Hello again! I just had to share with you a little bit of what happened today... So one of the guys, Yaseer, that works with me at the coffee shop had got his hair cut yesterday and I was in desperate need of a haircut myself so I asked if he could take me sometime to get it done. He said he would take me tommorrow since he had off and he also said he would take me around town and shopping for a few things I needed. So, today He came to pick me up and we hopped on his motercycle and went off. Yaseer is a muslim and when he picked me up he was wearing his full muslim traditional dress and he told me that after we were done he had to go to the mosque for prayer. As we were riding through town together I just got so full of joy because to me being with him and having him as my friend and being able to share a motercycle, a muslim and Christian, together, is so beaufitul to me. THAT is what life is about. It hard to really express the joy I feel right now through words, but as I write this tears fill my eyes as I think about the little bit of the Kingdom of God I got to be a part of today. I have got to see many different types of "ministries" and "evangelism" as i have traveled and met people here in India, but today it just reaffirmed for me that it is all about genuine relationships. Yaseer and I might be different in some ways, but is more ways, we are the same. I love that I get the privilage of being his friend as well as the other workers at the shop and everyone else I have met. I am their friend not because i have some hidden agenda but because I really just love them.

Two friends. One Muslim, one Christian. Sharing part of their lives with each other and more importantly, loving each other as friends. I want these kind of things to be what my life is about.

Something inside of me broke today. In a very good way.

love-

Hello again friends! Just want to share with you all a little of what is going on in my life these days...
I have been in Pune for almost 2 weeks! wow, can' believe it, time has gone by so fast! It has been such a great expereince so far being somewhere for a "long" period of time... I officially started working at the coffee shop last monday and have been working every morning from 10-4. I am actually getting pretty decent at making all the drinks now! Even the steamed milk and I are becoming better friends! It is funny because one of the girls that works there will say "Good coffee, matthew (matt-u)" if i do it good, but she will say nothing if I mess it up, and the last few days she has said more "good coffee's" than not, so I'd say that means i'm improving! ha! Probably the best thing about working there is getting close to the other staff...they are such fun people and have been SO gracious and accepting of me barging into their lives. Some of the guys have even taken me to their "neighborhoods" and i met their families and they have just been so welcoming! It took some of them a while to warm up to me, but even the one guy who doesnt' speak hardly any english and is so quiet attempted to talk to me with the best english he knew today! I was honored! Even the young bus boy, Sam told me today that we are "friends". They all have been such a blessing in my life already! They all still like to laugh at me and i still think they only keep me around because i am tall and can reach the togo boxes (they just laugh and laugh every time i reach to the top shelf with great ease) but nevertheless, i have enjoyed working there so much!
This past week, I got to do something i wasn't necessarily expecting to do, but i am so glad I got to; the owners of the guest house which i am staying in also help run a boys orphanage for gypsie boys. They were talking to me about it and said they are teaching english to help get the boys more on par with the other students in their school. I offered to come along and help teach, which they were happy for me to come! The first day was great, I had 4th grade boys and we worked on spelling words and they were so amazing and fun. I basically fell in love with them. After our lesson, my guest house owners took me to their friends home near by and we had a very traditional meal at their home. It is customary in india to serve only your guests when you have people over for dinner. You always eat after your guests leave. So it is a little awkward to be eating all this food as the people who prepared it just stand and watch. It got to be prety funny though actually as they would offer us more and more food and even if we said "No" they would proceed to dollop 4 spoonfuls on our plate. Needless to say, i was so full at the end of the night. I went back to teach english the next few afternoons, and it actually got to be pretty hard because they really didn't have any curriculum to go by. I felt rather helpless as i tried to get the boys to show me what they had been working on in school, but the language barrier was just too much. It eventually worked out, but i still left feeling like i could have done more.

Anyway, God has really been teaching me a lot of patience while I am here. I am realizing how much i like to be busy all the time. I am also realizing that many times I want to be busy so i don't have to deal with all the mess that is going on in my life. Being here and being forced to slow down and being relativly alone has made me confront myself and all my brokenness. This is a pretty daunting task, but it has been really good for me just be still and really focus on God and His unconditional love. I still get restless at times, but I feel like I am learning to wait and learning so much about Jesus in the process. I want to leave you all with some quote s from the book Lion and the Lamb that i mentioned in my previous post. This book has been so amazing and fell into my hands just a the perfect time...

"Salvation is joy at the thought of another day to push on into the unknown"

"Becoming a little child means celebrating reality, abondoning ourselves to what is."

"When Jesus 'turns away', it is not rejection but an invitation to follow him to a place I don't want to go. And that place is down a deep well to experience my sinfulness, brokenness, and powerlessness in a way that i had never known before."

"I believe Jesus calls us all to let go of the desire to appear good, to give up the appearance of being good, so that we can listen to the word within us and move in the mystery of who we are."

"Christ lives in us, and our sufferings are His passion continuing in the world."

"Blessed are you who laugh now, because you can bring the joy of Easter to others. But blessed are you only if you can laugh at yourself, if you don't take yourselves too seriously, if human living doesn't revolve around you and your needs. Only if your laughter means that you have let go in reckless confidence all that shackles you to yesterday, imprisons you in your small self today, and frightens you with the uncertainty of tomorrow. Blessed are you who laugh, because you are free!"

That is all for now--much love.

matt-

Latte anyone?

Wow...again, so much to update!! So I have officially been in Pune for almost one week...and I love it! God has been so good and has allowed everything to work out far better than I expected! I'll give a quick rundown of what is going on...
As I said before, the first night here was a little rough. Felt so alone and a little afriad/unsure of what was to come. God was quick to the rescue because the next morning I headed over the coffee shop that my host family owns and operates. Within about 30 minutes my host had introduced me to about 10 people and the next thing I know my new friend offered to take me around town and meet other people on his motorcycle. So I came back after one morning and had pretty much met the whole city! ha!
Pune is very westernized and has a good contrast of old india and new india. It is a University town, with over 100 different colleges throughout the city, so students are everywhere! But that makes it really fun and exciting! I was introduced to a couple of American guys my age that were working in the city and with the University. They have been really helpful in getting to know other people and getting to know the city. Thank God for nice people!
On Monday I started training at the coffee shop... for those of you who know me you are probably laughing right now because you know I don't even like coffee. But dispite that minor detail, I am have a blast working there!! After three days I actually feel like I know what I am doing... I am getting pretty good at making all the cold drinks like Frappacinnos and teas. The steamed milk is my weakness...it is hit or miss if you order a Latte or Cappucinno from me. But the other staff member, who are all Indian, are so nice and full of mercy (although I'm sure they think I am just a stupid white guy) They like to laugh (mostly at me) but I like to laugh at me too, so it works out great! The girls that work there like me because I am tall and can reach all the to-go cups... I am glad I am useful. or something. The coffee shop is such an amazing place, I wish you could all see it. My host family has really poured all of themselves into and it is basically their own type of ministry. They treat the workers fairly (which is so rare in India) and are truly Christ like examples for these young people. It is amazing. I am just honored to be a part of it, even for a month.
It has been so nice actually becoming part of the community here, and not just a tourist. Getting to see how real like in India works has been so exciting. Everyday I feel like I see something new and learn something new. I call india the "land of rules" and all these rules I don't understand. It has been such a humbling time (and pretty hilarious) just trying to attempt to understand daily life here (it is sooo different). My host (who is Indian) and I were having a conversation one day about the differences between Americans and Indians. We made a pretty good list of differences; First of all Indians are taught from a young age in school just how to memorize information, not really learn it, so because of that, many lack good sequential thinking skills. Also, many indians just know one way to do something and refuse to acknowledge any other alternatives. He also said that regard for human value is just less here. Culture here puts of stronger focus on out witting the other party, rather than just general concern for people. Now I know I have no clout to say any of this and these are huge stereotypes, but I am just simply stating what I have seen first hand. Anyway, basically my point is; everything here is so different...not bad at all..just so different. I love learning more everyday about this place and trying to put all these pieces together. I don't really expect to ever really "get it" but I am so glad that I am getting exposed to this culture that is so unlike what I already know..makes life much more exciting!
As this trip goes on, I have really become so much more hopeful about the world. I know that seems a little strange considering most people think these types of "exposure" trips are suppose to envoke all these strong emotions and painful realizationsa bout the world. I am not denying that our world is FULL of problems that need to be address and it is our responsibility to address those. But after getting to see, meet, and work along side SO many differnt people on this trip, and then taking a step back and seeing all these little endeavours compiled together to make something big. It really is amazing to see God's work throughout this country, whether it be through water testing, bible translation, or just working in a coffee shop. I am so hopeful and full of excitment about what God is doing. Now that being said, this trip has all convicted me to do more, but I feel like I am up for the adventure, whatever that might be.

The last few days God has really put on my heart the idea of living in reality and living in the moment. I am reading a great book called Lion on the Lamb by Brennan Manning and it talks a lot about childlike faith and not having expectations. This trip has been so great in getting to confront my brokenness and failures and accept them as part of me. I am working everyday to truly know Jesus more, not just know about him, but truly know Him. And to do that I know that I miss first accept His gift of unconditional love. It has been much harder than I expected but I know that accepting his love for me allows me love myself and thence allows me love others, which is the end goal.

Thats all for now...peace, love and coffee.

Matt-

Updates Updates Updates

Hello again! I am so sorry about not updating more regularly, but we have just not had the time nor a reliable internet connection for a while!
I have so much to talk about, I'm not sure I will be able to get it all out in one post...but I'll try...

So after testing water from 40 villages for about 3 days straight I think the whole team was ready to move on from Jammu. Don't get me wrong, I am so glad we did that because we actually DID something that will help the people there. I think that is so huge because usually on trips like this all you do is get to be "exposed" to the culture and the people, but rarely do you actually get to participate and help. While I obviously think the exposure factor is so important it was nice to actully have some tangible things we did while we were there. The workers in Jammu seemed truly gratful for our work and I am excited to see where the project will go in the future.

After Jammu we flew to Shrinigar which is even farther north in Kashmir. It is a beautiful area surrounded by moutains and lakes...but what I was not expecting was all the politcal and cultural conflict going on. I will try to give a brief overview of what is going on up there... So since the Kashmir area is so close to the Pakistan border, alliances were split between pak and india. In the 80's India sent in hundreds of thousands of military in to Kashmir to try to keep Indian rule over the area. Militant groups from Kashmir sprung up all over the place and many men snuck over the boarder into Pak to get trained as soldiers. The conflict still continues today as Kashmir is still flooded with over 700,000 indian military. There are literally on every single street corner...it took some getting used to. The people of Kashmir obviously don't like having all those military people there all the time so they often fight back and then huge mobs form and riots break out. It is typical to have hartels and curfews on the city, where all the shops close and everything in the city stops in protest. The people of Kashmir are almost living as slaves, stuck in Kashmir. And then the other people in India see Kashmiris as traitors because they think they don't want to be a part of India. So basically they are just trapped in this militaristic state. It really is horrible. I realize i don't really understand all of the conflict, but our hosts told us a lot and I am reading a book now by a Kashmiri author that gives good insight into this history that many don't know about. Anyway, I will be reading more about this and would love to chat about it more when I get state side again!... But anyway, now that you understand sorta that background I can tell more about my personal experience there. So right as we get off the airplane we were told that two Kashmiri women had be raped the day before and many people suspected it was by Indian military there. So riots broke out all over the city and everything was very unstable. So we picked up from the airport by our friends and as we are driving back to our guest house on the road our diver suddenly stops the car and turns around. We were told that a riot had broken out just a few miles ahead and the miliatary were tear gasses everyone on the street! So we waited a while on the side of the road as miliatary trucks zoombed by... after a few minutes everything calmed down and we continued on the road... but then just a few minutes later as I was looking at the window I saw a bunch of kids on the side of the road...as i looked closer and as we passed i saw they were holding stones and ready to throw them right at our car! The next thing I knew we were all ducking and rocks were pelting our SUV! Ok, i know this sounds kinda intense but don't freak out (Mom :-) ) because our host said they were just kids that wanted to probably cause problems since all the grown ups around them were rioting. They didn't pick us out because we were foreingers or anything, in fact many people told us later forenigers are usually the safest during times of curfew and hartels. But nevertheless it was an exciting enterance into Shringar and Kashmir! Whew!

Ok, so next we arrived at our guest house which was very nice and surrounded by gardens and stuff...none of us were took shaken up about all the happenings of the morning but we were intrigued by this new place... The plan was to leave the city and go up into the mountains to trek in the Himalays for a few days. We had to watch the news to make sure we could travel on the roads and that we wouldn't run into any riots of anything but everything worked out and we left the next morning..in the pouring rain. The ride up to the mountains was beautiful, even with the rain, it was breathtaking. It reminded my a lot of national parks I had been out west with tall trees and a river full of rushing rapids below the huge snow capped moutains. We had planned to trek and camp that first day, but the rain did not let up so we stayed in a little cabin which was actually really cool. Then guess what happened?? IT STARTED SNOWING! We look out the window of the cabin and we were like wait..is that...snow??!?! I don't think I would have ever expected to find snow flurries in india in june. its just plain funny! It made everything even more beautiful. After the snow stopped and I took a nice warm nap, it began to warm up outside and we all took a walk to meet some of the nomadic people that our friends work with that live in the area. These people are buffalo and sheep herders and live up in the mountains during this time of year. We walked for a while and then came to a cluster of mud huts with thatched roofs... the family led us all in their home and we all sat around the clay stove as the women made some bread like thing and tea. Our friends has known this family for a while and the man had become a believer through him. We all sat in the dark on the dirt floor as our friend told the story of Jesus' birth in the native tounge of the people...it was beautiful. The people don't have a written language so everything they do is by oral tradition. That is how they learn about Jesus, through stories.

Ok i know this is getting long but I still have so much more to tell... you can stop now and get a snack or just come back later if you want...:)

So the next day we woke up early for our trek. It had cleared up and was a beautiful day. We started up the moutain with 5 horses carrying the kids and our packs. It was pretty steep for the first hour but then leveled out and started going through shady forests. I had forgotten how much I loved the mountains and hiking and it made me want to take a trip out west when I get back home! We walked for about 4 hours and stopped for lunch. Marko Lindsay Sonja and I decieded to continue walking to the river while the others turned back. We made it to this bluff overlooking the river and a waterfall that was probably one of the most amazing places I had ever been. Pictures will not do it justice. We sat there for a while just taking it in. We made it to the river, which was from a glacier at the top of the mountain. The water was crystal clear and so cold... we all filled up our filtered (supposedly) water bottles and drank it. Life was good. ha.

We trekked back to camp and stayed at the cabin again that night. That night we all sat around one Kerosyne lamp and talked for hours. Our friends shared stories about their work with the people and about their struggles and joys. One man from Brazil was with us and he shared many amazing stories that left us all in tears. It was a very overwhelming night for me because after seeing God's amazing creation in such a huge way during the day I was already feeling small, but then as we talked more about God's call for our lives and all the needs and cries of the world, it just became almost too much to handle. One thing the Brazlian said that really broke me was this statement: "The price has been paid...they just have to know." Upon hearing those words i felt like i had been punched in the gut... i was bombarded with guilt and confusion, wondering why was I so priveliged to know Jesus and have access to so much, but these people don't have that opportunity? And then if I know this amazing news of grace and salvation, how am I not responsible for sharing it?? "The just have to know"... Seems so simple....but it scares me so much.

It is funny becuase after getting to interact with people working on the field this whole trip I was pretty sure that I did NOT want to be a missionary. The idea of "evangelism" weirded me out and I had this very tainted view all that. However, I have got to see much more of the interworkings of the mission life and it is not what I thought exactly. I guess in my head I just saw crazy Jesus freaks running around throwing the gospel at people. But it is all about relationships. I knew that to an extent, but now I got to see first hand that your day could consist of just going to coffee 5 times with different people and talking. All of the people we worked with were in country for some other business, like handicrafts or water testing or whatever. Just something to help the people but more importatnly, to get to know them. It is kinda hard to explain all this in writing but I would love to talk more about this with anyone later.

Ok, one last thing. So Todays is my first day in Pune. alone. ha! Last night i left the rest of the group and headed to Pune to hang out with some friends Janet has that own a Coffee shop there. My flights were smooth and I got to my guest house fine (run by texans! ha) But I won't lie...I realized that I have rarely ever been truly alone. I felt it last night. It was amost oppressive. But at the same time, that made me need God in the moment. I feel like in our comfortable lives, we rarely NEED God....It is a scary and liberating feeling. This morning I went to the coffee shop and met some other people from the US here. I am excited to see where God moves me in the city. Keep praying for boldness and strength for me. I am doing great, but I can always use the prayers.

Ok, I'll save the rest for another day this is too long and I'm hot. I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! Leave some comments, or facebook me or email me!

-Matt