Kate's First Thanksgiving

Our friend Aphrezo is visiting us right now and he brought Kate these really cute red shoes from Mongolia. He will be getting married in December and we are very excited for him. Kate wore these shoes on Thanksgiving and she was very happy to play with the beads that are attached to them.

Kate can really move around in her walker these days and as I was cooking and setting the table, she found a new favorite place under the table. She would move under there and laugh and laugh.



The rest of us really enjoyed a lot of good food but Kate only ate some green beans and wheat cereal for her Thanksgiving dinner. She had a lot of fun playing with all of us and making us smile. My friend Sunny said that she thinks that Kate is like her father in that she likes to be the center of attention. Even though we really missed our families during this time, it was nice that we had some good friends to celebrate with.

Thanksgiving Dinner

We had lots of delicious food and fun on Thanksgiving night. I've taken a few pictures to show a little of what it was like.



I forgot to take a picture of the food before we ate, we did a pretty good job of finishing everything off. David (from New Zealand) made a delicious pumpkin soup from scratch, I really want the recipe! We also had chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy (Texan style), corn, bread, carrot souffle and several desserts (made by Ellen). I had a few leftovers I saved for Dave who came back home the next day. (Hooray, Hooray he's back with us again!)


Pumpkin pie, brownies, and an apple dish


Rosemary, Emily, and Sylvia


Zac and Stef


Uncle Rick and the Girls

Thanksgiving in Progress

Tomorrow we are having a Thanksgiving Party in our home for the Americans and their families here. I'm planning to prepare dinner and my friend Ellen is making the dessert. She found a nice pumpkin here and so is making pumpkin pie from scratch and some brownies. We don't have turkeys here and so my mom gave me a recipe for some baked chicken. We'll also have some mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, bread, and I'm attempting a carrot souffle which is supposed to be a replacement for sweet potatoes. I'm sad that Dave won't be here to celebrate with us but it will be Kate's first Thanksgiving and so I wanted to have some sort of meal with friends.

I'll be sure to post some pictures of our little party.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name,
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases; Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;
Who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle."
Psalm 103:1-5

This time we want to remember all of the great blessings that our in our life, to remember our friends and family, to remember God and His goodness and kindness to us. He has rescued us from ourselves, has loved and washed us from all of our sins, has brought us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. He is the One who heals our broken heart, who numbers our wanderings and puts our tears in a bottle. He is the One who sees and knows us and has lavished us with His great and unwavering love. He is the One that gives us beauty from ashes, joy in the midst of difficulty, hope eternal. He crowns us with lovingkindness and calls us His own. Though we are wretched, poor, blind, and naked, He clothes us with garments of salvation, gives us eyes to see, and calls us His own forever. We have much to be thankful for.

The Break In Attempt

Last night at 1 am I had a rude awakening. I was in a deep sleep but ever since Kate came into our life it doesn't take much noise to wake me up. I heard the window opening and someone forcefully pulling the curtain aside. It was very dark but because of the moon outside I could see the silhouette of a man standing outside my window. In these sort of situations, different people do different things, I chose to yell out in a loud voice, "Hey!", and then I lunged up from the bed towards the window (what was I going to do once I got there?). All of a sudden the man puts a bright light in my face and I hear him talking to another person outside, though I'm not sure what he said or which language it was. Dave is still out of town and so my heart was beating fast and I wasn't sure what to do.

I had let the speaker of our SOFM borrow my cell phone this week so that he could keep in touch with his wife and so I didn't have any numbers or a phone nearby. We have a land line phone but it was quite far and I wasn't sure if I should wake up Kate and bring her with me, or just run and call Dave. I ended up calling Dave and he called a couple of our staff and Kumar, who is the chowkidar for the house. Within a few minutes there were about 9 people outside on our terrace, where the men had been. Everyone searched high and low, but no one could be found. We figured that they had climbed up our wall and along a ledge, up onto the terrace. They had opened the door of a house just next to ours and gone through a room, but were obviously not interested in what was there.

The funny thing is that there are bars on our windows so they couldn't actually get into our room. From what I hear, there have been many similar incidences in our area and in surrounding localities and what the thieves do is bring long sticks with them in order to fish things out of peoples homes. Our house owner just warned us a few days ago to be careful as there have been increasing reports of break-ins in our area. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to my husband coming home. But Kate slept all the way through the whole situation and is happy and well. I'm so thankful for the friends that I have here that came to help me in the middle of the night. Another good thing is that I have a guest coming today named Sylvia, and she will be staying here with me for a few days. Plus last night I went through and wired shut all of our windows that had the iron clasp broken off and so we are safe and sound. I decided that there are a lot scarier things in the world, like this huge tornado...



One of my favorite verses these days is Isaiah 26:3: "You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is fixed on you because he trusts in You." I was thinking about that verse last night after the incident and asking God for that perfect peace because we trust in Him and hope in His mercy. I am so thankful that nothing bad happened and nothing was stolen.

Friends

This weekend Dave got to come home and we also had a guest stay with us. Saturday morning we had a couple of friends eat breakfast with us and Dave made his famous biscuits, they were very delicious and greatly appreciated by all. We also decided that since Dave has been gone a bunch and we haven't gotten to spend much time with our friends and other leaders here, we would have a small dinner. It was fun to get to eat and laugh together. Some people were making fun of my Christmas decorations but it felt festive and fun to be able to have them up.

Lipok, Sanni, and Anna


Kate and I are very happy that Dave only has one more week away from us!

We love Skype!!

Skype is incredible!! If two people have a web camera and a connection to the internet, you can talk for free, all over the world and actually see each others faces. This has been such a gift for us, especially since having Kate, so our friends and family can see her grow up. We love it and use it often.

Here are Dave and Kate talking to his parents.


Here are Jim and Ruthie talking to us.

Thursday

We had a full day on Thursday and I just thought I'd give a little glimpse into what our day looked like. Kate and I are doing well. Dave is on his way as I write this to spend the weekend at home with us. The training will last one more week and then he will be back with us again full time.

Thursday mornings we always have base meetings where all of the staff and students from our base gather together for worship, prayer, and other things. Here is a picture of our worship time.


Kate and Angho


Kate and Auntie Sunny


David cleaning rice. (We have to clean the rice of all stones, bugs, and other little things.)


Mapuia preparing to lead worship.


Me and Kate


Tomorrow the DTS outreach teams are coming back and so our base will be quite full. We are going to have company this weekend as well, so I'm sure that this weekend will fly by very quickly.

Back Again

We've been traveling a great deal in the past few weeks and so I haven't posted anything for a while. I tried to make it up by taking a ridiculous amount of pictures the past few days (all of Kate) so that I could post to share with our friends and family. The problem is that I couldn't figure out which ones that I liked the most so I just posted a whole bunch. Please enjoy.

Kate is starting to make all sorts of noises these days, starting from when she wakes up until she goes to sleep. She really likes to say "da da" and "ba ba" and when I try to tell her to say Mama, she just smiles at me. She continues to make lots of animal nosies (like a bear, pterodactyl, etc.) and even noises that sound like sirens and other things.

She is going to be 7 months old in about a week and it seems amazing how quickly time is flying by. I was just looking at pictures of her when she was born and am amazed at how much she has grown and changed.

She also keeps me laughing often. Today my friend Ayophy came over and we were talking and I put Kate in her little walker with a little pink bunny to play with. All of a sudden, Kate lunged and grabbed the little bunny by the ears... with her mouth. She looked like a mamma cat holding a kitten in her mouth. I wish I got a picture of it but we were laughing too hard and then after maybe 30 seconds she just dropped it. I just love her to pieces.

Liz

Liz, one of my best friends in the world, is in Africa right now working with Iris Ministries. I know that so many of our friends and family know and love her and so I wanted to post a few pictures of her that I recently received. I talked to her on the phone last week and it sounds like she is having an incredible time. She is coming to visit us for a while and I'm so looking forward to seeing her and hearing many stories about her trip. Dave, Kate, and I will be meeting her in Kolkata on Christmas Day. I'm so excited for her to come!

Happy Kate

Early Christmas

We will be traveling a lot in December and so I wanted to decorate our house early for Christmas so we could enjoy it a little longer. Yesterday while Kate was sleeping, I brought out our little Charlie Brown Christmas Tree and decorated it with lights and little ornaments. Its funny what joy simple things like decorating a Christmas tree can bring to your heart, and a tiny one at that.

Dave is still in Guwahati and will be there for two more weeks. He'll be home for a week and then we'll go to a Regional Conference that we have every three years. They're expecting about 300 people and it should be a good time of catching up with old friends. It will be Kate's first train ride so that'll definitley be an adventure for all of us. Then one of our friends is getting married in Nagaland and we are planning to go and be a part of that. On Christmas, one of my best friends Liz, is flying from Africa to Kolkata to meet us and so we will be picking her up at the airport and hanging out with her there for a few days before coming home. I am so looking forward to her coming her and spending time with us.

All that to say I'm decorating our home and playing Christmas carols now so that we can enjoy a touch of Christmas at home before all of our travels.

Update (Dave)

Dear Friends and Family Around the World,

Greetings from Guwahati, Assam. I'm currently here for six weeks for a training called Leadership Development Course (LDC). It is a YWAM training course designed specifically for growth in people who have been involved in leadership for 5 years or more. It is a great program, and I'm learning a lot. The mixture of people among the 35 students and 15 staff is amazing. There are students with more than 30 years of experience in YWAM and staff who oversee regions and nations within our organization. The humility of each one is truly challenging.

Many of you may have heard or read about bombings taking place here about two weeks ago. I'm used to writing about things that happen in India and then say that although it was in India it was very far away from where I was at that time. In this case, I was only a few miles away, I had no idea about it until some people called their friends here after seeing it on the news. Last weekend I walked past several shops that were gutted by one of the blasts in an area I have passed through many many times over the past 9 years. In total, there were around 9 blasts in the city and 18 throughout the state, which killed around 60 people. It is assumed to have been planned and carried out by an insurgent group demanding a separate state or country for their people. It was shocking to hear, and we continue to pray that God would heal the wounds of this area of the world.

I've also received e-mails from several of you regarding the situation in east and central India, particularly the state of Orissa. There has been an outbreak of persecution there due to the death of a Hindu leader. Although Maoists later claimed responsibility for the murder, there was a rumor that it had been carried out by Christians. Attacks on Christians became widespread, and the situation went completely out of control. Fanatics started organizing mobs and planning attacks, and thousands of people have had to flee and many have lost their homes and some even their lives.

I have never been to Orissa, and I don't personally know anyone who has been affected by the violence, but some YWAMers have been displaced and at least one YWAM family has lost their home that I have heard about. We got reports on different forums within India almost every day until the past few weeks. To be honest, it's hard to keep up with as the stories often overlap and I'm unfamiliar with the areas where it has happened. I did meet a few people who came from the areas and heard some of their stories. It is unimaginable. We've had prayer times in our base as well as many churches around our city are having prayer times often.

In our lives we are facing our own struggles, which pale by comparison to all that others are facing in the world around us. It was kind of hard at first for us to come down to Guwahati for this training (Summer didn't stay with me the whole time so that she could take better care of Kate, but it was a blessing to have her here with me for some of the time). This was the first time I've traveled to do a YWAM training since I did my DTS in L.A. in 1995. I did another school there in 1999, and two more in Shillong in 2003 and 2006. So I've had to adjust to community life again in some ways. Kate will be 7 months old on November 24th. Time sure goes by fast. She has had her first falls and bruises, but other parents assure us it's all normal. She is such a joy to us, and everywhere we go she attracts a lot of attention and people saying that she looks like a doll.

We want to thank you for continuing to stand with us and for all your gracious support in our lives. We love knowing that people are praying for us.

We would love to have prayer for continued protection over our lives, for good health, for breakthroughs in the staff and students in the Shillong base, and for clear direction for our next few months of ministry.

May God bless each of you in your journey with Him.

Sitting

Kate can sit now! I have to sit her up but once she is sitting she can sit by herself for a long time. She had one accident a couple of weeks ago as she was sitting, she fell forward and hit her head on the floor. It scared me pretty badly, as it was the first time that she was hurt and she got a little goose egg on her head. In Thailand they encourage you to put Tiger Balm on these sort of hurts and in India they put butter. We were really surprised about the butter, but one of our friends daughter fell and hit her head really badly and after they put butter on it and the bump went down really quickly, who knew? Now we are more careful and make sure that she has a soft surface to sit on in case she falls.

A friend recently posted this story on Facebook and it really touched my heart so I wanted to post it on here.

BETH MOORE'S HAIRBRUSH EXPERIENCE AT THE AIRPORT

(For those of you who do not know Beth Moore, she is an outstanding Bible teacher, writer of Bible studies, and is a married mother of two daughters.)

April 20, 2005 , at the Airport in Knoxville, waiting to board the plane, I had the Bible on my lap and was very intent upon what I was doing. I'd had a marvelous morning with the Lord. I say this because I want to tell you it is a scary thing to have the Spirit of God really working in you.

You could end up doing some things you never would have done otherwise. Life in the Spirit can be dangerous for a thousand reasons not the least of which is your ego.

I tried to keep from staring, but he was such a strange sight. Humped over in a wheelchair, he was skin and bones, dressed in clothes that obviously fit when he was at least twenty pounds heavier. His knees protruded from his trousers, and his shoulders looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt. His hands looked like tangled masses of veins and bones.

The strangest part of him was his hair and nails. Stringy, gray hair hung well over his shoulders and down part of his back. His fingernails were long, clean but strangely out of place on an old man.

I looked down at my Bible as fast as I could, discomfort burning my face. As I tried to imagine what his story might have been, I found myself wondering if I'd just had a Howard Hughes sighting. Then, I remembered that he was dead. So this man in the airport... an impersonator maybe? Was a camera on us somewhere? There I sat; trying to concentrate on the Word to keep from being concerned about a thin slice of humanity served up on a wheelchair only a few seats from me. All the while, my heart was growing more and more overwhelmed with a feeling for him.

Let's admit it. Curiosity is a heap more comfortable than true concern, and suddenly I was awash with aching emotion for this bizarre-looking old man.

I had walked with God long enough to see the handwriting on the wall. I've learned that when I begin to feel what God feels, something so contrary to my natural feelings, something dramatic is bound to happen. And it may be embarrassing.

I immediately began to resist because I could feel God working on my spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind. 'Oh, no, God, please, no.' I looked up at the ceiling as if I could stare straight through it into heaven and said, 'Don't make me witness to this man. Not right here and now. Please. I'll do anything. Put me on the same plane, but don't make me get up here and witness to this man in front of this gawking audience. Please, Lord!'

There I sat in the blue vinyl chair begging His Highness, 'Please don't make me witness to this man. Not now. I'll do it on the plane.' Then I heard it....'I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to brush his hair.'

The words were so clear, my heart leap into my throat, and my thoughts spun like a top. Do I witness to the man or brush his hair? No-brainier. I looked straight back up at the ceiling and said, 'God, as I live and breathe, I want you to know I am ready to witness to this man. I'm on this Lord. I'm your girl! You've never seen a woman witness to a man faster in your life. What difference does it make if his hair is a mess if he is not redeemed? I am going to witness to this man.'

Again as clearly as I've ever heard an audible word, God seemed to write this statement across the wall of my mind. 'That is not what I said, Beth. I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to go brush his hair.'

I looked up at God and quipped, 'I don't have a hairbrush. It's in my suitcase on the plane. How am I supposed to brush his hair without a hairbrush?' God was so insistent that I almost involuntarily began to walk toward him as these thoughts came to me from God's word: 'I will thoroughly furnish you unto all good works.' (2 Timothy 3:17)

I stumbled over to the wheelchair thinking I could use one myself. Even as I retell this story, my pulse quickens and I feel those same butterflies. I knelt down in front of the man and asked as demurely as possible, 'Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?'

He looked back at me and said, 'What did you say?'

'May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?'

To which he responded in volume ten, 'Little lady, if you expect me to hear you, you're going to have to talk louder than that.'

At this point, I took a deep breath and blurted out, 'SIR, MAY I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?' At which point every eye in the place darted right at me. I was the only thing in the room looking more peculiar than old Mr. Long Locks. Face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat, I watched him look up at me with absolute shock on his face, and say, 'If you really want to.'

Are you kidding? Of course I didn't want to. But God didn't seem interested in my personal preference right about then. He pressed on my heart until I could utter the words, 'Yes, sir, I would be pleased. But I have one little problem. I don't have a hairbrush.'

'I have one in my bag,' he responded.

I went around to the back of that wheelchair, and I got on my hands and knees and unzipped the stranger's old carry-on, hardly believing what I was doing. I stood up and started brushing the old man's hair. It was perfectly clean, but it was tangled and matted. I don't do many things well, but must admit I've had notable experience untangling knotted hair mothering two little girls. Like I'd done with either Amanda or Melissa in such a condition, I began brushing at the very bottom of the strands, remembering to take my time not to pull. A miraculous thing happened to me as I started brushing that old man's hair. Everybody else in the room disappeared. There was no one alive for those moments except that old man and me. I brushed and I brushed and I brushed until every tangle was out of that hair. I know this sounds so strange, but I've never felt that kind of love for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all my heart, I - for that few minutes - felt a portion of the very love of God. That He had overtaken my heart for a little while like someone renting a room and making Himself at home for a short while.

The emotions were so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God's. His hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant's.

I slipped the brush back in the bag and went around the chair to face him. I got back down on my knees, put my hands on his knee and said, 'Sir, do you know my Jesus?'

He said, 'Yes, I do'

Well, that figures, I thought.

He explained, 'I've known Him since I married my bride. She wouldn't marry me until I got to know the Savior.' He said, 'You see, the problem is, I haven't seen my bride in months. I've had open-heart surgery, and she's been too ill to come see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself, what a mess I must be for my bride.'

Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when we're completely unaware of the significance. This, on the other hand, was one of those rare encounters when I knew God had intervened in details only He could have known. It was a God moment, and I'll never forget it.

Our time came to board, and we were not on the same plane. I was deeply ashamed of how I'd acted earlier and would have been so proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.

I still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my things to board, the airline hostess returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, 'That old man's sitting on the plane, sobbing. Why did you do that? What made you do that?'

I said, 'Do you know Jesus? He can be the bossiest thing!'

And we got to share.

I learned something about God that day. He knows if you're exhausted, you're hungry, you're serving in the wrong place or it is time to move on but you feel too responsible to budge. He knows if you're hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you're sick or drowning under a wave of temptation. Or He knows if you just need your hair brushed. He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your need!

I got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat, wondering how many opportunities just like that one had I missed along the way ... all because I didn't want people to think I was strange. God didn't send me to that old man. He sent that old man to me.

John 1:14 'The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth'