Ganges River

This is an excerpt from Lonely Planet's India, regarding the Ganges River:
"The Ganges River, or Great Mother as it is known to the Hindus, provides millions of Indians with an important link to their spirituality. Every day about 60,000 people go down to the Varanasi ghats to take a holy dip along a 7 km stretch of the river. Along this same stretch, 30 large sewers are continuosly discharging into the river.

The Ganges River is so heavily polluted at Varanasi that the water is septic- no dissolved oxygen exists. The statistics get worse. Samples from the river show the water has 1.5 million faecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml of water. In water that is safe for bathing this figure should be less than 500! "

It's the craziest thing being here in Varanasi and seeing literally hundreds of people bathing and swimming in this water. Hindus believe that it will wash away all of their sins, that it is truly holy. Millions of hindus come here every year on pilgrimage to bathe themselves in the Ganga and to pray. But with 30 sewers being pumped into it continually, the ashes from the burning ghats ( where they cremate dead bodies) being thrown in, not to mention dead babies, trash, and all manner of other things, it seems far from holy. People also drink the water. We watched yesterday as a mother poured some into her hand and gave some of the "holy" water for her child to drink, then she drank some herself. Our hearts break for these people and we have been praying like crazy that God would reveal His kindness to them and fill their hearts with His love and truth.

mercy

I've been thinking a lot lately about the vast mercy of God and it has been the greatest resting place for my heart. I love His mercy. On this trip I've been reading portions from Tozer's "The Knowledge of the Holy," and his chapter on God's mercy has touched me deeply...

"When through the blood of the everlasting covenant we children of the shadows reach at last our home in the light, we shall have a thousand strings to our harps, but the sweetest may well be the one tuned to sound forth most perfectly the mercy of God."

One of my favorite meditations about Jesus these days has been about Him and the women caught in adultery. Some people brought her to Him as she was caught in the very act and deserving to be stoned to death as the law commanded. Jesus could have done and said anything. I love His heart displayed. So there she was, guilty, humiliated, full of shame, and face to face with Jesus. In her place of shame, He showed the kindest mercy. He could have easily had her stoned. He could have used her as a public example and hurt her deeply by denouncing her life and actions in front of the crowd. But in this place of vulnerability, He gave her a way out. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

He possesses all power, created the heavens and the earth, and He is full of mercy and lovingkindness. So many of us are in the place of this woman caught in adultery over and over again. Maybe not as publicly, but we find ourselves broken, hurting, condemned by our own hearts and others, guilty, full of pain and rejection. His heart is the same now, He does not condemn us, but calls us to Arise and choose life and truth. It's only because of His mercies that we are not consumed. Sometimes in my mind I feel like His love is going to come to an end, that He searches the deepest places of my heart and is disappointed, that I'll never fully be who He wants me to be. I feel as though somehow I can exhaust the limits of His mercy towards me. But it's impossible because His mercy is not something that He can take on and off like a jacket. It's such an intricate part of His very nature and character, His innermost being. He is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. Mercy exists because He is merciful.
He doesn't give us what we deserve but looks on us with great compassion and understands that we are but dust. Truly there is no other god in this world that offers this mercy and love. There are millions of 'gods' and multitudes of religions in this world, but there is only one God that freely lavishes us with love.

"Mercy never began to be, but from eternity was; So it will never cease to be. It will never be more since it is in itself infinite; and it will never be less because the infinite cannot suffer dimunition. Nothing that has occurred or will occurr in heaven or earth or hell can change the tender mercies of our God. Forever His mercy stands, a boundless, overwhelming immensity of divine pity and compassion." -Tozer

Noah

Here is a picture of my nephew when he was 11 days old (he's about two weeks now). It's the weirdest thing that I can have so much love in my heart for this little baby that I have never held or seen in person. I love him and I want so badly just to hold him for a while. Family is so important and a precious gift to us in this life.

Airport

We love the Bangkok airport because there are all sorts of interesting things to look at and Houser especially loves the Burger King there where he can get a whopper with real beef in it. A lot of places here in India will have hamburgers on the menu, but usually it's some kind of chicken meat, or ham, and more often than not, he's seriously disappointed. It makes sense actually, it's called a hamburger, why do we make it with beef?

We've spent so many hours in this airport waiting for connecting flights and the time usually goes by so quickly. We took this picture of cigarettes because it's the kind of advertising that causes a second glance. All of the boxes had the most bizarre pictures on them: rotting teeth and gums, black lungs, fathers holding children smoking, it was the oddest thing. As we walked on, they were selling whole cartons of cigarettes with big black letters on it that says
"Smoking Kills." I'm not very sure why they did all of this, but it is really hard to picture someone coming up and buying a pack with a picture of some black, decaying lungs on it. It doesn't seem like a very good advertising scheme, true as it may be.

We're back in Shillong safely, and as ever, it's so good to be home.

Laos

We were in Laos for about twenty minutes and so there aren't a lot of tales to tell. It was incredibly warm, humid, and green. We saw a small village there and got to see a few shops, so we looked around, prayed a little, and then got in our boat back to Thailand. They had hundreds of bottles of some sort of alcohol with cobras and different snakes as well as scorpions, and all manner of weird things. Our guide took a swig from a huge glass jar, with a cobra and several other dead reptiles sort of floating around inside, and graciously offered us some as well. Needless to say, we kindly declined.

Golden Triangle

A few days ago we went on a trip to the Golden Triangle which is about 4 hours away from Chiang Mai. It's a really neat place as three countries intersect there: Thailand, Burma (Myanmar), and Laos. We felt like true world travellers that day as we ventured to two new countries in a couple of hours time.
Actually we took a little boat across the river (hence the bright red life jackets) and all of a sudden we were no longer in Thailand, but had crossed the boundary into Laos. We only had about 20 minutes there so we looked around a little bit, and had to take the boat back across the river. As we were on the boat, the guide pointed up a bit, and said, "That's Burma country." So after lunch, we crossed the Burma border, prayed a bit, and then came back to Thailand. We were in the sun for hours that day and both got a little sunburned, but we had a good time. Again, it's so neat to see with our eyes places that we have prayed for for years. You can imagine that the landscape and weather didn't change much from country to country as we just ventured a few miles, but it was neat.

one year

We had a really good anniversary yesterday. Wow, one year. This is a picture of us at our favorite restaurant in Chiang Mai, a place called "The Dukes."
They have all sorts of beef and meat things, which makes Houser really happy and on Tuesday nights they have Mexican food, which I really love. We'll be leaving tomorrow morning for India and have really enjoyed our time here. By Tuesday, we should be safely home. We are really looking forward to this next season of life as a DTS starts in about a week and a half and an SOFM in one month. We will have over 50 people at our base then and somehow it's always more exciting when we have a larger group.

Today is Sunday, June 18th, Father's Day, and we want to wish our Father's the happiest of days.

Our First Year (by Houser)

My wife has been asking me for a long time to write a blog (she says it’s other people who have been asking her), and today I thought that seemed like a good idea:


Today, June 17th, marks our one year anniversary of being married. This year has really gone by so quickly and it has been so full. In that time, we have traveled through many places and time zones, and spent time with lots of friends and family literally all over the world. I'm sure we've changed a lot too, probably without always knowing it or feeling.

I suppose that there is no use in trying to explain all that we’ve done in the past year or where all we have been. My wife does such a good job of keeping everyone up to date. I guess we should just say quickly that this year has been full of travel (I wish I could calculate the mileage, but I guess lots of people would find such information ridiculous anyway), full of challenges, full of great and interesting people, and full of great blessings from God Himself.

I’m privileged to have such a great wife. I like to point to our wedding pictures and tell her “that was the day I became the most fortunate person in the world”. It was a beautiful day, and a celebration of God giving such a great gift to me.

Life is so precious and goes by so quickly. We’ve been told too often (and believed too easily) that “life is cheap” or that our lives don’t matter. But each life is important and precious, and we are grateful for our lives together.

I guess I should also admit that since I watched the movie “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” that I have been plowing through the 7 Chronicles of Narnia books that I got here in Chiang Mai at a used bookstore. I think it affects my ability to write sentences in the way I normally would. C.S. Lewis certainly had a way with words, and the books are a great treasure, but his style is definitely way different than mine (normally). But because I’ve been reading so much of them these days I find myself saying silly things to my wife in a fake half-accent that is supposed to sound like 1950’s British English. Anyway, the point is that I recommend the books for their terrific descriptions and allegories, and I apologize if anyone was reading this blog and thinking “that seems the oddest of fare the way in which he has just described a year’s worth of happiness in such simple terms”.

I guess that’s all for today. I hope all of you are doing well. May God bless you.

Chiang Mai

So we have safely reached Thailand and we have already had many adventures together.

This city is such a mystery because in so many ways it is incredibly developed and has many stores and facilities not available to us in the Northeast. But it's definitely Thailand with it's plethora of monks, golden temples, polite culture, and incredible food. We were walking down the street the other day at night and there were a couple of people walking with an elephant that had a blinking red light on it's tail so that cars and bikes wouldn't hit it. They were taking collections on behalf of the elephant as elephants are highly revered and respected here. At most all of the houses and businesses here they have little houses outside for their "gods." They're really ornate with bright gold and jewels and they often leave food there for them as well.

It has been good to relax here for a bit and get a lot more dental work done. I feel like I want to make a commercial on behalf of good dental hygiene. There were about 7-8 years where I didn't go do the dentist and I'm definitely having serious repercussions now. This time I've had to get a root canal and a crown done on a back tooth and it's been incredibly painful. I've been to the dentist nealy every day that we've been here. They did the root canal in two days which is incredible compared to the couple of months it took to go through the process in India. They're doing the crown now and today I was sitting in the chair praying real hard. I was thinking about heaven and it being a place where there is no more sorrow, no more pain, and how God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. In heaven, there are no root canals, I'm sure of it.

We're going on a drive tomorrow to a place called the Golden Triangle where Thailand, Laos, and Burma meet. Houser has long dreamed of going to Burma and we're excited to actually see it as it's a place we have often prayed for. We'll be sure to take lots of pictures and post them within the next couple of days. Even though we had to leave India for visa purposes, we're thankful for this time to see beautiful things, eat good food, take hot showers, and get our teeth take care of. (Houser had his cleaned and checked, no trace of a cavity, lucky guy.)

Noah Glen

On Thursday, June 6th, Noah Glen was born. My sister had been writing to me for over a week telling me she's drinking castor oil and desperately waiting for this baby to come. He was 9 lbs and 9 ounces and I wish I were thousands of miles closer so that I could hold him.

I think that as I am becoming older, I'm also becoming more sentimental and I wanted to cry real hard when I got these pictures and so I want to proudly show them off.

Thailand

We have to leave the country every 6 months for visa purposes and as we looked at our calendar and plans for the rest of this year, we decided that this was the best time to go. It is good because I have to get more work done on my teeth and Thailand is the best place near us for that. Also in about a week we will be celebrating our one year anniversary and we will be in Thailand for that as well. Time has gone by so quickly, it's hard to believe that last time this year we were getting ready for the wedding. Houser can get a steak there with real beef, which he really appreciates, and so we are planning to go out for a nice dinner there to celebrate the special day. It's really good to go there because we can get many things like Listerine, cooking spices, and all manner of things that we can't find here. There are real hot showers too. There's nothing like a hot shower when you haven't had one for months.

We leave tomorrow and will be gone for about a week and a half. After that we still have some more travelling to do this month, but by mid-July, we will be finished and won't be leaving Shillong until December. This is good as well because there is a certain weariness in my heart from so many travels. I get a bit depressed sometimes thinking about packing yet again and living out of a suticase for a while. But I am very thankful as well, we have had some really neat opportunities this year and have met some incredible people. Plus I have really come to love travelling with Houser. He really does take care of all of the planning and carries my suitcase, and the time goes by so much more quickly when we get to talk and laugh along the way together. I love to be married and am deeply thankful for my husband.

"Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage...They go from strength to strength until each one appears before God in Zion." Ps. 84:5&7

Global Day of Prayer

Yesterday was the Global Day of Prayer and there was quite a turn out in Shillong. We were trying to figure out how many people were there and we guessed somewhere between 1500-2000. The neat thing was there was quite a variety of people from many different churches and denominations. It was really interesting how they organized it and we were really encouraged by the whole thing. They shared about how it started in South Africa and from there spread to other regions in Africa. After a couple of years it has spread to the whole world as people have come to recognize their need for God and His mercy in our land.

They had a time of worship and some different groups did tribal dances, singing praises in their own languages. There were quite a few tribes represented, and they were dressed in their traditional clothing. They asked different leaders in the city to lead us in prayer for different things like the city, the nation, and for other countries. It was amazing.

One of their key verses was 2 Ch. 7:14- "If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves and forsake their evil ways, then I shall hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land."

After the prayer was finished, everyone broke up into groups and walked through different portions of Shillong, praying for the different localities.

"That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord and there is no other." Is. 45:6

paper dosa

Dosas are from South India and are very interesting. I tricked Beverley one night when we went out to get something to eat. I ordered a snack and a dosa and Beverely was very concerned that I wasn't going to have enough to eat and I told her, don't worry, just trust me. Then when the dosa came out we both started laughing really hard, because it was so huge. You eat it with some coconut chutney and some sambar, which is a sort of soup. You can order it with masala and potatoes inside, but this one was plain. We couldn't finish it because it was so overwhelmingly large, but it was fun and delicious.

Tiger Hill

Tiger Hill is supposed to be one of the most beautiful sites in India. Multitudes of Indians and foreigners alike stream to the site before dawn to see the sunset rise over Mt. Everest (just 107 miles away) and Kanchenjunga (the third highest mountain in the world). The sun is supposed to be like a bright fireball, turning these huge mountains orange in it's rising beauty. So it's kind of like an Indian Grand Canyon, only different.

So we got up at 3 something in the morning as we're supposed to go in a jeep with others at about 3:45 to see this wonder. We get up and are transported from one jeep to another and take the 10 km ride to Tiger Hill. We waited and waited with the multitudes of others there but unfortunately as the sun rose, fog deeply covered the mountains and we saw nothing. It turned out that Bev and I ended up being a great source of entertainment to the disappointed travellers as we were the only foreigners there. We were quite disappointed because both of us had never seen Mt. Everest and we were quite looking forward to it.

After that we had some really good tea and breakfast at a neat little bakery in the heart of the town. Later that afternoon we had to take a serious nap since we woke up so early. We saw so many beautiful places and people there.

darjeeling

Bev and I spent a couple of days last week in Darjeeling and it was really unlike any place that I've been before. There are a large population of Tibetans there because many chose it as a place of refuge as they fled China. It is very much a tourist destination and there were so many foreigners there. Worldwide, Darjeeling is known for it's tea and we saw multitudes of tea gardens on the hills. It is quite lovely. It's quite high in the mountains and covered in dense fog. We had a hard time looking very far as the fog covered all the surrounding mountainsides.

Houser had a leadership meeting nearby and so we met up with him later and had several meetings in a nearby city. It seems like so long ago that all of this happened and we have travelled so much in these past few days. We have safely reached Shillong and have a couple of days here before leaving again. Houser was requested to give the sermon this morning at church and then we participated in the Global Day of Prayer here in Shillong this afternoon.

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.