Shoulda Known Better

Dark brown hair - premature gray, color often?

I get bad white roots within like - one week after coloring these days. What to do? I decided to try to put henna on my hair in the in-between times.

I went for brown, confirmed that it would not turn my hair orange, then put it on tonight.

Long story short, I had to have O. do an emergency run with me to the store at 8:45 tonight to get hair dye because there is no way I'm going to church tomorrow with this orange head.

Shoulda known better...

I don't know what to do about the roots, probably need to go blond.

Sum It Up

Group photo from the youth camp.
Members of our wonderful team...
Everybody did their part. Sing, dance, teach, lead, lead games, whatever...

Boys!

Girls!

It has taken me two days to download the pictures and get them uploaded here and there but I'm almost finished, which is a good thing since we leave tomorrow morning at 6AM for 3 days in Bombay. The traveling just never never ends.

The following posts are just a little picture of our summer "gospel tour" (more pix on my facebook page). We did end up cutting the tour short due to the intense heat as well as some other local issues, but it's all ok since we're leaving again - tomorrow.

The first set of meetings were in more of a village setting, with larger meetings in the evening and women's meetings in the morning. We enjoyed worshipping God together and learning new songs and worship styles.

The second set of meetings were a three day youth camp. We were in charge of just about everything but the food - which was delicious by the way. There was a beautiful garden and sweet kids, lot's of dancing - my legs still hurt. And most of all it was a great time worshipping and glorifying the Lord.

At both locations O. and I were speakers and even though speaking isn't really my thing, there were definitely some things on my heart to share. I did struggle at the first set of meetings because my translator had never done it before. She was struggling so much I just wrapped up my message and sat down. The second day she was much better!

My favorite part of the gospel tours is the fellowship and time together with God's people. Just like anything of this sort, there is always a little let down when it is over, but it has been nice to just stay home and veg out (read: wash clothes).

Thanks to all who prayed!

Worship During The Meetings

Meeting 1:
Evening Session Morning Session

Lot o' dancing.

Great Smiles and we learned fun new songs too!

Meeting 2:

The boys were, what can I say, well they could DANCE.

Pictures Of The Gatherings

Meeting 1

Meeting 2

What O. Does Best And I Just Do

O. and I were called as the speakers at two separate conferences over the last week. Delivering messages is my man's thing - not really mine. If I do I do, if I don't I don't. I don't sweat it. Generally, when called on to speak, I just talk about what God's been speaking to me about.
Ladies meeting in the mornings.

I give examples...

Pretty Much The Same Everywhere

Some of the young people from the youth meetings last week.


Talking on cellphone - what a surprise...
Very cute.

The girls had to eat these bananas (and open them) without using their hands. All four of the participants ran back to their seats without finishing - way too embarrassing!

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.