Daughters in India . . .

Danielle's painted nails.  In my day, I thought they were supposed to be all the same color!

Trying to get unnoticed in community!

Nafisa and I finally dusted off and played with Lincoln Logs today! One of my fav childhood toys!

Sarah has come!

At the beginning of September, Sarah, Danielle's cousin from upper-state NY came for a few months. This Sunday was a celebration of culture at our church...so the girls got all decked-out!

 Yes, that's D's cell phone in her hand. She doesn't go anywhere without it!

 Now we know where all that sand in the house came from! Our complex is doing an addition to the garden...if there's a pile of dirt, Nafisa is not too far from it!

 Friends learning how to share The story with colors!

 Chalk board paint and the back board of a frame + Danielle's creativity and walla!

The Girls

Merrilea, Danielle and Nafisa go every other Saturday to Santvana's children's home.  In this pic, Merrilea is giving Bibles to girls who memorized 6 verses word-perfect and the books of the OT in order.

Barrista coffee shop on MG Road for relax in the A/C!

A little bit of August and September

Our apartment complex getting a well dug for drinking water! It started bringing up real dirty cement dust then rock dust for quite a while.... 22 pipes - about 120 meters down. Our patios were REALLY dusty after that but it was worth the education. Not sure who decided to dig it on the side of the parking lot.... ;-(

 At an NCF Family Picnic...lots of fun with friends  - short and tall!

A MonDay in the Life....

I get up at 7ish, wash up and make coffee, turn on some instrumental music and have my devos. 

By 9, Danielle has gotten up, washed up and had breakfast.  Nafisa follows her slowly and we gather together for a short devo to start our day. 

I leave at 9:20am to a coffee shop to meet with 2 other men for accountability.

By 10, Nafisa is hard at work doing homeschooling with Merrilea. Danielle also hits the books by 9:30ish

By noon, I’m back to prep for meetings and trainings for the week.

We either fend for ourselves for lunch if Merrilea goes to visit a local gal at her beauty salon for a few hours… they have a prayer meeting and Bible study, or Merrilea has lunch prepped … could be simple sandwiches to stew or spaghetti to some tasty Indian cuisine.

Nafisa usually spends the afternoon out with her friends playing in our apartment complex playground… then spends two hours with our next door neighbor learning Hindi. She doesn’t understand much yet but her pronunciation is awesome!

We usually eat at the Indian traditional time between 7-9pm. Danielle has been having a computer graphics class most evenings from 7-9pm as well. Thus, she usually does not eat supper with us.

Currently, our table is out on the terrace but so are the boxes…boxes of things we still have to go through to give away or organize. We moved into a smaller apartment in April so we’re still trying to get things worked out…while not slowing down our work load. ;-)   Hopefully by the time our niece Sarah comes this month we’ll have more things worked out so we can use our table!

Nafisa usually heads to bed around 9…lights out at 9:30. Merrilea and I turn in around 10-11ish depending on what's going on that week. Thankfully, we are located in a much more pleasant area a block away from major traffic. Much more peaceful. We hear birds! For the last 6 years it's been major traffic, donkeys and dogs!The telephone and internet connectivity is not as good ... but it's give-and-take. 

This pic was taken a month after the first one.... the product of rain! Lots of it!