Monkeys

How exciting this post will be. There was monkeys hanging outside across the road. Last year they said that a big fat monkey used to sit across the street but he wasn't around at all. Until now, there was a baby with a momma, then medium baby, a big fat one, and then a normal sized adult one. We threw an orange at them and they grabbed it and ran into someones drive way. Where they ate it up and watched us cautiously. Below is them in the cuteness.

A Birthday Party

A birthday party... how very exciting. So below (the little boy hiding) was the birthday boy. He turned five. And let us just say that the party itself was very interesting and quite the cultural experience. It was basically a meeting. In the street (a dead end street) was a stage with seats on it and a table. They sang worship for 1-2 hours, then had a scripture reading, a short message, a long message from Harley, a cake cutting (with Ben and my help) and then the poor kid had to eat cake from every family member there AND wait as the photographer took the picture. He looked a bit miserable. After all that we had a couple people do thank you's and then two prayers to end the service at 10:00 pm. With a chicken curry dinner to follow, oh my! Like I had said it was a interesting experience and left us belly full and dog tired!

A poster in their living area, X is for Xmas tree. Had to share it!

The cute neighbor girl who wanted to come say hello. She was too cute!

Plans For A New Well

When we went out on a drive to take pictures we came upon the little place below. It is a piece of land that has been here for a while, with mostly mud huts on it. There was just a few brick homes, no school in the area and just some tiny hut shops. The people were so welcoming. We decided to get out of the car to walk the streets to shoot some video and when we got back to the car where Jan & Harley were it was covered by people. He started talking to them, with the help of Kumar. And found out that none of the wells in the village work, and that the closest water source is a stream (which needless to say is not fresh water or clean). It was so dry there, the sun was so strong! By the end of our time we had walked to the center of town where Redemption will put in a new well. And the plans for the kid's club to do some little visits. It is amazing how God guides you to the places in need. We will be doing the well dedication, God willing, before we leave. So stay tuned!

The village from the main road.

Walking from far away with water on her head.

They asked for prayer, they had no idea who we were they just assumed.

A worn out well that hasn't been used in a very long time. | The communist flag, because it is land given from them to the people.

Ben and I walked away from the car and within a minute it was covered in people! | The new site of the well, center of town.

View from the car, one last picture.

Taken from the car window.

Guntur Culture

I wanted to go out, in the car and take pictures to share of what India is like. Looking back at last year I know what a huge culture "shock" it was to come here. I wasn't literally in shock it was more just pure amazement that life could be so different else where. I shared with Ben that I wanted to spend an afternoon driving around in order to capture the city, the houses, the shops, the cars, the traffic, the life. The pictures below are just that. As we all spent the morning in the car I had my head out the window the shutter continuously going. I hope you get to see a little of what we see everyday when we are here. There is so much beauty and yet the dirt and human garbage piles up in every corner of the cities/villages.

a muslim man.

Hindu Temple, along with landscape, above is a young boy at work along with trucks and travel!

making flower leis.

hard at work, all the kids you see came along with mom to sit in the sand while she works.

we came across these camels.

xo, carissa

Children's School

We spent our Thursday with a bunch of kid's at a village school. We got to interact, capture, and give them some shoes. It was a wonderful day spent with beautiful little kiddo's. The school is right next to one of our children's homes and we got to see all of those kids as well, which was such a joy.  I do tend to gravitate towards certain kids with my camera. Typically it is the kids who seem to by shyer and take a little work to get smile and or laugh. Today's was the little boy in this first picture. He stayed by us even after all the other kids went over to do other stuff. He was the only one, other then our children's home kids, who came over to the car to wave good bye to us. I just thought who was way to cute!

Markings on her face are from a Hindu temple, which she most likely visited right before school.

This is Jimmy, the dog that lives at the children's home.

Krishna River Island Meeting

The mental prep for this meeting was, again, a bit over exaggerated by my imagination.  We were heading to an island to do a meeting. In order to get to this island we were taking a tractor over the water, well that is depending on the height of the water. Once we actually got there all we saw was sand and a "puddle" of about two feet. The river is so far down that the water never came to this part of the island, which is bad news for the dry, hot season ahead. However for us it meant we didn't actually have to use the ox cart but we did, if even just for the experience. It was very exciting. Once over the puddle we got back in our car and drove through fields of corn to the other side of the island which lies along the Krishna river. We got to point where we couldn't drive so we got out and walked through the corn fields past a house and a mud hut with two little boys and our guides leading us to the spot seen in the pictures below, it was beautiful.

Fishing Nets

Fish Traps

Fish Traps

 

On our way back as we passed a little hut these little chicks crossed our path. The lady below clucked at her chickens and they came out for me to take pictures of them. Then a man climbed a huge coconut tree, it would have been awful if he would have fallen out! He stayed in it for like 5 minutes cutting down coconuts to share and the shimmied his way back down the tree. It was unbelievable! Then he chopped off the tops and one of the little boys ran and got straws from the mud hut. I think it is the second time I have had coconut water. It is a little hard to drink down because it is a bit "thicker" then water. But it keeps you hydrated and is good for your stomach. Especially after you have been eating curry for the last three weeks. So really it was a great treat! After we finished those we finished our walk with a stop at the little house seen below. Two rooms, and two families live in this house. They gave us some good tea, some cooked corn which was really good! Even with the language barrier the time spent with these people is so precious and wonderful. We prayed a blessing over their house and got back in our car to head to the meeting which was at the church on the island.

This meeting went great. It was a little slow to start. Typically when you do a meeting people hear the sounds and music and out of curiosity will come and sit. This happened here as well, except since it is an island there isn't that many people! But God still moved and the message was great. We prayed afterwords with practically everyone, and got fed some curry chicken with rice.

xo, Carissa

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