James Kirk

The trip has come to an end. It was a rich experience, full of great people, fun work, eye-opening experiences, and God’s provision.

The day we arrived in Delhi, we got settled into our hotel, the magnificent Crown Continental in the Karol Bagh neighborhood, apparently known for its rip-off hotels (from the travel guide). It wasn’t nearly as nice as the hotel we stayed at in Dehradun, but hey, it provided us a place to crash in the evening, which is all we needed. From the hotel, we decided to go hang out at a market near the house of a missionary couple, Rick & Ellen. After wearing ourselves out at the market, we rode a bicycle rickshaw to Rick & Ellen’s place, where they and their daughter Amy were graciously cooking us a wonderfully mild dinner. We ate and chatted the evening away - they’re cool people! After dinner, three children came by, not knowing we were there, just to hang out with that family. One of them muttered something (in Hindi) about never seeing so many white people before! It was funny. Anyway, it’s cool how accepted and part of that community they seem to be!

The next day, Thursday, we were off to Agra, to see the Taj Mahal. And see it we did. We took, collectively, about 14 billion pictures. I’m sure you’ll see plenty of them if you ever look at mine. We had a tour guide that day, recommended to us by Deepak, a friend of ours who was part of the Delhi Vineyard. When walking to the Taj, he told us not to take a bike rickshaw from anyone offering - they’ll say the Taj Mahal is very far away, when the entrance is really only about 200 meters away. I did anyway, except I paid the driver extra to let me drive! It was a lot of fun, and kind of difficult, driving that rickety old rickshaw with practically no brakes. The driver was nervous I’d tip it or start going too fast - he was going “Tsk tsk tsk” all the way down. I managed to get to the end safely, though. So the Taj is pretty extraordinary - it’s a mausoleum that a shah built for his queen - a monument of love, they call it. It’s all marble with inlaid semi-precious stones. It’s all symmetrical, too. From the Taj we hit up a shop where they carve and inlay marble (very cool to watch). Then we visited Agra Fort, which I think I found to be, in my eyes, just as cool as the Taj Mahal. We ate lunch at a touristy Indian restaurant, where we ran into a couple of women that came from the same wedding two friends of ours were at in Delhi. That was a cool coincidence. They ended up being on our flight back to LA as well! After lunch, we’re all pooped, and ready to go back to Delhi. Of course, the train we get on is going to the wrong station in New Delhi, so we had an adventure later that night figuring out how to make it to our hotel.

The next day, Friday, was our last day to spend in India. We did more shopping (I’m getting pretty good at haggling by this point) and visited the largest mosque in India, the Jama Mosque. It’s beautiful, and I spent some time there praying that the place would be redeemed and that God would make Himself known there.

Saturday I woke at 4:00 after two hours of sleep, and an hour later we were off to the airport. Weirdly enough, I liked the flight, and if anything, I wish it would have been longer. I think I just enjoyed being around the teammates so much that I didn’t want the time to end. But, after a few movies (The Departed and Terminator 2), some sleep, a chess game, reading, and play time with chopsticks, we landed and once again breathed the “fresh air of Los Angeles”, as one of the team members put it.