My Husband, the skinhead

This is my husband yesterday:

And this is my husband today:

Notice I am not smiling in the second photo.
Jordan

It's official: We're adopting!!!

We met our little girl yesterday. Her name is Ellie and she is almost a year old. Who wouldn't fall in love with these big brown eyes and sweet smile? I think she looks a bit more like Jody than she does myself...she has his hair! Now we just have to child proof the house!

He is Risen!

This is our Easter Picture, on the way to church Sunday. We had a wonderful breakfast with the team before the service. Jody made pork sausage so that we could have sausage biscuits and they were amazing! I made a breakfast casserole and Holly cookies along with chai tea. We spent the afternoon visiting with friends in their home. It made it easier to be away from family to know that we had friends here who filled that role of "family" for us today. We hope that you had a blessed easter as well.

On the lookout

As our season of language learning comes to a close at the end of March, we have spent most of our weekends over the past two months looking for houses in the villages of Boomyah. We have found a few houses that we like, but have yet to find a house that we like in a village where we can communicate. You see the Boomyah people have a caste system divided into low, middle and high and each caste has their own language. The majority of the people are in the middle caste and speak the middle language, so that is what we have been studying. We had hoped to move to the eastern region of the Boomyah people but are now realizing that many villages there speak the high language which is the language of the royal family and the language of the priests. We are wrestling with the idea of continuing in this direction and having to learn our third language since we arrived here 15 months ago or moving to an area in a different Boomyah area where we could communicate. Would you join us in asking Him to reveal Himself and His plans to us for our future? This is the volcano that can be seen from almost anywhere in the eastern region. The local hindus think that it is a holy place and bow in this direction as they pray each day.

Temple time

While many of your neighbors are beginning to enjoy their spring, mine continue to celebrate the new year in their hindu temples. I wanted to cry as I watched my friends march down the street and disappear into the temple near our house. I thought about how meaningless their lives are. They try in vain to get the attention of gods who do not respond to them. These are pictures of the people I know and love. To you they are just pretty pictures, but each one of these precious souls is loved but a God that they do not yet know. Join me in asking Him to reveal Himself so that they might understand.

New Years Eve

On the eve of a new year here, we are asking Father to open the eyes of our friends and neighbors to who He is.

A Boomyah New Year

By now most of you in the western world have both feet firmly planted in 2008. Other cultures, however, celebrate the turn of the new year after January 1. China, for instance, rang in their new year on February 7. The Boomyah are eagerly anticipating their new year celebration on March 7. This week they cleaned out their temples, taking all of the instruments of worship to the beach for a ceremonial cleansing by a hindu priest. They met at the town temple and walked together as a community the 1/2 mile to the beach. Thousands of Boomyah people showed up wearing their traditional clothes.

They walked with their friends.

And their families.

To meet at the beach and pray together.

With the masks and costumes that represent their gods spread before them.