We left Colorado Springs on Monday morning at 8:30AM local time. We were dropped off at the Denver Airport and from there flew to Chicago. After a several hour layover in Chicago we embarked on the 14.5 hour flight to Delhi. Once arriving in Delhi we took a taxi to the train station, which itself was quite an adventure as there was five of us plus the driver and all of our luggage in a pretty nominal sized car. From Delhi we took a five hour(12-5AM local) sleeper-class train ride to the northern plains town of Dehradun. From Dehradun we were picked up by taxi and taken to the eMi2 office in Mussoorie, which is about a 1 hour ride up the hillside. We arrived at the office at 7AM local time, with a hot breakfast prepared by the staff awaiting us. Door to door the trip took us 35 hours.
The Town
Mussoorie is a sleepy little tourist town of about 35,000 people and a hub for Chrstn mssnries doing ministry in the nearby villages. It is located in the foothills of the Himalayans and on a clear day you can see the snow-covered peaks of the Himalayan mountain range in the distance. Mussorie is rather fun to get around as it is a town on a hill, so the bottom of the town is around 6,000 feet and the top of the town is around 7,200 feet. Our office is the highest residence in Mussoorie. The other great part about Mussoorie is that there are an analogous number of monkeys here as there are squirrels in Michigan.
The view from the office
eMi2 Thus Far
We have been going through another week of orientation here in Mussoorie before we begin work. Orientation here has helpful information like how to get around Mussoorie, house and office rules, discussions about Indian culture and Hinduism, and learning a few basic Hindi phrases. Orientation also included a day and a half trip to Haridwar and Rishikesh.
I also learned that I will be travelling to the east Indian state of Meghalaya in early September, where we will be designing a missionary guest home.
Haridwar and Rishikesh
Haridwar and Rishiskesh are two towns located on the Ganges River(Ganga in Hindi). The Ganges is considered a holy place and these are two of the four holy cities on the Ganga in India that Hindus take pilgrimages to.
It was a pretty interesting experience, as I have read about Hinduism and idol worship, but I have never witnessed it first hand. Both the cities are located on the Ganges river and because the river is considered holy, people go there to bathe and wash away the "bad things" in their life as one pilgrim told us, however he also said that people have to keep coming back to wash off the bad things. People also bottle the river water because it is considered pure and will always keep it's purity.
In Rishikesh we stood outside a Hindu temple and watched people bow down and worship wooden idols. Rishikesh especially was a very spiritually heavy place.
Gd has really started to break my heart for these people seeing them worship idols made by human hands and just enslaved to the ideas of washing away the bad things(karma) and trapped in the cycle of reincarnation. Just such a drastic contrast to the Gspl where we can accept the living water that Chrst offers us all as a one time gift of slvtion.
People bathing in the Ganges River at Haridwar
Sculpture of Hindu gods in Ganges River at Rishikesh
