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.

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.