Video of our trip

For a video of our trip, click this link.
http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=aa81eaab314f9bcc41b5

Homecoming!

Thank you for your faithful support and prayers. After several long days of travel we finally made it home safe and sound on Tuesday evening, November 20th. Our Mission to India has forever changed us as we grown in our relationship with the world, our Christian family and our Lord. We will continue to pray for India and His faithful servants in Dehli. It is our plan to encourage the Mission Commission to strengthen our relationship with the Anurag Society and to discuss future mission trips to India. Now some final photos from Agra and the Taj Mahal...

Saturday November 17

Today is Saturday and we are spending the next few days touring and finding out more about the people of India. We are in Jaipur and we toured some of the important monuments. This is the Wind Palace.


It is right in the middle of crazy Jaipur traffic.

And of course, we saw a real snake charmer.











We then visited the Amber Palace. This was a highlight of the trip for everyone. We got to ride elephants to the palace that was postiioned at the top of a hill. Nobody could believe we were actually doing this. Here is Nancy and Julie enjoying their ride.



And of course monkeys are everywhere. This little guy was one of hundreds up on a roof.




No trip to India would be complete without a ride in an auto rikshaw or Tuk Tuks as they are called.
That's all for now. It's getting late and we leave for Agra and the Taj Mahal in the morning.
PS - Health update - I'm feeling better but Brandon and Dan have Dehli Belly. Pray for us on the 5 hour trip to Agra today.
Blessings,
Kurt

Thursday and Friday November 15 & 16

Thursday we had to say goodbye to all our friends at Anurag. It was amazing how close we came to the children and staff in such a short time. The primary kids met us in the courtyard for their goodbyes.

This picture is of the Industrial Training Students.

Then we headed out to Panipat. A bustling industrial town about 2 1/2 hours outside of Delhi. We toured the factories in which I do business. We also had lunch with the owners of the factory. It was great introducting them to the team.

Friday we got up and said goodbye to the YWCA. (Note we are making the YWCA with our hands.)


























Then we headed to Bible Bhawan for Alissa's baptism. (The photo above is right after she was baptized). Alissa wanted to be baptized in India since it made such an impact on her Christian life. This made a big impact on all of us. It was a great honor for me, her dad to pray with her.

We then headed out for Jaipur. This was about a 5 hour ride.









Jaipur is in Rajastan state. It is an ancient city with forts and palaces dating 100's of years old. We got in too late to tour anything so we did a little shopping and ate at an iffy restaurant. Hopefully, our we won't develop Delhi Belly. Seriously though, pray for me (Kurt), I am coming down with a lot of body aches and sore throat. Hopefully it is just a cold, but the mosquitoes are rapant.

That is all for tonight.
Blessings!
Kurt

Ministry at Anurag Continues (November 14)

We had another wonderful day serving the Lord with devotions, music, drama and games. We are finding the most significant part of every day on the mission... the PEOPLE! The people of India are so kind and gracious. It has been great watching relationships begin and friendships grow. It is our prayer that these friendships will be eternal and that our investment is spiritual.

They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words... sit back and listen to a sermon full!

It was Children's Day across India today as they celebrated the first Prime Minister's birthday. We helped them celebrate by bringing a new television and DVD player with several Christian movies on DVD. We also spoiled the children with candy and treats... so glad we brought over 1,000 toothbrushes in our bags.

The Anurag Society is small in comparison to most mission societies, but huge in the impact it has in its community. Today we visited a separate ministry that is sponsored by Compassion International sponsors, but overseen by the Anurag leadership team. It sobering to see a sign in the Compassion office that reported out of the over 250+ students - only 1 was a Christian. Anurag is a light shining in a very dark place. Once again the classrooms provided us with A+ entertainment and hospitality.

The girls were busy with games and crafts... it was amazing how much noise a room full of young ladies can make when they are having fun and focusing on making jewlry. The boys were off to the park to play Ultimate Frizbee and chew bubble gum. We discovered that the concept of "kickoff" is foreign to Indian sports - that were able to learn quickly everything but the need to kickoff to the other team. No matter - it was ultimate fun! We sure are going to miss our new friends.

Please pray for us as we say our sad "good-byes" on Thursday to our new friends in Dehli and visit a local businessman in Panipat. Catch us on the radio - we will be interviewed by Jeff Schell KKMS AM 980 at 3:30 PM today. You can hear it on-line a KKMS.COM.

Have a great day,

Pastor Dan

Arrival at Anurag (Nov 12-13)

The Team could hardly wait to arrive at Anurag. The trip was about 30 minutes of hair pulling, horn blowing, and heroic navigating by our drivers Belli and Binder. You will never believe us when we tell you about the traffic in India where four lanes of vehicles manage to share only two lanes of road. The final leg of our journey was on a street so narrow that we could shake the hands of people sitting on their front steps and almost scraped the walls with our autos at every turn.

Finally we arrived at the Anurag Society in one of the poorest areas of Dehli. Nevertheless, the rich welcome and warm hospitality that we received by the people of Anurag has been amazing. We were quickly greeted by the entire primary school with garlands and flowers as we were ushered into the assembly area to share devotions with the staff and technical school students. After devotions, we spent the entire morning visiting each classroom and corner of Anurag... from the toddlers in the day care through primary school up to the sewing technical school. Again and again we heard stories of God's provision for the school and profound impacts that Anurag has made upon the lives of students and staff members. Lunch with the students was very delicious - the simple kitchen serves up to 1,000 a day - with no dish washers or stoves!


For the past three weeks the students have been working on a special production for our visit. We sat amazed at their recitation, music, dance and drama. I shall never forget the students dressed in the customary outfits of each region across India and in the colors of the India flag as we were serenaded to "Pray for India". By the time we arrived home we were exhausted, but managed to meet for a time of reflection and prayer. God is clearly at work in India... we are so glad that He allowed us to join Him there!





On Tuesday, November 13th, we were back to Anurag with the Franks leading us in devotions. Jerry and Mary did an excellent job telling the story of the lost coin and had the students sitting at the edge of their seats learning of a God who searches for them. The young girls could not take their eyes off of Amanda as she told her stor and how God found her and saved her. After chai (were is my coffee?) we shared the devotional once again, only this time with over 75 parents of the students that are sponsored at Anurag. Many of the young mothers took time off from their factory or housekeeping jobs to dress in their best clothes and show us true Indian hospitality. Our sponsorship is changing the lives of students... and entire families.

In the afternoon we split the teenage boys and girls apart. The boys went to a local park and taught us to play cricket. It was quite an adventure travelling some distance by foot to the only park that would allow us to play games - stepping over buffalo pies, crossing crowed streets, and experiencing a variety of smells: peanuts roasting, naan baking, flowers hanging, diesel fuming, garbage piling and even a community septic system flowing over the park - we chose a different spot to play cricket. If I remember Jerry had an amazing catch, Rob was quite a bowler, and Dan - Kurt - Brandon hit some sixers. Imagine playing in a park surround by Hindus and Moslems under the shadow of a King's 14th century palace - check out the team photos. Game Two will be played at the same park beginning at 3:00 PM - join us for front row seating, but this time we are going to ask the students to toss the American football and frizbee.

The girls remained at Anurag for crafts. We expected 30 teenage girls to join us as we made colorful friendship bracelets. But the word got out and over 70 girls and staff members showed up. Everyone had a great time... especially the students as they made friendship bracelets and tied them on the wrists of our team member.

We have really enjoyed the Indian food. It is spicy (and gassy), but filling and tastes great. I have been popping the peptos frequently and eating seconds at each meal. Tonight we sought a break from the spices and rices and went to the local shopping area, Conaught Place, for some homestyle cooking. The Team enjoyed some delicious T.G.I. Fridays fixings, but I wanted to try something different so I wandered over to the local McDonalds for a McVeggie with fries and chai (at least they didn't serve McBeer like the the McDonalds at the Frankfurt airport). Most of the team decided to head home for sleep while a couple of the team members courageously staying behind to check out the local market. On their auto-rickshaw ride home, the local driver who only spoke Hindi got lost and we had a lenghty tour of the center of Dehli before finally getting dropped off a at huge Sikh temple that we new was somewhere close to our YWCA hotel.

Kurt and I decided that we might as well visit the temple since we were standing at its front steps. We navigated past the beggars and proceeded barefoot through the "holy water" up the stairs to the golden dome. Even though it was after 9:00 pm there was a multitude surrounding the worship leaders, pausing to pray, kissing the fixtures, dipping their hands in a giant pool teaming with huge fish, and gazing upon a lighted pole in the court area. Iit was personally fascinating, but also spiritually challenging as we were reminded of the great news of Jesus and our mission to India. Please continue to pray for us as we seek to encourage the Anurag leadership and bring light into a very dark place.

See you on the other side of India... Dan

Photos from Fri 11-9 -Sun 11/11

We Made It!

Sunday 11/11/07
We made it safely to New Delhi after 25 hours en route. PTL that all of our flights were on time and all 22 bags arrived with us. We had a ¼ ton of donated supplies by very generous people at PCC. Thank you all so much! Prem and Jacob Gideon met us at the airport at 1:30am in the city that never sleeps.
We met Prem and Jacob this morning at their church, The Global Christian Life Center. We were so blessed. The service lasted 2 ½ hours. Pastor Dan would love to have the pulpit for that long. After church we enjoyed lunch at a South Indian restaurant. Dan and Kurt we able to find some terrific bannana splits. Then we toured monuments around New Delhi. We visited Indian Gate (we were met by many people selling various items of questionable worth), the President’s resident and Ghandi’s memorial (The memorial is in the garden where he was assassinated).
We are writing this while having pizza dinner. Pizza never tasted so good.
Dan asked the team for a couple words to describe the trip so far
Unique, Tiring, Obedience, Praise, Chaotic, Geko (Alissa's new friend from her hotel room).
That's all for now, were are going to try to get some much needed rest.

Prayer Requests

Our team has asked that you would pray:

- that God will go before us preparing people's hearts
- for all the small details of the trip
- that we will be good ambassadors for Christ
- that things would run smoothly with our families (safety and sanity:)
- that we will be protected from physical, emotional and spiritual attack
- that lives will be changed - here and there!

Our Goals

Our goals for Mission India 2007:

- to be obedient to God personal call and great commission
- to be Ambassadors of the Good News in both word and deed
- to identify needs in the area and future ministry opportunities
- to build and strengthen relationships within our team and church
- to build and strengthen relationships with Anurag leaders
- to be forced out of our personal comfort zones to God's cutting edge
- to pray specifically for the people, place and partners of India
- to expand our worship experience and relationship with God

Our Itinerary:

November 9-10
Meet at 10:15am for prayerful "sending" from PCC
Travel from Minneapolis to Dehli

November 11
Worship with Anurag hosts Jacob/Prem Gideon
New Dehli Prayer Walk

November 12-15
Share Devotions with Anurag Staff/Students
Assist with Primary Classes and after school program
Build relationships with sponsored familes
Lead games and crafts with teenage students
Prayer walks and home visits

November 16-19
Visit and Prayer Walk Jaipur and Agra

November 19-20
Farewell Dinner with Prem/Jacob Gideon
Travel home from Dehli to Minneapolis