Martha's Wedding

December 28th. The Big Day came and went. This is the only picture I took* and neither O. or Martha look real great in it, but at least you get a taste of the wedding.
The wedding was beautiful. Yes, O. wore that hat for the entire night.

Lot's of guests went home today but there are still many remaining. I'm just pushing on toward the new year.

*We had a professional photographer take pictures. I'll get them up as soon as I get them from him.

A Little Hope

After my lousy Christmas this post on a friend's blog lifted me up. Check it out here.

(link now works)

Christmas Pictures 2007

Three beautiful Christmas girls in "Grammy and Grandpop" dresses.
Gift Giving To Our "Karuna" Children on Christmas night:
They all got new backpacks filled with goodies sent from abroad.

New clothes too!
THANK YOU!

Wedding on FRIDAY

Less than 48 short hours from now we'll be eating food at the wedding. I'll be glad when it is all over. Actually, I am REALLY eager to hit 2008.

We're pretty much in full wedding mode right now. Our house is bursting with more people on the way.

I bought new shoes for the wedding today, I figured my old beat up flip flops weren't really suitable and so I bit the bullet and bought some golden sandals. I'd take a picture of them and put them up but they're still in the store because I'm having most of the heel sawed off. Really. I'm just way too tall for India...

2 days, 2 days, I can survive 2 days...

A Crappy Christmas

Pun intended.

I ended a perfectly miserable Christmas season by puking late into December 25th night.

A stomach virus was an utterly suitable ending. Vomit it all out and try to forget that Christmas season 2007 ever happened.

Maybe I'll write more about this, maybe I won't.

The Christmas Program

The Christmas Program last night was great. Short and sweet and a little over 200 people came. Good Gospel presentation, everything went smoothly, loads of dancing,...I had a blast.

Then I had a bad day today. This has got to be one of the worst Christmas Seasons of my life. There is just a lot of disruption in our ministry. I try to be encouraged and think that there must be a good reason that Satan is attacking us, but it's still hard to hang in there.

I could really use your prayers for wisdom and protection. Thanks.

Merry Christmas.

Carol Singing Is Over For Another Year

We ended carol singing last night at 1AM.

It was a delightful and exhausting three days. I woke up this morning with a sore throat and diarrhea but beyond that and some sore muscles, I feel pretty good.

I thank God for the many doors he opened for us. We had the opportunity to share the Gospel in open air settings three or four times every night as well as pray at every person's house.

Yesterday, while talking with my neighbor about the Christmas, I shared O.'s family's testimony with her. (They were Hindu and came to Christ). Of course Satan wanted to stall and stop these programs.

Our last big evangelistic thing is tomorrow night (pray). Our church is putting on it's annual Christmas Program (although the smaller version). My girls are in 2 programs and so am I so were busy today and tomorrow with practices. I'll be glad when it is all over, for sure.

On a side note, we've heard that some of our Rajasthan pastors are being told (by anti-Christian people), as in other years, that they cannot celebrate Christmas. Pray for them.

I'm Bossy

I freely admit it. I'm bossy. I tell people what to do all the time.

This character trait, while always useful in India, comes in especially handy at busy times like Christmas. Our three days of carol singing ended last night and I spent much of my time ordering people in and out of cars, move faster, sing louder, play the drums better.

You might think that this would make me a hated person, amazingly, I am well loved in addition to the fact that I am considered a "big" person. Meaning - respected - hence I have all the right in the world to boss other people around. They expect it of me.

Of course, I wouldn't want to disappoint anyone, especially at Christmas...

When Scrooge Came To India

I haven't even been able to write blog posts for the past few days because I've been in such a foul mood. Our Christmas carol singing got cancelled on Wednesday for no good reason and after a strife ridden 3 days was re-instated on Saturday afternoon. We will start tomorrow night and go through Wednesday - a smaller version of what we usually do.

I am glad to be able to sing and pray at our neighbors, but it was a lousy week.

The whole issue did expose some areas in our ministry that need to change, it also caused me to reevaluate my role here and I am still in the process of doing that. I'm pretty sad, change is generally hard. I'm not sure what the future is holding for me. We'll see in January, I guess...

Funny Things My Neighbor Said

I was visiting my neighbors tonight (see next post) and the really friendly ones on our right have just finished building their house and the wife was giving me a tour.

Upon reaching her "god room" she opened the door and said, "I don't let the servants in here, but you can go in."

Later upstairs in her attached bathroom I commented on her washing machine and she said, "I wash all our clothes. I don't let the servants do it. They're dirty themselves, how can they can they make my clothes clean?"

I said, "I wash my own clothes too, but it's because I made them dirty and I'm embarrassed to have anyone else touch them."

She said, "Huh, well, there's that too."

The Opportunities Christmas Brings

I was in charge of hand delivering four wedding invitations to Martha's* Wedding on December 28th. In India, you hand deliver to homes to whomever you can. My four were our neighbors. It took me 2 hours - whereas - I think O. delivered 42 today - in approximately the same amount of time. What can I say? I'm relation-y.

I did have a nice time visiting. All neighbors are Hindu and the first wants us to come and carol sing at her house and pray. Another asked about our church and the 3rd was remembering when we carolled at her house several years ago - I think she'd have us back again. It was a really good time of relationship building.

I love our new neighborhood. My old neighbors (on both sides) wouldn't even say good morning to us.

Then, we have a new lady making food in our children's home and I've asked her to come and and house clean for me since my sister-in-law will be leaving (after marriage). This morning we were having family prayer and she came downstairs and listened the whole time and said - "I love prayer. Anytime you have prayer let me know and I'll come." - She's Muslim.

So, it was a great day of victory in the Lord. I feel like Satan is trying to close down opportunities to share the Gospel, by blocking many of our Christmas plans - yet they are popping up more and more. I am praying and hoping that all these families will come to our Christmas programs and hear the Word and I am looking forward to spending more time with them in the future. I'm so glad we got kicked out of our old house.

*Martha is my sister-in-law who has lived with us for the last 7 1/2 years, she's getting married on December 28th.

Elections

Our state elections are tomorrow. It's been a long time coming. There are security all over the place and they have commandeered (not really) our school as an election place. We're not allowed to go within 100 meters of it.

The saddest thing is - it's all coming at Christmas and all of our Christmas programs are disturbed because of it. Yes, they are disturbed - and me too.

I love Christmas Carol singing - will it even happen this year?

Christmas shopping - O. claims it might not happen.

I have faith - we're gonna sing Carols house to house- go ahead, put me in jail. Bhleh, is all I have to say.

I really feel like I am living the "Grinch" over here this year. The funny thing is - the women in our church are doing an adapted version of that story for our Christmas program. Real life reflecting art - Or - do we really believe what we preach? Hmmm...

Am I too tired to be writing blog posts - oh yeah...

This Week's Prayer List

Last week I posted my prayer list that I send to my Mountain Rain praying ladies. Here it is for this week:

1. Elections in our state are tomorrow and the results come on Dec. 22nd. This is always a volatile time - even more so since Christmas is coming.
Please pray for peace, pray for protection, pray for God to raise up good leaders.

2. Our carol singing program is supposed to start from Dec. 17th and go to the 20th. But because of the elections, it is not certain if we can even do it this year. This is not only a fun time but a time to share the Gospel with unbelievers. Please pray for God to open this door.

3. On Dec. 21 we have our Christmas program- small this year, but please pray.

4. Please pray specifically for our co-workers to work in unity and to have good communication with one another. We fall way short in these areas.

5. Please pray for a bunch of Christmas cards we mailed to the US on Friday, please pray they reach their destinations.

6. Pray for me - I'm exhausted and the work is just beginning. I am starting to feel discouraged.

7.Pray for O. to make right decisions.

8. Please also pray for the grant proposal for our school to be approved. Last day is Dec. 15th.

9. Our house construction started on Sunday - Praise the Lord. Please pray that it will be built well, and within budget. Pray for wisdom for us.

Just Like Being There

We started building our house today.

Really.

Here are the pictures so you feel like you were there and a part of it with us.

Everyone came to the site after church.

We sang.
We read from the Word.
We broke the ground.
This is our land with the locations for the pillars marked off.

Here they are marking off the pillars. (There is a house being built next to us and our house will touch it and we won't have any windows on that side. So, really NOT happy about that...)
People. imagine you are here...
All in all, it's great to finally be started - second star to the right and straight on til morning from here on out.

*still did not get to the stinkin' mosquito post - blame it on Christmas.

December Prayers

I send out weekly prayer requests to a small team of ladies that I call "Mountain Rain" and here is this week's list. I thought I would share it because we can use all the prayer we can get!

1. Two days ago we were asked to vacate our office space - immediately. O. has spent the last 2 days looking for a place to go. This is very frustrating, someone or some ministry dept is always on the move due to being kicked out by our house owners.
Please pray for us to find good office space - like - right away :)

2. We have money for a down payment on land for offices, church and Bible College. It is located next to our school and if we get this land it will ensure that we will not loose road access in the coming days/years. We talked to the widow of the land owner who is ready to sell but her son (in London) is telling her not to sell it. Arg. Please pray for God to open this door if it is His will. I believe God is going to give us that land (or at least land nearby).

3. Pray for permanent land and buildings for all areas of ministry, it will be a great day when we don't have to be moving every month. Esp. pray for permanent housing for our co-workers.

4. Dec. 15 is the last day for the grant proposal we submitted to complete the 3rd floor of our school. We are praying that will be approved.

5. Christmas is coming - lot's of things going on. Please pray for us not to loose sight of why we are celebrating. Pray for joy and health and sweet fellowship. Most importantly, pray for opportunities to share the Gospel.

6. Friday we are starting to dig the foundation for our house. Whoopee! Please keep the whole house building thing in prayer. Thanks.

I want to end with some praises. Last Friday we had fasting prayer all day and we had prayed about how we could give Christmas bonuses to all our co-workers. Also, that night I looked out over our Children's home kids and thought - Lord, how in the world will I be able to buy new clothes for all these kids. That night I got a phone call that a person we don't even know was selling stock and giving it to our ministry for Christmas - to be used wherever! Hallelujah! Christmas bonuses and new clothes for everyone!

* I realize this is not the promised "mosquito post." coming, coming...

Oh Yeah, The Tree Is Up

You might be able to see the little red spots on G.'s face. They're mosquito bites. I wonder if they have mosquitoes in the North Pole? (This leads me into my next actual real post after a long time of cheap - but cute - imitations)

Bharat Baby

NAMASTE!

Why I Love Barbie

Our daughter, C., loves Barbie. Here she is below in a Barbie Fairytopia dress. She is a gorgeous child and with her curly blond hair she gets a lot of attention, especially in India.
However, with all that beauty she is also the child that I struggle with the most. Yet, here is why I Love Barbie. - C. Loves Barbie. She even prefers to be called "Barbie Charlotte"

I've learned to use this to my advantage, see following example:

Me: "C. you've got a black booger hanging out of your nose, let me get it."

C: "No."

Me: "Oh, Barbie doesn't have black boogers hanging out of her nose."

C: Obediently leans nose toward me to have the offending booger removed. Doesn't say a word. Doesn't complain. Doesn't shout, scream, pull away or otherwise misbehave. After booger is removed she asks to see it.

I realize this is manipulation and I sincerely hope to someday be the kind of mother who has children who obey her immediately and at all times. Until then - man, I love Barbie.

* Yes, I know I revealed it.

E.'s 7th Birthday

Cutting the cake.
The little fam.
Dance E. Dance

Woh.
I love this picture because I appear to be scolding poor little Angel (It's OK to write the names of Other people's girl children on your blog. - That's for D and Matt who know what I'm talking about.) In actuality, I am just giving her a number for Red Rover. I think I must look like this in real life tho.

Finally - Juliana

I wrote in August that my brother and sister-in-law had their first daughter, named Juliana. Here are her first pictures with her cousins.


All that hair...

VBS 2007 (Pictures)

Gone And Back And Gone And Back - Again

I had a real hard week. Real hard. Like a breaking point. I told you I was feeling weird the other day, it must have been a warning tingle.

I took a mental break and went away with the girls and we visited to the zoo and the seashore and I went clothes shopping (fun). Many loved ones prayed for me and I've leveled back out.

But early on in my...I don't want to call it a break down, more like I hit the proverbial camel's straw or it hit me... whatever it was God gave me a verse:

John 6:67-69 "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.
Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

It's Just Too Much

Where do you begin after a month off from blogging? It feels strange to just pick up any old random place and post a picture or two (which I may do...). Of course I am feeling weird today, kind of confused about something, sort of like an irritation or a burning at the back of my neck, don't really want to talk (or write) about it.

I guess I'll just start loading the pictures instead then.

She's Back

After a month - the Internet is up and running again. PTL!
Whew.

VBS 2007

We finished 4 days of VBS on Thursday. It went well. It's one of the reasons that I still didn't get internet started. I think I can get dial up internet - but today is Diwali and everything is closed. Trying on Monday.

Back to VBS, the day programs went well, not quite as well as last time - at least it seemed that way to me. Our Last Big evening bash was a bit of a bummer. Power went out twice at crucial times, message was not what I had hoped. Hmmm.

Maybe Monday

Somehow we moved to the one place in our city with no internet connection. Very frustrating. Maybe Monday something will happen.

Don't give up on me.

I'm Not Dead

Still no internet connection at the new house. Bleh. We're working on it.

Moving As It Really Is

We started the move today. Hopefully, we'll be done tomorrow.

As usual, one person works...
... and everybody else just stands around. Just Kidding! Everyone is working hard and we're very thankful for a college full of Bible Students to help. Yay!

G's Outta Here

For G.'s 7 Month Birthday today we gave her a red motorcycle.

She also got her 1st tooth today.

We didn't really give her a motorcycle. Ha!

I Hate Moving

I think the title of this post just says it all.

I hate it. I can't go to sleep at night without thinking about all that needs to be done.

I find the whole process of moving all you own from one house to another utterly distasteful, loathsome, bothersome, despicable, miserable, rotten, stinky, repugnant, detestable, abhorrent, very unpleasant and I hate it. Did I mention that?

Pray for me, we're moving this week. (shaking her head.)

Team Photo

This is (most of) our team.

Surrendering

The Lord has been teaching me about surrender. Abraham and Isaac come to mind - not only because I just taught it in my Old Testament class but just in general - then a friend of mine sent me the lyrics to a beautiful song this morning - huh - it was about surrender - like Abraham and Isaac.

I get it, Lord. Or at least I'm getting it.

There are two things in my life right now that God has asked me to put on the Surrender Slab. One is BIG. At least neither are my children.

Still Attacking

Satan has really been attacking us this week. In our family, in our ministry. Please do pray for us.

Yet through it, I have had the sweetest taste of the Lord's goodness to me. I wouldn't trade that.

3 For 3

We arrived from Bombay this afternoon having accomplished all we set out to do.

1. We ordered a beautiful wedding dress for Martha. After some searching we found a wonderful woman named Ruth who designs and makes wedding gowns. We told her what she wanted, she drew it up for us on paper right then, and called Martha and I back in the evening for a fitting.

The dress was MADE. Well, it lacked the sleeves and some of the lace and the final hemming, but it was all together and on Martha and she looked lovely. I wish I had thought to bring my camera.

O. will go to Bombay next month to pick up the final dress. The women is also making the veil and headgear and gloves to match - all for under $250. I know. Oh, and this dress is not some knockoff, it is as gorgeous and as first class as any I've ever seen in the US.

2. We got a new keyboard for our church. That's not really as exciting as the dress but our keyboardist thinks it's thrilling.

3. We got Chris, the man who came from the US and is here with us for a few days. No lost luggage! Yippee.

I just love it when everything works out as you hope. (or me - I don't even dare to hope - so I'm even happier in the long run.)

Spirits

The other night I was reading in my room. I'm not sure if it was the book I was reading (Christian non-fiction) or something else but I gradually started to become more and more confused and unsure. Those things which are good and right became wrong in my eyes and those things which are evil and unholy appeared right. I was very disturbed and started to pray, weakly, but pray I did and then I slept.

Things seemed more normal the next morning.

The day after that O. was sharing in our office prayer time that he was suffering from different kinds of doubts. It wasn't exactly the same thing I experienced but it was close enough that a light bulb switched on in my head. We were under attack, spiritual attack.

O. seems to be suffering worse than I, please pray for us. We are coming into major Hindu festival time in India and the spiritual fight is on and intense.

You can think I'm wacky or not but last night the darkness was so bad as we were going to sleep that there was a palpable presence of evil in our bedroom.

Ah, The Love of God is so great and it was the only thing I clung to last night.

2 Cor. 10: 3-5 "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

Going To Bombay

We leave tomorrow morning at 9:30 for Bombay to shop for Martha's wedding and pick up a man coming from the US late Monday night. We'll be home again on Tuesday afternoon.

I really hate that our train was booked for a Sunday morning. It would have been a real pain in the neck to change it after it was already booked and we would have lost a bunch of money so it is what it is, but my whole week is gonna be thrown off.

I'm a church junkie. I come from a long line of church junkies and I Love church. Not only that, but if I miss a Sunday morning of church I spend the entire week thinking, "What day is it today? What day is it today? What day is it today?"

I get very confused.

Attacking Chacha's Head

From mere moments ago...
G. attacking Uncle Ramesh's (a.k.a. Chacha's) head.

Sometimes, just because...

The Grant Application

Do you remember the Grant Application for the completion of the 3rd floor of our School Building that I blogged about a few weeks ago? For various reasons, that I won't bore you with, the application has been pushed back and we won't be getting any results for at least another month or so. However, as a result of the circumstances that I am not boring you with, we now have another grant application going in to support our Bible College for an entire year. So, more to pray for...

Time In The O. T.

I've been spending a lot of time in the Old Testament lately since that is the class I am teaching in our Bible College this year. It's also one of the reasons I'm not blogging as much as I'd like to. (Once again I have been "blogging in my head.")

This week we finally started Genesis - the entire month of September being taken up with the introduction to the O.T. which I freely admit is pretty dry. So, I was pretty excited to get into the meat of the Word this week. According to my syllabus I was supposed to finish Chapters 1-11 yesterday and then 12-50 tomorrow.

It's so Not happening.

We got through Cain and Abel yesterday and I'm hoping to make it to Jacob tomorrow but I'm not holding my breath. The course is designed as an Overview but there is just too much good stuff to skim over.

Martha's Wedding

Martha is my sister-in-law who has lived with us for the last 7+ years. She's getting married this year. We set a date of November 9th but when we sat down with her fiance's family on Sunday it turns out that November is not a good time for them since it is Harvesting Season. They are farmers (and pastors.)

Now to some people who have grown up rurally this probably sounds like just the rational-ist thing in the world - you don't plan to get married during harvest season. But to a city girl like me - it's just downright amusing.

Sorry, we can't get married in November because we'll be bringing in the sheaves. (Yes, pretty much all I know about farming I learned from Little House on the Prairie.)

So, the new date - which actually works out much better for me - is December 28th. We'll be in Bombay on Monday searching for a wedding gown. What fun. Shopping - much more to my liking than working in the fields.

This post is getting it's own label of "Martha's Wedding" because I have a feeling as the date approaches we'll be blogging on it a lot.

Blogging

Man, loads of people I know are blogging nowadays. I LOVE it. I just killed a mosquito.

We Got A House

Last Saturday we were told we had to move out of our current by the end of October. By this Saturday we have already booked a house. So, that is Good news.

We will be staying in this house for the next few weeks because we have a man coming from the USA and we could use the 3rd bedroom. So, we are basically renting 2 houses for the month of October - oh well.

The new house has 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms (also a 3rd outside -weird). It's very nice and in a great location. It is fairly new although it has been lived in before and has a "worship room" that has been worshipped in. Worship to Hindu gods. Yuck. I really don't like that but we'll pray.

We're very thankful that we have a place to move for the few months remaining til we get into our OWN house. Yay. Thank you for your prayers.

Our own house work has basically begun, - putting in the well for water first and getting permission to take temporary electricity. Building will start very soon. I'll put up pictures when it does. Getting kicked out of this house has had the added benefit of kicking our butts to get our own house work started - at last.

Home Pharmacy

My house smells like a Doctor's office.

We just got through a week of free medical camps. It was sponsored by Operation Bless India. They sent the Pharmacist and all the medicine and we had to provide a doctor.

The Medical checkups and medicine were free for all who came. I never heard a final number but in the course of four camps we treated over 1000 people.

Medical Camps are a great way to build relationships with the community. We kept two camps in our city at both our school and 2 camps in cities nearby where our pastors are working. We didn't have a Christian doctor but we were able to share the Gospel with the one we had and the camps opened the door for us to enter some places more freely with the Gospel.

The team that came from Bless India left us with all the medicine they had left over. The total cost of the medicine they brought was over $5000 and there is lots left - and sitting in my house.

Anyone know any Doctors who want to come to India? - We have the medicine. (see pictures at top)

Waiting For Cake

Cutting cake after church. These pictures aren't very clear, but I LOVE the sight of all those little hands.


In the evening I cut a small cake at home with the kids. They sang "Happy Birthday" to me and then "May Gooo-oood Bless You" to the tune of "Happy Birthday." This shot is from the "May God Bless You" song. It's blurry because they were waving their hands at me in a "blessing" gesture as they sang.
I was truly blessed.

I Ate A Lot Of Cake

As far as birthdays go it wasn't too horrible. I mean, other than going out last night for my Nice Birthday Dinner and the electricity being out in the entire city. I mean, I realize that this is India, but Come On.

We eventually ate at a restaurant that I can't stand because the service stinks, but they had a generator and that meant electricity. Beggars can't be choosers I always say.

Today was church. Having your birthday on a Sunday is nice. We had cake after church, I ordered cake for everyone, so did O. Don't ask. Suffice to say, everybody Ate A Lot of Cake today. I feel a bit ill.

There was a 60th birthday party for a lady we know held after church, I was glad to have the attention off of me.

All in all, I barely cried at all this birthday.

And We're Moving - Again

We got the news this morning that our house owner sold the house we are currently living in and we have to be O-U-T in a month. Lovely.

So, I'm not really too stressed since we are building our own house and hope to be in it in the beginning of the new year. But we are still going to have to find a house (minimum 2 bathrooms) to live in in the interim - which means moving my entire house twice in the course of the next 4 or 5 months.

Almost there - just Almost there to our own home where we will never have to fear being kicked out at a moment's notice.

I heard the news while I was on the way to browsing at the furniture store and the jewelry store. (my birthday is tomorrow) Shopping helped - a lot. I decided to wait on all furniture till we're in the new house and I exchanged 3 pieces of old jewelry for 3 pieces of new jewelry (you can do that here).

In addition to the shopping, I'm feeling pretty OK in general. I had a few moments of stress earlier today where I would think, why do I feel bad? Did I hurt someone's feelings, Did someone not treat me nicely, was I overcharged and cheated on something I bought? Oh no, I'm just internally contemplating the effort and expense of Moving - Again. Sigh.

Grant Approval

We have recently applied to a Charitable Foundation for a grant to complete the 3rd floor of our school building.

Here is a picture of the school taken only hours ago.
The school building actually looks better in this picture than it does in real life. Most of the 3rd floor is just bricks and cement. The plaster is only half done and there is nothing done but the roof on the left side of the building. Even so, we are using these rooms to teach classrooms of children.

Just FYI, the entire school should be that same golden color.

So why do I waste your time with this boring post.

You can PRAY! If God wills it our proposal will be approved. One way or another - we have to get this school completed!

We hope to know the outcome later this month. Thanks.

Shark Shark Baby

This is a scary picture of the inside of E.'s mouth. She is almost 7 years old and her two front bottom teeth are loose. Thank goodness.

However, I was somewhat dismayed to see that her 2nd teeth are coming in - NOT beneath the baby teeth pushing them out, but BEHIND the teeth. For a few days after she showed me I was imagining the horror of having to have E.'s baby teeth deliberately extracted by the dentist. I'm pretty sure none of us would have survived it. Thankfully, the front teeth are now wiggly but I'm not holding out hope that we may get through E.'s teenage years without orthodontic work.

Anyway, I did ask E. if she was related to sharks and when she denied it I kept at her telling her to admit the truth - that she was somehow related to the shark species - I'd have made a great homicide detective - E. continued to deny the accusations. This back and forth banter went on for a while until E. burst into tears, effectively ending the interrogation.

I asked her why she was crying and she replied that she's afraid of sharks.
I have no idea why, she's obviously related to them...

** Update: An hour after writing this post E. came home from school and one of the bottom front teeth is MISSING! Man, we can't help losing stuff over here...**

Stolen And Found

I promised you a story last week. Here it is.

Several of us were going to an out of town meeting last Wednesday and we were all going in our car. We were to meet at our school/church at 5:30 and go together. When I arrived at school I looked over from the car and saw people in the compound but no one was coming to the car. After a couple minutes I got out and walked over.

I asked where everyone was and was pointed up to the 2nd floor. As I reached the top of the steps I heard this voice say, "Everyone come up here fast, I found something!"

At that, several people (who were supposed to be getting in the car and going with me) went rushing past me up the stairs. I caught one of them who was lagging behind and blocked his way.

"Somethings disappeared hasn't it." I asked.

"Yes, Madam." And off he went.

It turns out our (very expensive) LCD projector was "missing." (think: stolen) Oh dear, that's not good.

But whoever took it, did it during the day and hid it on our school roof where construction was going on. It was hidden under some construction materials. The thief would return in the night to smuggle it away under cover of darkness.

By God's grace our Choir team was leaving on Thursday morning to sing at a conference and we were taking all our instruments and materials - including the LCD - with us. Our sound guys knew immediately that it was missing. It must have been spirited away during the school hours when the church was open and someone was working inside.

Needless to say, Everyone was VERY relieved. And our Ministry President, Mr. Praveen, was crowned hero of the day for the quick thinking to check the roof and actually find the projector.
Whew.

This entire situation was made worse since it came immediately on the heels of the court case, etc.

Over 1000

I noticed the other day that my profile views passed 1000. That was very exciting for me. Yes, I have a thing about significant numbers.

God's Two Choices

A beloved 6 year old relative of mine in the US prayed this prayer after hearing about our recent difficult situation.

"God -- You have two choices: Either kill those bad men or make them love Jesus."

I don't think I even need to comment.

Court Hearing Whatever

When I talked to O. about the Court appearance on Tuesday he said he basically had to stand before a woman and then two people were character witnesses for O. and our school principal. Then the court lady said that Our People were to have no contact with The Other People for 6 months. Any kind of altercation between the two parties would result in them being thrown in jail.

We pretty much knew that was coming, and it sounds fine. but The Other People are cunning and ruthless and have no problem lying about us. So, we are now all being very careful not to ever be in any situation that The Other People could use to drum us some stuff about us.

We continue to keep the situation before the Lord. But the satanic attacks (and God's deliverances) just continue on. We had a very expensive piece of equipment stolen (and found) yesterday. I'll write about that in another post because it's a good story.

Stinkin Internet Connection

After writing my "Please Pray" emails and posting my "This is what is happening over here" posts my Internet went down. It was out for the count for about 2 1/2 days. It came up this morning, but while it was out I was a little uneasy knowing that people were praying for us and worrying about us and there was no update. If you haven't already noticed - I'm communicaty. I get a little shaky when I feel like I should, or just downright, want to communicate.

I'm thinking the whole no Internet thing was part of the spiritual battle going on.

Satan shuts down the lines of communication, yet, unwittingly keeps people praying for longer than they may normally would have, hence, God's purposes prevailed? It's possible.

Oh, other than being communicaty, I'm also an optimist.

Sweet

G. came in the house the other night with this in her hand (and mouth.)
Earlier that same day E. came home from school, picked up (a sleepy) G. and G. conked right out.
Little mommy.

The Court Case

The school problem is going to court tomorrow morning. The time in the US EST will be about 9:30Pm on Monday night. Please pray for us this problem progresses on.

The other people are claiming that we have attempted to beat them and that we are here only to change peoples' religions, etc. Lies.

I take comfort in David's words to Goliath:
"I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty."

Please keep on praying for all the people involved. Thanks.

Men Of Action

The situation I wrote about previously continues and we pray. I think it is harder for the men to wait on the Lord than us women. They want to be doing something.

Sending Emails

When an Urgent Prayer Request needs to get out fast, I send out emails. I LOVE email. I lived abroad long ago in the dark ages before Email was a household commodity - when letters from home took 2 weeks or a month to reach me. And, of course, they only ever came from Mom. (A month is FAST compared to the Real Dark Ages when missionaries would plan 2 months in advance just for a phone call!)

Back to the point - writing urgent emails (so urgent that I just realized I forgot to spell check and I KNOW there were spelling mistakes in there - dang.)

We (meaning our family and our ministries) have been threatened by a Hindu family of 4 brothers for the last 7 1/2 years. They spread all kinds of gossip about us and what we do. They talk to lawyers and attempt to bring court cases against us. They get the Police on their side. They threaten us (and our co-workers), often, with bodily harm - all this because we are Christian. They'd love to just be rid of us.

O. makes plans to ship me and the girls out of the country on a moment's notice - just to be ready. (Not like that's likely to happen, but he likes to bring it up every so often.)

Through this and the various other disturbances that we have been facing in our ministry over the last 7 days, we keep our eyes fixed on our Living God and repeat to each other that He has Already Won the Victory and for us to stand still or step backward is a victory for Satan and that is something that we are not willing to do.

2007 Students

Group shot of our 2007 Bible Students and their Principal and In Charge. They're holding their new Bibles. I finally got a pictures of them all together - my camera works much better than E.'s Spiderman one...

If you pray for us, pray for these students - as they study the Word of God as well as a new language. Pray for those of us who teach, as well, that we would be usable for God's purposes in these lives of these young men.

Old Testament

I taught my first class in the Bible College today after a hiatus of 9 months. Previously I taught English, I am now the Old Testament teacher.

This is exciting for me and intimidating at the same time. I love the subject matter yet I look out at my students and see 14 eager young men who are really, really weak in English. They'll learn, but man, I just look at myself and see how incapable I am to teach these guys.

Thank goodness the Lord is on our side. 'Cause this surely would be impossible without Him.

A Little Opposition

Early on during today's fasting prayer, we were told by the Muslim neighbors on three sides of our Ministry office that we couldn't sing so we worshipped in our hearts and kept on praying. Then after 1PM we moved into our church hall which is located at our school and then sang our hearts out and prayed some more.

A little opposition is often just the kick needed to make you pray harder.

ESL

I took this while waiting for the car to come. This is C. introducing E. who is going to dance. (I already deleted that one.)

Needless to say, English is not C.'s native language, but she's mighty cute.

Hungry

It's the last day of the month - so that means -Fasting Prayer!

I really do love fasting prayer days. We have them from 10AM to 4PM on the last day of every month. It's a special time to come together as a body and corporately present our requests to God.

But I gotta be honest with you, it's 9:24AM and I'm hungry. Really Really Hungry - already.

G. And G

Our trip to Rajasthan was G.'s first time there out of the womb. When we first arrived in India, O.'s family came to visit us and so 2 month old G. met her grandfather then but not since.

Here she is in O.'s sister's arms looking at her paternal grandfather, "Dada."
Still looking...
Oh, she's such a pleasant girl.
Another "Uncle."
With Aunt Martha - yes, she works very hard to get her hair to look like that - I can't be bothered.