India Update!

{Biker on a lonely road in India}

Hey Everyone!

Sorry it has been so long since the last post, but we have been really busy, exhausted, and jet lagged! When we last wrote, we were headed out to India, unsure of almost anything we were about to encounter, but excited about the adventure. Well, we made it! And boy oh boy was it an adventure!!! It was an eye-opening experience for us as well!

I will tell you, it may possibly have been the hardest ten days of our lives! We were TOTALLY unprepared and out of our element! But at the same time, God brought us through with total health, and more marvelously than I could have envisioned. We want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your prayers and support through all of this!! I cannot stress enough the power of prayer... and we really felt it!

We were actually in India volunteering with an organization (Epic International) that has a system of indigenous church planters throughout the whole country (BIG country!). We were documenting their progress and doing photo stories for the people who are really putting it all on the line for Jesus...to try and gain a campaign for more support for them... so we had Indian hosts and translators taking us from place to place. We knew it was going to be pretty rural, we didn't know HOW rural though...

{workers harvesting in Bihar}

So the first stop for us was a region called Bihar. This was a ten hour drive we had to make the day after we flew into Siliguri...but it was really amazing. We took off really early in the morning with our liaison, Jinooy, and we were able to stop whenever we wanted to take pictures and investigate the area. We were able to drive through the country and really see everything and experience it all, which we really enjoyed. I must say, we were not prepared for how many people dwell in India, even in the MOST remote places. There are 1.2 billion people living in India..this means 1 out of every 6 people on the planet, live in India and are Indian. This is INCREDIBLE...there are people EVERYWHERE!!! No matter where you are there is a highly populated town center with shops, markets, etc.... and while you drive around, all you see is rice paddies, wheat fields, and rows of corn. Everything has been torn down to make room for agriculture...it's hard to believe that we were driving through a land that was once wild and formidable...inspiring things like the Jungle Book to be written! It's all flat...kind of sad, but I guess when you have 1.2 billion people living in your country you have to have a ton of agriculture to support that.

The weather at this point was about 110F to 115F every day. The humidity was pretty high also. It was amazing. NOT! And it just got hotter and hotter, take my word for it! So we got to Bihar, and after a series of unfortunate events, ended up in the worst "hotel" ever....we mean that...ever. Please understand, I am not complaining, only giving you the uncensored truth. We were praying our hearts out to the Lord for health.... that night we didn't sleep...at all. The room we were in had a mosquito infestation...and we were trying to get rid of them to no avail. When we finally could take it no more and decided to get up and shower (3:30 am)....we found out we had been getting bit WAY more than we thought. Jeanette had 57 mosquito bites....ON HER FACE! I had mosquito bites on my eyelids, end of my nose, and lips....plus we had them all over the rest of our bodies. Needless to say, after that kind of a night, we were a little hesitant....Okay, we were a lot hesitant. We didn't know how we were going to do it. Our spirits were down, and we just could not see an end in site. It seemed like that ten days would never end. We met amazing people and heard great stories, got great pictures, and learned so much...but for some reason, our time in Bihar was just TOUGH! Well, as we left, we talked with a person in the organization, and found out that Bihar is nicknamed, "The Missionary Graveyard"....and there was a lot of spiritual oppression that was really bringing us down. As soon as we got out of Bihar, a weight was lifted....and then we hopped on a train to West Bengal...for another adventure!

{Hindu Monk on the Road to Bihar}

Thank the Lord, the accommodations (though not always great) were very liveable and fine for us the rest of the way. We really didn't expect anything nice, it was just good to be able to sleep! Our liaison into West Bengal met us on the train from Bihar to Kolkata... his name is Asish and he is one of the greatest people we have ever met. He is a man with a great passion and drive to see his fellow people (especially the people of West Bengal) free from oppression and idolatry... Hinduism has a very hard hold on the entire country, and Islam is also growing...creating some obvious tension and dynamics to the land. But in a land dominated by Hinduism, Christianity (I mean the real, radical, live your faith type of Christianity) is spreading like wild-fire...Some of the people we met in Bihar and West Bengal have suffered so much hardship because of their conversion. Often times the only family they have known, their village community, has cast them out, cut them off, and burned their crops and livelihood. We have sat and prayed, wept, and broke bread with these quiet revolutionaries... these people who grasp what Jesus said with such a simplicity it is astounding. It makes so much sense when Jesus said we should come to Him with hearts like children....they just get it, and it's beautiful. When they have nothing less, they have Jesus, and that is all they need. Sometimes it's so hard for us to realize that...its hard for us to test it and to experience it, because we would never let ourselves come that....close....to Jesus. So close to Him, that we don't have anything else holding us up...nothing but Him... think about how your relationship with your parents might be different if you never had truly depended on them for anything....or if you have kids, how your relationship with your kids would be different if they never depended on you... I believe it is the same with our relationship to God.... and these people just don't struggle with that. It is life-changing to see people who have absolutely NOTHING to lose, go after God. It changes things. It's more than their Sunday ritual...it shapes their life, because when they don't pray to Shiva every day, the neighbors notice. It's different in comfortable "Christian" nations with big houses and picket fences. Pray for India. Please.

So this turned into my own lessons learned in India...but I promise we have so much to talk to you all about regarding India, Egypt, Korea, God, Justice, Future Plans, etc etc. We miss you all so much and thank you all for your love and prayers and financial support! We all are a part of this, and it's so much bigger than the two of us...it has to be or else it doesn't matter. If it ever is about US, then we have missed the mark, and we thank you for being a part of this "beautiful chaos" with us.

So now, as we come home to Michigan (May 6th) and later on to Lynchburg VA (TBD), we would really like to get in touch, meet up with you and just thank you and share hope, life, and some food with you! We are trying to get a website off of the ground to be able to start supporting ourselves a little through our photography. If you would like to be a part of this, either through hiring us to do photography, or buying prints from us, we would SO appreciate it! Finally, it sounds like I (Ryan), may be going to China for a couple to few weeks (June 4th-?) to document a Christian organization that performs cataract eye surgery on people in the mountainous regions of China. This will be an amazing opportunity to really help out a organization that does amazing things for the disenfranchised lower class...(I will be volunteering for them on this trip, not getting paid). They do want me to do quite a bit of video stuff for them also, and so we are looking into trying to get video equipment for the trip, maybe borrowing from someone who has a good professional video camera....the other option, is that we could sell a camera and buy a newer one that has HD video on it. (also my camera is acting up-the auto focus is going out...BUMMER!) I feel this would be a great option, because in the long run we would have a good video player for our trips and updates and interviews. This, however will cost us some money, and if you would like to help us out in any amount you can add it to our paypal account which is linked on this blog! Thank you for your supports and prayers, without you it would be a much bumpier and lonelier road!

{rickshaw driver staring at a foreigner}

Ryan and Jeanette

{Through this whole journey around the world and back we have had the privilege of learning so much through our amazing God and the people who serve Him. We have learned in secret meetings in closed countries, and we have learned around fires in the middle of a Hindu dominated society. We have gathered with believers in the rain forests of Panama, in the townships with the oppressed of South Africa, with the believers suppressed in the Middle East, with the followers in Europe whose struggle is similar to our own in America- prosperity and having TOO much, and we have gathered in Korea with believers and have traveled back to our "home away from home" in Kona Hawaii, where the people are just as diverse as all of the countries I have just listed...It has been an amazing journey, and we both look forward to the rest of this crazy journey we call our LIFE. It is so true that life is found in Jesus...we have never been more aware of our lives, and have never felt more alive than when we abandoned that which we thought we knew and decided to explore the Jesus rarely followed...the Jesus of the margins, the God of the poor and lowly, the friend of the lepers and sinners, the Jew who is rejected by the Jews....the man who changed it all with His quiet revolution. Thank God for that man who rejected the norm, decided to not follow the laws of His day, and decided to live and love as if there was nothing more important....oh to be closer to my Savior, not just in proximity but in action.}