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!