HOPE61 India Trip

Traveling to India Day 1 & 2 – Planes, layovers, and customs

The journey to any foreign country always tends to be filled with excitement, a bit of apprehension, hope, and often a very long travel experience to arrive at the destination. The HOPE61 trip consisted of Rob DeCou from Los Angeles California a HOPE61 trainer who will conduct a few sessions of the training for the first time, Luke Rafferty from Devon, Pennsylvania who served as our videographer, Darren Sweeney from Sequim, Washington the Global Training Manager for HOPE61 and Tom Overton from Greenwood, Indiana, The Global Director of HOPE61.

Tom left the earliest, on Saturday evening, from Indianapolis to Paris, and then catching a flight to Mumbai where he spent a day before heading to Chennai to get ready to receive the rest of the team. Luke had a 26-hour stopover in Qatar in his way from Philadelphia, and then flew to Chennai to meet the team. Darren came in from Seattle Washington to Hong Kong and spent a half a day with a family he had connected with the past year and had the opportunity to sightsee around the city before heading back to the airport and meet up with Rob who had just flown in from Los Angeles that morning. Rob and Darren continued the journey together from Hong Kong to Chennai arriving 6 hours later at just past midnight.

The customs in India went extremely smoothly except for the fact that from the plane landing to when the group got out of customs almost 3 and a half hours had passed. The bottleneck for Rob, Darren, and Luke ended up being the e-visa first entry line moved extremely slowly so as Rob and Darren arrived there was about 150 people in front of them and it took about 2 hours for the four immigration officers to process that many people through. About an hour into it Rob spotted Luke Rafferty in the line about 50 people back. Once through customs Darren and Rob found the carousal with the luggage after a bit of searching and then Darren headed out to meet with Tom who had been waiting for a couple of hours wondering about the hold up, and Rob stayed behind for Luke. A little less than an hour later Luke was out and the four person team was together for the first time since we talked with each other the weekend of the Juan de Fuca 50K swim back in July. The drive to the airport was about 15 minutes and we got in to the Pride Hotel and off to our rooms and ready for bed around 4:30am. It was amazing to see people out on the streets of India at 4:00am and I thought how peaceful the roads were and seemed like a normal traffic day, except for the fact that it only felt that way because the traffic flow was probably 10% of what we would see the next day in the daylight.

Day 3 Chennai India January 7, 2020

In the morning the breakfast at the Pride Hotel starts at 7:30am – noon. Rob was the first to arrive at 8:30am and enjoyed half a dozen cups of “coffee” which is basically milk with the taste of coffee added in, but a rather enjoyable drink. Rob also pretty much got one of each item from the buffet, sampled the four different types of fruit juices, and after 22 years of being away from India was overjoyed to experience some of the curries, sauces, and different staple foods that are prepared. Darren arrived in the lobby around 9:30 and Rob and Darren who have known each other since high school had some time to catch up. Rob has a special place in his heart for Darren who was the person that shared about faith in Christ so many years ago on a wrestling bus back from a tournament when they were both young teenagers. To be out on the mission field together after all these years and in the country that first solidified Rob’s connection with Rotary International is a little surreal yet somehow seems like it was always meant to be. Luke came down a little later and we all sat down for breakfast and were joined by Tom who must have slept the best out of all of us just before noon. It was good to catch up after our nights rest to recover from our flights as well as a shower and our first official Indian meal.

At 3:00pm we headed for a 10-minute drive to go visit the Bishops at the Evangelical Church of India (ECI). Reverend Samuel Duraiswami came and picked us up at our hotel and shuttled us to the location. We first met with Bishop President Sundar Singh who is the current head of the Denomination. We met with him for about an hour and were able to share updates on HOPE61 and the work they are doing as a part of One Mission Society (OMS), hear about the growth of his denomination, their focus on human rights and social issues, and their expansion plans for the next 45 years leading into their 100th year anniversary in 2065. We brought gifts of Rob – salt water toffee / home cooked granola, Darren – local calendar from the Pacific Northwest, Luke – chocolate covered pretzels, Tom – Porcelain coasters featuring the Indianapolis skyline where he’s from. Luke had the opportunity to conduct a 10-minute interview to the Reverend asking questions related to HOPE61 ministries and the partnership with the ECI in India and the impact that the trainings is having in the region and helping with the work of the church.

After meeting with the reverend we met Reverend Samuel’s wife Ruth who also works in the office. It was Ruth who made the original connection with Tom and HOPE61 and is the primary catalyst that kicked off this whole ministry in this region. It is incredible to me how God uses every day servants with a heart for him and through seemingly simple interactions can cause a waterfall of outpouring in opportunity. Ruth had been in Greenwood for a meeting at the OMS headquarters and Tom was told that he needed to go talk to her about what’s going on in India. Tom found the time to travel across town to where the church she was at was having the workshop and shared what was going on with HOPE61. After the conversation Ruth told Tom that he had to come to India. Tom’s response was that it would take 2-5 years to find a missionary and train them and that they would make it a priority and could make it happen. Ruth’s responded with, that’s too long, we can’t wait that long. Tom told her that he would do his best to find someone quickly. Ruth replied, no that’s not good enough, you come, you come and train our people. Six weeks later Tom was on a flight to India for what would be the first Engage training from the material that was just finalized in its first official format and that was the beginning of this ministry in India.

We walked to the lower section of the Seminary campus and went to the office of Bishop Father Ezra Sargunum. Ezra is one of those rare humble leaders who stepped down from leadership during his lifetime and passed the torch onto the Current President Sundar Singh which is counter to local traditions where people serve in leadership until their passing. Ezra has a collection of parrots, birds, fish, and a pair of monkeys in his office which make quite the commotion and keep his team around him pretty busy. Many of these animals are donated at an annual event in the states which contributes to the ministry. We spend about a half an hour in his office and it was such a blessing to meet and spend time with such a revered leader. He had photographs on the wall with him meeting dignitaries and political leaders such of the likes of Nelson Mandela, Billy Graham and Mother Teresa. To sit with a man of this devotion and impact and soak in the positive energy of his life of ministry was profound. We sat around and drank tea and a local dessert cake.

From there we headed back to the Pride Hotel for an evening filled with relaxing, watching Luke fly his drone for about half an hour and get a great sunset time-lapse over the city, a dinner on the rooftop and heading to bed around 10:00pm. Rob’s meal of choice was a full order of tandoori chicken (chicken wings) Darren had a plain chicken burger, Luke had the pasta, and Tom had a grilled chicken breast and mashed potatoes. Rob had the opportunity to go to the spa and after finishing a 50k run 3 days ago was overjoyed getting stretched, and what felt like a moderate beating from a tiny little incredible masseuse. For $25 an hour it’s hard to turn down such a rejuvenating experience.

Day 4 Triputi (Tirupati) India January 8, 2020

Our team woke up and met in the lobby at about 6:30am after a full nights rest to get ready for our 7am pickup. After catching up on our tasks and Rob drinking his 3 cups of morning coffee our driver and three other pastors joined us for the trip to Triputi, which we were told, would be about a 2 and a half – 3 hour drive. We hit the road at 7:20 and took a quick break for breakfast around 10:00am at a café attached to a large furniture company and then were back on the road within 30 minutes. We arrived just past noon at the church.

We had our first session from noon – 1:30 then an hour-long lunch and another 2-hour session for the day. The pastor at the church had a daughter who was affected by Polio since birth and could barely stand but was as joyful as you could be. During the training we took many pictures, got Indian style hats to take home and it was good to see Tom conduct an entire engage training which was the first time Rob had seen it from start to finish. There were just over 50 people in attendance at the training.

At around 4:30 we headed out from the training to Chennai. It ended up being close to a 5 hour drive home which included a few stops to drop some people off and a 15 minute stop for tea about halfway through. Once we arrived back at the Pride Hotel Darren and Tom headed to bed for the night and Luke and Rob headed up to the roof for the buffet dinner. Rob’s finally starting to feel a little better and after another good night sleep will hopefully feel close to 100% in the morning.

Day 5 Travel day Triputi (Tirupati) – Gangawati India January 9, 2020 – Travel Day

Our team woke up and met in the lobby at about 7:30. We had plenty of time to have the continental breakfast so of course Rob had a small portion of pretty much every dish available and his usual six cups of coffee. Darren and Tom had their obligatory Pepsis and by about 8:30 we were all set and ready to head out to the airport. A driver picked us up and after the 30 minute trek through the city we were ready for our flight to Bangalor with about a two hour layover before we headed to Gangawati. After the 45-minute flight we had some downtime to eat lunch. Darren found a KFC in the airport, Rob avoided the Crispy Cream donut shops and ended up having lunch at Noodle where Luke, Tom, and Rob had a simple noodle meal which would hold them over. Rob ate all three portions of Kim Chi to ensure his roll as the “finisher” on the trip. Our connecting flight was about an hour late which put us into Gangawati an hour or so before sunset. The delightful Bishop John Mullur and a driver picked us up and packed two suitcases on the roof rack of the SUV and we were on our way. The drive took just over an hour in a half which was the bishop’s estimate and included roads through rural India around rice paddies, rock quarries, bear nature reserves, and small towns that we passed along the way. Upon arriving after dark we checked into the Shree International hotel. There was much fanfare as nearly everyone person staying at the hotel came out to watch these foreigners check in. Local police were waiting with their children to watch the event as we arrived. There were many eyes staring at us and many photos taken from cell phones. After checking in, we accidently went to the vegetarian restaurant for dinner (not realizing that they had a different restaurant for meat eaters). After about 20 minutes we realized and talked to the host and they walked us around the building with a casual walk of shame for the carnivores and then we ended up in the non-veg section where we were able to consume copious amounts of chicken masala, tandoori chicken, and chicken fried rice. The feeling is much different in this part of India in terms of their exposure to Westerners. I think we might have been the first Americans to have stayed in the newer hotel and at dinner we were monitored extremely closely by a cluster of half a dozen waiters who would meet every request we had as quickly as possible and refuse to let us scoop our own rice or pour our own drinks. It was amazing service but a little awkward. After dinner we headed to our rooms for a restful night before training day #2.

Day 6 Gangawati India January 10, 2020 – Training day 2 at Gangavathi’s ECI Church

In the morning our team was able to have a nice leisurely rise as we made our way to breakfast. The now pretty consistent breakfast of choice is poori, which is a puffed up tortilla like bread with a few sides that only Rob eats, and then coffees for Luke and Rob and Pepsi’s for Tom and Darren. After breakfast we waited in the lobby for Bishop John Mullur who was planning on picking us up at 10am with the hopes that we could start the training well before 11am and have a nice full day. Just after 11 Tom Whatsapp’d the Bishop, and he responded saying that we would be there at 11:45. We kept ourselves busy and just after noon the Bishop pulled up and we were on our way. In many cultures as we are learning time has a very different meaning and especially in Indian cultures the Bishop didn’t want us to arrive until everything was ready for us.

When we arrived around 12:15 and were able to have some tea with the bishop and his wife, and then headed into the training where they conducted a brief welcome ceremony and then Darren lead the teaching for the day. At the end of the first section before lunch Rob had the opportunity to present the sex work vs. human trafficking, and smuggling vs. human trafficking and speak to the differences and nuances of both as well as a few stories. For lunch Darren, Rob, Tom, and Luke were brought into the Bishops house and enjoyed a chicken dish with rice. The second half of the training went by well and Darren led the rest of the afternoon finishing up just after 4:30pm. There were a few more people at this training than the first with a total of about 60 – 65 people.

At closing everyone cleared out of the church and had some tea and a pastry filled with vegetables before heading on their way. Luke had the opportunity to interview the Bishop and his wife with a few questions for the video he’ll be putting together when we return. Luke also had the opportunity in the afternoon to get some drone footage which he managed to do without bringing to large of a crowd his way in the process. We were driven back to the hotel and after a quick dinner of chicken 555 for Rob, buttered chicken for Luke, fried rice for Tom, white rice and a fried chip for Darren and garlic fried which was literally fried garlic. Darren also attempted to order a plain piece of chicken with no spices but alas it never came. We all headed to bed early to get a full rest before tomorrow’s travel day.

Day 6 Gangawati – New Delhi India January 11, 2020 – Travel Day

Tom was the first that arose this morning, which was out of character, but after getting in last night at around 8:30 and sleeping from around 10pm – 7am I think he had enough rest. Luke and Rob joined Tom at breakfast just after 8:15am and Rob connected with another patron to figure out what he had for breakfast so that in the end he ended up having three dishes instead of just the standard poori which all of us have determined is our favorite. Our host Bishop John Mullur arrived around 10:30 to pick us up for the drive to the Vindal Vijaynagar airport about 90 minutes away. Darren came down around 9am after a full night sleep which was a huge relieve compared to the night before where he was running on about 3 hours of sleep. We had a little concern with our India cash amount as we were running low and the hotel wasn’t taking international credit cards and we still had a very large amount to pay for oversize luggage at the airport and they weren’t taking foreign currency or credit cards as well at the small airport. We ended up being able to pay for the hotel room in US currency and then after the 90-minute drive to the airport with a few stops including a photography shoot location over the river for Luke we were at the terminal. The overweight baggage came in just right to match the cash that we all had on hand. We had a little over 300 rupies left over and Luke ordered a couple of coffee’s that ended up being 150 a piece so we all pooled our last bit of change and that is about it for our currency until we hit the city of New Delhi this evening and are able to exchange. When we arrived in New Delhi it was late and we didn’t find anywhere to change money before heading to the hotel for the evening. The lodging was a hotel that we entered from a side street and although the rooms were spacious and marble they were very poorly cleaned, their was minimal warm water, and it was a pretty cold evening, around 12 degrees Celsius, with no heaters which is completely understandable in India. We were able to order dinner and had it delivered to our rooms, which was a little weird but we’ll take it. We had butter chicken, naan, and sweet lasi for dinner and then headed our own ways for the night.

Day 7 New Delhi India January 12, 2020 – Church and hotel switch

Rob woke up to Tom knocking on the door just before 7am. Apparently everyone else woke up around 6:30 to get ready for breakfast and pack but Rob was out cold with a full night sleep. The group slept amazingly well in the cold rooms, which was a good start to the day ahead. Darren and Tom had cold showers in the morning and Rob and Luke skipped the shower all together, which is a rare event. Our driver was there at 7am sharp just like he had said he would be which was a major surprise. We pounded down as much coffee as we could drink and poori and were on our way about 7:30 for the half an hour ride to the church. As we arrived at the church where Tom was preaching for the day the services were just about to begin. Tom had anticipated us being at the church for a few hours, three at the most. After a brief conversation with the pastor we realized he was going to be preaching three services with three separate pastors and three translators for the different languages. Tumil, Telegu, and Hindi. The translator started off a little rough for the first service and steadily improved with the last service being an amazing translator. Tom preached his community sermon out of Ruth 1: 16-18. Rob likes the line Tom gives about missionaries: You need to be ready at any moment to preach, pray or die.

This morning was an absolute blessing for a few reasons: 1) The hotel threw our group off kilter a bit which is pretty hard to do. We were all able to recover quickly and rise to the occasion to serve and interact throughout the morning. 2) We weren’t anticipating the three services and with our anticipated 3 hours at the most at the service which turned into six hours by the time we left we were all able to shift our perspectives and soak in the service, the people, the music, the culture and the overall blessing of being in this place. We are children of God sharing fellowship with our Indian brothers and sisters.

After the service we left for lunch and ended up at a dominos after looking into a new hotel to stay at. We ate a total of 6 pizzas and sodas and we were all pretty maxed out as we made our way across town to pack up our bags and relocate. We continue to struggle with low amounts of cash as we’ve been unable to find a place to exchange our US currency for rupies easily. We changed just enough at our new hotel to cover the cost at the old hotel for our lodging because they don’t take credit cards. The hotel luggage shuffle took most of the afternoon and we arrived at our new hotel just before 7pm and had an hour before we headed to the train station. We decided to have a light meal and then at 8pm Sam took us to the train station. We met up with our new guide around 10pm and headed to the train for the overnight trip.

Day 8 New Delhi India overnight train to Lalitpur, training, and back January 13, 2020

Our team made our way to the four sleeper beds and climbed into our cots just past 11pm on the 12th. There was an attendant that insisted on making our beds and then climbed all over Darren and Tom to help them put the bags under the seats. He then sat down next to Luke and chilled like he was a part of the group. After we got settled a bit he came back and repeated the sitting next to Luke and looking around which just seemed odd and was a bit uncomfortable. After we closed the curtains and the main lights went off we felt much better. Each of us stashed our important items on our persons and our bags lodged as well as we could to protect them from any tampering while we slept. We all seemed to sleep well through the night and made it until 5:30am when Tom’s alarm went off to start to get us ready for our 6:45 departure form the train. We were right on schedule until about 6:15 until the train stopped and waited in a random point in the tracks. We waited, and waited, and finally about an hour and a half later we were back on our way and came into the train station at 8:30am, about an hour 45 after our anticipated arrival time. It was a 10-minute drive to the beautiful church complex and we were brought to a room where we all had an opportunity to shower and freshen up before the day. We had probably the best breakfast of the trip, which was simply eggs, poori, tortillas, bread, eggs, and tea. After breakfast we headed to the chapel and started the human trafficking prevention training at 10:30am. It was a nice group of students and a few community members totaling about 65 all together. The translator was quality and had a good energy. Darren led most of the training with Rob handling the examples for the sex trafficking vs. sex work, and smuggling vs. trafficking sections for his second time. Luke had the opportunity to get some drone footage as well as interview two of the students and one of the older pastors who attended the event for the day.

After the training ended around 4:30 we had another round of tea and samosas, took some photos, shared gifts and were on our way to the train station. The head of the school and about four assistants came with us to the train terminal and our 5:25 train arrived at about 6pm and we were on our way back to New Delhi. The train ride back was in normal class, which was fairly empty and allowed us to stretch out in the nice reclining seats. They served us a seemingly never-ending series of food and we had a chance to catch up on some reading, journaling and little projects. The group is very excited to have our rooms at the new location and have a down day tomorrow to recover from the pretty intense last few days.

Day 9 New Delhi India January 14, 2020 Recovery Day

Today was a relaxing day in the Piccadily hotel in New Delhi. We all made it down to breakfast by the time it closed up at 10:30. Rob and Luke were major fans of the espresso’s which actually included a normal amount of caffeine. Rob took complete advantage of this and had two double shot espressos as well as a couple cappuccinos and a latte. At around noon Reverend Samuel Duraiswami who we met on the first day in Chennai was passing through Delhi and made a point to spend time with us before he hit the road again. It was great seeing a familiar face and also recognizing how significant he is to the ministry here in India. Him and his wife were critical pieces of the puzzle in regards to the initiation of HOPE61’s work in India. We had time in the afternoon to get to interviews with Rob, Darren, and Tom which closed out Luke’s videography work here in India. Rob and Tom went for massages in the hotel spa which ended up being some of the worst massages of their lives. Imagine a very cold room and a masseuse who was just getting started in their career. Worth noting in case you are heading to that particular hotel for some reason in New Delhi… skip the massage. The evening dinner was great. Rob got the buffet and went back three times for food and a couple times for desserts and got stocked up on caffeine for the evening. Tom, Darren, and Luke stuck with their normal selections of chicken and rice dishes. After the dinner we all hung around for a few hours doing a debrief from the trip and pretty much agreed that for a trip with this many moving pieces, travel, and personalities it definitely had God’s hand on it and that the bond between the four of us only intensified through the days and our skillsets complimented each other well in this ministry. It was such a blessing for each of us to be a part of this experience and to be inspired by one another. We had discussions about potential trips in the future and also planning out when the best time to do a training in Los Angeles would be in less than half a year’s time.

Day 10 New Delhi India, training, and flights home January 15, 2020

Our team went to be early the night before and made it to a wonderful buffet breakfast with again a plethora of coffee for our last training day. Rob and Luke headed to the hotel gym at 8am for a quick workout before hitting the day. We headed to the training around 10:30am and had our bags brought down and ready to pick up later in the day as we would head to the airport. The training was at the same location where we had church a few days ago. When we started it looked like it was going to be our smallest group at around 50 but within a half an hour it was up to near 75 people and was a great way to finish out the trip with some incredible music and a very high energy level from the crowd. Tom started the training, Darren carried the heavy weight doing the bulk of the instruction, and Rob had an opportunity to do his two sections and had some crowd involvement utilizing a technique he picked up from Darren earlier in the week. After a long goodbye to our hosts we headed back to our hotel to make our final trek to the airport. Sam drove Luke and Rob, and another driver took Darren and Tom. Luke and Rob decided they were going to head to a friend of Lukes for the evening and everything was going as planned until Rob received a notice that his flight was going to be delayed by 5 hours. Then a second notice that it would be delayed for half a day. With that second notice Sam was asked to drop Rob off directly to the airport where he could see if he could find an alternative because the rescheduled times would have him missing his connecting flight and arriving in Los Angeles a day later than scheduled. Rob got dropped off and Luke headed to his family friend solo for a few hours before catching his late night flight. Fortunately once at the airport both Rob and Darren who were on the same flight were allowed to switch from Cathay Pacific to an Air India flight and also bumped up to Business Class! The guy who helped us out we’ll call him a “runner” was the most diligent and purposeful person I have ever met when running into flight situations. He must have ran half a dozen times between a few station to get our information transferred correctly. Very thankful for his persistence and speed.

Day 11-12 New Delhi India to Indiana, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Seattle January 16, 2020

In terms of flights Tom had it the easiest and left around 1am that night (3rd to fly out) and the first to land in Indiana and be safety back at home. Luke was next with around a 3am flight out and returning home to his wife second in Philadelphia. Rob was third with a four hour layover and arriving home on schedule and making it through immigration and to the curbside in Los Angeles in less than 40 minutes from when his flight let him out of the gate. The only bummer with Robs flight was he was in a row with 2 other very large men and the one in the middle being a highly obnoxious person who was spinning up the flight attendant’s as well as the passengers around the area. Slightly comical but after 13 hours of flying definitely nice to get out of their space. Darren had the roughest flight sequence with a half day layover in Hong Kong followed by having to stay the night in Seattle before returning home because of the almost two feet of snow that they were experiencing!

Overall, I feel like the entire group would count this a major success. There were quality trainings conducted, incredible doors that look like they will be opened in the near future from some contacts along the way, a quality video that will be produced, friendships strengthened, and it felt like God’s hand of guidance, protection and grace was with us every step of the journey.