Nomads #1: The Nomad Experience

It's Friday early evening and our van pulls up a long gravel drive to Heart of God Ministries. We see log huts with weaved grass for roofs. A bunch of dudes and dudettes with red bandanna headbands seem to be taking control of this village we are entering into. The Village is composed of many Casts. These Casts include The Red Bandannas, The Gray Haired Travelers, the Dread Lock Hippies, The Young Intellectuals, The Young Travelers, The Little Wild Ones, and Those Of Which We Cannot Speak. Being a family of Young Intellectual Hippies without a single dread lock and only slight signs of graying made it difficult to choose a place in the village to lay our tent. We staked claim next to a Young Intellectual Traveler with shaggy hair who's tent was next to his girlfriend. We'll call him Sam B and her name was Cybil (Nuts! I think I forgot her name again!). Our village was named "Gaddi". The Gaddi are a nomadic people who live in the Himalayas of northern India. Pray for the Gaddi people as they continue to struggle as a people while the land of their heritage is continuing to change as more and more Tibetan refugees make their homes in the Gaddi's homeland. Think about the impact that radical Christianity could have among Tibetan refugees and the Gaddi people.

After feasting on some killer Indian food catered by Gopuram (that doesn't sound very villagy... and yet it does), we wondered about the village with a dignified granola like strut. It was awesome to see everyone setting up their tents, scoping out the woods, and meeting new people. Later that evening worship begins. I have to admit that worship was my personal favorite of all of the village activities. Not only did we worship on Friday night, but we also finished the night with meditative worship in Hindi with Aradhna. There will be more to come on Aradhna.

We slept well on Friday night, but have to admit that Saturday morning was a bit over the top. Aside from the temperatures getting down to 40 we also had a boiling attitude among the villagers in the morning. The hot attitude was possibly ignited by some barking from our psychotic wire hair fox terrier at 5 am. We pulled Baxter into our tent to get that situation under control, but our best was just not good enough. At 6am we awake not to the barking of Baxter, but to the rage of a maniac who screams at the top of his lungs shouting, "WOULD SOMEBODY SHUT THAT DOG UP!!!". Jamie and I can't help but wonder if he was shouting at us. 10 minutes later the same man screams, "CAN SOMEBODY BRING ME SOME TOILET PAPER!!! I NEED A PLASTIC BAG...QUICK!!!" At this point Jamie and I are simply stunned. We were so stunned that we began to laugh hysterically in an attempt to forget about his personal assault on our family and the unforgettable reality that this man just might have ruined both his tent and his reputation in one fell swoop. At best this man may have preserved his tent though not his reputation if someone was capable of getting both toilet paper and a plastic bag to him in time.