[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…
