we have three young players who are truly world-class. You may remember that Parichat and Jutamat were two of only 14 girls nation-wide who qualified for Thai National Team, which competed in the world championships in Kuwait last year. They will also travel to New Zealand for international competition in a few months. And Narabed (not pictured; he was home studying) represented his age group on an international level in Malaysia.

It is amazing that out of all the youth cricketers in Thailand, three of the very best were raised at Asia's Hope. For all nine of the teens we celebrated last night, their success on the pitch represents untold hours of hard work and indicates a certain drive and character that will serve these kids well in whatever endeavor they choose in life. 

I don't know much about the game of cricket, but I do know that I'm really proud of each of these wonderful kids.

Praying for Ford

Today we visited Ford, the son of our Doi Saket 2 parents, Dong and Ying, at McCormick Children's Hospital. 

You might remember this little guy, who was thus named because he was born in the back of a pickup truck.

Well, he has suffered from a recurring condition since birth wherein he gets a kink in his small intestine and has to go to the hospital for treatment. As you might imagine, this is painful for him and both scary and frustrating for his parents.

He's been in the hospital for three days now and is expected to be released tomorrow. Thankfully, the doctors were once again able to treat him successfully, and he is no longer in any pain. When he is older, he may be able to have surgery to correct the problem, but for now, all we can do is deal with it each time the problem flares up.

Please join me in praying for complete and immediate healing for Ford. 

Ford with his Dad, Dong, and his mom, Ying.

Students receive scholarships to study in Taiwan

Today I had the privilege of congratulating three girls Yupin (Doi Saket 1C Children's Home), Jinda and Sukunya (Doi Saket 1B Children's Home), who were recently awarded four-year scholarships by the Thai government and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) to study Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan after they graduate high school in 2014.

Fluent in Thai and in their native tribal languages (Yupin is from the Hmong tribe; Jinda and Sukunya are Skaw Karen), these girls are already incredibly accomplished young women compared to the vast majority of their peers, and would be almost guaranteed a good job and a bright future even without this chance to study abroad. With their completion of their course of study in Taiwan, their opportunities will be truly unlimited.

We are all proud of these hardworking young women, and we are also thankful for our staff in Thailand who have raised them and for our friends in Canada and the U.S. who have provided generous and consistent financial support for the girls since they came to Asia's Hope as young children.

Please continue to pray for Yupin, Jinda and Sukunya and all of the students graduating from Asia's Hope in Thailand, Cambodia and India. And please consider making a donation to our Scholarship Fund, which will help make university or vocational training a possibility for all of our 700 kids.

Day of rest. Sort of...

Sunday is for rest, right? Well, Tutu did take Kori, Xiu Dan and I to get Thai Massages after lunch (imagine chiropractic-meets-Brazilian-jiu-jitsu). But aside from that, it's been non-stop activity all day long.

We started the morning with church at our main campus in Doi Saket -- all of the kids and staff from our seven homes in town, as well as neighbors and a contingent from another organization's orphan homes joining their voices in worship. Pretty amazing.  

After lunch, my sons went out with Tutu's son and nephew and played video games at a local internet café while Kori, Xiu Dan and I endured/enjoyed the aforementioned massages. We then returned to Doi Saket 1 and spent the remaining sunlight hours playing cricket and soccer.  

At dusk, we said goodbye to the Doi Saket 1 kids and headed into the city for the Sunday walking market. We ate some great street food and wandered around with a multitude of others, mostly tourists, looking at but not buying the handicrafts and souvenirs.

It's 11pm now, and I'm feeling weary but blessed. It feels like we've crammed a week's worth of activities into a single day. Tomorrow we'll exhaust ourselves all over again. Maybe Tuesday we'll get some rest. Or maybe not... 

Asia's Hops

A couple of years ago, one of our staff members had some shirts made for an Asia's Hope soccer team and misspelled ever so slightly the name. Hey, his English is a lot better than my Thai. 

At any rate, these pics are from our evening at the wonderful Doi Saket 3 and Doi Saket 4 children's homes. I'm so grateful for Grace Community Church in Fremont, Ohio, sponsors of both of these homes. Thank God for the staff and congregation under the leadership of Pastor Kevin Pinkerton. Without their help, these orphaned kids would have languished in extreme poverty, at high risk of sexual and economic exploitation.

Settling in

We spent about six hours today in transit, and only about one hour of that was in the air. The flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai is short and uneventful; it's the getting in and out of airports that takes so long.

After a long, long day, however, we're finally settling in at our house in Chiang Mai, graciously loaned to us for a couple weeks by a Thai friend of Tutu Bee, our country director.

After arriving at the Chiang Mai airport at about 4:30pm, we dropped our bags off at the house and headed to a wonderful little roadside restaurant in Doi Saket before joining the team from Goshen, Indiana for the evening at our DS1 campus. (The mediocre lunch at the Bangkok airport cost 8 times as much as our delicious dinner; truly the best meals can be found at the least impressive eateries.)

The kids and staff from 8 of our 10 Thailand homes joined together for a service of thanksgiving and dedication of the home that had burned down in December, and which was rebuilt quickly by the generosity of a number of our churches, Grace Community, Goshen Indiana, included. It was a treat to have Pastor Jim Brown and a team from the church present for the occasion.

Unfortunately, the service lasted longer than our energy, so I had Khun Cho, one of our staff, drive us home. The kids and Kori are in bed and I'm waiting for Tutu to arrive with some supplies for our week -- the house we're in came without towels and linens. 

I'm completely beat. Everyone's in relatively good spirits. Kori and Xiu Dan are fighting their strep bravely. I count all of these as blessings. Soon, I hope, I'll also be counting sheep. 

Bangkok airport

Dedication service at Doi Saket 1 home

Hitting our stride in Bangkok

We arrived in Bangkok around 11:45pm, and after a half hour or so of scrambling around to find misplaced-but-thankfully-not-lost-luggage, we got onto the shuttle bus to our transit hotel, a non-descript little joint about five minutes from the airport. Xiu Dan turned 8 years old on the bus ride, and we sang "Happy Birthday" to her amid the tolerant, but barely amused, half-smiles of the other weary travelers.

Despite a brief argument with the hotel manager about our reservations, we got settled into our two rooms (boys in one, Kori, Xiu Dan and in the other), and attempted to sleep off a little of the 33 hour journey. I slept pretty well, aided by pharmaceuticals. Kori and Xiu Dan tossed and turned, but caught a few winks. I think the boys stayed up most of the night watching TV. Jet lag's a bit challenging. 

We woke up and showered, and I walked around the neighborhood to check out the dining options. I returned to the rooms, gathered the family and headed out to a place that I correctly assumed would have decent, standard-fare Thai food. As Anthony Bourdain has observed, some of the best food in the world is eaten outside on plastic stools.

We had fried flat noodles with pork in soy, mixed seafood curry, fried rice with pork and a fiery crispy pork and vegetable stir fry. It was all delicious. Cheap and delicious. Beats to heck a coffee shop muffin or breakfast burrito from McD's.

We're all still a little buzzy from the travel, and I feel like I've got a migraine brewing. But we're glad to be back. This just feels right. The weather is unbearably hot, no one can understand a word we say, and within a few hours, we'll be mobbed by a couple hundred sweaty Asia's Hope kids in Chiang Mai. We leave Bangkok at 3pm and we should be "home" by dinner time.

Join me in the journey!

In four weeks, I'll be headed back to Asia with my family. As usual, we're scrambling to get everything finished. We'll start out in Thailand, then India, and we'll end up in Cambodia.

Each of these places holds dear family and friends and a very special place in my heart. I'm especially excited this year to return to Cambodia to see what God has done in just about a year.

On June 27, 2012, I stood in a large and unremarkable field just outside of Phnom Penh with members of our staff and a group of visionary men and women led by Pastor Tim Armstrong of Crossroads Church in Mansfield, Ohio, and we prayed that God would give us the land, and would give us the money needed to build five new homes, a church and a school.

In faith, we kicked of the "Strength for Today, Hope for Tomorrow" campaign.

The Prek Eng Campus on June 27, 2012

Less than one year later, that piece of land has been transformed, and is well on its way to becoming a beautiful, neighborhood-style campus, home to 125 orphaned children now in our care and countless more over future generations!

By August 2013, we expect to have completed the church, the school and four of the five homes. We pray that God will provide the funding for the fifth before we cut the ribbon for the campus on August 3!

Will you join me in this journey? Bookmark this blog. Join us on Facebook or Twitter. Share these links with your friends! I promise lots of great pictures and stories and exciting reports of God's faithfulness.

And perhaps most importantly, will you prayerfully consider making a generous contribution to this campaign or to one of our other initiatives?

We still need to raise more than $100,000 to complete construction and outfit this campus. We need you to participate with us.

This is going to be one of the most exciting journeys we've ever taken. Join us!

To Bhutan and Back

Our time in Gangtok provided our team a wonderful opportunity to see a different part of the country. Upon entering Sikkim state, we passed through a border crossing and were diverted to an intake building. Sikkim borders frenemy China, and is considered a restricted zone; India records everyone entering or leaving the state, and gives foreigners extra scrutiny. After a half hour or so of filling out papers, copying passports and duplicating photographs, we were deemed legit, and we continued on our way to Gangtok.

Larger than, but similar in topography to Kalimpong and Darjeeling, Gangtok is extraordinarily beautiful, especially from above. We arrived in town just before dusk, and checked into the hotel. Nandu insisted that we hurry up the side of the mountain to see the city at sunset. We hailed two cabs – one was a Suzuki hatchback, about 70% as big as a Geo Metro. The other was what I call a Scooby Doo van, shaped exactly like the Mystery Machine, but about half the size and 96% less fun.

Gangtok at dusk from our hotel.

We darted and skidded up impossibly steep grades on two-way roads that, even when completely paved, are still only big enough for one car to travel comfortably and safely. As in most places we’ve traveled on this trip, it’s always something of a game of chicken. Two cars head straight at each other, and one pulls off the berm to let the other pass. The berm, unfortunately is usually either a wall of rock on one side or a thousand-foot drop on the other. Halfway to our observation point, we got stuck in one of those epic mountainside traffic jams where people actually stop their engines, get out of their cars and wander down the hill to see what genius move caused the tie-up in the first place. I never did figure out what had happened, but we finally made our way out of the jam. By this point, our drivers conveyed us with even more urgency to the top of the mountain. As night fell and we careened up unlit, occasionally unpaved roads I began to wonder if any view was worth the risk. When we arrived at the Hindu monastery at the summit, it was too dark to take any good pictures, but I had to admit it: it was pretty spectacular. The lights of Gangtok’s houses studded the mountainside and twinkled like stars. The sun, almost completely in repose, cast a pink and scarlet glow, silhouetting consecutive peaks, each one fading into horizon as the city fell entirely into night.

Gangtok after sunset from above.

Shopping in Gangtok at night.

Unfortunately, the days of adventurous driving had caught up with both Tim and Carol. Carol had been sick for a few days, and had just started feeling better the day before. Tim, who had been rock-solid until that day, had the gibblies jostled out of him by the Himalayan road rally, and had turned a lovely shade of pale green. By the next morning, it was clear that the even-more-dramatic 6-hour drive to Bhutan was not going to be happening for either of them. We decided to send them back to Kalimpong – three hours away – and to have the rest of us continue on to Bhutan as originally planned. Our two taxis drove together to the Sikkim/West Bengal border where we checked ourselves out of the state and then we took our separate ways.

For much of the way, our ride was just fine. We’ve gotten used to blind curves and sheer cliffs and the occasional section of unpaved roads. In fact, when we stopped for lunch in some tiny town in the Teesta Valley, we all felt pretty refreshed.

Our driver dropped us off in front of a tiny storefront restaurant that I would have never picked out as a place to eat delicious and ostensibly safe food. We stooped through the low entry, squeezed around a rickety wooden table and ordered a thali – something like an Indian sampler plate – for each of us. The proprietress yelled something at a tiny girl who had been sitting at the other table in the restaurant folding napkins. The girl jumped up and began washing glasses which she then brought to our table. She was shy, but she smiled when I caught her eye. The lady yelled again, and the girl returned to her work at the table.

I asked Nandu to ask her age. She smiled shyly and shook her head. “She has no idea,” Nandu said. I asked her name. “No idea,” Nandu reported, “They call her small girl. She is a child laborer. Probably no parents.” I remember very little about the rest of the meal, and even today, Small Girl is in my thoughts day and night.

There are literally millions of children like Small Girl living and working in India today. In fact, some of the kids in our Kalimpong homes lived and worked in homes or restaurants, fields or factories before coming into our care. I don’t know if we can help this young girl, and I’m certain we will never even meet one tenth of one percent of the kids who would give everything for a loving home like the ones we’re creating in India, Cambodia and Thailand.

After lunch we continued on our journey. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves in another unexplained, half-hour-long delays, stuck bumper-to-bumper and door-to-door on a steep mountain pass. By nightfall, our 6-hour drive was already turning into an 8-hour one. The flattening landscape and brief stretch of excellent road gave our driver the opportunity to make up a little of the time we had lost, and I began hoping for smooth sailing the rest of the way out. About an hour before reaching the Bhutanese border things got bad. Really bad.

I swear that driving through the tea bushes on the side of the road would have provided a smoother drive. I’d venture to guess that you have never driven on “roads” this bad before. Not only were they not paved, they had not been maintained in anyone’s recent memory, and wore quite poorly the years of abuse inflicted by heavy trucks carrying rocks and construction equipment clearly destined for projects other than road repair. It was quite literally like riding over abandoned railroad tracks for the entire time. More than once our driver had to stop, back up and get out of the car just to determine the best approach to navigate a crater in the road. And just about when I thought I couldn’t take another mile, we hit the final stretch into the Indo-Bhutan border towns, and sailed smoothly to our rendevouz point in Jaigon.

If “rendevouz point” sounds illicit, that’s because it was. Nandu had developed a plan to get us into Bhutan secretly and without a visa. It was one of those “I know a guy” situations. We switched cars twice amid furtive glances and hushed whispers and made our way in a country that has a reputation among our friends in India as being a very unfriendly place for Christians. Greg, Keith and I broke the tension with gallows-humor cracks about our upcoming stay at the lovely Hotel Torturé. “Sir, this Bhutanese manicure is quite…aggressive…” and “Oh, look. They’re washing Keith’s face. But why there a rag over it?” and “I think that next time I’ll pass on the rattan cane foot massage… It was a tad firm for my tastes…”

Long story short, we made it in and out of the country with very little drama. The hotel that hosted us was owned by a member of the Bhutanese royal family and Nandu is good friends with him. “I know a guy,” indeed.

The next morning we checked out of the hotel and made our way back onto the India side of the border. We met with Pastor Benjamin Gurung and spent the day with the students of the Indo-Bhutan Mercy House of Prayer, a training center for young Bhutanese believers. They come for a month of classes, fellowship and worship intended to equip them for a life of persecution as church planters and evangelists in their home country. It was an honor to meet with them and offer them whatever words of encouragement we could muster.

Today we brave the bad roads and head back to Kalimpong. Tonight we’ll do an appreciation dinner for our staff in Kalimpong. Only a few more days here – I hope to spend as much time with the kids as possible. More pictures when better internet.

Indo-Bhutan Mercy House of Prayer.

Young students at the Indo-Bhutan Mercy House of Prayer.

Picnics and playgrounds

About two hours into the loud and lively service at Trinity Grace Church, it was time for me to preach the sermon. Due to the lengthy of the proceedings, I inflicted upon the congregants only a very short homily on the prophet Jonah.

A year ago, when I first visited the church, the congregation was about 20% smaller. Thanks to the addition of the kids from our Kalimpong 2 home, the already-cramped church is now packed to beyond what I would consider capacity. When Kalimpong 3 comes online, they will either have to stack the kids like firewood or find a bigger space.

After church we walked about half a mile down to a small municipal playground for a few hours of rough-and-tumble fun and a very simple picnic lunch of jam sandwiches and cookies. It’s amazing to see the kids playing together, helping each other and just soaking in the benefits of a real, loving family.

All the kids enjoyed the playground in Kalimpong

There’s a clear difference between the two homes. The kids from Kalimpong 1 are older, more confident, better adjusted and more completely individuated than those at KP2. The new kids are smaller, less-well nourished and a lot squirrelier. It’s hard to tell them apart from each other, as they all share a certain shell shock that I’ve seen many times before in Cambodia and Thailand, and that will fade over the next few months as they settle in.

Watching the newest kids – especially the “provisional” ones who will eventually call Kalimpong 3 home – you can get a bit of a sense of the struggle these children had and the poverty and hunger they experienced until very recently. When it’s time to play, they don’t really know what to do. But when it’s time to eat, they pack it away like it’s their last meal on the planet. Up to a few weeks ago, a good meal never came with a promise for more tonight, tomorrow and the next day.

The Kalimpong 2 kids know how to put away the food.

This morning we packed the kids into a bus and drove down the mountain into the valley, where we had been promised a river-side field trip and picnic. Technically, we were at a river, but the entire site was a construction zone. There were no picnic tables, but there were huge, garishly decorated trucks rumbling in empty and out with loads of rocks. There was also a lot of heavy construction equipment – excavators, bulldozers, rock crushers. Not exactly the most serene setting for picnic, but we made do. There was a large swimming pool, but it was empty. No problem, though, as many of the kids used it for Simon Says and Red-Light-Green-Light.

A beautiful, but rugged picnic site.

The staff set up a mobile kitchen and began cooking a delicious meal over campfires, and a bunch of the kids headed down to the river to swim. All of the kids below the age of five stripped down to their birthday suits and jumped right in. We all concluded quickly that this was better left un-photographed, and we left the kids to their skinny dipping.

We spent the better part of the day with the kids, which is good. Tomorrow we’re leaving for three days to visit other parts of the country and another undisclosed location, and I’m going to miss all of them terribly. I have lots of good pictures, but not lots of good internet, so the photos will have to wait.

Please pray for our safety and health as we continue to do our best to encourage the kids and staff of Asia’s Hope and our brothers and sisters in North India and beyond.

Victory Prayer Church and Social Welfare Society. And mountains.

[due to slow internet upload speeds, the photos associated with this article will have to wait for another day. sigh.]

We have returned to the Silver Oaks Hotel, some of Kalimpong’s finest lodgings, and we still have no wifi. We are indeed pampered westerners, and we stress out about the silliest things. Like internet access. We’re gutting it out though, and if you’re reading this, it’s probably because we have gone to the Asia’s Hope India office to use the internet there.

We spent only one night away from Kalimpong, but it seems like, I don’t know. A week? We left early yesterday morning and headed out towards Darjeeling, winding our way down the mountain toward the emerald green Teesta River, which snakes through the foothills of the Himalayas, carrying water from the melting snowcaps at the top of the world to untold millions of Indian villagers living along and uphill from its banks.

We spent half a day with the 50-some Nepali-speaking students studying at the Victory Prayer Church and Social Welfare Society. Many of these students traveled for days from all over North India, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh by train, car, foot and even horseback to participate in a 40-day seminar in basic theology and missiology. The lessons learned during this intensive course will travel with the graduates into remote areas, some of which are extraordinarily hostile to the Christian faith. Some of these students will face imprisonment, torture and even death as they return to places like rural Bhutan, where despite the PR campaign marketing the country as the “happiest nation on earth,” Christians are persecuted daily for gathering together to sing, pray and teach.

When Pastor Nandu asked me to speak to the students (first for three hours – I bargained it down to 45 minutes), I protested heartily, albeit in vain: I have two cars and a flat screen TV, and I basically send emails and take lunches for a living. What could I possibly have to teach these guys, future heroes of the faith? In the end, it didn’t matter. I muddled through a half-baked lecture on moral transparency in leadership, and reminded the students, “Never trust a leader who doesn’t walk with a limp.” Pastor Victor, the founder and head instructor assured us, “It is your presence here that matters. Our students feel so encouraged to know that they have brothers and sisters who care for them and pray for them.” I sure hope so, and I will keep those guys in my thoughts and prayers for a very long time.

After a very generous lunch that could probably be considered a banquet, we loaded back into our jeeps and headed up, up, up to Darjeeling. Round and round we went at impossibly steep angles through blind hairpin curves carved by unimaginable brute force into the sides of mountains, cutting through vast tea plantations and tiny villages. About when we began to despair of ever reaching our destination, we arrived in chilly Darjeeling, India’s legendary northernmost railhead, where generations of British bureaucrats escaped the brutal summer heat of India’s lowlands.

Darjeeling is crowded, noisy and is as shabby as a chimney sweep. It’s also unbelievably beautiful. As in much of the area in which we work, there is no “grid.” Buildings on adjacent streets stack vertically, with back doors overlooking neighbors’ roofs. Each restaurant seems to offer a more splendid view than its neighbor. Unfortunately, it’s been quite hazy throughout our entire trip. We can see only as far as the nearest three or four mountaintops, but not beyond to the real peaks. Last night, however, as we were drinking tea on a rooftop in downtown Darjeeling Greg exclaimed, “Are those the Himalayas?” We all turned to look to the north, and met an extraordinary sight. As the sun began to set, the snow-capped peaks of the world’s highest mountain range reflected pink and orange in the distance where only a few moments before, there was nothing but clouds and fog.

The pictures we took can’t begin to capture the majesty of the vista. To little avail, I adjusted the various dials on my camera and struggled to reflect in my viewfinder the rapturous scene that lay on the horizon. After a few clicks, I put the camera down and simply basked in the glory of the moment.

[Okay. Gut check here. I am embarrassed about the flowery and admittedly maudlin prose. But if I don’t gush over this, I can’t imagine what on earth would stir me to profusion.]

No sooner than it had appeared, the Himalayan panorama faded with the shifting light and the team was left to bask in the afterglow, sighing over our tea and wishing for just one more glimpse.

It rained last night for the first time in months, offering us this morning the briefest of views of the Himalayas on our walk into town. Once again our cameras struggled to capture even a shadow of the grandeur before the great jagged mountains faded to white. Despite the change in weather, we have not seen them since.

I’m so glad that Sam got a chance to see the peaks this morning before departing for Siliguri and then back home. The rest of us will stay for another week, spending as much time as possible with our kids before hitting Delhi en route to Columbus.

I’ve spent so much time talking about the mountains that I haven’t really been able to share about the amazing things God is doing here through our ministry. Maybe soon I’ll talk about kids, land and future plans. Right now I need to meet the team for dinner. I’m guessing something with curry…

You must select a collection or upload images to display.

Up to the mountain

“Some days I look down, afraid I will fall” – Patty Griffin

It’s about 5:30 a.m. I slept quite poorly last night. Maybe it’s because, for the second night in a row I’ve had complicated and spirited discussions on finances, philosophy and future plans late into the evening. Maybe it’s the fact that I have a big day in front of me visiting possible sites for land purchases in and around Kalimpong and beginning discussions of price negotiations and fundraising strategy.

It’s also possible that I’m a little stressed about the revelation that, tomorrow, I will be speaking for a couple of hours at an Indian seminary and I really have nothing prepared and feel ill-qualified to teach anything to a bunch of guys who rely completely on God for their daily bread and risk their lives sharing the gospel under the threat of torture or death in places like Bhutan.

Just as likely, I’m still a bit delirious from yesterday’s time with the kids. My back is killing me from careening down a mountainside yesterday stuffed in a jeep with 20 singing and laughing kids, and my face hurts from smiling so much.

After a delicious breakfast of an omelet, masala chai, potato curry and fried parathas, we walked from the hotel to Nandu’s house, which is also the temporary home for Kalimpong 2, and we were greeted by all 50 kids of KP1 and KP2, our staff and (also probably adding to my sleeplessness) a number of kids who are “provisionally in our care as prospective children for [the yet-to-be-funded, yet-to-exist] Kalimpong 3.”

After an hour of songs, another hour or two of games and a quick lunch prepared by the staff, we folded ourselves into the aforementioned jeeps and endured about 30 minutes of bumper-to-bumper traffic in Kalimpong followed by another half hour or so of the steepest, most treacherous switchbacks imaginable on a narrow, crumbling mountainside road with no guardrails separated from a fatal, thousand-foot plunge by a six-inch wide strip of gravel and weeds. Nandu assured us that “these are the good roads” and that cars only “sometimes” fall off the mountain.

I wish I could have taken pictures or video that would do this journey justice, but the car was jostling and swerving the entire time, and even at 1/1000 exposure, my camera would not focus and I couldn’t capture anything better than a blur.

At the top of the mountain, however, was an oasis of tranquilty, a park that on a clear day offers views all the way out to China. We spent the entire afternoon playing cricket, soccer, volleyball, tag, Simon Says and whatever else the kids could think of. At one point, I think I was playing three sports simultaneously – none of them well.

With all of the kids together, it was easy to see which ones had been with us for only a few days. The Kalimpong 2 kids, along with the “prospective” children didn’t understand any of the games, but they did their best. Some ran around from game to game laughing and shouting, others found a staff member or one of our team and attached themselves to their side, shyly watching the proceedings from a safe distance. All, however, experienced the blessing of God through love of a family.

I was moved more than once to the brink of tears as I thought about the journeys that brought these children into our care, journeys far more perilous than our little jeep ride up the mountain. Nearly all of these kids have seen one or both parents die. All have been abandoned. All have faced hunger and fear. Many were abused. Some even tortured. But yesterday, they played Simon Says and enjoyed tea and cookies at a park in the foothills of the Himalayas. And last night, they had dinner, sang bedtime songs, said prayers and were tucked into warm beds by parents who love them, and who will be there for them with a hot breakfast and a hug in the morning.

This, my friends, is the Kingdom of God. This is what it is all about. This is what “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” means. This is true religion.

I wish with all of my heart that each of you could experience this. I believe that I could just transport every pastor I know, every business owner I’ve ever met, every one of my friends here for just one day we would never lack funds for another project, and we’d be singing up partnering churches and opening children’s homes so quickly we would lose count of the hundreds – perhaps thousands – of children being admitted into new, loving families every year in India, in Cambodia, in Thailand and beyond.

For those of you who already support the kids and staff of Asia’s Hope with your prayers,  finances and influence, I owe you a debt of gratitude that I can never repay. For those of you who aren’t yet involved, I’m glad you’re reading along, and I pray that my pictures and stories have encouraged you, and that God is moving your heart toward a life of dedication to the poor and orphaned, whether it’s with Asia’s Hope or with one of the myriad other great organizations working all around the world.

May God bless you as he has blessed me, my family, my staff and kids.

I've loved these days

Sam and I have had a great time this last week, enjoying lots of opportunities to act like tourists, especially over the last couple of days.

On Sunday morning we took the train from Delhi to Agra, home of the magnificent Taj Mahal. Like so many aspects of Indian society, the railways here are a thrilling but exhausting spectacle that manages somehow to be both frenetic and plodding at the same time.

[note: due to a digital mishap of epic proportions, all of my photos from Old Delhi and Agra are gone. The only place they exist is in a Facebook album. Sad face.]

We sprung for the first class tickets. The bump in price provided reasonably clean assigned seats and an absence of livestock. We left at dawn, rode in relative comfort through near white-out fog conditions, and arrived at the Agra station largely unmolested. Exiting the train, however, ejected us into a den of hustlers, pickpockets and touts that latch onto foreigners like fleas on a dog’s rump. Despite their best efforts, we successfully hired a taxi and rumbled our way to a somewhat embarrassingly posh hotel with cricket grounds and a rooftop view of the Taj.

I’m not a jaded traveler. I walk around this part of the world with a sense of awe pretty much 23/7. This said, I was prepared to be only mildly impressed by the Taj Mahal. My first glance, however, left me quite literally breathless.

First, I never had any idea that it was so big. I imagined something a couple of stories tall. The thing is enormous. Like 300+ feet high. Not only that, it’s just absolutely gorgeous. Pictures truly don’t convey the beauty – the amazing symmetry, the scale, the exquisite finishes, the way the marble changes color as the sun moves across the sky. From every angle, it’s a masterpiece, and it is by far the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen. The Mughal architects and craftsmen rivaled the creators of Angkor Wat. Like the ancient Khmer artisans, the creators of the Taj Mahal seem to have been blessed with almost a supernatural level of creativity and skill. Truly, the Taj is so much more than just another world traveler’s box to check before moving on to the Parthenon and the Eiffel Tower.

We returned to Delhi the next day and checked into a modest hotel near the airport and began planning our rendezvous with the rest of our team. Tim, Carol, Greg and Keith arrived together that evening and began their own initiation into travel purgatory. To make a very long story shortish, the hotel had informed us that they would not send a car until they received a call from the team informing them that they were on the ground. Unfortunately, there were no pay phones inside the hotel, so the team had to leave the airport and walk past the area the driver would later come to wait for them.

Complicating matters further, Carol had heard the guy from the hotel instruct her to look for a man with a black car with the hotel’s name. Nope. He said to look for a “man with a placard with the hotel’s name.” An hour or so after their expected arrival time, I asked the front desk captain if they had been picked up. “No. We talked to Mrs. Richardson on the phone, but we cannot find her team.”

Great. So I grabbed my coat and hailed a cab to the airport where I began my search, calling the hotel every half hour or so to see if they had arrived. My search began somewhat leisurely – I fully expected to find them within minutes of arrival. By the time midnight rolled around I was becoming frantic. No one could help me, no one would call the United Airlines office for me to try to locate them, and I wasn’t allowed in the airport without ticket or passport, the latter I had left at the hotel.

Thank God for my Indian cell card. I received a call around 12:30 that they had given up and taken a cab to the hotel. They were all in good spirits when I arrived – I was certainly more stressed out than any of them.

The next day – yesterday – we all got up and headed to the airport to make our flight to Siliguri and produced another travel comedy that I won’t take the time to discuss. Suffice it to say that it was only funny in retrospect. It was like an episode of the Amazing Race without the bimbos and backstabbing.

Eventually we all made it to Siliguri and were greeted by our wonderful director Nandu and his lovely wife Anu. We enjoyed a delicious lunch at a local hotel and headed in three cars – red, white and blue – into the mountains on a beautiful, but perilous journey that was something like a day trip though the Smoky Mountains and the fliming of a sequel to Blade Runner.

We arrived after dark at the Silver Oaks Hotel in Kalimpong, just the kind of quaint, Raj-era lodge you’d hope to find nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas. It’s really much nicer than we need, but Nandu negotiated an almost 50% tariff reduction, and he assured us that the other hotels would not be warm enough. A good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed with a thick blanket augmented marginally by a tiny space heater has convinced me that he made a good decision.

In a few minutes we will meet Nandu for breakfast and then we’ll make the final turn in our transition from tourists to visiting family, walking about a kilometer down the road to see the kids. I’ve loved all of the beautiful and impressive cultural sights, but none of them – not even the Taj – will be any better than the sight of the 50 smiling kids from our Kalimpong 1 and 2 homes, many of whom I have never met.

I will be sure to take lots and lots of pictures. Now the trip is really going to get good. Please stay tuned over the next few days for photos and stories from the most exciting part of our journey here in India. Thank you so much for your support of the kids and staff of Asia’s Hope.

Bhogpur Children's Home

It’s a three wool blanket and one ski cap kind of night in chilly Dehradun. There’s no central heating at the Bhogpur Children’s Home, where we are spending the night as the guest of Calvin Taylor, whose family has served in India for three generations. Sam has a cold, and has warned me that he will likely snore like a freight train. I have headphones and Ambien handy, so I think I should do okay. I also have a pillow nearby that I can use to smother one or both of us if things get out of hand.

The home was founded in 1945 by Calvin’s grandparents, and houses 420 children, all of whom have parents who are suffering from or have died of leprosy. It’s an honor to meet the kids and staff, and to see firsthand such a legacy of commitment to caring for the poor in Jesus’ name. It’s always great to meet colleagues and to share ideas and compare notes. I’ll leave here with lots to think about, and with a new set of kids to keep in my prayers.

We’ll be here for another day, so I’ll have plenty of time to take pictures of the kids and the surrounding area. I decided to just be a guest tonight, and I left the camera in my bag. It’s early, but it’s dark and I’m a bit jetlagged. I will probably head to bed soon.

Sam is already snoring. Time for headphones and sleepy pills.

Good night.

Good morning.

Fast forward a day and a half, and we’re in the Dehradun airport. It’s still cold and cloudy. We spent last night at a hotel – Sam’s cold was sufficient to warrant a change of venue so he could enjoy a hot shower. It seems to have helped, as did a night of relatively warm sleep.

Our time in Dehradun and Boghpur has been great. I pray that, like the ministry we visited here, Asia’s Hope will still be serving kids in 100 years.

We’ll relax in Delhi this afternoon and evening and then head to Agra by train tomorrow to see the Taj Mahal. I’ll be sure to bring extra camera batteries. I hope to do the sights justice.

I’m sure I’ll love the Taj, but I’m already restless. I’ve been poring over the photos and bios of our kids in Kalimpong – I want to call as many by name as my aging brain will permit. I miss even the ones I haven’t met yet! I’m can’t wait to see Nandu and his family again and introduce Sam and the team to them. In the meantime, though, I’ll enjoy being a tourist.

Old Delhi

According to our rickshaw driver, we experienced “the real India” today, bumping along narrow city streets packed with people and lined with shops selling saris and spices.

The day certainly started authentically enough, with Sam and I waiting for hours in queue at the “foreign tourist tickets” room in the Delhi train station. To have arrived at the room at all seems something of a miracle given the dozen or so touts who had set upon us to throw us off the scent. These hucksters stalk hapless tourists and waylay them with all manner of lies ranging from “you cannot buy tickets at this station – my friend will take you to another tourist office” to “the train no longer runs from Delhi to Agra – my friend can take you in his car.”

Eventually, we procured what we’re assuming are authentic tickets to Agra, the site of the incomparable Taj Mahal, which we will allegedly visit on Sunday, after we return from two days in Dehra Dun, site of an orphanage that Sam and his family have supported financially over the last few years. I’m looking forward to building relationships and sharing ideas with other colleagues and meeting those kids.

 After being released from the purgatory of Indian transport bureaucracy, Sam and I escaped by tuk-tuk to the Red Fort, a 17th Century Mughal palace. It was picturesque and red and fort-like. We then hired the aforementioned rickshaw driver who ferried us hither and yon through the back streets – and a few rooftops – of the old city.

As Sam observed, “This would be a lot harder in 100F weather.” Today’s temperature was mighty fine indeed – about 60F – perfect for jeans and jacket. I’ve only been here one day, but I can say with certainty that January is the ideal time to visit Delhi. I’m betting that it won’t be so pleasant when I return with the family this summer, but I’m sure we will have a great time nonetheless.

I can also tell you that I greatly prefer Delhi to Calcutta which, even for an experienced world traveler and extreme extrovert, was non-stop sensory overload.

I would love to write more, but that will have to wait. I’ve taken a short nap, and it’s time for dinner. I’m sure it will be delicious – everything in this country is. If I’m not too exhausted I’ll check in once more before leaving for Dehra Dun. Peace.

Hello, Delhi

After a long — almost 16 hours — but uneventful flight from Newark, I arrived in Delhi somewhere around 9pm, India time. Within a few minutes of disembarking, I began to experience the legendary bureaucracy that invades even international corporations like United Airlines in India.

After waiting for about an hour for my checked luggage to make its way onto the carousel, the baggage attendants and I agreed that it just wasn’t going to happen. That decision plunged me into another two hours of rubber stamps, carbon papers and forms to be filled (in triplicate, of course). Thankfully, I packed almost all of my essential items in my carry-on, so I’ll be okay for a couple of days. If I don’t recover my big suitcase, however, I’ll need to buy a new winter coat and I’ll lose many of the games and gifts I brought for the children. The suitcase will, allegedly, be delivered to my hotel by end of day tomorrow. That would be nice, but I’m not sure I’m counting on it.

After much ado at the airport, I rented a cab to take me to my hotel in Connaught Place, which appears to be the center of the city. At first glance, Delhi is about 50 year ahead of Calcutta in terms of infrastructure and cleanliness. Then again, it’s dark, and there was little traffic on the road. I will tell you, however, that this 30 minute cab ride was much better than last year’s hour-and-a-half deathmarch through Calcutta traffic sans air-conditioning, sans shock absorber.

The weather here is beautiful. I’d guess it’s about 40F at night. A light fog has descended over the city, and the whole place smells vaguely of incense. I am exhausted, but I can’t wait to get out into the city tomorrow morning to look around.

For now, however, I’m taking advantage of the 24 hour restaurant at my hotel, and I’m enjoying a plate of delicious mutton roganjosh and a basket of butter naan. So far, so good.

"In the darkness, there shined a light."

There’s a reason, I think, that as Christians we celebrate the birth of the savior at the darkest time of the year. The poignant juxtaposition of hope and despair, of darkness and light, is the very heart of the Christmas. The story of a people in captivity, barely holding on to belief in the promises of a God who seems to have forgotten them, whose rescue comes in the form of a baby born in a stable — this story resonates with all of us who fear, who doubt and who sometimes hope.

This Christmas has been for me a big jumble of darkness and light, of tears and laughter, of frustration and promise.

Last Thursday, after a full week of feeling buffeted by horrifying news stories of children my daughter’s age being massacred at school, of suicide bombings, hate crimes, drone strikes and fiscal cliffs, I was more than ready to leave the office, pack my up my wife and kids and head south to visit friends, family and Asia’s Hope supporters in North Carolina and Florida for a much-needed workcation.

As restless as I was to get on the road, there was no way I was going to miss my afternoon meeting with Mike Borst, pastor of NorthChurch (Lewis Center, Ohio). I’ve known Mike for years, and have long believed that NorthChurch would one day become an Asia’s Hope partnering congregation. On Thursday, we made it official: NorthChurch is now the sponsor of our newest home, Kalimpong 2 in Northeast India! In less than two weeks, I’ll be flying to India with a group of Asia’s Hope staff, board members and supporters, and I’ll get a chance to meet the 25 kids now living in our 25th children’s home.

I left the office buoyant – what a great way to end the year! I enjoyed a great evening with my family, finished packing my bags and went to bed only a little late. I woke up the next morning to a raft of Facebook messages and emails: one of our homes in Thailand had burned to the ground. As I pored over the pictures of stunned children and staff who, thank God, were not at home when the fire broke out, I felt sickened.

Beyond the building itself, these kids lost much more. They lost all of the letters, photos and drawings from friends, visitors and sponsors. Worse yet, I suspect that some of the children lost the one remaining picture they had of a mother or father. All of it burned up. Only one boy, Pichai, was able to recover a small album of photos. Beyond all of that, the sense of security we work so hard to provide for these children had been jeopardized.

Much less important was the sense of frustration I felt as I watched helplessly the nice, tidy bow I’d wrapped around 2012 unravel and fall to pieces. So many people had worked so hard to help Asia’s Hope end the year in the black and with a ton of forward momentum on a number of capital and operational projects. Now, I was headed out of the office for a month and a half with a huge, unfunded and immediate need.

$75,000 is a lot of money, especially for an organization that operates in the U.S. with a skeleton crew and on a shoestring budget. What could we do?

Clench fists. Breath deeply. Close eyes. Pray. Open eyes. Unclench fists.

Send out emails. Post on Facebook and Twitter.

Breath deeply. Close eyes. Pray. Open eyes.