Hard Working Young People

Our youth leader and some of our Karuna Home kids came along for the 2 tours. Here are some of their dances and skits...

A Bible student and two Karuna kids.

Skit at youth conference

Markus (my nephew)

Anil, our youth leader - I don't get the significance of the white paint either - don't bother to ask.

No More Funky Water

It's been hovering around 115 degrees here in Northern India lately. I cannot even begin to describe the heat of the last week, esp. during our 2nd tour.

I appear to be melting in this photo, it's about 11PM and we're eating dinner in the village church.
Our youth team didn't come with us to the youth meeting at the 2nd tour, but we called them at the last minute to come. They sat up all night on the roof of a bus just to get to us. Needless to say - very very tired kids.

At the location of the second tour we were houses in an old British era mission compound. Huge rooms with high ceilings but ancient fans. Ours never did get to work.

WATER! The hot wind blowing just dried us out. We couldn't drink enough and the water would turn hot almost immediately - hence, funky. The stone floors were so hot from heat that even inside the building our feet would burn when standing without shoes.

Feel the heat.

Girls On Tour

We didn't take our three older girls with us for the first half of the Gospel Tour, but they were there for the second - in full force. They had a great time. Still has not grown into the ears...

E. & C. even performed two dances. Everybody works!

*More pictures of the gospel tours on my facebook page.

The Littlest Member Of The Team

Little P. recovering from her recent illness ate her way through most of the first half of the "Gospel Tour." She did love banging on those drums tho.
She would wait til the drummer in the back would start playing and then she would play along.

This pose she must have learned from her father...

P. Plays The Congos

E. Who Loves The Water

I was looking over my Goa post and saw that E. was under represented. How could this be since she loves the water more than anyone else? (she gets it from her mother.) I needed to rectify it. (Plus, I like to have a picture on the top of my blog, esp. since I'll be away for a few days...)
Three of our four children LOVE the water and O. and I both do, but then there was G. who would get whiny and weepy just waking up to the beach - not even near the water. What is this? O. had serious doubts about G. being part of our family. What could this mean? OK, honestly, O. was totally disturbed by this.

While I went on a boat trip with everyone else, O. stayed back with G. on the beach and by the time we got back an hour later, he had her playing in the water! He took (read: forced) her down there to wash her feet or to wash her hands and after a few trips back and forth she was an old pro and all doubts about her being a member of our family or not, vanished. Whew!
(In the ocean)
(In the swimming pool)

To keep it real - this is what she looks like most of the time...

"Gospel Tour" 2010

A Gospel Tour is what they call it here in India when a whole bunch of people take to the road and preach, sing, evangelize, whatever - usually takes place during vacation times.

Tomorrow we will pack up three vehicles after church and head 3 hours south of us for a 3 day conference where O. and I will be speaking and our team will be singing and dancing for the Lord. On May 19th we are home for a day (lots of washing) and then on the 20th we head to the state of Rajasthan to do the same thing but with a focus for youth and a wedding thrown in. We'll be back around May 26th I guess...

Please keep us in prayer. It's a great time to share the Gospel and encourage believers in their faith.

Onkar is suffering from the first really bad back pain of his life and could really use your prayers. He told me today that God was using it to slow him down so he could prepare more for these upcoming meetings. You go O!

Goa Vacation Album 2010

Some random pictures from our Goa vacation last week:

O. with sick baby P. She was sick 6 out of the 7 days. O. also suffered from a bad backache the whole time.

G. who finally got over her fear of the water!

Beach Beauty C.

Mango Season!!

Watch out - it's a neked baby and she's Sandy!

Getting a pedicure - on the beach!

Fun in the sand.

G.

Yes, we ate and ate.

Beach baby (before getting sick)

It was way WAY HOT!

Swimming - what more could we want. E. & C. had a great time in the ocean, pools, water park...

Check out the belly on the guy in the background - Yikes!

Even with a sick baby and an aching husband, we had a great time. It was a little hotter than we would have liked but we survived. I drove my scooter all over North Goa and only dropped G. out of it once when I turned too slowly. :) Baby P. is on the mend and sadly, O. is feeling worse... Pray.

What A Beauty

G. in her gorgeous yellow dress from Goa.

Goa Vacation

We leave tomorrow night to catch the train that will take us to Goa in South India for our vacation this year.
We love Goa for its beaches and pools and yummy food and kid-friendliness.

This year our whole family cannot fit on one motorcycle so I'll have to drive a scooter as well. Hence I was up at 6AM this morning practicing on the open ground on my brother-in-law's scooter. Not a fun notion but I guess I really need to get over my road fear sometime...

I'll probably be away from the computer for 10 days or so.