scooter lessons

So I have had my first scooter lesson now. It is heaps of fun. We went to a back road not far from us and just over the railway lines. It cause much laughter to the locals. One young lady called me Super Auntie. Not so super when I dropped the bike, haha. Oh well, I improved as time went on and am feeling more confidant now.

Some of the local kids were so cute as you can see in the photos. They live in mud huts with thatched and plastic roofs but they are happy. What was very funny was to see satellite TV dishes in amongst the houses. Hard to imagine the two together but there you go.

My birthday

I had a great birthday and did not feel homesick at all. Not that I don't miss family and friends but it did not ruin my birthday.

Titus and Savina invited us over for the day and then gave us an Indian BBQ. The night was very stormy with thunder so loud that it made me duck. I have never heard anything like it. I happen to love storms as they remind me of the power of God and that his voice is like thunder. If His voice is that powerful then how powerful is he in whole. Wow, Awesome!

The kids had been shopping with (DH) and had all brought lovely gifts for me. I love my kids so much. None of them are ever jealous when it is someone else birthday. They delight in giving which is so nice to see as a Mum.

We also managed to go to a fabric stall where you can buy fabric by the kilo. Buttons, Zips, mats, all by the kilo. It was a whole street of this sort of thing. We purchased enough to cover our lounge suit. Can't wait till we get a tailor to make the covers. In total it was NZ$50 for 21 meters of good quality upholstering fabric. Can't beat that!

While we were out getting fabric the kids made a birthday cake with Titus's kids Arhadana and Kuki. They did so well.

The past couple of weeks and we are still alive

I am usually the optimist but the last couple of weeks has really given us a testing and refining not to mention endurance training.

We seem to have been bombarded with all sorts of issues. A few of us came down with a tummy bug and although the bug was only a 24 hour thing I managed to get up too quickly when racing to the loo and came to on the bathroom floor with a huge egg on my forehead and another on the top of my head. This then progressed into a black eye and a sore neck that I still have not been and had checked. I will eventually get around to it.

Amongst these going ons (DH) came down with severe pain in his side. I thought he was going to give birth to our 7th child. I have never seen him in such pain. It turns out that he has kidney stones in both kidneys. The first urologist wanted to operate straight away and put stents in and do vibration treatment but we felt it was too soon to jump into operations. Our neighbor was very kind and took half a day off work to take us for a second opinion with another urologist who felt we could try first with medication and gallons of water. We are also trying coconut oil as it is supposed to help dissolve kidney stones. (DH) has passed a couple of stones and has not had any pain the last few days. We are praying for the stones to dissolve. He is supposed to have a follow up CT scan at the end of this week.

During this time we were also having trouble getting money transferred across from NZ to our India account and they needed way more money in the account to open it than we had realised. It was a bit of a stress but it is all complete now and God answered our prayers for finances.

(DH) has also been feeling like God has been really stripping him bare, refining, molding, firing in the kiln and it has not always been a pleasant experience for him but we know the end result will be fantastic. I think with not feeling well everything feels twice as bad. We feel that we have been bought to a place of total reliance on God. It's how it should be but it is too easy to take control of stuff and do it "for" God. We thought we were quite good at letting God do his thing but we have learned that we were not as good as we thought. It is an interesting place to be in when you "have" to have full reliance on God for everything.

I also managed to stuff up my accounting right when it is the end of the financial year. Such a silly mistake that meant I needed to go back to a back up and re enter 5months worth of invoices etc. It is all done now and the accounts are looking good.

So all in all these past two weeks have probably been the hardest weeks since we got here but it does not change the fact that we are loving being here and we did not want to go running home even though things were tough. No one said it would be a smooth ride all the time but it is well worth it.