Settling In

     I’m beginning to realize more and more the truth of this statement…you never know what you can do until you try. We are continuing to adjust to our new home. Each day gets a little better. After being here for nearly two weeks, we are consistently sleeping through the night. What a difference sleep makes! We have tried just about every mode of transportation here: taxi, auto-rickshaw, metro, and of course our feet. The metro is air-conditioned…which makes it really nice. But, we are crazy enough to really enjoy cramming 6 people into a 2 person auto-rickshaw...not including the driver! We do quite a bit of walking even though the heat is oppressive right now. Rae-Rae is hilarious…the heat seems to put her to sleep within about 5 minutes nearly every time we walk outside. I’m getting a good workout in carrying her around!

     This past week we had an orientation to our new environment…how to eat healthy and ward off illness. It was great information and we have all been working hard to implement what we have learned. We are trying to eat organic as much as possible and adding “superfoods” to our diet even in small amounts to try to give our bodies the nutrients we need to stay healthy. The “superfoods” we learned about are shitake mushrooms, seaweed, flaxseed, and bean sprouts. We ground the mushrooms, seaweed and flaxseed up and sprinkle them in our food when possible. And we sprouted our own beans that we are eating with our meals. 

     The biggest adjustment for me has been in the kitchen. In the States, I was hard-pressed to spend an hour total in the kitchen each day…including the time that I spent walking through it. Here, I am finding that I can easily spend 4-6 hours in the kitchen each day. This is a little overwhelming for me but I am actually enjoying it. Just to give you an example, this morning I made pancakes from scratch. Mind you, I am the kind of person that wouldn’t even use Bisquick in the States because it required too much effort. I thank God for giving me the grace that I need to do what needs to be done and for giving me joy while doing it!

     Everyone is doing well and staying healthy. Thank you so much for your prayers. We have explored our community quite a bit and are feeling comfortable here. Delaney and Rae-Rae have met some girls in our building to play with and Dylan has some boys in our language school his age to hang out with. This afternoon, we went for a walk in a nearby park. We found some professional kite flyers who gave the girls kites and let them fly them.  Dylan and the boys joined in on a cricket game. Enjoy the following pictures from this past week. We love you and appreciate you!

 The view from our rooftop.

 The girls' new friend.

 Our walk through a local park.

Sleep Evades Us

     This is our fourth night in our new home and sleep continues to evade us. The children are all nestled snug in their beds equipped with mosquito nets…we are hoping they sleep through the night tonight.  It is nearing 2 am and Tony and I are still wide awake in our room filled with the fresh scent of our laundry drying on a rack by our bed. Throughout the night, there is a constant barrage of sounds right outside our window (dogs barking, horns beeping, people yelling, and even fireworks) that make sleep even more challenging for the time.      We arrived at our apartment Tuesday evening at about 11 pm, wide awake of course because we had slept nearly our entire flight! WooHoo! We did some exploring of our new home and some unpacking and then decided to try to get some sleep to try to acclimate ourselves to our new schedule.  Needless to say no one slept and the kids all ended up in our bed by 3 am.  That night I tried to bribe them to calm down and go to sleep saying that the first one to sleep gets $5. When it was obvious that they weren’t going to sleep, we sent the kids back to their room to play.  Well, Dylan finally won the prize as the first child to fall asleep at 8 am.  Delaney followed at about 9 am and Desirae, our little Energizer Bunny, didn’t collapse until about 10 am!  Each night since then we have all been wide awake from about 3 am until about 6 am.  We are hoping to get on a good sleep schedule soon.     We are getting accustomed to life in our new home.  Our apartment is much nicer than we imagined. Here are a few pictures of our apartment…good thing I don’t intend to spend much time in the kitchen (insert smile).  

     We have met our neighbor, she is very nice and is quite fond of our children.  We went grocery shopping at an actual grocery store (a luxury we have here that we will not have after we finish language school in six month and move up north).  There are many items from the States that we can purchase here but the prices are hefty (for example, a box of Rice Krispies is $11 US or a jar of Ragu Spaghetti Sauce is $6 US).  Our first meal was spaghetti with homemade sauce…which wasn’t too bad for our first try!     The city we live in has a population of over 16 million people (nearly twice the size of New York City).  The streets are very narrow and jammed with people, cows, cars, motorcycles, carts, and much more. The heat is pretty intense so we have only spent a few hours at a time outside trying to get everyone used to it. Delaney said yesterday after we were outside for about 3 hours that it is hard for an Ohio person to handle this heat. Over the past few days, we have explored our neighborhood markets, played at the local park and visited one of our neighborhood’s historical sites. And last night we did a load of laundry and gave the girls baths in our new bathtub - one of our Rubbermaid tubs that we used for packing.  There are no bathtubs here! Everyone is health and in good spirits! Thanks for all your love and prayers. We truly appreciate you for sharing this journey with us! Below are some pictures from our outings for your enjoyment.

 

   

Communal Living

     

     Only 10 more days before we depart for the other side of the world.  Our emotions are on overload as the day - May 12 - rapidly approaches.  Our hearts are heavy with sorrow as we say good-bye to our precious family and friends and yet full of excitement for the adventure that lies ahead.

     For the last three weeks, we have been living with our friends in their home...nine of us living in a single-family home - 4 adults and 5 children (11, 7, 3, 2 and 8 months).  It has been such an incredible blessing to live with our dear friends and I'm not just saying that because they read this blog.  Although we constantly worry that we are imposing on them, they constantly assure us that we are not a burden.  God has used this time to bless us and to challenge us...to bless us richly with the gift of friends who have showered us with such love and grace...to challenge us by forcing us to get over ourselves.  

     There really is such beauty in communal living - sharing life together.  We have had many laughs - playing cards and games, telling corny jokes, eating s'mores around the fire, walks and bike rides around the block, sidewalk chalk, housework and yard work, watching movies, and endlessly singing songs from the movie Frozen.  We have shared devotions together and of course many delicious meals.  We are so truly grateful that Kathy and Eric have opened their home to us and shared their lives with us.  This time has truly been refreshing even in the midst of our chaos.

     At first I thought by the end of this month in Kathy and Eric's house that our relationship would be strained and they would rejoice at our departure.  But, this has been a great lesson to us in how the Body of Christ can truly be a blessing and encouragement to one another in such real and life-giving ways.  I know our family will cherish this time that we have spent with our friends in their home.