Christmas Continued...

Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope that your weekend was a great! We had a great Christmas weekend! It was very busy, but we had a lot fun. I just wanted to post some more pictures of the weekend.

Christmas eve we went and hung out with J&K&K. We had a great afternoon, eating junk food, listening to Christmas music, and playing with the baby. It's always fun to hang out with their family!

That night we headed home and around 9:30, the two families we work with came over and stayed the night. We ate more junk food and watched movies. Alicia and I also opened up our gifts from America. Woohoo! Its was fun and we got some fun goodies. I got 15 DVDS! Yes, I'll plenty of things to watch for quite some time! I loved them!

We stayed up really late, but of course, all the kids were all up early to open gifts. We opened gifts, sang some songs, and had breakfast together. Mona, Ericka, and Juma also came over to exchange gifts. Everyone left around 1 o'clock, and in classic Christmas day style, our house looked like a tornado had hit it. You all know that look of paper and stuff all over the place. I've loved it though, because that is exactly like it always looks at home! It was fun to have kids around on Christmas morning!

We didn't get to clean up that afternoon, because we were quickly off to our next Christmas event. We all had another party for people that live in in lower income areas. It was supposed to begin at 4, but of course, as most Indian functions, it didn't begin until 5:30. lol. But no one cared, because most people didn't get there until that time or later. It is amazing what things you get used to living here. All of our English students came along with about 50 or so other people. There was a program that included singing (our students sang "Joy to the World), dancing, and a Christmas play presented by the children who attend the slum school. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and we ended with another large meal. It was a great night with friends celebrating the birth of Jesus.

Merry Christmas to you all!

I will be leaving the county for a couple of weeks to attend a retreat and then to go on vacation. This will be the last post for awhile. Happy New Year!

First Christmas

I've written about how I'm spending Christmas with people who are celebrating Christmas for the first time. That reminds me of someone else who is celebrating their first Christmas. I would like for you to meet my newest family member. Meet Emma Kate!



Emma Kate was born in November to my cousin Sherry and Jason. She had a difficult first few weeks, but after alot of prayer, wonderful doctors, and an operation, she is doing great! I haven't got to meet her yet, but am anxiously awaiting the day that I do! Congratulations Sherry and Jason! She is beautiful!

More Deliveries

Today a courier came to my door. It was some fun stuff for Christmas from my family! Flowers and cookies! Thanks! I love deliveries! I think that is my new simple joy, especially ones from India, because you never know what your going to get. These pretty, and of course, they had a slight Indian touch. If you look at the white flowers, you'll notice that there is something on them. That is purple sparkly paint, or maybe nail polish. The bottom leaves are also painted silver.

Anita's Family Christmas

Today we had Christmas with Anita's family. We had all of our children over for some party food and gifts. They were excited as always. They are precious children. It was so much fun to share Christmas with them for the first time. We bought all the kids warm winter outfits and bought a large warm blanket for their family. I love buying gifts, so I struggle with wanting to go overboard. I wanted to buy them tons of toys and other stuff, just because they don't have much. Unfortunately, culturally, it wasn't appropriate, so we just stuck with things they really needed. I really just wish I could spoil all those kids. They loved everything though. Even the wrapping paper, they handled with the utmost care and didn't want to tear it. It was great to share that with them. I think the pictures tell it all.

And once again, Santa hats are great!

Party at B603!

Last night we had a Christmas party for all of our neighbors. We had a great time and I think all of our guest did too. The coolest thing is that this was the first time that most of them had ever celebrated Christmas. Alicia and I shared with them, that since we weren't at home with our families for Christmas, we wanted to celebrate with them, because they are our family in India. Overall, we had about 40 people! It was great. It was honor to introduce Christmas to our friends. We celebrated in American and Indian style. The evening began with everyone receiving a santa hat when they entered as part of a game. The game didn't work out that great, but everyone loved wearing the hats. They also made great pictures! Alicia found the idea for the santa hat game on the Internet and I loved it so much I went out and bought 50 hats. lol. Just a warning for the future: From now on, any Christmas party I host, will require everyone wearing santa hats. :)




Our friends helped us with the program. We celebrated how we normally would. We had song sheets and sang the familiar Christmas carols and some Hindi songs. We then had the Christmas story, but instead of just telling it or reading it, our guests had active parts in it and acted it out. It was great! It was amazing to watch all of our Indian friends as they acted out the greatest story ever told. I think it was also the first time for many people to hear the story. They really got into it, and we discovered that some of them aren't very bad actors.



Our friends did a great job of bringing out the meaning of Christmas throughout the evening. To end the night, our friends shared about Jesus being the light of the world and how the love of Jesus is shared from one person to the next. We then passed out candles and they were lit person to person as we sang in the dark. Then everyone took their candles and put them out on our balcony so that people would see the light coming from our apartment.



Like any Indian function, the evening ended with a full Indian meal. Luckily, we have an amazing helper, Anita. We could not have done it without her! She worked all day long. She helped us clean, get dressed, and cooked all the food. She is such a blessing to us! She is also an amazing cook. Everyone raved about how delicious her food was.





Everyone left happy and full. They all seemed to really enjoy themselves, and expressed their gratitude over and over again. We just felt so honored that they would share our special time with us. Hopefully, they heard things last night that they will never forget. As they left, we gave them a small ornament to remind them of the evening and the story they heard.

After everyone left, (which was really late) Alicia and I opened the gifts we had received. When you visit people here on special occasion, it is customary to bring a gift. We had a lot of people at the party so we ended up with alot of gifts. The gifts we often recieve can be quite interesting. We received a very wide range. It was great though. Alicia and I had a blast!




After we opened everything, Alicia and I couldn't help but to just stop and give thanks. We have been so blessed by being here. The holidays can be a difficult time to be away from home, but we have been so blessed with amazing times with people here. As much as I would love to be home for Christmas, I can't imagine not being here. There are days when I don't really know why I'm here. But then again, there are times like last night, when I celebrated Christmas with 40 people who had never celebrated in the past. That is when I know that right now, there is no where else I'm supposed to be.

Christmas Has Begun

Christmas is in full swing here. We have been going non-stop and have had a blast. I just wanted to show some pictures of all our holiday fun. The fun began Wednesday night and Thursday when we babysat 5 kids for our friends. We watched Christmas movies and made sugar cookies. We had a little trouble with the sugar cookies, and our little oven broke. It was still fun though.




On Thursday we also had a small Christmas party with our English students. It wasn't anything elaborate but it was just fun to hang out with them. We told them the Christmas story and about how we celebrate Christmas. We sang some Christmas songs, and of course, they danced. We also gave them each their own "Book." They were all excited and handled them very carefully.

After class we went to dinner at one of our students house. We've been there one time before, and they are always so nice. They stuff us with food that is typical of their village, and of course, we got out our camera and took pictures. When communication is limited, taking pictures helps to fill the sometimes awkward silence. We had a great time though. We are excited because father of the family is now going to play the dolic (Indian drum) for the Christmas party on Monday.

This is our students Soni helping her mom make dinner.
This is Alicia and I eating the special meal they prepared for us.
This is the Jha family.

I Am My Father's Child...

Something sad happened tonight. Alicia's computer acted crazy and gave her the black screen of death (or in other words, it crashed). This caused a mild panic, because our computers are a very integral part of lives. Of course, I did what I always do when I have a problem, I called my Dad. It is amazing what he has fixed for me from the other side of the world. :) Unfortunately, Alicia's hard drive crashed, so he wasn't able to fix it. However, we did make quite an effort to assess the situation. Following his detailed instructions, I took out Alicia's hard drive, and removed my external hard drive from the case. I then put her hard drive in my case to see if the hard drive would work. It didn't work, so we knew her hard drive was bad. However, the whole process was sort of fun, because I was taking apart all this stuff, and if you had just been watching, you would thought that I actually knew what I was doing (which couldn't have been further from the truth). I sort of felt like Jennifer Garner from Alias. Except for the fact that the world world's existence wasn't dependant upon my correct assembling. :) I felt adventuresome nonetheless. I even wore an alias...Can anyone guess what my alias was? Hint... I was an inanimate object. lol

Santa Claus Came to Town

The postman has been really busy lately. It seems that Alicia and I have been getting packages almost everyday. We've had alot of fun! I'll have to admit that I couldn't wait to open all of them. I'm worse than a kid. lol. I did save some for Christmas though. Thanks!


<

What a Weirdo

Alicia tagged me in her blog several months ago. In the blog she had to describe 9 weird things about herself because her friend had tagged her. So, now its my turn. Here they are. Here are a few of my quirks, but trust me there are many more. :)

1. I don't like chocolate.

2. I prefer to eat cereal out of a large plastic cup than a bowl. I also like certain cereals better soggy.

3. I have a strong aversion to the font "Comic Sans MS." I just don't like.

4. I prefer to eat ice cream out of cone. Its more fun that way. However, I don't like eating the cone. Therefore, I ask for a straw and dip the ice cream out of the cone.

5. For as long as I remember, I always have to have a glass of water to take to bed with me. If I wake up and want water and don’t have any, I almost go into panic.

6.I love maps. A fun day for me would to drop me off in a strange city with a map and tell me to get somewhere.

7.I sometimes have a very passionate (okay maybe obsessive) personality about somethings. I get on these kicks about certain things, normally food, and then one day, just drop them. Here are some examples. For about 2 months I was obsessed with these doughnuts and ice cream that they have at a local coffee shop. I then just got tired of them and haven’t had them since. Then I moved onto strawberry popsicles for another month. Then when the weather turned cooler, I just had to have chairs for my balcony, so I had to go out immediately to buy them. (See earlier blog post).

8. I hate the fact that passport control never stamps your passport within the nice squares drawn on the pages. They just stamp it anywhere without regards to the lines. I don’t know why but that really bothers me, and I am sometimes tempted to ask them to stamp it nicely. However, I never have because I don’t want them to not let me into the country.

9. If I am playing cards and the cards have a design on them, I have to rotate the cards so the design is the same direction. It bothers me if they aren't.

Now its your turn... What are some of your quirks?

Out and About

I live in one of the oldest living cities in the world, so needless to say, there is alot of history. Every conqueror did his best to possess this city and make it his capital. This city is not a single city but a combination of eight cities that have been established here from as early as 900 BC to 1930 when the British completed the construction of the current city capital of imperial India. I really like history, but I haven't spent much time exploring the sites. Since it is now cool weather, Alicia and I plan to change that. We are going to try to take somem time and do some exploring. Our first exploration was to a place that was a very quaint shopping area. It almost felt like somewhere in Europe. The odd thing was once you went to the end of the street, you run right into these huge ruins of an old fort or something. I haven't read up on it, but it was so cool. It was just in an open park area, and was really nice. Here are some pictures. Hopefully, this will be one of many excursions.

Girls' Night

Tonight we had a Christmas party with the single girls in our city. We always have fun when we are with them. We ate alot of food, had a shawl gift exchange, and took alot of pictures of course. Here are some of the fun ones...







These girls are great!

End of a Season

Sadly, our softball seaon has come to an end. We had our final tournament this past Sunday. Unfortuanately, we lost the tournament, but we still were League Champions for the season. It was alot of fun for Alicia and I. There are the ladies we had the pleasure of playing with. They are quite an interesting group, but they were great!

How many of me are there in the US?

Several of my friends had this on their blog. See how many people have your same name in the US.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 17 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?