India – Day 8

India – Day 8

July 26, 2009, 10:27 pm
Filed under: India Tour '09, Mission

We arrived in Dharamshala late in the day, even after getting a fairly early start. Though Dharamshala is only about 100 miles straight shot, you don’t get strait shot roads in the Himalayas. So it took around 8 hours. We actually were staying in a mountainous section called Mcleod Gunj, and this is where the Dalai Lama lives. As such, the streets are full of red robed Buddhist monks and white hippies who idolize the Dalai Lama. (Joey actually waved at the Dalai Lama when he drove by, and the Dalai waved back. They made eye contact. A highlight of Joey’s life, I’m sure. just kidding – sorry joey.) We went to eat at Jimmy’s, which is actually a fairly common Tibetan name. We were planning to make arrangements to play there, and we met with the owner and he kind of reluctantly said we could play the next night. Meanwhile, Joey and Levi were there to meet with local church planters to help train them. While they were busy doing that, Sean and I made some flyers and got copies to promote the show. There are signs everywhere promoting various gurus, swamis, and sadus, so we just kind of went with that theme for our flyers since Sean looks so much like the guys in those signs. So the next night, we showed up to Jimmy’s to play. The owner approached us in a much different attitude, and let us know that he had done a google search of sean’s name and saw his American Idol audition on youtube. He told us he was very honored to have us, and told all his friends to come to the show. By the time the show started, the place was packed with a mix of Tibetans, Hippies, Indians, and even a Buddhist monk. The church planting trainees also attended, and it was probably a special thrill for them since they are all villagers and probably have never seen a live rock n’ roll show before – however scaled down it may have been on this occasion.

The next day we played at a YWAM coffee shop called Cafe Oasis. The space was smaller, and the crowd more sparse, but Sean brought it like always and we ended up really encouraging the guy who was running the joint at a time in his life when he really needed it. We enjoyed fellowship with him, and got to hang out with some British guys who were busy doing… whatever it is white people do in this part of the world. Questing for spiritual enlightenment, I suppose. Hopefully through the songs and conversation we were able to point those boys the right way.

We went and stayed the night in a nearby village with one of the believers Joey and Levi trained. His name is Madan, and he was really excited to have us. We were less excited by the lack of running water or a toilet of any kind – not even a hole in the ground. Sean actually got sick and spent most of the time with the runs. But it was a great time for us to encourage Madan, and he really unloaded on us about his burden for the lostness of his family – who we got to meet – and we were able to really exhort him in his task to establish churches in his village and those nearby.

We were almost deterred by Sean’s sickness, but decided to press on with our initial plans. It turned out to be a good decision.

Here’s a video of Sean playing at Jimmy’s, with Joey on the djembe:

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