Catch up Photos...

My photos on this blog tend to run a few weeks late. Keeping in the theme of things, here is a photo of Nora Grace and her good friend (sahali) Zoya, who have both lost their front teeth at the same time. The photo is circa Christmas 2007.

Thailand Comings and Goings...

We had a delightful and restful time in Thailand, thanks to the Amazing Masts.

They have two little girls also. Thus, the "screetchiness factor" (as Lileks calls it) got a bit high at times, but what to do.

We got nine injections between us, and Miriam was quite impressed that Daddy did not cry for his injections. Several Dentists visits also, as well as an othodox OB visit for Amy.

"Auntie" Anita took the girls to the "Fish Museum", (aka Aquarium), and we all went swimming one day.

We ate a large variety of animals that are not available in Our Fair City, including but not limited to, cow, fish, shrimp, and pig.

Between all that and two days of meetings with Dan, a good time was had by all.

Sam slept through the night from his first night there, but has on return returned to the pattern of waking up crying a few times throughout the night. Hmmmm, what TO do?

I am back at work.

On Being Known, Whether I Want to be or Not...

We came into Varanasi the other day, coming through Customs in the usual lines of tourists coming from around the world. I assumed I looked like everybody else. Amy and the kids had grabbed a seat nearby while I stood in the long lines.

One of the tourists in the other line asked the Customs Official in front of her, "Whose are those lovely children?"

Without looking up from his forms, the Customs Official simply said, "Doctor Sahab has three children, they are his," while giving a nod of his head in my direction.

Hmmm, they know who I am in Customs? I hope that is good news and not bad. :)

A Sort of Ethical Issue for a Mennonite Man

Choice Books is a group that sells books across the USA. They set up simple displays in Truck Stops, Supermarkets and other places of business. They sell mostly Christian and Inspirational literature, but also include "Local Color" titles, a few cookbooks, and a few about the Amish and Mennonites (who are also the people who run Choice Books).

They have displays in almost 10,000 locations across America, and sell millions of titles per year.

Recently, one of the guys who works for them received an invitation to set up a display in one of America's largest Army bases.

"Huh," he thought, as he looked at the email, "Wasn't my Amish grandfather imprisoned there for refusing to bear arms in World War I?"

What to do? Does the Army Base even know that we are Concientious Objectors? (Turns out they did :) )

So now they are selling dozens of books each week at the Base.

Whadayouknow?

PS: We are staying with the Masts in Thailand, having meetings and getting all the kids in for shots and medical care, besides eating a little pig, cow and fish on the side. Sam has, with minimal bloodshed, successfully learned to crawl up and down stairs, and our girls are having a blast playing with the Mast girls.

Lowell's Answer to any possible World wide Recession that may or may not happen

I am not sure what the state of the world's economy, but I do now know a solution to any possible slowdown in productivity.

Brazilian coffee.

We have new neighbors who are from Brazil, and they gave Amy a bag of coffee beans from their fair land last week.

Whoo, boy. Export that stuff to the world, and we will all be working a mile a minute.

I am getting so much done this week!

Course, I gotta get a bunch done, as there are a bunch of things I have to finish up before we head to Thailand for a visa run next week.

Staying Busy

I think most of us around the world are saying something similar. December Holidays are over, and it is time to settle down to the real world and get some work done.

We have nothing to exciting to report here. I am working at the various clinics, studying the Bible in Urdu, studying Urdu, and parenting. Most of the winter's colds and flu's seem to be over. I preached on Matthew 5 on Sunday, title was: "Christ and the Law".

Oh, we are pregnant. That being the royal "we", of course. Not sure if many know that yet or not. Probably will not be an official announcement. "We" are due the end of June sometime. Suggestions for names? (Perhaps we have already used up the good ones? :) )

Uh oh

I think my hard drive has died on our home computer (I am writing from an internet cafe).

I have most of the stuff backed up, except about 250 emails. Hmmmmm. Not sure how to fix this. Will keep you posted as the adventure continues.

We did have some excellent meat yesterday at a friends house, including some of the forbidden kind.... wow was that good.

The Urdu word for "Journey" is pronounced "Suffer"

Sometimes you come across these funny little things about language. I have no idea if there is an actual linguistic connection or not, I just think it is amusing.

I was reminded of this as our landlord was packing up to visit his brother in Bihar. He has about 150 miles to drive, and expects it to take 10 or more hours (Bihar is a failed state within India fameous for its utter lack of infrastructure).

Sam gets a hair cut from "Uncle" Amos

"Uncle" Amos (actually Sam's cousin twice removed) has five boys of his own, and early on decided that he could save a LOT of money if he would just give his own boys haircuts.

So he is well experienced with giving haircuts to wiggeling, squirming, opinionated toddlers.

Sam looks great.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone out there in computer-land.

The Incarnation of the Infinitely Beautiful Son of God was celebrated in our household with a pleasant day indoors, in the company of cousin Amos and his wife Rowena, along with Dirgham their youngest son.

We had a breakfast casserole of eggs/bread/milk/cheese/homemade water buffalo sausage and cinnamon rolls, which was enjoyed with gusto. Then we answered a gazillion phone calls from various well wishers, and proceeded to open presents. The girls were very happy. Dirgham seemed to like his box of Capt'n Crunch.

Then Amos, Rowena, Amy and I sang for about 3 to 4 hours. That was very fun.

GIrls went down for naps, and the rest of us cleaned the house, cleaned ourselves, and started prepping for supper.

Supper was a Water Buffalo pot roast, baked chicken, baked corn, green beans, homemade (and hot out of the oven) rolls with Strawberry Jam and homemade Lemon Curd, Turkey gravy (from a packet, but it was great), chestnut and dried cranberry stuffing, cranberry sauce and homemade dill pickels. Ooooh, was it good. More desserts than you can shake a stick at, not that you would want to.

A good time was had by all.

Amos is my paternal grandfathers brothers son. If you desire more information about my relatives, let me know. His wife is also related to me, I believe.

A notable lack of goats these days

Bukr Eid is over, and we have filled ourselves with many kilos of goat meat, along with a fair amount of Water Buffalo.

Friday was Bukr Eid, when Muslims world wide celebrate the substitution of a Ram for Abraham's son, when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son.

Muslim culture's around the world emphasize different animals, and in our fair city the ever curious Goat is the most popular animal to sacrifice. Water Buffalo are also popular, and there are even a couple of Camels sacrificed locally (the meat tastes sweet, I am told, though I have never had any). No cows are slaughtered here, out of respect for the Hindus.

SOme of the meat of the sacrificed animal is given to the poor, some is given to friends (we have quite a few pounds in our fridge right now), and much of it is eaten in the few days following the sacrifice. So as we made our rounds to visit so many people, we got fed a lot of meat.

And on the streets, which a few days ago seemed to have so many goats clustered around, there are few to be seen.

The Waiters then gave all the Miscreants a Sound Thrashing

I was digging through some old music I had laying around, and I came across a songbook left from our good friends the Freemans. (We won't say how old it is).

Tucked in among the music was this little newspaper clipping, describing a shootout at a local restaurant a few years ago.

What makes the clipping all the more memorable, is that the Freemans were in the restaurant at the time of the shooting, and had bullets hit the wall over the table where they were sitting.

My recollection of the story is thus: the Freemans' food had only just come to their table, and the gunmen were blocking the only exit. So the Freemans, in their emminantly practicle state-of-mind, took their plates underneath their table and proceeded to eat their supper huddled on the floor down there.

After all, what else was their to do?

Jillian, I shall expect comments. :)

Home School in the Study

One room our apartment is designated "the Study", and is more of an all purpose room: laundry/study/spare bed/sewing/extra storage...

And now it is also the Home School room.

Miriam evidently found the days proceedings rather un-engaging, and decided to take a brief nap on the floor.

Beauty is Important to me

I like beauty.
So one of the ways I can start my day with a little more beauty (beyond my lovely wife and three kids with bed-head) is to have a cup for my tea that has beauty integrated into it.

Here are some of my favorite teacups. That would be vanGogh in front, and from the British Museum on the right.

Now if only I would have the same appreciation for spelling.

A Week of Illness, Injustice Imposed on One-Year-Olds, and Cooler Weather

We are doing well overall, but some illness has been circling in the house (well, the city also, but that's usual for this time of year).

Amy had "Delhi Belly" on Monday and into Tuesday, when Lowell also started it, and then Miriam started on Thursday. Everyone is slowing improving, but we are still pretty much only eating toast and oatmeal. Sam and Nora Grace escaped that, but Sam has an amazingly snotty nose (pardon the graphic word there).

Nora Grace virtually never gets sick. She is amazing. She got a bad cold once in her life so far.

Sam is a bit upset with his Mom and Dad at the moment. We have all these brutal and unjust rules in this house, that are grossly unfair to one-year-olds. "Can't play in the toilet bowl," "Can't play with knives," "Can't throw things out the window and watch them fall," "For that matter, he can't crawl out the window either," "No permission to eat either dirt or cow dung," and so on and so on.

We are obviously going way overboard on the rules around this place. He lets us know in no-uncertain-terms that he is unhappy with the current legislation.

Anyways, winter season is here, and outside the overnight lows are down into the 50's. Still in the 80's during the day, but it feels kindof good after a damp and cool morning.

Miriam, now three years old, with a friend on thanksgiving day

Shanti is one of Miriam's closest friends (along with Benjamin, Tarin, Braeden, Gabby, and Priyanka, who respectively hale from most of the worlds known continents). They have conversations together that no one else understands, but they seem to be happy. :)

Who did the bombings?

Well, we may never know for sure. Three guys on bicycles wiht suitcases on the back.

BUt the current most popular rumor with some grain of truth in it is this...

A few weeks ago, a bunch of young muslim guys were arrested, on charges of terrorism. The lawyers at the courthouse refused to represent them (that is their job, to represent people in court), and indeed, beat them up a bit. (Not a good sign when the lawyer assigned to represent you beats you up).

It is extremely likely that most of the young guys arrested are completely innocent, as the local authorities are not renowned for their detective work, have a long history of planting evidence, and have several reasons to be holding grudges against the accused.

But it is also extremely unlikely that the accused will get a fair trial, or even make it to trial, at this point.

So when the bombs went off, and seemed to be targeting Lawyers, and a few hours later an unsigned anonymous letter saying the bombs were because the lawyers were refusing to uphold the law, much speculation centered on the possibility of a local banned group.

Of note, India has had dozens of such bombings in the years we have been here, and their has never been any one who has taken credit for them. They have targeted Hindu Temples, Muslim Mosques, Tourist areas, non-TOurist areas, historical sites, etc. There seems to be no particular pattern.

So we may never know who planted the bombs.

Either way, everyone is on strike today, so it is a bit quiet outside.

We are safe

About 3 hours ago, (1.30PM local time) today, Friday, 23 November 2007, a series of three bombs went off in three cities in eastern Uttar Pradesh, our fair state.

One of the bombs went off at the High Court building, about a mile west of our apartment. Several people died, and more debris is being removed as they look for more wounded, and look for clues.

We are safe. We currently don't know anyone personally who was killed or injured.

We pray.

Lawyers go berserk in city

This headline is actually a little older, but I thought you all might enjoy it. I get newspapers in three languages these days, and it also interesting to see how the story varies between papers.

Sleeping without a fan

Last night, for the first time here since last March, we slept without the fan on.

The overnight low (outside) got down to 58 for the first time in a long time (still up to upper 80's during the day).

We had a sheet to cover up with, but it was almost weird without the fan going like a turboprop over our heads. Hopefully, it will stay off till March again.