We're Off!

This month is going to be very busy as we're traveling a great deal and will be away from Shillong most of the time. We are leaving here today for West Bengal. Every three years we have a Regional Conference where we all get together, pray and worship, try to hear what God is speaking to our region, and have some encouraging speakers come and minister to us. They are expecting 300-400 people and so its a big deal to all of our staff. Right after that we are taking all of our staff for our first ever Staff Retreat. Dave really wants for us to seek God as a base together and to spend time in worship and evaluation. We also wanted to bless our staff as many of them have really been so faithful and poured out their lives for this place. There are some really small horses that you can ride and so our staff can do that too. We are hoping to strengthen, encourage, and build morale in our people.

Then one of Dave's close friends Aphrezo is getting married in Nagaland and Dave is trying to decide if he can go to that as well on the 22nd. Then December 24th, my friend Liz is coming, hooray hooray!!!! All three of us will fly down to Kolkata to meet her and pick her up and then we will get to celebrate Christmas with her there. I'm so excited for that. We are looking forward to showing her around and introducing her to our life here.

We are not sure about internet access along the way, so we will try to keep in touch, but not sure how often it will be. Happy December!

This will be Kate's first train ride!

The Whistler

Dave and Kate


Auntie Sunny gave Kate a new hairstyle.


Kate and her Bunny Whistle

Sunny gave Kate a little bunny whistle a few days ago and it has become her new favorite toy. It has little white ears and she loves to chew on them. She was sitting on the floor a couple of days ago playing with her toys and Dave was in the next room doing something. I was writing an e-mail and all of a sudden I hear a loud, shrill whistle and look over and Kate's eyes were very big and surpised and she burst into deep laughter. We were so surprised that she had actually blown the whistle. Again today she was playing with it and blew the whistle again. It's probably accidental, but every time it happens it makes us laugh really hard.

Aphrezo and Sylvia

Aphrezo and Sylvia met in Mongolia and they will be getting married December 22nd in Nagaland. Dave has known Aphrezo for 6 years and he used to be on staff here with us. He's been a very good friend to both of us and we really appreciate him a great deal. We were very excited to meet Sylvia since they were planning to get married soon. She stayed in our house for a few days and it was very nice to spend time with both of them and hear about life in Mongolia. We are very happy for them and hoping to be able to go to their wedding later this month.

An interesting fact about Mongolia: There is central heating for the whole city and a date is fixed when the heat will be turned on and when it will be turned off, regardless of the weather. There are times when the whole city is longing for it to be turned on as the weather is very cold, and other times when the heat is still running and they have to wear shorts and tank tops because the weather outside is very hot.