Pics from Merrilea and Maria's trip to Delhi and Agra

Maria, Merrilea and Waheyda went to Delhi by train from Pune. Actually, their train was canceled out of Pune due to some other train hitting two buffalo. So, they hopped on a bus to Mumbai and then a train.

They went to a wedding in Delhi and then headed to Agra to the Taj Mahal and back. It was fun and exhausting. The train ride alone to Delhi is over 24 hours (one way)!

Day in the Life of .....

JOSEPH

Joseph gets up between 7 to 9 AM daily. Currently he's sick, so he sometimes wakes up real early...or real late. He lays in bed for an hour so, gets up and immediately starts school work (though he may not finish it before dark!). We've been depending on him to do 3 loads of laundry in the mornings as we loose water from 2-4pm. Currently, our Whirlpool washing machine is needing to be serviced. We called on a Monday. The service man came on Thursday and will hopefully return on Friday with the replacement parts (all on our service contract). Joseph usually handles these visits, too.

He loves to take breaks from school work to listen to Down Gilead's Lane and Adventures in Odyssey. Sometimes he's grounded from using the computer based on the status of his homework, so if you're interested in chatting with him on Yahoo Messenger (ID: usontheflipside5 ) and he doesn't, it may mean he can't!

Joseph enjoys earning money and making Coffee Jar deliveries (best coffee shop this side of the Ganges River!) The shop doesn't pay him to do it but friends of our do!

He's got a low-watt green night-light in his room. We catch him often reading pretty late. For his birthday a friend gave him the Eragon novels. They are great! He's got a trunk-load of Legos he's saved through the years or bought off other friends. Thanks to Oma (Bill's mom), Joseph will soon be getting a bike as his old one was stolen 2 months ago.

We've really grown the depend on Joseph for loads of stuff around here. He does lots of local purchasing (household needs from toilet paper to butter, cheese to laundry detergent) and when the fix-it man shoes up, Joseph becomes the supervisor. I enjoy hearing him speak in Hinglish with the local shop keepers and vendors!!! He also does his share in taking care of Nafisa. Some nights, she even sleeps in his room. I think he does more than most 13 year olds his age here. We are grateful for his help!!!

Day in the Life of . . .

Nafisa

She usually sleeps with Danielle and Maria in their bedroom. Maria's got the top bunk, Danielle and Nafisa share the bottom, though it was not always that way. Nafisa usually wakes up after the other girls. Maria tries to get up early to do her devotions with Brio Magazine. By the time most everyone else is up K-Love Radio is and we are eating breakfast.

Since Nafisa is allergic to wheat and dairy products, she usually has yogurt, oatmeal or rice and yogurt which is one of her favorites. Once a week Maria takes her to 'Toddler Time' which is a bunch of moms and toddlers giving a creative play time to kids Nafisa's age. We host it from time to time at our house. Nafisa usually has the reign of the house while home school is going on. One of us will usually take her outside for a walk in the park or to the grocery store. She LOVES getting out. When she sees one of us putting our shoes on, she says "You going out? I go out, too?"

When guests come over, she'll have fun walking around the house in their shoes. She loves to dress up and to get her finger and toe nails painted by Maria and Danielle. She loves getting her hard in pony tails. She'll daily watch a sign-language video called Sign-A-Lot and ancient VHS Sesame Street episodes about the alphabet and counting.

Hopefully she'll take a nap at some point and then regain enough stamina for the rest of the day. Can you believe she rarely falls asleep before 10pm!

She still keeps us smiling and laughing with her eager and happy demeanor. She's got her days, though. Sometimes I wonder who can whine louder, her or Danielle... :-)

Have you ever had a Gola?

This week we went to an annual home-show in our city with our friends, Mark and Aimee. I never did find a few items we needed but we sure had fun! There, we saw the "Gola walla" ('Gola man') quickly spotted with his big ice grinder and colorful syrup bottles. It's one of Merrilea's and Maria's favorite Indian cold snacks. It's basically ground ice on a stick, drenched with a sweet, flavored syrup! Below's Maria eating a Mango Gola.

I found a great article written by an Indian about the Golas. I think you'd enjoy reading it:
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/966094

Life at the House

We’ve just said ‘goodbye’ to 2 college students who were staying in our home. They left on Friday the 14^th of Sept. for an apartment of their own. We are meeting with them regularly as they continue working in community, teaching ESL classes and learning language and culture. That means Maria and Danielle have their room back to themselves...with Nafisa of course.

Merrilea has been sick for a few days so missed a few language classes this week. Joseph took Danielle to class so she wouldn’t miss them. The class is only 10 minutes away and they both enjoy getting out of the house.

This is the time in India when festivals are all over the place. Muslims are fasting during the day and have special stalls set up at night for varying good foods. Hindus are currently celebrating a 10 day festival for their god Ganesh along with a mixture of other festivals around this time. Lights and colors are everywhere.

On top of that, we are in the tail end of the monsoon season. Yesterday it rained the whole day. Lots of water accumulated on the streets around our apartment. I’m very glad we have a car. 2 years ago, we simply got wet! This evening I can hear the frogs chirping out the window in the park.

Dance Class

Two to three days a week for the last few months Danielle and Maria have been attending a dance class. Recently they’ve taken up tap dance as well…and for homework they had to review some of the dance steps from “Singing in the Rain.” What's ironic is the class had to change locations as the place they were meeting at got flooded due to rains!

Nafisa enjoys spending some time with them as well! It’s quite a sight to see Nafisa do a split!

I’ve just come off of a long training time and am exhausted. Regretfully, I missed a friend’s birthday last night as I went to bed early. I’m feeling a bit better now, though.

In other news, our 2 college girls, Sarah and Chassidy, are hitting it hard, learning language and teaching English as a second language to several local women. They are keeping very busy.

J's Birthday!

On Saturday evening (August 25), we had a bunch of people over till 11. It was great! Lots of games, fun and food (Chilli and corn bread thanks to Merrilea, Sara and Chassiday!!!) Joseph really enjoyed his birthday part as did everyone else who came!

Here's most of us hanging out after eating Joseph's R2D2 cake. (Thanks Sarah! It looked GREAT!!!)
We had to hunt around to 5 different shops to get icing sugar for it!
The 4 people in the left most part of the picture are our new team members. Boy are we ever glad they are all here. By the way, that's not me in the right side of the picture...that's a friend from Texas!


Joseph and his cake. I don't think we ever sang the song in tune but we sure had fun.

We REALLY had fun with helium balloons. I'm not sure how much helium is healthy to inhale ... maybe we all have some dead brain cells because of it! :-)

What Happens on a Sleepover....

Our friends have gone out of town so we are having their daughters as guests for a week. What do you think they do with our girls?....

FACIALS!!!! Quite interesting...even for Nafisa!

Facials...cucumbers on the eyes....


A mixture of oatmeal, apples and some other stuff makes for smelly concoction!



Whose having the most fun?

A Day in the Life - August '07

Joseph (Alias "J", "Joe" , "Guiseppe") with Merrilea


YUCK - Youth Under Christ the King,
Saturday evening August 18 in our living room).

Playing UNO with friends at an engagement party for friends....


More games at that party

Nafisa couldn't get enough of Connect Four!


New bunny from Oma! Came Saturday the 18th! Thanks Oma!


Our friends: Shine and Janina - engagement party!

The Terrace

Sometimes you may just get in your car and drive to a special place to relax. For me (Bill) back in the US in Massachusetts during my young adult years, that would have been the Blue Hills or Wampatuck State Park or just getting onto I-95 and cruzing up to New Hampshipre to get on the Kancamagus Highway in the White Mountains and back. In Wyoming, that would have been a day trip to Sheridan or the hot springs. When we are in Pennsylvania with Merrilea's mom and dad, for me it's driving through the hills to Amish country and purchasing some of their GREAT cheese!

Here, it takes a bit longer to get places. 45 kilometers (28 miles) may take an hour or more. We've gone to some 'hill stations' - low mountains to the west of our city. There's one place that is known throughout our state for strawberries.

Sometimes, if we just want to 'get away' we sit on our bedroom patio, here called a terrace. It's a small area but it overlooks that park and the mountains to the south of our city. We get a really good breeze there as well. ... So make a cup of hazelnut coffee, take a Bible or another family member and just sit for a while!

At the Park + College Interns

Joseph and Maria and Bill took Nafisa and Sofy to the park this week when it wasn't raining.


Sofia (Sofy) is Nafisa's best friend. Her mom and dad own the coffee shop we go to - Coffee Jar. It's got the best coffee in town!

They really enjoyed the rides and the other stuff.


On Friday we gained another two team members for 6 months! Chassidy and Sarah arrived from Southwest Baptist University in Missouri. We promptly put them on an Amazing Race Pune to become confident moving in community, riding several rickshaws to various places of interest around the city. They then went with Merrilea to visit some of her friends.

Our kids went out to their youth group this evening, so Nafisa and I spent some time together joking and playing.

Maria's Real B Day

By her desk with new, special layered hair-dew!

Singing around the banana cream pie!
Maria and her hot air!

Tonight we enjoyed the company of some friends and celebrating Maria's real birthday. Maria even got her hair cut for this special day.

Maria's 14th Birthday Party

Maria and FriendsWith Meesha
Singing and Cutting the Cake.
We sang..."How do you solve a problem like Maria...!
An Indian tradition we keep with vigor!

New Arrivals and what a week!

This last week we welcomed our new colleagues, Mark and Aimee from Oklahoma! They got their feet wet in riding rickshaws and eating spicy foods. It’s great to have them here. It’s fun to see them experience the very same things with similar reactions we had all those years ago when we first arrived. The start of a new adventure....

Our kids seem to be extremely busy in extra-curricular fun with their friends. There's ballet for Maria and Danielle, guitar and cricket for Joseph - even the laborers in the construction site enjoyed his game. (see pictures). It’s NOT raining heavily every day now, so it’s great to have this cooler weather…in the upper 70’s most days. Danielle’s school teacher has been sick most of this last week, so she’s not accomplished that much this week. I know she doesn’t mind.

Maria turns 14 on Tuesday (24^th). This Sunday night we’ll have a party after our house church meeting.

Back Home in Pune

We made it back to Pune all in once piece, even with an overweight piece of exercise equipment! We didn't know if it'd make it onto the plane nor through customs here but it did. Merrilea and I are already using it! We'll let you know how the weight loss/exercise regiment is going. When electricity is out and no water is available (as water is not available right now...nor was it most of the day for that matter) it makes regular exercise a challenge. It just adds to the list of excuses. Now, we have no excuse for not exercising! We just met with our church tonight and my accountability partner is among our house church membership so we agreed to a fixed schedule...if we don't work out 3x per week minimum of 30 minutes each time, we'd owe each other 500 Rupees (roughly $15) each time we miss.

Sounds like a good plan!

Regarding the water problems, apparently the water pump to our apartment complex is out so for the last week we've had random water cuts. I'm grateful for buckets! The weather is cooler...it's been in the upper 70's now. It's been very comfortable even with the daily rains.

More as the week unfolds.
Bill for the family

Photos in Thailand

With the Youth


Covered in Shaving Cream!






Note: Danielle's chipped upper tooth! While at a waterfall on a family outing, Danielle fell on rocks...ouch!

Within a day the dentists here had it fixed so you couldn't tell the difference!!!


At an orphanage where they youth scrapped and painted some playground equipment!





Maria with friends in a 'Sung-Tao' taxi-truck


Nafisa with John!



Going Paint-Balling!