The Gold Ring

Yesterday we went to the slum again and this time as we were leaving the locality, a lady called us. She said, "Please come to my house, my mother is sick. Please pray for her." So we go to her home, a tiny wooden house on the side of the road, and wait to meet her mom. It turned out that her mom wasn't really physically sick, but the day before, while working in the garden she had lost her ring. It was a very special ring that her parents had given her before she had married, a thick gold band with a jewel that she had treasured for many years. She was heart-broken as she shared with us her loss and asked for us to pray.

Earlier that morning I had been doing a Bible Study on love and it was talking about the parable of the woman who had lost a silver coin, and when she had found it she called all of her friends so that they could rejoice with one another. The main point was that we were to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. True friendship and love is laying our lives down for one another and esteeming each other higher than ourselves.

So as this lady was sharing this situation, I remembered these things and we felt that we should go and search in her garden for the ring. We went outside and were a bit overwhelmed at the garden and the possiblity of finding a ring there. It was literally like looking for a needle in a haystack and they had already searched the whole day for it. But it was really on our heart to look and we split up in different parts of the garden and started searching and sifting through the dirt, praying for God to give us wisdom. There were several boys from the neighborhood looking at us and laughing, we must have been a sight. After about 7-8 minutes, my friend Lipok shouted, "I found it!" We were so incredibly happy and brought the ring to the mother and she was so surprised and full of joy. We felt as if we had lost and found a precious ring ourselves. She wouldn't stop thanking us and invited us to come to dinner on Sunday. We prayed for her and her daughter and we left their little home so happy, like we saw a real miracle with our very eyes.

These days are very full and so the weeks go by so quickly. Just a quick update about Toshi, he is doing much better we hear. He was finally released from the hospital and is now able to eat blended rice. For a moment there, he was quite discouraged and they were afraid they were going to have to move him to a hospital in a bigger city,because they didn't know how to help him, but just at that time, the doctor discovered that he was doing better, although the progress was a bit slow. He is recovering now in his parent's home since there are more people there to take care of him. So thank you to those who have prayed for him and asked about him, we are happy to say that he is improving.

Like always, there is so much to say, and I don't really know where to start. The DTS is going well and they have a few more weeks here before they will leave for outreach. We have been busy searching for housing like crazy these days as we are outgrowing our current housing. It's exciting to grow and yet with it always comes a bit of stretching. We have decided on a name for the new prayer ministry starting here, All Nations House of Prayer. Jesus said" My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations." It's real fitting because all of us are from different nations, we are praying for Northeasterners to go the nations, and we continue to pray that the nation we live in as well as those that surround us would come to know His lovingkindness and mercy. We are still searching for the right place to have it because we want it to be easily accessible to many people in our city, and close to us as well. We need so much wisdom these days about so many details.

With this prayer team, we pray together and also go on outreaches in the surrounding area. One thing that I am loving to do these days are the outreaches that we go on throughout the week. Sometimes we go to the bazaars and pray for people, last week we went to a slum near the monastery. There are twenty families there and they are from many different places, and most of them are either Muslim or Hindu. One thing that we want to do there is just to share about basic health care. They were sharing with us that their children are always sick, but then they drink the water from the dirty river behind their houses and a lot of the children looked quite dirty. So next time we go, we want to ask them if we can teach them a few sessions of health care. These kind of things are exciting and we have found that God is increasing love in our hearts for the people here as we continue to pray for our city.

Girl's Night

A few nights ago we had a girl's night with all of the girl staff meeting in our house. We played this hilarious game that originated in Germany during a war. Sanni told us that chocolate was sparse during the years of the war and so they made up this game so that everyone would get to have a bit if chocolate as well as a good laugh.

First you wrap a chocolate bar in a great multitude of newspaper. Then everyone has to roll a dice and whoever gets a six, it's their turn to try and open the newspaper covered chocolate bar. But the game is, that first you have to put on a scarf, two gloves, and a hat. Then you have to hurriedly try to open the choclate using a fork and knife. The funny part is that once someone finally gets all of the clothes on, usually someone else had already rolled another 6. So you keep going until finally the chocolate is opened, and eaten. By this time, most everyone gets a piece of chocolate and everyone has some good fun.

Bev's Birthday: The Great Chicken Extravaganza

Yesterday was Bev's birthday and we had so much fun. I wanted to share the whole process of how a real, living chicken becomes a tasty chicken curry, step by step. Some of the next pictures are not for the faint of heart.

Lipok went to the market and bought a chicken, it ended up being 130 rupees (less than 3 dollars) because it was over 1 kg. He brought it back to their home in a plastic baggy, with it's feet tied together. As soon as we took it out of the bag, and untied his feet, he went to the bathroom on their kitchen floor. We guessed it was real nervous.

This whole day was filled with great laughter and learning. The following blogs are the story of our lunch, and how city girls learned how to kill a chicken.

Laughing and Laughing

This was the funniest part of the whole process. Since it was Bev's birthday, it was decided that she could do the honors of killing the chicken. She was real willing, but her heart is real kind and gentle and she can't even kill a fly. So for about ten minutes Lipok, held the chicken over a piece of wood, so that Bev could kill it. She would get ready to do it and apply some pressure to the chicken's neck, but then the chicken would make some noise and she would scream and we would all laugh hysterically. This probably happened 3-4 times. Our stomachs were hurting from laughing so hard. So in the end, Lipok helped her a bit to actually cut the neck, but she was involved in the whole process. We were joking later that the poor chicken had a really slow death.

Both Bev and I had never seen a chicken killed before and we felt like real city girls. I had thought that there would be more blood than there was. Lipok said that he usually kills the chicken by breaking the back and that's even less blood involved, but for Bev's first time, he thought it would be better to use the dow (the big knife).

Headless Chicken

So then Lipok took the headless chicken and dipped it many times in boiling water. There are several reasons for this. The chickens are kept together in quite dirty places and so many of them have different kinds of bugs. So dipping them in the boiling water kills all the bugs as well as helps all the feathers to come off more easily.

The head is kept aside, to be added to the curry. With the beak removed, of course.

Chicken Story Continues

Then Lipok burned all the little hairs and things off by rotating the chicken over the stove. After that part, he cut open the chicken and started removing the intestines and different things. There were only two parts he threw away. One part inside the chicken that collects rice (that's what they feed the chickens) and one piece that was inside the head, the rest of the head went into the curry, along with everything else. One of the most interesting parts was when he cleaned out the stomach. He flipped over one part and all of the undigested/digesting food was inside and it was bright yellow. He cleaned that out and put the actual stomach along with all of the other parts to be cleaned.

Then he just started cutting the chicken into pieces to be cooked. It was so odd, because just a few minutes ago we had a living chicken, making real loud noises, and now it was fully cut up and being prepared for cooking. I was blown away by how fast he did everything and how well he knew every organ and inner working of the chicken. He told us that he had grown up from a young age killing and cooking chickens and everything else. He did a really good job. I guess for many people it's real normal, but for Bev and I, we were in awe of the whole process, because we grew up buying chicken in clean packages at the store.

Tada! Chicken Curry.

Beverley and I learned how to make chapatis. They're real tasty with all sorts of curries. You mix atta, some sort of flour, with water. Then it has to be kneaded for a while and rolled into a circle. It needs to be real thin, or else it won't cook all the way through. Then you fry it on a pan, with no butter or oil.

After the chicken is cleaned, we started cooking it with garlic, ginger, tomatoes, and a myriad of other spices. It smelled so good and we were all becoming incredible hungry.

We boiled some mustard leaves as well and had a lovely lunch. One thing that we were laughing at that still surprises me every time, is that Nagas really love all sorts of meat. They don't like to waste any part of the chicken, and so Lipok for his first serving of chicken, ate the head, and claws.

We had such a good time and laughed and laughed and laughed. It was sure tasty.

Dave is on a train heading Southwest for a few days of meetings in a nearby state. So I'll be a little lonely for the next few days. Tomorrow is Bev's birthday and we're going to kill a chicken for lunch to celebrate. I've been looking forward to it for days. Actually I'm a little nervous about the whole thing, but it'll definitely be an adventure.

Today we went to the Tibetan Monastery and it was raining on us a bit. This Monastery is quite a journey from us and many times throughout the past couple of years we have tried to build relationships with the monks there. We take a taxi and then from there we take a walk up some hills, stairs, and more hills. One of our friends affectionately calls it, "mountain climbing." It's really beautiful up there and quiet as it is surrounded by trees and little else on most sides.

We were talking to some of the monks and it was interesting to hear about their lives. Lipok asked one of them why he was a Lama and he answered that both of his parents had wanted him to be one, so that thay would have peace in their lives. If they sacrificed their son to the life of a monk, all of the days of their life, they would be blessed. So when he was young, they gave him to the monastery and he's been a monk since then. There are around 13 monks at this monastery.

There are literally hundreds of prayer flags that wave over the monastery and out over the city. They believe that every time that the wind blows them, their prayers are heard. We found out that every Wednesday, a large amount ofTibetans in our area go to the Monastery to hang these prayer flags so that they will get strength in their lives.