As it is....

So I'm feeling a little frazzled today, feeling that what we have done is being questioned and doubted by others. Is our call to India legit? Did we come at the right time? Because it's been pretty tough at times, does this mean we are not supposed to be here? Because there has been times of sadness, does this mean we have missed the boat? Blah blah blah. It really made me have a good look at how we got here and if indeed we are supposed to be here and many other thoughts and emotions whirring through my mind.

So where to begin? Pull the thoughts down from a swirling mass above my head and try to make some sense out of it all.

Flip, why does this bother me so much? Why does it bother me that these things are being questioned.

I have no doubt that we have been called to India. This in no way makes us superior to anyone, it just means that God decided we could do something here rather than in NZ. It has been 15 years in the coming and this is something that we have been anticipating for sooooo long. So that one is a no brainer for me. Even if we got no extra prophetic words about coming we would still have been here sooner or later.

So, have we come at the right time? It wasn't like we tried to make it happen quickly, it all just fell into place so easily. House sold quickly, visas came astonishingly quickly and with an employment visa for both of us.

Finances were all good, we had the blessing of our church leaders and most of all.... it felt right and it still feels right. So really the question is... do I hear God properly, did we interpret everything falling into place properly. This leads me to my other thoughts...

Since we got here we have come up against all sorts of battles. Sickness, financial strain, emotional and relationship issues at times and really re assessing faith and what that means. Yes, it has been really hard at times but never once have I considered going back to NZ. It just does not enter my mind. The trials and tests have been extremely hard but what we have learned from them is huge and has strengthened us like nothing else could have. No sermon could have brought us to where we are now and we are still continuing to learn.

So all in all I have Joy in the trials but they have been really hard. So that raises the next question. Because it has been hard, does that mean we should not be here. That seems the craziest question ever. I know we should have joy and peace in our lives but I do not see that we get a life of green lights, I still believe there is a place for sacrificing our comforts and giving a bit of ourselves. Man, Paul was whipped and in prison, Jesus was crucified and I am sure that was not a fun filled time but they still found joy in it all. The thing we have been learning is how to find that joy when things are tough but it does not mean that there wont be difficulty in our lives.

I love love love being here in India. It is where my heart is, it is where our hearts are. We have come to the place we love, to the people we love and I am happy to be shaped and molded, to give a little so we can see God's kingdom come. I am here until God says otherwise.

So now that I have put my thoughts into a bit more of a rational thought pattern I feel better. I can answer that we are here because God brought us here at this precise time and is equipping us to do what we need to do and that is to just be us in the way that God wants us to be. It's OK that there have been obstacles because they have been turned to good. I am a stronger person than when I left NZ.

Anticipation

There is great excitement in our household. Tomorrow Ariana arrives to stay 3 months with us. It will be nice to have a Coop staying with us, they are such good family friends and we love them to bits.

Ariana is going to be right into an assault of the senses. The day after she arrives we are invited out to some friends for a swim and lunch. These are the friends we first made in Bangalore, our local meat seller (butcher, but he does not like that term). They live in a gated community with a pool. It's a little bit of luxury for us to visit them and it feels like utter bliss to submerge ones self into water when you have become accustomed to bucket baths. They then want to take us out to eat at a restaurant. Mmmm, Yummy.

Later on that evening, we have been invited to a baby naming ceremony. Apparently there will be about 500 people present. We do not even know the parents or the child but the grandfather is the local ironing wallah in our area and we let him store his wagon/trolley at our place each night so he does not need to wheel it all the way home each night.
We feel really honoured (ranked), haha, inside joke)to have been asked along. They are a Hindu family and we have no idea what happens at these ceremonies but I guess we will soon find out. Might be time for me to buy a sari and get out the toe rings. This is exactly the sort of reason we have been wanting to meet people in our community and to form relationships. We want to mingle and be a part of peoples lives... Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Baha'i. How can we be a light unless we are out among it?

My wee boy

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A scream that makes any parent know that something serious has happened followed by a sibling screaming for help, you know you had better get into action and not just ignore it as a child over acting to get a sympathy vote from Mum and Dad.

This is exactly what we heard a few days ago. Our boy (L) was climbing in our pantry (not supposed to be) and fell from about 2 meters onto his head. He was in severe pain but I was glad he was conscious. I carried him to a bed, in hind site this is what I should not have done incase his neck was broken, but I was able to assess that his skull looked pretty fractured. I called my husband who was skyping his sister at the time and he too felt the groove that our fingers went into where the skull felt fractured. Off to the hospital we went.

This was a very different hospital trip than any other I have done. We climbed onto our scooter, I held (L) to my stomach and we ventured to find the nearest A&E. There was one not far away and by this time (L) was feeling like vomiting and was starting to become drowsy. We lay him on the table where they injected him with something to stop him vomiting, boy did he yell and let the entire Bangalore know he was not impressed with this. The funny thing is that (DH) had to take a prescription to the chemist to buy the injection before they gave it. India is a pay as you go kind of health system.

(L) could not remember what had happened to him and would open his eyes and ask me what happened. I told him about the fall and he promptly told me off for not catching him. Cute.

They did a quick assessment and told us he will need to go for a CT scan. This meant climbing on the scooter again and trying to find the diagnostic scan hospital called Santosh hospital with the directions they gave. It's hard to follow directions when you are trying to get your son seen to as soon as poss. Part way into our trip (L) started vomiting over my shoulder. People were looking on in a concerned manner as our bike and myself where sharing the vomit and poor levi was looking more and more pale and more and more drowsy.

We asked for directions and finally found the hospital after a few U turns only to find that the actual hospital and the scan unit were at different places. Off we went again and finally found where we were meant to be. As per usual, nothing could be done until we had paid for the scan.

We were then waiting in the waiting room when I noticed blood coming from (L's) nose, as a nurse I know that this is not a good sign but I was actually feeling very calm. We had sent out some texts to friends around the world and we knew people were praying... and us of course.

David decided to make a bit more of a push for some urgent attention, He said something like, "this is an emergency, he needs to be seen straight away," it worked very well.

They took us straight in and did the scan quite quickly once they saw the blood.

I knew it was a give in that his skull was cracked but was more concerned about what was happening internally. He was now quite hard to rouse.

While we waited we received texts and calls from friends who were praying and then the news came that there was no fracture and no brain injury. The CT scan was perfectly clear. Praise God because we had felt and seen his skull. This could only be a work of God.

A friend of ours arrived to see us at the hospital and that really spoke volumes of love to me. She also came with us back to another hospital and then later on came with her family with dinner to have with us at home.

Right, back to the story.... (L) lay on the hospital bed in A&E looking very peaceful. He was no longer complaining of pain and his pupils were responding well. They advised us that he should stay in for observation but after we found out the fee we realised it was not possible (we have no med insurance) We decided that since I was a nurse we would take him home and set our alarm throughout the night and keep an eye on him. Plus we had God doing his thing as well.

So off we set on the scooter again, stopping once for him to vomit and arrived home to a surprise packet of treats that the girls had put together for (L). My kids are just so fantastic, they cared for our 2 year old and can make meals and put him to have naps. They just amaze me at times and I probably do not give them as much praise as they deserve at times.

So a long story shortened, (L) has recovered really well. He asked me on the night we got home if I saw the yellow glowing light and that he had seen a fairy. I think he may have seen an angel that was there protecting him or doing what ever he had been assigned to do. It is honestly a miracle that (L) is up and about now and we are having to try stop him from climbing. Will he ever learn?

The warning was accurate.

Mind blasting... not to mention ear blasting is how I would describe last nights events.

The festival that we had been told would start at 1am and end at 11am really got started earlier than that but the floats didn't start coming until later. It also didn't end until 1:30 pm. So we have had at least 12hrs of festive colour and drums booming through the night right outside our door.

Even our windows were rattling and the vibrations of the bass subs pulsed through our bodies.

It was quite an experience and fun to walk around last night and pray as we went. It is a great feeling to know that you are bringing God's kingdom where ever you go.

Enough talk... here's some photos:

The high up shots are taken from our roof top.

We have been warned

So we could be in for a sleepless night tonight. To be honest, I am a little excited about it. I know it is a Hindu festival but what a great opportunity to mingle with people.

There is preparation of floats, flowers, stalls etc and the hustle and bustle of people all over the place. There are lights lining the streets and I am sure by night it will look quite spectacular. We are not 100 % sure of the reason for this festival. It's called the car festival but seems to be in honour of any machine. Not really sure what is going on though.

Our neighbour was telling the kids last night (as she yelled out her kitchen window last night at 10:30pm), that the festival will start tonight at 1am, yes that's right, 1 am on Sunday 24th Oct. It will go all through the night, a parade circling up past our house and around and around until 11am. Our neighbour suggested we join them on the roof if we can't sleep. That sounds like fun to me and like a great way to spend time with people and get to know them. I know from past experience that Indian festivals are not quiet, in fact, they are at top decibel and at a frequency that will pierce through any other noise. Kind of like how a babies cry does.

It will be interesting to see if the kids can sleep through it. Time will tell I guess.

Business update

It's been a hard long road in establishing our business and we knew that things would take longer here in India. We thought we were pretty much ready to roll and our first shipment of goods arrived about 3 days ago ready for us to begin distributing. It has been a change for us from going from IT support for network and admin to selling networking products.

So we stood looking at the stuff with a slight feeling of dread as we are not really sales people. Ben and (DH) had been working on getting this distributor thing up and running and now that the stuff has arrived Ben is back in NZ. He's the one who can speak the lingo and has most of the contact. What could we do but look at each other and laugh.

Being very green to all the business workings in India we then found that we need some special tax stuff for being a distributor for out of state stuff so we began the process of application for this. This then lead to finding out that we needed an inspection of our Office/warehouse, haha, this was our home. They were fine when they came that it was in our home because they knew it was a start up business but we then found that we need to get permission form our land lord to have an office here..... this then led to our land lord telling us that we have to re lease the property as a commercial property so we will have an increase in rent, power and water. This comes at a time when the pennies are almost non existent and we can only cry out, GOD!

So all in all, we have this shipment of goods that we have one month to sell and we are not allowed to sell them until this other stuff has been sorted out. I can't say I have kept cool, calm and with complete faith in God since all this happened. I have had to go through another process of coming to a place of rest in God again and trusting that He has it under control. Talk about testing times. Sometimes things just don't go as we plan them.

There are some underhanded was we have been offered to do this but we want to do it legit. We would rather have a delayed process than compromise our honesty.

Street Walking

India is a very social place, I love that. Even when you are in a car you are still interactive with others on the street. You pull up to some lights and someone will ask directions or smile.

We love to go for a walk in the evenings and get a coconut when we can. Invariably we always meet someone on the way that we have to respond to, it might be a simple, hi, where are you from or a beggar.

One night we passed a guy and we smiled and said hi. A few minutes later he was at our side asking if he could walk with us. We said sure and chatted and got to know each other. He is a Muslim fellow and was interested in knowing other cultures and we enjoyed getting to know him. We were a bit suspicious of his actions at first because we have other times when people befriend you because they want to take you to a store where they get commission from. We ended the walk and exchanged cel numbers. A couple of days later we got a call from him asking if he could come over. We ended up going for another walk with him and then he came back for tea (chai). We talked for 4 hours about our differing faiths. It was so interesting and such a privilege to be able to share our faith with him and to introduce him to the kingdom of God. It is just the beginning of a friendship and we don't know what step or changes he may make but the exciting thing was to have such an opportunity and we shall pray for him.

What's different?

Things have changed, that's for sure. Some things are small changes and some things are massive. Most of the changes I am more than thankful for because they have taught me value of life, things, people and most of all, the importance of God in my life.

These will not be in any particular order but will be as they come to mind, these are some of the changes in my life.

Church:

1. From a large church with building, meetings, lots of friends, worship team, corporate worship, microphones, instruments, to a home church that doesn't even have a guitar ( actually that's not quite true, we have an electric guitar but no amp), just our family and the Benjamin's so far, more intimacy with God and only God to lean on. Freedom in meetings and lots of meeting people outside of "church". Meeting people in the street, having strangers in our home and talking with people about what they believe and what we believe. Learning who we really are in Christ.... Sons with a powerful message of the kingdom.

In the kitchen:

1. From bulk monthly shopping once a month to everyday shopping at many little stores and markets.
2. From buying meat in clear plastic covered foam pots to choosing meat hanging that is covered in flies, bringing it home and washing every single bit before cooking it and still being able to enjoy it.
3. From buying fruits in bags to picking out produce on the side of the road cart and then washing everything thoroughly before putting it away.
4. From drinking water from the tap to buying bottled water, drinking filtered water or boiled water.
5. From easy access to fresh milk to powdered milk, UHF milk or having to boil the fresh milk first.
6. From the coffee percolator to boiling coffee grounds in a pot and draining through a cloth.
7. From cooking with electricity to cooking with gas. From a slow cooker to a pressure cooker.
8. From meat dominated meals to sparse meat or no meat at all. Lots and lots of Rice and Daal. Yummy.
9. From low spice to high spice tolerance.

Transport:

1. From 11 seater Family van to a scooter (we can get 5 on it :)
2. From piling into one vehicle to a scooter plus a 3 wheeler auto if we all want to go somewhere.
3. From lanes, road rules and order on the road to utter chaos that works in it's own special way.
4. From arrogant drivers that don't budge to drivers that work together in relative tolerance. Defensive driving is excellent here in India. I think Indian drivers must be the best in the world. talk about spacial awareness.
5. From airplanes or long distance caravan hauls to overnight sleeper trains

At home:

1. From daily showers to daily bucket baths
2. From high water pressure to pressure that depends on how full the tank is or how much water is in the sump.
3. From constant water supply to water coming every second day to fill the sump.
4. From constant electricity to power cuts a few times a day.
5. From vacuuming to sweeping and swabbing the floors.

General:

1. From thinking we were relying on God to really relying on God
2. From earning an income to having faith
3. From stability of a job to trusting God
4. From worrying about small things and finances to resting in God

What a huge privilege it has been to experience such change in our lives and I haven't even mentioned the cultural change yet. I shall continue this at another time. I am so grateful for what India is and is continuing to teach me.

What a laugh

I was having a reflective moment yesterday and looking over the last few months of my blog. Wow! so much has happened and there is so much to be thankful for.

As I read, two things I had written made me laugh.... hind sight is funny....

1) I quote myself,

I almost can't believe that I am now sitting here writing that all our paper work is done and approved.

This was written just before our departure from New Zealand. What we have since learned was that it was just the beginning of our paper work. Paper work is a must here in India along with every form of identification possible. I could not give anything more other than a blood test and urine sample. You have to laugh or it would drive you crazy.

2) Another quote after being in India about 3 weeks,

David has gone to Hubli for 4 nights so it is my first time without him in India. We are managing fine but sticking close to home at this stage. I am not quite ready to tackle the auto rickshaws with the kids on my own. Over time I guess my confidence will increase and I will look back on how I feel now and laugh.

The funny thing was that I was laughing when I read the first part and laughed even more when I read my anticipated laughing that I was already doing.

I will happily catch an auto now and happily negotiate a good price and I also do not shy away from bringing honesty to the attention of any auto driver trying to do a number on me. On the other hand, I also enjoy giving more than arranged to a driver that makes a good, hassle free journey and sticks to the price. I love the joyful look on their faces when you reward honesty.
I still love autos. They are the coolest form of transport.