Going To Bombay

Tomorrow we head out for a couple days to Bombay for O.'s younger brother's graduation from Bible College.

I'm happy to go but we have to leave in the heat of the day and it's an 8 hour drive. Not my idea of fun, but it's the only way to get there.

VBS Evening Program Photos

Ok, these are the last VBS phots - I promise. We'll move on to something else soon.

These were taken the night of our closing program - last Thursday.

Kids doing actions.
More actions on stage.
Eve and Satan in the Garden skit.
The crucifixion skit - again. Check out the looks on the kids' faces.
Dance - I love the 2 little ones in red watching intently by the edge of the stage.

VBS - 2006 Pix

In ramdom order - pictures from last week's VBS...

Crucifiction drama
My craft class
Action songs in the group meetings

Group photo
My award winning classroom. We had a classroom decorating contest between the 4 groups the kids were spilt into. I helped with this class since it was C. and E.'s. We won!!!

Fun with puppets

My Gift

Today is C.'s 3rd birthday.

She is My gift.

*Unfortunately she got the not-at-all photogenic gene from her mother.

More Easter Pix

E. & C. on Easter with kids from church. E. was not happy at having the other kids in the picture with her.
E. & C. with their bestest friends Raja and Chottu. (Andrew and Chris).

Easter Drama Pictures

Ice Cream For Dinner

Tonight was the last night for our VBS. We had a close out meeting with the parents and I just got home around 10PM. No dinner. Ice cream for all of us and bed. Both my girls have had it. E. bit C. C. keeps disturbing E. and they both just got in big trouble.

Time for bed.

* lots of pictures as soon as O. gets back from his cousin's wedding with the laptop.

83

Today was Day 1 of our four day VBS.

In our wildest dreams we expected that maybe 50 children would come. Our own Children's Home kids have gone home to their villages for summer vacation so they aren't even around.

83.

That's how many kids came today. 83.

Lots of trips to here and there for more name badge covers, juice mix and craft supplies, but in the end we happily survived.

Three days to go. At least now we know what we're up against.

Still Living On Borrowed Light

The Title about says it all. No permanent electricity here yet. Poor O. is stuck around here waiting for it when he should be at his cousin's wedding...

Good Friday

Shockingly, Good Friday is actually a goverment holiday in India. That means no electrical connection today.

We're using the borrowed light - again. And that's only b/c I came home from church at 2:00PM and started to make lunch and then the water ran out. No electricity - no water.

I went upstairs and cried in my bedroom til O. took the matters in to his own hands.

A good crying jaunt is unusually effective in getting the husbands to fix otherwise seemingly impossible siuations.

Living Without Light

Not The Light, but just regular old light.

Since moving into our new house we've had problems on a daily basis with electricity, water and drinking water. Sometimes all together, sometimes just one or the other, but it's becoming a real headache.

We didn't get electricity today til after 9:00PM and even now we're attached into another person's house. The builder told us we'd have out own electrical connection within 2-3 days after moving it. That was over 2 weeks ago.

Now he assured us we'll have it by 11:00 AM tomorrow. We'll see.

It's hard enough to live without fans etc. during the day but you just cannot survive without electricity at night. The mosquitoes alone would eat you alive, that is if you didn't sweat to death first.

On a side note, I've become so proficient at swatting mosquitoes that I can be in some kind of meeting, singing a song and clapping, see a mosquito, smush it between my hands and not even miss a beat in the song.

VBS

It's going to be one of those weeks. Or two weeks in my case.

From Monday we'll start our first ever Vacation Bible School. I'm looking forward to it starting but the preparations are wiping me out to tell you the truth.

We've spent over 2 hours every day going from house to house visiting. I actually like this but even when we do it every Thurs and Sat. it's tiring. And on those days we only visit 3-4 houses. We're visiting about 8-10 a day now.

It's hot, it's dusty. It's 9:00PM and I just took a bath - I needed it.

Then there is Easter. We're doing a drama from our Ladies Ministry so that's 4 practices this week on top of VBS starting the day after Easter.

I should be sleeping or relaxing or watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for the 5th time since it came in the mail 3 days ago like my kids.

Sigh.

I'm in charge of crafts, actually, I should be making marble paper or cutting something but I think I'll just do it tomorrow.

Palm Sunday Outside

We held church outside today in our newly covered over area outside our school/church. It was beautiful.



The message.

Hosanna

It's Palm Sunday and the kids in church put on a little song and drama. C. was chosen as a Very Small Jesus to ride on the "donkey." (She was the littlest and lightest, I guess. And darn cute too.)


She was supposed to be waving but she was cowering from the flower petals being thrown on her as she was led down the isle.

The Procession (of course this photo should be first.)

Church Last Week (With Pictures)

I wrote about going to the official opening of one of our churches last Sunday. Here are some pictures. The first one was taken after the service and before I could get my camera out there were 3 kids in line to get prayed for, a little one in front. It was very cute. This is cute too.

Here is the gathering. Not including the people who came with us, there were about 25 adults there. It was a very nice service.

Mangoes

This is the view from my bedroom window. Unfortunately, these are not our mangoes or our mango tree, but it sure is pretty.

I took some other house pictures but they somehow didn't get loaded onto my disk today. You'll survive a little longer I'm sure.

Rajasthan

That's where the persecution against Chrisitans is centered nowadays in India. The president of the ministry where O. grew up is still in the central jail and not being treated well. I've heard reports of rats being put into his cell. They're also not allowing him to stay with the other Christian man currently in jail with him.

Pray.

We're waiting for God's deliverance. We're praying for it and sometimes it's so hard not knowing what the hold up is... Oh God, You can deliver Your people out from under this terrible persecution but You've stayed silent for so long.

So, we pray and fast and ache in our hearts and prepare for the future and make plans and change and pray more and more and sometimes get sick and stressed out and pray for each other and go on with regular life and laugh and love and pray.

I Need To Post

When there is more going on there is never enough time to post.

Today was our Friday evening ladies meeting and it was held at my house this week so I was very happy and very busy.

I made a custard drink with fruit in it. Serving fruit at gatherings is an inherited trait from my mom and dad who bring fruit salad to every family gathering (among other things). I realized as I stood in my kitchen carefully and swiftly cutting grapes in half (lengthwise, not horizontal) that I may be a half a world away or more but I'm still a product of my parents. And that's a great thing since I have great parents who are so much more than expert fruit salad makers.

O. Too

I did O. this morning. He's just missing facial hair which apparently is not an option altho it should be for men.

When I showed him mine yesterday and I asked who he thought it was he said: "Dora The Explorer?"

heh heh. No.

Looking Around Me

I feel like I am in this state of WAITING. I don't really know what for but I guess it's that I see everyone around us going through trials but we're in a pretty peaceful (for us anyway) place right now. Ummm, maybe I'm waiting for the "shoe to drop" as they say.

Something that is painful for us right now is being helpless in many areas to do anything. After our (very expensive) move we're not in any position to assist any of those in financial difficulty and the situation in Rajasthan with the persecuted church is a battle we are waging in the heavenlies and other than that there is not much else we can do.

Currently, I am full of compassion for our pastor whose entire family works under the organization who is being persecuted. They've been without money for 3 months, they've got lots of children in their children homes. His cousin's wife (cousins in N. India are considered as brothers and sisters) is in the hospital for the 2nd time because of some kind of fluid build up in her body. The doctors informed her family today that she's probably going to die.

His other cousin (sister) is getting married in May to one of our co-workers, Limba, and all the money they saved for the wedding has now been used in the last 3 months when they didn't get any salary or support. So, now there is a wedding sceduled for the end of May and not a cent to put it on.

This is just the beginning of the things he is dealing with.

I could go on and on with stories of others around us in some kind of problem. Praveen was telling us today that his wife, Christy, was up again last night at 1AM with terrible chest pain and she couldn't breath. They've done every test they can do on her 5 TIMES and have never found anything wrong with her.

We give it all to God. I think He's doing something in all of us. Bind us together Lord, bind us together...

Messing Around

Add 30 lbs and it could be me...

* I saw that my friend E had this on her blog so I checked it out. Hers actually LOOKS like her.

April

It's April. It's HOT. Drinking lots of water.

One good thing about having my computer in my kitchen is that I can write AND make dinner at the same time. OK, gotta go stir.

Work Among The Women

Both Vinita and Christy (who work together with me in our ladies ministry) suffer from Chronic Chest Pains that come suddenly and for which that there is no medical explanation. Thursday morning and afternoon Christy had a terrible episode. She was at the Doctor’s all day. Last night (Friday) Vinita had a bad episode with her chest pain. I was praying for them today and wondering why this same problem afflicts them both. It seemed spiritual to me.

Then I remembered that on Thursday while we were getting phone calls from Praveen about his wife Christy in the hospital I also had a bad afternoon where I was given some very painful information about what some people were saying about me. I cried continuously from Thursday afternoon til I slept that night (I’m a bit better now but I still get teary when I think about it.)

Satan does not want our work among the women to go forward. That seems clear. We decided today that we need to spend more time together praying for ourselves. That’s for sure.

New Church

Our pastor who has been working for almost a year in a city two hours from where we live is opening their church for the first time tomorrow. They’ve been having meetings during the week and in the evenings, but tomorrow is their first Sunday morning service. O. and I and some others are going.

In

We’re pretty much adjusted to the new house and I really like it here and don’t even miss my old house. It’s been a bit of a trial since the house wasn’t fully complete when we moved in, but at least we finally got a bedroom door yesterday. The main problem was a lack of drinking water but we even got that this afternoon – so there is not much left to do but live.

* Pictures coming. I tried to take some today but my batteries ran out…