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.

Luke and Chloe

Yesterday my sister called me and it was so good to talk to her on the phone. My nephew Luke is getting so big and it made me so happy to talk to him. He's a baseball star. He talked to me on the phone and told me that he has the snuffles and that he's going to hit the ball hard and run real, real far at his baseball game.

minestrone and sushi

Bev and Sunny came over to our house yesterday to make dinner. I lived with Beverley in California for about 6 months and I never saw her cook a thing. So she's promised since she came here to make us dinner. She said that minestrone is her specialty and so I went with her yesterday to the vegetable market and we bought all the things she needed. It took about three hours to make it but it was delicious. We were going to invite the girl staff over and so she made tons of it. Last night we barely made a dent in it and so we'll be enjoying it for the next week or so.

Sunny is from South Korea and she makes incredible food. Last night she made sushi but put egg and cheese in it instead of fish. It was really good. So we had some international cuisine last night with our international family here.

We haven't had another rat in our house for days. Maybe there was just a family of 6, and we caught them all.

tea

The MA team left on Friday to go on outreach and so our base is quite quiet again. The next group we have are coming next Saturday and there are 35 of them total, so it's a big group. This last Thursday we had tea in our house and had a good time with all the MA participants and our staff.

On Friday, Bev and I wanted to go on a prayer walk so we walked up to the Tibetan Buddhist Monastery. We joked around that we are training for Base Camp, because Bev has always wanted to climb Mt. Everest, and the monastery is quite a hike up in the hills. We are already over 6,000 ft, and there are parts of Shillong that are bit higher than that. She had never seen this sort of monastery before and we talked with the monks for a little while. The cook and one other monk served us tea and tried to talk to us, but they speak only Tibetan and a little Hindi. There are 13 that live there full time and every morning they spend hours in prayer. They have hundreds of prayer flags hanging in the trees and on lines and they believe that every time the wind moves the flags, that the prayers are released into the air.

flip flops

Bev and I went again today to the orphanage in the afternoon. We always have so much fun there. Today we split the group in two and played games with them and then read them books. I hadn't played Duck-duck-goose in such a long time or Ring around the rosies. I found myself searching through my mind trying to think of games that I played years ago so that I could somehow entertain them. I think that it is good for the heart to play with little children. They are so easily satisfied and entertained. They don't have a tv or even lots of toys laying around, so they always play games with each other. One child today asked Beverley how many brothers and sisters she had. After she answered, the child was suprised and with pride said I have 83. It really seems as if they see each other as brothers and sisters, they are so precious.

The other thing that surprised me is that they all share everything. Even their shoes are community property. While we were playing games a bunch of them took off their flip flops and then when we were finished, they all put on different shoes. It's impossible to tell them apart because they are all simple white and blue flip flops, just different sizes. So sometimes the last one to get to the pile of shoes doesn't get any.

It really must be rat season because in this last week we've caught 6. It's ridiculous. It's true that they really like cheese, all over the world. One day we ran out of cheese and used butter, and that night we didn't catch any. They're becoming very bold these days and just run into our house as if they are a welcome guest. Somehow I feel a little guilty killing all of them. I remember growing up, my sister had a hamster and we paid $80 dollars for a vet to put an IV in him when he became dehydrated because of wet tail. That seems like so long ago and worlds away from here. Now Houser and I run excitedly to the kitchen in the morning to see if we caught anything in the night.

We have 12 people here right now doing Mission Adventures and so Houser has been really busy teaching. They'll leave here on Friday to go on outreach. Both Houser and I have been asked to share at a Youth Conference tomorrow and so we'll be waking up pretty early as it's over an hour away. I'm supposed to share about prayer and he's supposed to share about missions. It's a neat opportunity because usually we're asked to share separately at different events and so it will be good to finally share together.

We woke up again this morning and there was yet another rat caught, I'll try not to post any more graphic pictures though. We had no idea that we had that many guests in our house at night. When we were sharing it with our staff, our friend said that he has caught 6 so far.

So many different things have been going on this last week and this next one is quite full with Mission Adventures. We are expecting participants to arrive on Monday.

There are a large group of Americans here on an outreach from Florida. It's a bit overwhelming because we haven't seen so many "foreigners" in such a long time and to walk into a room with 18 Americans is a bit shocking. There are 18 of them and they are from various places in the States, even one girl from Lancaster County. It's the neatest thing because even though we have never met them before, we feel an instant connection and love because we are from the same family. The same thing happens as we meet other believers from different tribes and countries. Somehow, we connect heart to heart and have a love and understanding that breaks through languages and cultures.

caught

Just a quick update that we have already caught two mice/rats within 24 hours. We set traps up last night after the rodent invaded our home. When we woke up, I checked the traps and we had caught one.

Just now, tonight, we were in the living room and we heard a loud snap. We went and checked and another one had been caught. It's the weirdest thing because normally they don't come inside when the lights are on, but the past couple of days they have been coming in while we are still awake. Houser said it's maybe because of the change of seasons.

Staff training for MA is going on right now and Houser has been involved with that and orientating the new staff that have come. Bev and I are spending our days studying and praying and then sharing with the students at the Discipleship School of Ministry in the afternoons. We are having such a good time with them. We leave every day encouraged.

cheese

Is it really true that mice like cheese, or is that just on cartoons? We had an invader in our house tonight and we aren't quite sure if it's a full grown mouse or a young rat. He ran quickly into our living room and I saw a brown blur in the corner of my eye. I screamed like a girl because it frightened me and said "Houser, there's a mouse!" It kept running and then hid behind our couch. Houser said he didn't want to kill it and I said "Please, do something!"

They're so small and harmless, but somehow still they are quite unnerving. I didn't want the mouse/rat to leave the room so I guarded the door while Houser went to find some sort of weapon. He returned with a shoe. He told me to move away from the door and after a minute or two, the mouse/rat scurried through the door into the kitchen. Houser aimed and threw the shoe down hard, but the mouse/rat escaped back through the hole that it came in through. We have a small hole in our kitchen where the water from the sink drains out.

Occasionally we will see some rat droppings and figured that they come and play in our kitchen in the night but we have never seen one in our house. So tonight we set some rat traps to see if it returns. We put some cheese on the traps and it made me wonder, do they really like cheese? I guess we'll find out soon enough.

exciting times

So many neat things have been going on this last week. This last weekend they were celebrating a revival that happened here in Meghalaya 100 years ago and a church here invited me to come and speak and lead a prayer time. As I was preparing to share with them I was studying the history of revival here and it was so inspiring and encouraging. A group of people had gotten together to pray because they heard that exciting things were going on in the world (the Welsh Revival). The book I was reading said that they had a longing in their heart for God and a desperation because of their own powerlessness in sharing the gospel and reaching out to those who don't know Jesus. So they started praying. There was a meeting that was held and thousands of people came and had incredible encounters with God.

Suddenly, normal lay people in the church started going out on the streets and sharing the gospel with people and in 2 years over 8000 people were saved. They said that there was incredible unity within the church, people were getting out of debt and becoming generous, and there was a new hunger to share the gospel with the unreached. The thing that encouraged me was that it was normal people, like you and me, who started praying and the results were like those in the book of Acts as lives were changed and localities were changed.

So we had a neat time of prayer that night, asking for God to come and move again within this city and the surrounding regions. Beverley and I were asked to share with a group of youth this week in a training program and it has been good. There are somewhere between 30-40 of them and they are from different states within northeast India. We are mostly sharing about prayer and trying to instill a love for God and hunger for His word. It has been challenging and fun.

Last night 4 new people arrived who are going to be on staff with us now. We are starting Mission Adventures again this Monday and running it three times this month. It's a ten day program with 4 days of training and 6 days of outreach and ministry. So our base is full of activity and preparation for this month to come. We have been praying so much that God would do great things and we feel like we can see glimmers of answered prayers. It's really an exciting time.

orphanage

On Saturday Beverley and I went to a local orphanage to spend time with the children. Beverley really has a heart for orphans and so we wanted to see if there are ways that we can help out there. This particular orphanage is mostly Khasi and only for girls. There are about 74 girls there right now ranging from ages 4 to 16.

It was really funny because we didn't have any program prepared, we just wanted to meet them and find out if there were ways that we could help. However it was a rainy day and so they had all of the girls inside. They really wanted us to share some stories or teach them some new songs and so we sang with them and I told the story of David and Goliath. I had a volunteer, the tallest girl, stand on a chair and be Goliath. Another tiny girl was David and everyone was laughing really hard. Beverley and our friend Ayophy shared some things as well. Those little girls are so precious, I cannot even properly explain.

We found out that we can come and play with them on Saturdays and on the weekdays we can come in the afternoon to help them with their studies. So especially for the next couple of months we hope to go there a couple of times a week.

easter eggs

All over the world, Easter is celebrated with Easter eggs. My Grandma sent me a package with some Easter goodies in it, and so here is a picture with Bev and some candy easter eggs that she sent. My nephew Luke is holding an easter egg that he made for his brother Noah. My sister is 8 months pregnant and so Noah isn't even born yet, but we are all anxiously awaiting his arrival.

We went to church yesterday on Easter Sunday and they gave us boiled, colored Easter eggs. I was really surprised that they would do that here. My friend Sunny was sharing that in South Korea, they also hand out Easter eggs at the church services symbolizing new life. So it seems to be a worldwide phenomenon.

Today, April 17th, is a great day. It is my Dad's Birthday and our ten month anniversary. One of our friends was making fun of us because we count our anniversary monthly. Maybe we'll stop counting after we hit the one-year mark, but to us, it's a big deal.

The DTS is leaving for outreach today and so our base will be quiet for a couple of weeks until Mission Adventures starts.