April 6th, 2006

Houser's birthday was yesterday and we had a lot of fun with our friends here. We had a little birthday party in the afternoon and all of the staff and students at our base piled into our house and we had some cake, snacks, and tea. It was a good day.

Cricket is a big deal here in India. Every few years they will have a match in Guwahati (three hours from us) and it's quite an occasion. Houser and several of our staff are going to go this weekend and watch the cricket game. It's India vs. England and India has been beating them the past few games. There will be thousands of people there and so it will be quite an adventure. An average cricket game is around 7 hours and til today, I don't fully understand the game.

Houser's Birthday!

Tomorrow is Houser's 29th Birthday, hooray! We have several special things planned. Houser really loves smoked pork, as do the vast majority of our staff and students so we're buying some pork for tomorrow's lunch and making some other special things to go along with it. At tea time in the afternoon, everyone is going to come to our house for cake and some tea and we'll have a time of celebration. I even had fun making a cake today. Then we have plans to go out with the leadership team for dinner. I'll be sure to take some pictures.

We went to the bazaar today and we found these birthday flowers there. I'm really into flowers these days and since the other ones I planted outside became a little wilted, we bought some inside flowers to brighten up our house. I think I need to read a book or two on gardening. I just planted some seeds a few days ago and I keep looking carefully at the ground everyday to see if I can see any evidence of growth. It's kind of exciting.

Spring

Spring is here and it really does change everything. The weather has been warmer and so fresh. There are flowers everywhere and somehow it feels like everything is brand new. The sky even seems more blue. Houser came home safely from Siliguri and so for this past week we have been transitioning to life back in Shillong. We've met with our Hindi teacher and family one time and they were so happy to see us. Poonam called the day we were back and asked when we were going to come and visit. We really missed them as well.

I planted some flowers in our little yard. Some of them a friend gave to me and I just transplanted into our soil, and some were from seed packets. I'm very new to having a garden and it's a bit overwhelming. A couple of days ago we had a little bit of a storm and the wind was blowing like crazy and my newly planted flowers looked a little worn and sad. I'm hoping that they will be ok. I feel really responsible for them like they are a cat or dog or something. There is something so beautiful and refreshing about flowers.

It is so good to be back here and to not have to go anywhere for a while. There are only two more weeks left in the DTS and Houser is teaching the last week. I've been working on contacting people for the upcoming SOFM and just trying to get everything caught up in our house and lives. Beverley and I are going to start praying more together next week, I've been eagerly awaiting this time with great anticipation. Her and Sunny will be returning from their travels on Friday.

These days Hudson Taylor is one of my favorite heroes. He was a missionary doctor to China some time back and his life is an inspiration to many. He said "If I had a thousand lives, I'd give them all to China." My favorite quote this week that he said is, "Only one life will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last."

yaks

I have a roommate this week. A girl from Guwahati is here in Shillong for a seminar that is going on this week about counseling. She was staying at a hostel but said that the beds were too hard so she wanted to come and stay at our house. Houser has been gone all week teaching so it's nice to have someone to talk to. She is from Germany and is quite friendly.

Today my roommate and I were walking to the junction to catch a taxi. We waited there for a few minutes and a taxi drove by with a huge, dead pig in the back seat, all four legs sticking up in the air. Maybe two minutes later in the opposite direction a car drove by pulling a trailer with a dead, skinned cow in it, loosely covered by a tarp. Perhaps they were on the way to the meat market.
My friend from Germany said, "That's the sort of thing that makes you want to be a vegetarian."

It reminded me of this picture I had of a yak in China. Yaks are very important to many Tibetans. They will dry their meat and use it year round. They use their milk to make cheese and butter and even their hair to make coats and blankets. We saw many when we were in Shangri-la.

Rest

I had only been in Shillong for a couple of days when we left for Nagaland via overnight bus. We reached Dimapur at about 6:00 am and Houser was supposed to start teaching at 10:00 am.

I just went straight to our room and slept for a while. My heart was so weary and tired. Too much travelling this year, and my body and soul were in need of true rest. I woke up and started praying. I just kept thinking of Matt. 11 and decided to study rest in the Bible. I think that these were some of the best verses I found:

"Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." Matt. 11: 28-30

I love that Jesus said of Himself that He is gentle and humble in heart. He doesn't have to be. It's amazing that the God of all creation is gentle and humble and promises us rest when we come to Him. He promises rest for our souls. Rest for our souls. That's something that we can't buy, can't pretend. We can't earn it, and it doesn't even necessarily come with a vacation. In all of the busyness of life, in all of our comings and goings, and plans and strategies, we need rest for our souls. It's available to anyone, regardless of our history, or age, or race, if you are weary and burdened, you qualify. Rest.

We are back in Shillong and thankfully I have no plans in the near future to travel. Houser is going tomorrow to teach at another school, and so he has a couple more train rides ahead of him. I got sick again in Nagaland and saw a doctor there and found out I have dysentery. He gave me antibiotics and so I'm getting better now, just a little weak.

I'm so looking forward to the rest of this year. We have been doing a lot of prep work for the schools that we are running here later this year. This DTS lecture phase is finished April 17th, my Dad's Birthday. We are starting another DTS and an SOFM in July. We are for the first time hosting a School of Intercessory Prayer in October. There is great anticipation in my heart for what God is going to do in this city and region.

Beverley and I are going to spend more time in prayer, especially for the next three months, and I'm really excited about that. When Houser gets back we are going to continue all of our Hindi lessons. It was neat to see how much we had learned as we were travelling around. Far from fluent, but it was good to know more phrases and vocabulary.

"You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?"
Psalm 56:8

Manali

After our time in Delhi, which is the capital of India, we had a 15 hour bus ride to Manali. Manali is over 6,000 ft in elevation and is incredibly beautiful. It's a part of the Himalayas and so there were mountains and snow in every direction that we looked.

There is a YWAM Centre there and so we went to spend time with them and share our hearts and vision with them. For me it was one of the highlights of the trip. One of the ladies who had worked there the longest shared so many stories about what God is doing there. We even met and had tea with a new believer in her home. I almost started crying as she shared about her life and how as she has become to know Jesus more and more, the peace and joy that has come to her heart.

One of the leaders in the center was telling us about a story of a woman in the village who is a witch and she prophesied that the gods told her it was going to snow the entire month of January, every single day. One of the believers started praying fervently, asking God that it would not snow even one day in January, as a testimony of His power and truth. This was a crazy prayer because Manali is in the mountains and receives an ample amount of snow every winter. The people in the village heard that this other lady was praying to God, asking that it would not snow. All of January, this last year, it didn't snow even one day. The first of February there was a huge blizzard and so much snow came, but not one day in January. Because of this, many people in the village began to ask questions about the God that she served and began to see His power is stronger than that of the village witch.

It was so good to be able to spend time with these people. Their simple hearts and faith in God were such a blessing to be around. We stayed with them for a few days and got to pray with them and hear so many stories. Truly God is alive and moving in the nations of the world, revealing His kindness and beauty.

my favorite shoes

I think for the past 6 years plus, I have been wearing the same shoes and many people make fun of me. Especially here in India, when I am already a good foot or two taller than everyone else around. They are tall, black flipflops. The heel is probably somewhere between 3-4 inches tall and they are very comfortable. Since I always wear them, all the pants that I buy are several inches too long and so if I don't wear them then my pants drag on the floor.
In these past years, I've probably gone through 6 pairs of them at least, and yet I am hopelessly attached to them.
When we were in Manali, the only pair that I brought with me from the States broke and my heart was sad. Manali is a mountain place and somehow the strap fell off of the shoe. I had to go straight away and find something else to wear on my feet because with a broken strap, my shoe wouldn't stay on my foot. After I found some shoes, Bev and I found a shoe cobbler and he had some hope that he could repair it. First, he put some glue on the broken piece and connected it back to the shoe. After some time, he took a really long needle and sewed the two pieces together again. He fixed my shoe! So far it has been doing ok.

trains

We have spent literal days on trains this last week and they are quite a phenomenon. The train that we were on had 6 beds in one compartment. I think that the hardest thing about travelling on trains is that as foreigners, we are always of great entertainment to everyone around us. At one point, we had literally 5 different men sitting on a berth just staring at us. Sunny was joking that she felt like a monkey in a zoo.
Trains are a good form of transportation in India because they are quite inexpensive and there are so many trains going all of the time in so many different directions. It's highly advisable to have tickets or you can find yourself without a seat.
In between ministry times we tried to go to the Taj Mahal and we had to stand up for hours on this train. It was quite hilarious. We had been staying with a Korean family and the mother had prepared us some sushi to take along with us and so I'm sure we were quite a sight, some foreigners standing up eating sushi on the train. The Taj Mahal was well worth it, it was incredible.

together again

Houser picked me up last night at the train station, hooray. It was the longest that we had been apart since being engaged. Today is our nine month anniversary and we are happy.

We only have a couple more weeks of travelling and then we are finished. Truly, it feels so good to just be home. On Sunday night we have to leave again to go to Nagaland because Houser is teaching there for a week.

Spring is here in Shillong and it changes everything. Fresh leaves and flowers are springing up on the once dead tree limbs. There is something about Spring that brings fresh hope and life. I was walking down the street today and my heart was overflowing with thanks to God. I'm thankful to be here in Shillong, in this nation that I love, with my husband.

will write soon

So much has happened since my last post and I'm not even sure where to begin. Sunny, Beverley and I left Shillong last week for a ministry trip and we have been in a constant state of travel since then. We are running an SOFM in Shillong in July with a Tibetan Buddhist Focus. We are trying to meet with various bases and leaders in different places across India in order to build relationship and share our vision. We are hoping for at least 20 students to come. So far it has been really good and we have had great fun along the way.

Since we were in Delhi we all went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal since none of us had ever seen it. It was breathtakingly beautiful and well worth the journey. One of our rickshaw drivers gave us some bad information and so we ended up standing up on a train with tons of people for a couple of hours. It was funny. I have so many pictures and will post them later.

On our journey to Delhi, that same night, some bombs went off in Varanasi, which is one of the train stations that we passed through. The bombs went off between 6:30-6:45 pm and we went through the station somewhere between 10:00pm-12:00. Since then Delhi has been put on high alert and they have found a few bombs that were put in other places. Since we've been travelling, I'm not very sure of the motives and the sources of the bombers, but we are praying for this area and for great peace.

Seeing more of this nation has made me fall more and more in love with this place. I have never been to a more diverse, beautiful country. Everywhere we go we see great poverty and need also, so much injustice and pain and we are crying out for His mercy and love to flood this land. There will be no true peace until He comes and establishes His kingdom in this land.

I will write more later, I just wanted everyone to know that we are safe and doing well. I've gotten several e-mails asking if we are ok and if we were near Varanasi when the bombs went off. I just really miss my husband because this is the longest we've been apart since being married. I'll be returning to Shillong later next week.

home sweet home

We are home! We met with Beverley in Bangkok and had quite a journey getting here. Beverley was joking and saying that she felt like we were on the Amazing Race. They had cancelled our flight from Bangkok to India, and broke it up into two flights. They told us we were going to have to spend the night in Calcutta, but at the last minute they had us run to the next terminal and jump on a plane. It was a tiny plane with little propellers and had quite a bit of turbulence. Beverley said after landing, "Well, that was an experience and a half." But we have made it safely.

It is so good to be back in Shillong and sleeping in my own bed. We still have quite a bit of travellling to do this month, but for now we are home. It has been fun to show Beverley around and introduce her to all of our friends here.

I downloaded some pictures from our trip on the My Pictures link.

" O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance." Psalm 16:5-6

village dancing

A couple of the places that we went to, Shangri-la and Lijiang, had dances in the village square every night. It was so beautiful and the people are so welcoming. Without hesistation Houser jumped in to dance with the people. They blare the music really loud and they all gather around the fire in a big circle. There are many different dances and dance steps. Every time that I would just have one down they would switch to another dance that I didn't know. It's neat because there are people there from every age, and they all really get into it. It's a really big part of their culture and there is a large group gathered every night to take part in it.
The picture of Houser and I is taken in a bus that we took to Shangri-la. It was an overnight bus and had mattress sort of things that you could sleep on. So 5 of us were together in the back, kind of like sardines in a can. The hardest part is when it was super cold and 3 or 4 people are smoking in the bus with all of the windows shut. It was really neat to be able to lay down while travelling though and we got to see a lot of great beauty along the way.
Tomorrow we fly to Bangkok to meet Beverley, I'm so excited.

Tibetan family

One of the most meaningful times for us in China was spending time with a Kham Tibetan family in their home, drinking yak butter tea. Their hospitality and kindness was generous.They served us some butter tea and fresh yak cheese, as well as some sort of bread they make. They also served us some samba which is their staple diet. They add some barley to the tea and knead it for a while and then eat it. It reminded me of that cereal Sugar Smacks that I used to eat when I was a little girl. We sat in their home and enjoyed the warmth given by their fire. We have some friends that are working with them that can speak Chinese very well so we had some form of communication.
They are potato farmers and live very simple lives. They also owned a lot of yaks.

Peking Duck

Many Chinese tourists come to this certain place in Lijiang to eat duck. The head is usually reserved for the person whom you want to honor the most. In our case, no one really wanted to eat the head except Houser, and so we all laughed and watched as he ate the duck head. He poked the eyes out as well as the brains with chopsticks. The rest he just sort of chewed on.

Lijiang

Lijiang is an incredible town in China. There is a part of Lijiang called Gu Chhen (Old Town) that has incredible Nazi buildings and houses. All of the streets are full of red lanterns and there are small streams running down the streets full of beautiful fish. Lijiang is a big tourist town domestically for many of the Chinese. It's beautiful.
I was overwhelmed by the vast development in every city that we went to. I've always had a concept in my mind that China was mostly villages and perhaps a few backward cities, but I was wrong. The roads and infrastructure of China were amazing and far more advanced than anything I've seen in India. Every small city we went to had a supermarket and we even saw a KFC.
The other thing that was a bit overwhelming was the vast number of people walking down the streets. The combined population of India and China is over 1/3 of the world's population, over 2 billion people. I'm going to have to wait until we're back in India to post a bunch of pictures becasue of the computer situation, but they will definitely come. We will meet Beverley in Bangkok in a couple of days and then will be on our way back to India.

China

We have so many pictures and so many stories and I will try to post a bunch of them in the days to come. I couldn't write in China because of security reasons and so we are now safely back in Thailand. Our plane just came in earlier tonight. Our time there was packed full of many experiences and memories ranging from having yak butter tea in a Tibetan Village, to Houser eating duck brain with chopsticks.

One of the hardest things is that we dropped off some of our best friends fom the NE there and tried to help them look for a house and get adjusted. Obviously we couldn't help much with translation, but we wanted to be with them.

Communication was a big problem because hardly anyone speaks English. We often found ourselves wanting to speak Hindi because somehow in our minds it's what we speak when people don't understand us. One of the funniest things was that Houser got his widow's peak shaved off on accident because the barber thought he didn't want it. We hardly know any Mandarin at all, pretty much, thank you, and hello.

When we first got to China, the taxi driver brought us to a place to eat and the entire menu was in Chinese. Well we were in China, but we were hoping for a little English, or at least some pictures. Houser finally resorted to flapping his wings like a chicken to show that we wanted some chicken. Then we got up and looked what was on other people's plates and pointed to that. We were a source of great entertainment there for everyone and laughed a lot. We met some of our Chinese friends later that night and so for the rest of the trip we had excellent translation.

It was an incredible time and I don't know even where to begin describing it. Again, I will post many pictures soon.

stuck

I think that yesterday was the hardest that I've laughed in weeks. I was running a little late to a meeting we had and I quickly jogged to the elevator. Houser was already upstairs and I was supposed to meet him. I got in the elevator right after a Thai man and the doors closed behind us. Little did I know that I wouldn't see them open for a long time.
So, the elevator goes up two floors and for some odd reason the door doesn't open as it should. We frantically press all of the buttons, but to no avail. I just start laughing like crazy. SOme people when they get nervous or scared, fiddle with their hands, some get angry or start talking too much, I laugh. The poor Thai guy is just looking at me like I'm a little crazy and then he starts laughing too. He finally pushes the help button and has a long conversation in Thai with the operator. We wait for about 5 minutes before we hear anyone coming for help. Five minutes isn't a long time in normal circumstances, but at this point we're sweating a little and the Thai guy is telling me he's supposed to be at the airport in half and hour.
So the people come and we see their flash lights and hear some noises outside. Really, it felt like we were in some sort of movie. Then a couple of them try to pry the doors open with their hands. I start laughing really loud with great strength of heart. My sister gets embarassed of me sometimes when we're out in public together because I laugh too loud. This would have been one of those times.
We hear all sorts of banging noises and the elevator falls a couple of inches. The poor Thai guy and I just look at each other with big eyes. I was just thinking, I have no way to tell anyone that I'm in here. The Thai guy has a cell phone, but I don't even have any way to call anyone, no numbers. So the kind rescuers outside are diligently working to free us. About 20 minutes later, we feel the elevator moving slowly and hope fills our hearts, well at least mine. Sure enough the elevator is working again and we were saved. It took another 15 minutes to find Houser though becasue he was worried becasue I was supposed to meet him much earlier and went out to try and find me.
After the meeting, we went out for coffee with our friend Sunny, and two of our friends who are going to China. This coffee shop is brand new and beautiful, it was about 10:00 pm at night. Our friend Sunny is hilarious and so much fun to be around. She truly has the heart of a child. She was running ahead of us and and suddenly we all heard this loud "thwack," and saw Sunny crumple to the floor. This place had glass doors and for some reason she didn't see them and ran straight into the door. We all start laughing so loudly that tears were filling our eyes and our stomachs hurt. She said that she was looking at the beautiful coffee mugs inside and didn't see the door because it was so clean. The guy couldn't even take our order properly because he was laughing so hard. We told them to maybe keep the doors a little more dirty so that people wouldn't get hurt. The whole night we could hardly talk about anything else because it was too funny.
So last evening was filled with great laughter.

Monks in Thailand and Valentine's Day

Buddhist monks here are considered holy beings. Woman are not ever to touch them or even to try to give or pass anything to them with their hands. If a monk wants to sit on the bus and he happens to sit by a woman, the woman must vacate her seat and move to another place. It's very interesting because the monks in NE India are very approachable. Often we have had tea with them and asked them questions, even bringing them gifts or biscuits.

Yesterday was our first Valentine's Day as a married couple and we had a nice Mediterranean Dinner. Yep. There's this tiny little restaurant here called Jerusalem Falafel owned and operated by this neat lady from Jerusalem. The food was incredible, the best I've had in months. We ordered a dish that came with 5 different dips. Hummus, babaghanoush (sp?), tzatziki (sp?), actually, I just better stop now. I'm not really sure how to spell or properly communicate what we had, but it was delicious and full of garlic. We thought it was quite incredible to find a restaurant with this kind of food in Thailand, of all places, but it was nice.

Our days are packed with activities and friends and they are flying by so quickly. We are leaving on Saturday to go to China and we are excited for the next leg of our journey. John Dawson, the President of YWAM, is here and it has been good to hear what is on his heart. He shared last night about the importance of love being lived out. He was talking about how for love to be real, it must reach it's destination. Sometimes we are in love with the idea of love, but to truly live it and breathe it in the midst of real, flawed people is difficult. He was talking about how we all say that we love people and we have all of these nice thoughts in our head, and it is vital that we share it with those people and let them know and feel it. Whether they be friends, family, people that we may minister to, or whoever, we must live out love. Love must reach it's destination and not just dwell inside our own minds and hearts. We all need love and encouragement, so we should give it liberally to all that are in our sphere of influence. Everyone thrives off of kindness and affection and we shouldn't hold back because of fear or rejection, small fights, and jealousies. Life is too short, relationships are too important, we need to forget about ourselves and love with fierceness those who are around us.

Pineapples

Somehow, for all of my life I thought that pineapples grew on trees like bananas and coconuts. They grow on the ground. That's such a mystery to me.

Our conference starts tomorrow and so day by day we have been seeing more and more familiar faces. Sunny and I were in a market yesterday when we ran into some old friends from India that aren't even here for the conference. They took us out to dinner tonight to this place where you pick and grill your own meat at your table. So it's a sort of buffet, but a huge portion of it it raw meat and fish and vegetables. At each table they have some small grills and you put your meat on there to cook it. There were all sorts of interesting things that we had never seen or tasted. It was fun.

everything new

I've never been to Thailand before and so I'm constantly overwhelmed by a deluge of new sights, smells, and sounds. This place is incredible and unlike any other that I've ever been. Actually, I'm really at a loss to explain it. Chiang Mai is a big city and it has a lot of western influence such as a couple of shopping malls and yet it is distinctively Asian. We went to a mall yesterday and they were selling dried worms, locusts and quail eggs for snacks, and yet on the next floor was a cosmetic store. The Night Bazaar is one of my favorite places here. It opens in the late afternoon and stays open until about midnight. You can buy all sorts of Thai things there as well as flowers, fruits, and traditional jewelry; it's full of mystery and beauty. There are so many people there every night from all over the world. The aisles are really tiny and crowded and you hear people speaking in languages from every continent. It is a tremendously international sort of place.

Today we have finally met a bunch of our friends from the Northeast and though we haven't seen them in over 2 years, it was like we had just seen them. We had a meeting for several hours and caught up with each other. There was about 13 of us. The big conference starts this weekend and we are all looking forward to it.

I'm also learning a lot about teeth these days. The dentists here have been very helpful and kind. They've taken x-rays and have found out that the root canal that I had done in Shillong was not good and so they drilled out the old filling there and are re-doing the root canal therapy. One root canal is already not very fun, but two on the same tooth is a little disheartening. But it is actually really good news because I won't need a crown after all.

So we are in Thailand and very much enjoying this time.