Leaving India

Hi friends, sorry that I haven't posted anything real for a long time. It's been really busy here. We had 25 high school and college guests for the past 2 weeks, so we have been going and going with them. They left on Wednesday morning and are now on a plane back to the US.

I leave India tomorrow morning and will be heading to Dubai to meet my sister and then from there we are flying to Greece for vacation with our parents.

I definitely have very mixed feelings about leaving India. This summer has been wonderful and hard and confusing and reassuring all at the same time. I will be putting up more pictures and writing more about my time here when I get back to the States, have no fear. I just haven't had time and want to continue to process what I've seen and experienced this summer.

Thank you for remembering me and thinking about me while I have been here. It has been a constant comfort to know that I have so many wonderful friends and family thinking about me while I have been away.

As hard as saying good-bye always is, I am looking forward to time with my family (even more time with my sister!) and seeing all of my friends again. It is going to be a whirlwind of activity when I get back. I get in late on August 10th and start moving into my apartment on the 15th. So needless to say, I will be busy, but I do want to see those of you who I can and share with you about my time here. I also will be returning with a bag full of purses and scarves that I will be selling to raise money for the orphanage here, I'm thinking another purse/chai party will be in order (I can also make chai a lot better now).

Bittersweet, that's what I'm feeling right now and what I will continue to feel. But I'm excited about this next year at school. I think that it will be really great and I'm excited for all that is to come and the ways that I am going to grow and be stretched as I enter the last half of my time in college.

Oh yah, I also get to see the new Harry Potter movie tomorrow night, so that gives me something to look forward to ;)

Thank you, sweet friends, for all your love and support. Thank you for making this trip possible. Thank you for buying scarves, having me babysit and just giving generously to my work here. This summer would not have been possible without each one of you. 

The blog will probably be quiet for the next week and a half, but then I will be back with lots of beautiful pictures!!

check out these cool shoes and a give-away!

One of my favorite blogs, Sit a Spell, has been doing a series of posts about caring for the poor while still living in the USA. The woman who writes the blog, Heather, lives in Haiti with her family, so a lot of the posts are talking about how they made the decision to give up everything and move.

One of her posts was about one of her friends who works in Africa for a shoe company. This company helps woman earn money for the education by paying them well for the work that they do making these shoes.

Check out Heather's post here.

Monsoon Time!

Its monsoon season here in India, but it actually hasn't rained that much. It has sprinkled a few times- enough for us to go running to get the clothes off the roof, but didn't end up doing much.

But one day last week, while we were out, it rained like crazy! and I mean rained! We couldn't go home because the road in front of it had become a lake!

Here are some of my pictures from the day.

You can see the water pooling on the side of the street. Everything was flooded within minutes.

Chickens hiding from the rain under a truck.

Sweet school girls running home in the rain. I felt so bad for them, they were soaked through.

This day was also the first time that I felt scared while driving. I trust A's driving and I'm not normally scared, but in the rain, Indian driving is terrifying! 

India pictures!!

Hi Everybody!! sorry I haven't put up pictures recently! We've been pretty busy and there were other girls here so I couldn't hog the internet to blog.

I'm having a wonderful time in India. Coming back gets sweeter every time.

Here are some pictures from my first week here. I'll just put up a few and then when I get back to the States I'll probably do some more posts about my entire summer.

I'm so happy to be back with these precious girls. I'm also very happy that I don't have to leave them again for a while. 

I can't believe how much they have grown in the past year. Girls that seemed so young the first time I met them are now beautiful teenagers. 

I have so many pictures of my girls already and its only been a week, so I'll be putting them up for a while!! The first night we with the kids, a couple of the girls came up to me after and were saying "Laura Didi (sister), don't go back to America, stay, stay." I was laughing and crying at the same time. Oh I love these girls so much! I was very happy to at least be able to tell them that I would be staying for the whole month. 

Camels, just chilling behind the vegetable market. Gotta love this place. 

Ever had to avoid a herd of cattle while driving down the road? Typical day here.

The tractor clearing the land where the new campus for LCH will be. What an answer to prayer! If you look closely you can see 2 little boys helping the driver.

"and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head..." Matthew 27:29 Seeing these thorn bushes definitely gives new meaning to this verse.

This picture may not look like much, but this is where, one day, I will be teaching the children of LCH.

And to continue with the theme of flower pictures. There are fewer flowers to take pictures of here, but they are still so beautiful. 

That's all for now folks!! I'll post again soon hopefully. In a few days, we begin shopping for books!!