Rajasthan & Great Thar Desert

Have you ever spent three days riding a camel and camping in the desert? Well, neither had we until a couple days ago......twas a right fine time...and we were happy to have somewhat trained camels. Our guide was training a four year old camel that would growl like a maniac and once even regirgitated green stuff all over the guide. Other than that (and a bit of sore muscle-ness), it was extremely peaceful, and great to meet some of the desert shepherds and villagers. (photos). It was also awesome to sleep on sand dunes under the desert sky...no tent...but we had 4 blankets and 2 sleeping bags. :)

Rajasthan (a state in NW India) is a land full of legend and history of maharajas, wars, desert folks and crazy architecture (carved building photo).

Our time in the ancient fort-city of Jaisalmer has been magical...Today we joined the cows, pigs, and other merry creatures in wandering the old get-lost-kind- of- streets. We found a shop about the size of your closet, and the man there sells only chai. We partook, then Joseph took the shirt off his backto have the much-needed stitching done in about 3 minutes. (photo). Then we came across some kids playing cricket and gave it a shot for the first time. (photo) ...The adventures never end is this land of India.

In one old maharaha palace with antiques and such that we were exploring, the people were getting ready for a New Year celebration, so they got out the special antique palanquin, ...Christy sat on it for a photo, and afterwards found out it was a very old one that no one can sit on...so here is the photo of her getting scolded.

Then you see the photo of all the people sleeping...that is your basic train station at night in India...and lots of the streets look the same....

Still learning lots. Tonight we're off on a 6 day train journey to S. India ( with a couple stops)

Keep us in your prayers.

Lots of Love,

Joseph and Christy

Only In India..(O.I.I.)

Happy New Year Loved Friends!

There has been quite a bit happening the last little while. Little sayings we have been inventing include, "Honey, P.H." This is what Christy says to Joseph when a man insists on holding Joseph's right hand (eating and shaking hand) while they walk, which inevitably means they are using their LEFT hand (the hand... used to well... you know, do what we use toilet paper for...) to hold his. So Christy says "PH!"(Poo hand)..and afterwards discreetly distributes the handy-dandy-hand sanitizer to Joseph....

Christmas was right fine. Jesus Immanuel came to Darjeeling and gave us a hug, and we gave Him one too. On Christmas morning, reading about His birth really moved us...we are recipients of awesome grace. We hung our stockings(socks) by the heater with care and enjoyed Darjeeling tea for brekkie. Later, it was neat to visit a Nepali church where we didn't understand much but enjoyed the singing bit and the yummy potluck afterwards. Then we spent much of the day with the YWAMers, walking about the town, playing games and laughing our bottoms off. We were so happy to get to talk to our family on Christmas. Our nieces and nephews ROCK!

Next day, we took the toy train to the highest railway station in the world, Ghoom. We had to run and jump aboard due to fun times of cross-cultural communication at the counter. ("Which line am I supposed to be standing in, oh the train is leaving?") An enjoyable event was the Himalayan zoo which we observed endagered species such as red pandas, clouded leopards and snow leopards.

We had a speedy 27 hour train ride to Tundla, near Agra, arriving yesterday. When we arrived, we were welcomed by a swarm of rickshaw wallahs yelling like mad for us to climb aboard their marvelous transportation devices. Eventually when about 20 had surrounded us, we broke forth into a classic rendition of "THIS IS THE SONG THAT NEVER ENDS!!! " They were silent and smitten like puppies in our lap and requested an encore...so we sang, "HARK THE HERALD!!" WE made 10 rupees which is about 30 cents and paid for our 45 minute bus ride to Agra where the Taj Mahal waited patiently for us to arrive.

Taj was more beautiful than we had expected but we especially enjoyed making bird calls to the many green parakeets, woodpeckers and a wise old owl in the old trees nearby. Joseph even held a squirrel which was pretty much awesome. Later we took a bicycle rickshaw. Joseph got to switch places with the driver for a while, and Christy cried because of the crazy things that people are doing to make a living...Jesus is the hope for all of us.

Tomorrow we're headed out on the train for Rajahstan the land of the camels, maharajahs, tandoori and deserts and I'm sure lots of other mysterious finds.

Happy New Year!

LOVE,

Joseph and Christy

Darjeeling Christmas

What a place this is! Perched thousands of feet in the Himalayan foothills and world famous for it's tea (which is exceptional, btw) and it's near location to the Himalayas (we wake up to a towering view of the 3rd highest mountain in the world), this place is a real treat and just the right medicine. It's pretty chilly and there are probably more people celebrating Christmas here than almost any other place in India. Bordering just west is Nepal, slightly north is Tibet, and just east is Bhutan, so the faces, culture, and food here(tibetan is our favorite), are very different and you'd hardly know you were in India at all. Upon arrival, we prayed and felt led to a certain nice hotel located just under a church with a price that nicely fits our budget. Come to find out, there is a youth with a mission outreach team from Australia staying in the building! So we have some great young people to celebrate Christmas with and share in fellowship and blessing together. Thank you, Father! We have not yet solidified our Christmas eve and day plans, but on our next blog we'll let you know how it went and hopefully get to add some photos of this experience. We miss and love you all and wish you a Very Merry Christmas!
Love, J and C

Elephants at Last!

Dear Friends, A lot has been happening, so we have posted lots of photos and stories below. We finally got to see a wild elephant when Jacob and Blessi brought us to Mudu Malai where there are lots of animals. We also rode a trained elephant through the jungle which was really crazy. He would move the sticks aside with his trunk to clear a path. Favorite photo is the one with Joseph and the baby elephants trunk. The baby is being taken care of at the reserve. There are more photos below...and a video. Hope you enjoy!
We are planning to take a 4 day train trip to Darjeeling in NE India for Christmas. (Hopefully we will find some snow there and maybe we will teach some people a couple carols on the train journey.)
We leave in a couple days. We will be thinking of you and pray that you have a beautiful time wherever you are for Christmas. Give Jesus a hug. :)
So much love to you and very Happy Holidays!
Love,
Joseph and Christy

Ooty!

Ooty is a wonderful hillstation in the Nilgiris mountain region, part of the Western Ghats. We spent the last little while there......getting to know the awesome people who we stayed with. William and his family are rad and they live out in the boondocks in a Eucalyptus tree forest. See the fellow in the flowery hat? That's William. He used to be a super intense hindu priest who carried around a 10 fool sword, had a big crazy moustache and everyone was afraid of him..until Jesus got a hold of him. Now he's a big softie and full of love and joy. We rode around with him on his motorcycle and explored. He took us to homes to visit people and showed us the beauty of the place they live. God is so good. The guy in green is another Joseph, a friend who traveled with us as well. We took a toy steam train down the mountain when we left! We are learning so much about people and cultures and especially ourselves. There are some more stories below of our time in Ooty with William and his family.

Fishing Fun?

Well, one of the days in Ooty our friends planned a day of rest for us. The day basically consisted of fishing, football, fire, and food. The fishing was....not like any fishing we'd done before. Our friend Thombas made 4 homemade fishing poles and we had small rolled up pieces of bread mixed with tumeric powder as bait. Earthworms as a backup. We walked about 1/2 mile to a lake that made my stomach sick as we approached. Ther water was thick green in many places and layers of garbage lined the shores...a natural beauty made into a dump site. None the less we threw in our tumeric baited lines and sat for some time praying that we woudn't catch any fish... After a while Thombas grew bored and took us to a smaller lake by their house that was relatively litter-free. They proceeded to catch 12 fish by putting a torn net across the lake and sending dogs, rocks and sticks on either side of the net to scare the fish into the trap. We ate those for dinner later.

We had a fire and got to hear some gorgeous songs in Tamil, and we sang some songs as well. This reminded us of beach fires in Alaska. We also put potatoes in the fire just as they were, then pealed the black off after half and hour and ate them.

Joseph played football (soccer) with a bunch of rambunctious Indians and made most of the goals. Christy was the cheerleader...

Some days we feel right at home and some days we just have to recognize that we are experiencing culture shock...it is all part of the fun.

Smiling,

J and C

India Imagery

You can come across some curious sights in India,

We love the unexpected beauties that we see, things are just done differently here.

These two coconut blokes are simply stylin'.

We drink the coconut juice from the green coconuts often, they just hack it open with a machete and it's refreshing as can be.

We helped with the cleaning of thousands of carrots...Joseph got barefoot with the fellas and moved the carrots through the washing process...we might not think to wash carrots with our feet, but it sure does get the job done.

The flowers you see here are actually not real. Our friends in Ooty took us to this place called the thread garden, where there are thousands of flowers and plants made by handtying thread around shapes....which took 12 years of work. It claims to be the most beautiful work of art ever known to mankind...we didn't agree with this assesment, but it was impressive in some strange way! :)

Todhas Villagers

Wow! What a blessing it was for us to be able to visit some dear brothers and sisters in the Niligris mountains...we had such a uniquely beautiful time with this tribe, the Todha people, an ancient tribe. They welcomed us with open arms and we had lovely fellowship with them!

They are so hungry for the love of Jesus and have been through so much persecution. Christ has become their strength and their song! There are some lovely traditions that we were able to experience, such as the way the woman do their hair, they did Christy's hair, which was really fun. They are also very skilled embroiderers as you can see by the shawls here. They also bless people by putting their feet on people's heads.

We felt immediate kinship with the people we met here...we sang and danced, prayed and laughed and wept. We shared traditional food and cocoa tea and lots of hugs...until it was long past time to go and our hearts were moved by our dear new friends. Abba, bless them deeply.