wings

Lately we've been having warmer weather in Shillong and it has brought with it flying bugs of Biblical proportions. They each have 4-6 wings and they fly in huge swarms together. The other night I was walking down the street with Beverley at dusk and there were literally hundreds, if not thousands of them flying in the air. We felt like we were living in the book of Revelation or something. I told Beverley, Jesus is coming soon.

They lose their wings at night and so sometimes we walk outside and there will be hundreds of wings outside of our door. They fly in our house also, the wings, and so I'm constantly sweeping up these brown wings in our house. It's kind of eerie.

We are leaving this afternoon for our journey, and will return to Shillong in a little over a week.
While Houser has a leadership meeting on Friday, Bev and I are going to go up to Darjeeling, which is very famous for tea, and Houser will meet us there on Saturday. Then we all have a meeting throughout the next week, a couple of hours journey from Darjeeling.

ha

This week we've had quite a mix of people here with us from several different tribes. Houser has been teaching them this week and they will leave early Friday morning for outreach. It's really exciting because this is the first MA that we have run here that has had an outreach outside of India. Several of our staff just returned this evening from the last MA outreach that we had and it seems as if everything went really well. It is always good for our hearts when people return. There was a special dinner tonight of smoked pork, which is Houser's favorite.

Tomorrow Houser, Bev and I will leave in the afternoon and we will take an overnight train to a state nearby. We will be out of Shillong for a little over a week for a couple of meetings that we have. More than anything, we're looking forward to seeing many of our friends that we haven't seen in a long time. This time of year the weather is incredibly hot in the "plains" of India. Over 40 C. I've forgotten how to translate that into fahrenheit, but it means very hot.

I love this picture of Beverley. There is a relatively new coffee shop sort of place here in Shillong and sometimes we go there to talk and drink coffee. The majority of coffee here is instant coffee and this is one place that you can find brewed coffee as well as espresso. It's in the weirdest location. You drive past through a slum sort of area, and it's right there, across from a motorcycle repair shop. We were laughing so hard because whenever she took a bite of this pastry, her teeth would be fully brown. She tried to make the waiter laugh when he came by, but he didn't find it nearly as funny as we did, or maybe he was trying to be polite

busy days

We think this is a neat way of mowing the lawn. They use these big animals to pull some contraption that mowed the lawn. Then they would use the dirt and grass for other purposes. No gas is involved and it is a good use of resources.

This last week has been quite busy and so I haven't had much time or energy to write. Last week we had a large group come for Mission Adventures and they left on Friday for outreach in a large, nearby city. We have heard reports that they are doing well but that the weather is incredibly hot.

On Saturday, we had a big women's party at our house for Aren, Theja's wife, who is expecting a baby in July. It's not really a part of the culture here to have a baby shower, but it was really on my heart to have a little party for her. She has been spending most of her time at home and so it was good to have fellowship and fun with her. We cooked lots of food and played a couple of games and prayed for her. We really had such a good time.

Another MA team arrived today and so the activites keep on continuing here. Houser will be teaching them all week and then we leave Shillong on Thursday evening for a program that we have in a nearby state. We will be gone for a little over a week and then we will return to Shillong for a few days before leaving the country for a little over a week. Every six months we have to leave India for visa purposes and since our calendar is full from July to December, we have to leave in June. Needless to say, the next few weeks we will be travelling quite a bit again and so we would really appreciate your prayers for strength and health.

games

We usually start MA with an afternoon of games and icebreakers so that we can get to know each other better and laugh a lot. I'm really proud of the staff here, they have really invested a lot of time and energy into this whole thing. It takes so much preparation and behind the scenes work to get everything ready, to plan and prepare to feed 50+ people, three meals a day, and to do all of it with joy and love. I feel privileged to live and work amongst such excellent people.

Nikki's Fair

We have continued with our Hindi Lessons and Poonam, our teacher, and Nikki, her daughter, invited us to the school fair with them. Houser, Bev, and I met them there and had a fun time playing games and eating some fair treats. Nikki was dressed up in her party dress and she had lots of friends there to play with. We were surprised by how many parents and children were there that we knew from different places. We had a good time.

On Tuesday we went to the orphanage again, this time with Sunny. Sunny was the star as she told the story of the Good Samaritan and taught them new songs. We played games and read stories. I really respect and admire the two women that work there. They don't have a day off and are continually responsible for the 74 children that are there with them.

On Wednesday night we had a prayer time in our house from 7:30 until about 1am. A bunch of people came and we had a really good time worshipping and praying and spending time together. We watched the Transformations video about how 4 different cities were transformed and changed as people gathered together to pray. Jails were closed down and drug cartels were dissolved. It's so good, it makes me cry every time.

The new group of MA Participants arrived last night, altogether there are 35 of them. So we are looking forward to this next week that we have together with them.

Luke and Chloe

Yesterday my sister called me and it was so good to talk to her on the phone. My nephew Luke is getting so big and it made me so happy to talk to him. He's a baseball star. He talked to me on the phone and told me that he has the snuffles and that he's going to hit the ball hard and run real, real far at his baseball game.

minestrone and sushi

Bev and Sunny came over to our house yesterday to make dinner. I lived with Beverley in California for about 6 months and I never saw her cook a thing. So she's promised since she came here to make us dinner. She said that minestrone is her specialty and so I went with her yesterday to the vegetable market and we bought all the things she needed. It took about three hours to make it but it was delicious. We were going to invite the girl staff over and so she made tons of it. Last night we barely made a dent in it and so we'll be enjoying it for the next week or so.

Sunny is from South Korea and she makes incredible food. Last night she made sushi but put egg and cheese in it instead of fish. It was really good. So we had some international cuisine last night with our international family here.

We haven't had another rat in our house for days. Maybe there was just a family of 6, and we caught them all.

tea

The MA team left on Friday to go on outreach and so our base is quite quiet again. The next group we have are coming next Saturday and there are 35 of them total, so it's a big group. This last Thursday we had tea in our house and had a good time with all the MA participants and our staff.

On Friday, Bev and I wanted to go on a prayer walk so we walked up to the Tibetan Buddhist Monastery. We joked around that we are training for Base Camp, because Bev has always wanted to climb Mt. Everest, and the monastery is quite a hike up in the hills. We are already over 6,000 ft, and there are parts of Shillong that are bit higher than that. She had never seen this sort of monastery before and we talked with the monks for a little while. The cook and one other monk served us tea and tried to talk to us, but they speak only Tibetan and a little Hindi. There are 13 that live there full time and every morning they spend hours in prayer. They have hundreds of prayer flags hanging in the trees and on lines and they believe that every time the wind moves the flags, that the prayers are released into the air.

flip flops

Bev and I went again today to the orphanage in the afternoon. We always have so much fun there. Today we split the group in two and played games with them and then read them books. I hadn't played Duck-duck-goose in such a long time or Ring around the rosies. I found myself searching through my mind trying to think of games that I played years ago so that I could somehow entertain them. I think that it is good for the heart to play with little children. They are so easily satisfied and entertained. They don't have a tv or even lots of toys laying around, so they always play games with each other. One child today asked Beverley how many brothers and sisters she had. After she answered, the child was suprised and with pride said I have 83. It really seems as if they see each other as brothers and sisters, they are so precious.

The other thing that surprised me is that they all share everything. Even their shoes are community property. While we were playing games a bunch of them took off their flip flops and then when we were finished, they all put on different shoes. It's impossible to tell them apart because they are all simple white and blue flip flops, just different sizes. So sometimes the last one to get to the pile of shoes doesn't get any.

It really must be rat season because in this last week we've caught 6. It's ridiculous. It's true that they really like cheese, all over the world. One day we ran out of cheese and used butter, and that night we didn't catch any. They're becoming very bold these days and just run into our house as if they are a welcome guest. Somehow I feel a little guilty killing all of them. I remember growing up, my sister had a hamster and we paid $80 dollars for a vet to put an IV in him when he became dehydrated because of wet tail. That seems like so long ago and worlds away from here. Now Houser and I run excitedly to the kitchen in the morning to see if we caught anything in the night.

We have 12 people here right now doing Mission Adventures and so Houser has been really busy teaching. They'll leave here on Friday to go on outreach. Both Houser and I have been asked to share at a Youth Conference tomorrow and so we'll be waking up pretty early as it's over an hour away. I'm supposed to share about prayer and he's supposed to share about missions. It's a neat opportunity because usually we're asked to share separately at different events and so it will be good to finally share together.