First Step

    Hello friends and family!
Sorry it took me so long to get a blog up, but many factors came into play.  We arrived in Calcutta (Kalkuta) safely pretty late last week.  Took one of the craziest, life changing, taxi rides any of us have ever taken, to a  hotel.  The original plan was to catch a train to Darjeeling the next morning, but we ended up having problems getting tickets so we got the pleasure of staying in Calcutta another night.  We had a chance to visit the mother house where Mother Teressa is from and now rests in peace.  It was an amazing couple of days where we had to really learn about the difference in culture.  Personally, I loved it and think it was a great experience.
   We then took a 10 hour train ride all night long to some town outside Darjeeling, can't remember the name right now.  From there we took a scary 4 hour Jeep ride up the mountain.  With every mile that passed up those curvy, tiny roads, we fell more and more in love with this beautiful place.  Everything being so green and clouds that we drive through.  Its absolutely amazing.
    We got settled in at the YWAM base for a couple of days then headed out again to Sikkhim.  A state that's just west of Darjeeling.  Another beautiful place.  There we spent last week doing all types of ministry.  From visiting monasteries where we did worship and prayer walks, to going to a recovering addict house that we did skits at, to helping with the church service, to going to house churches for fellowship, we even spent a day on the pastor's (of the church we stayed at) farm with 21 boys where we just got to love on them and tell stories from the bible. 
    All in all its been an amazing first week.  Eye opening and life changing already.

Prayer points:
Health.  We all seem to be a little sick in one way or another, nothing major though.
Unity between the team.  John 13:35 is our team verse.  ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Energy.  We love having busy days of ministry, but its easy to run out of energy.
Love for the people.  We want to just love the people so much that we miss them terribly when we leave. 



(trying to get photo's to upload still.)

Laying the Foundation

    Hello! Thank you for taking the time to read our blog! This will be the place to come check out for any information regarding the YWAM Brisbane team going to Darjeeling, India.  As I'm writing this, we have 12 hours until we get on the plane.  We first head to Singapore, where we'll have a 6 hour layover, then to Calcutta.  We'll be staying there one night and taking a train up to Darjeeling where we will connect with the local YWAM base.  The hope is to update this blog about once a week to talk about the things that we are doing and hopefully showing some pictures too.
   Just a short introduction to who we are!

From the top in the blue.  That's Marley Cook from California and one of the team leaders.  Below her is Michael Noris from Minnesota.  Below him is Caitlin Whelpton from Alberta Canada. Below her in the bottom right corner is Ronnie Maestas also from California.  Moving to the left in the blue is Julia Rogers from BC, Canada.  Left again in the Black is myself, Jeremy Robinson from Colorado.  Finally the bottom left corner is the other team leader Iris Bruijn from Netherlands. 

     We are all very excited to see what God has in store for us in India and are hoping to get front row seats to what God is doing there.  Our team verse is John 13:35 "Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples."  This has really been our goal, to be so unity and dependent on each other that people will know we follow Jesus Christ.  

   We appreciate the prayers and will post an update again soon!