November

As you've probably noticed, I haven't blogged in a while. For those who check my blog I apologize, but I am going to try to make up for that right now. So here is what has been going on this month and here are the pictures I've promised several people. This will probably the longest post ever. :)

The second week in November we were blessed with another volunteer group from Mississippi. Its always fun to be around people from home!



Then the day after they left, I went to Nepal with my friend Lindsey.



We went to babysit some kids for some friends of ours.



We also got to hang out with some friends and play board games (I love games!)



Then of course, we got to do some sightseeing. Nepal is beautiful! It was so nice to be in open air! Here is Kathmandu Valley. As you can see, its still South Asia and still pretty crowded. It was still refreshing though.



Here is the large Buddhist Temple that overlooks the city.





These are the prayer wheels people spin to send their prayers upwards.



These are prayer flags. Each one of them also represents prayers.



It is also known as the monkey temple. (Have I ever mentioned how I don't like monkeys :))





Here are some good friends that hosted us for a weekend.



We took a mountain flight to Mt. Everest. It was incredible! Mt. Everest is the one in the center on the left.







As soon as I returned from Nepal, we headed to a training outside of our city.





The training went well and finished just before lunch on Thanksgiving. Alicia and I jumped on the metro (This is monumental, because usually the metro serves no purpose for us, but that day it did) and made it back to the city just in time for the American Thanksgiving - complete with tons of food (we had 15 whole chickens instead of turkey),flag football, and recorded NFL from this past fall. The only thing missing was the after-thanksgiving sales.







There were quite a few people there, evidenced by the massive amounts of shoes.



Alicia and I are trying to follow as many of our holiday traditions as possible. So Thanksgiving weekend, it was time to decorate for Christmas. Indians think this is so weird because don't decorate or celebrate anything until a few days before. I love Christmas and all that goes along with it, so I had a blast. However, I was forced to do something I always said I wouldn't. I had to buy a fake tree. I am a strong believer in getting a real Christmas tree... no exceptions. Things here are a little different here. There isn't exactly Christmas tree farms around here to go get a real one. I was shocked that they even sold the fake ones. For this one year, I will have a fake tree, but never again :) It turned out nice though. Our apartment feels like Christmas, which makes me smile :)





So that wraps up the month of November. Welcome December! Welcome Christmas! Live this Christmas season to the fullest!

Kids and Kathmandu

This week I am in Nepal babysitting kids while their parents on in a conference. We have just made it through our second full day with 9 kids. I'm a little tired, but its been good. Kids are just funny. Especially these kids. Throughout the day, interesting things are said. Especially because they are all American kids who live in Asia. These quotes made me laugh:

"Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, called America...." (I said this, it just made me laugh, because to these kids it was true.)

The following quote was one of the older kids trying to bribe the 4-year-old into wearing a hat:
"Zane, if you wear that hat, it will make you look 6!"

I'm sure more stories will follow.

Observations


The picture above is a very common sight around here. Mahatma Gandhi is very revered and these signs are scene throughout the city. Everytime I see this, it makes me stop and think. I do believe it is true. There is no religion higher than the Truth. Truth is Truth whatever form it takes and is higher than any man-made religion we can come up with. The problem comes in when the Truth is distorted. Thats just it though - when you get right down to it, distroted truth is just a lie. People throughout the world are buying into lies everyday.

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free..." Jn. 8:32

Last Week Happenings

This past week was pretty busy and I haven't had time to post. I did want to include a few pics. Ericka turned 5 last Thursday. There was a big party with tons of food. It was alot of fun and the kids were really cute. Here are a couple of pics.

Pic of the Week

For the past few weeks we have had a team of 3 couples from Germany working with us. They were were great fun! They all rotated staying with us, and all stayed with us toward the end. It was great to laugh with them and just let them experience our world for a bit. Unfortunately, they ALL got sick for several days, but they were all troopers. Because of sickness, protests in the city, and tons of other random occurances, their schedule had to be re-arranged constantly. They still just rolled with the punches. For fun, we taught them to play spoons and introduced them to sweet tea (which they liked). It is my goal to introduce the entire world to sweet tea. :) Here are our new friends from Germany and they get the pic of the week.