India '14 Update 3 : Not Forgotten

Look at these faces. 

Imagine that you know these women.

They have mothers and fathers. 

Most probably have husbands, sons and daughters.

They have a favorite food, a favorite song, a favorite memory.

They are real women.

They are real women who have leprosy. 

Today we went to a leper colony near Pastor Babu's church. His church is working to start some new ministries there and we went to help the members put on a mini-VBS style day. After we left he asked us if we would like to stop by the Leper's Hospital. He called and got permission for the team to come.

We were allowed to walk through a few of the hospital's wards and recovery rooms. The first room we walked into broke my heart. 

I knew where were were going. I had mentally prepared myself to see elderly men and women who were missing appendages. I've seen the sunken eyes and bleeding bandages of leprosy before, so I thought I was ready mentally.

No. I was not.

We were led into a recovery room where about 8 people were sitting or lying on beds with fresh bandages and slings on one or both arms. Just to my left and very near to the door was an 11 year old boy. Just in case you missed that... an eleven year old boy. Across from him a kid that couldn't have been more than 17 and two young men that had to be in there late 20s. This was not what I was prepared for.

We didn't really know what we were supposed to do. Do we shake hands? Smile and nod? Wave? Turns out it was all the above. Babu asked them a few questions and then translated to us what type of surgery they had undergone. Then we waved goodbye and headed to the next wards we were to visit.

The second ward we visited was a woman's ward. Following my mother's lead, we walked around shook hands with each woman as they sat or laid on their beds. They may have been more interested because we were white, but I got the feeling they don't get many visitors. The wards were tucked away at the very back of the hospital compound and even though we could not speak their language I hope they understood that we were wishing them well, and letting them know they were not forgotten.

Next we went into a men's ward. Mom and I didn't touch the men unless they held out their hands to us first (cultural thing) but Zac, dad and Justin went around and acknowledged each man in the room. Then I was given permission to take some photos...

After I was able to have my camera out I knew exactly what I was going to do. Mom and I went back to the women's ward and began taking each woman's photo. I took two photos of most of the women. One that showed their bandages and one that (hopefully) showed their loveliness.

All women want to feel lovely. I don't care what culture you are in, what modesty means to you, or what the men around you think about women. As women, we want to feel that we're beautiful. That we have value. That someone looks at us and says, "She is lovely."

So I took photos and turned my camera around so they could see themselves. Smiles broke out. A little bit of laughter. A couple of them patted their hair down for a second take. All of them that had sight, wanted to see themselves and most smiled when they did. One woman (who was working there) even took the camera from me and ran to the other side of the room to show a friend. She was laughing the whole way.

I don't think there are a lot of laughs in that room on a regular basis, but today we were able to provide a little bit of distraction. A few minutes to see themselves smiling and to know that they haven't been completely forgotten. 

And probably most importantly, a positive experience for the patients and workers to have in connection with Pastor Babu. He is a great man of God who is looking for ways he can reach out and minister to his community. Hopefully today will leave a good taste in the mouths of those who might have say over if he can come back and share about his Most High God.

*I have many other pictures from the hospital that I would be willing to show people in person once we get back if you are interested, but I considered them too graphic for posting.

P.S. - I couldn't NOT post this one... Look at this man! Isn't he sexy? :-)

India '14 Update 2 : A 1000 words

I'm back. This city sets my heart on fire! I am so thankful for the opportunity to come here and take part in serving with the wonderful people in this church! This update will be mostly pictures because, well, they're worth 1000 words. I'll try to keep my comments brief, but helpful for understanding what you're looking at.

Zac, Justin and myself finally arrived late Saturday night. We took a nap and then went to church Sunday morning. The team was finally together. We were honored with traditional floral garlands at the beginning of service. 

Its always great to take part in worship with in another culture. Makes me think of how creative my Heavenly Father is that He made and enjoys the traditions, languages and rhythms of many cultures. True our God is not colorblind, He is colorful.

We also had the second youth meeting Sunday night. We made rubber-band airplanes and played games together. It was a great time. I am sorry that we had to miss the first night.

Today we did the first day of a women's ministry. After some singing led by Suji my mom kicked things off by talking about the planning and prep for my wedding. I think they enjoyed hearing about an american style wedding and enjoyed looking through the photos.

The boys served us by watching the kiddos. :-) I'm thankful for Zac and Justin as well as the men from the church who volunteered to come help out so their sisters, mothers, and wives could take part in the women's conference. Real men serve! And these men are REAL MEN! I went to check on them a couple times and found fun with balloons was the theme. ;-)

Pretty much totally in love with this guy right here! 

Dad did a great job (as always) teaching about how Jesus views the women. Christ broke all the social rules to reach out to and love the women around him!

The little-littles caught a quick nap during the service. So cute! 

Dad was teaching on Christ kneeling and writing in the dirt when the pharisees wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery. He was sharing how much Christ loved and cared for this particular woman who was guilty, as the eerie sound of the Muslim call to prayer drifted in the windows. I was struck by the contrast of the moment.

After the teaching we made paper beads together and then shared a meal.

Ladies and Gentleman, The LOVE of my LIFE!

Moses was telling dad about being able to witness to some people in his classes. So cool to hear that this young man is following Christ and sharing his faith in a country where that is so much more difficult than I can even understand.

Before lunch I grabbed a little to tickle. :-)

We are having a wonderful time. Check back in a few days for some more photos and stories! :-)

India '14 Update 1 : Adventure is Everywhere

I meant to get a little transition post up to explain that I'm heading to India and will be using the blog to update about our trip. Unfortunately, laundry, packing, trips to Wal-Mart, unpacking, repacking and  spending time with my husband vetoed that idea. So here I am in Washington D.C./Dulles Airport writing my first India 2014 update.

Justin, Zac and myself headed out Thursday afternoon with only a couple minor "Oh No!" moments. My scale is off about 12lbs. Not something you want to find out while standing at an airport check-in. But we shuffled things around and got everything taken care of.

The issue(s) came when we landed in Chicago. We had a pretty tight connection in Chicago and when we landed and saw 25 or so planes sitting on the runway we knew something was up. Then we parked... on the runway. As the engines wound down the pilot came over the air com and told us that we had been parked in the penalty box for awhile because of a VIP. "I bet you can guess who that is."

So we sat for about 30 mins waiting for Air Force One to clear the area so we could move again. All the while the three of us were checking the clock and preparing to sprint to the next gate. And sprint we did! As soon as the doors were open we jogged through the airport to our next gate. The connection had been delayed because of the back-up of traffic, which we were happy about for the flight out of Chicago, but not so happy about because we had an even tighter connection in D.C. where were were supposed to meet my parents for the long trips overseas.

Did you catch the words "supposed to?" We touched down in DC, turned on the phone and text my parents.

Me: We just touched down! What gate?

Dad: C7. We're sitting on the plane. Run!

Me: Still taxing. We'll come as soon as we get off.

A few seconds later...

Dad: They just shut the door.

:-( We were bummed. We literally missed our flight because of the president. With #thanksobama jokes flying we got in line at customer service. Waited about an hour to speak with a rep and then for the next 2 hours she worked on flight options to get us to Bangalore. We really appreciated her. She not only found an alternate route, she worked hard calling other airlines, checking connection times, and confirming tickets to give us 3 route options!

Once our flights had been re-booked she called the manager to see if we qualified for a hotel voucher. We sucked in our breath because we had heard if the missed connection was due to weather or air traffic they would not provide a hotel. (I was pretty sure that Air Force One would qualify as air traffic, and we would be paying for a hotel on our own or getting cozy on the air port floor.)

She was gone for a LONG time and when she came back I was fully prepared for, "Sorry, no hotel." But she said, "My manager can't verify the reason you were delayed from Chicago so she will go ahead and approve hotel, transportation, and meal vouchers."

Can you hear the angels singing? I could. :-) But only faintly because my tummy was growling. I hadn't fed it since about 1:00 PM and it was now 12:20 AM. We found a little deli still open on the way to the taxi service. The angels grew louder with ever bite. Then when we pulled into our hotel they broke into a full blow hallelujah chorus!

It was a gorgeous hotel! We only got one room, but it was nice for us to all have a bed, a shower, and a noon check out. We walked around the area for awhile and had a nice lunch, some fro-yo and are now back at the airport waiting to get our seat assignments at the gate.

Adventure is not letting missed connections get you panties in a bunch.

Adventure is being told you, your husband and another guy friend are going to share a hotel room, smiling and telling the guys you knew there would be some bro-bonding on this trip.

Adventure is going for a walk around your hotel and enjoying the surprise side trip to Reston, Virginia.

Adventure is knowing that your King knew this was going to happen and that He can work things out for good no matter what goes down.

I'm ready to get to the India Adventure part, but am enjoying the ride while we get there. :-) Check back in a few days to (hopefully) hear that we have arrived in Bangalore and have finally gotten to see our friends and begin our work!

Confession #2 : I'm not very good at laundry.

1st off I feel like I should begin this post by defending my mother...

My momma taught me how to do laundry! She taught me how to sort out the colors, determine the need for the "Regular" or "Delicates" cycle. She taught me that new, dark colored things might need to be washed by themselves. She taught me how to adjust the "Load Size" knob so that you get enough water in the barrel. She taught me how to fold and hang the clothes so they don't get wrinkly. She was a very good teacher.

But somehow, someway all those lessons just don't stay in my head all at the same time. When it was just me I had a system down. I had the same clothes and I knew what could wash with what and how much water and detergent was needed with each load. But now that I'm married... there are new clothes and a WHOLE LOT MORE of them.

Part of my confusion may come from the fact that my husband generates a fairly large amount of dirty laundry. He has clothes he wears to work, clothes he wears to work out, and clothes he wears to relax. And, if we're going out for the evening, he sometimes even changes into "going out" clothes.

Now, I am thankful that my husband doesn't walk the dog in his work slacks, and even more thankful that when he comes in from sweating... I don't have to ask him to change his shirt so he smells less during dinner. There is nothing wrong with how much laundry he generates... it is just more than I was expecting.

The past couple of weeks I let the laundry go longer than I should and have been working on piles of dirty laundry for what seems like days now. (There is so much we have two loads of blue. Not colors, not darks, not even jeans and everything else blue that's not jeans, but two complete loads of blue. I guess a third if you want to count the pile of jeans.) Anyway, I've been working on washing, drying and putting away as I edit and work on designs for my business.

Somehow this happened yesterday:

We had light blue, April Fresh scented patches all over all our whites. The first place I saw it was on one of Z's undershirts. I thought to myself:

"Hmm, he must have had a pen break. I should check his dress shirts before I wash them." Then I noticed it on some of his unmentionables:

"That's weird!" I thought to myself. "Maybe he didn't know the pen had broken and put it in his pants pocket. I'll check those too."

Then I saw it on one of my undershirts. "What? I don't even wear shirts with pen pockets?"

I examined the patches a little closer. It actually looked more like a blue highlighter or marker, but I didn't think Bugsy (my husband's dogchild, who isn't super happy about my constant presence) had mastered coloring yet. Surely I would have noticed a blue marker in the wash.

Then I noticed that this load smelled a lot stronger than the others... and why are my hands sticky?

I don't exactly know why, but after I loaded the whites into the washer Bugsy (it surely couldn't have been me) snuck out into the garage and turned the load size knob to Very Small. Now this is silly because as I have told you... none of my loads are even Medium let alone Small or Very Small. Crazy dog!

Anyway, once I figured out what was going on I ran them through again with no detergent and everything was fine. I told Bugsy that he was going to have to do better than that to rid of me. He just smirked and starred at me, or maybe he was starring at the door to my left, it's just so hard to tell with this little guy.

Confession #1 : I Love Spontaneous Adventures!

It was late Saturday night. Z and I had just finished a wonderfully full day hosting my parents in our home. We went to a local park for a bike ride and walk, beat them at a game of Spades, enjoyed some great burgers and just hung-out spending time together for Mother's Day.

Z and I were relaxing in the back yard, holding hands and watching the moon. The temperature was perfect, a breeze was blowing and the sky was clear, even in the middle of the city we could see 4 or 5 stars.

Z: "I wish we could see more stars."

I was MADE to react to statements like this! Up until that moment I was relaxing and almost ready to drift off to sleep. But as soon as I heard that, I knew the night was not even close to being over.

Me: "Do you want to?"

And we were off! We pulled the doors off my jeep (adventures to see stars are just better in the open air) grabbed a couple of cans of Dr. Pepper and headed out of town. Z had no idea where I was taking him and to be honest, I didn't either. I just had a general idea of where we would be far enough away from city lights. Thankfully, he didn't ask. He just sat next to me, singing along to the loud music and waving his hand in the wind where a car door used to be.

We drove for about 30 mins and got out past Pops and the Round Barn on Rt. 66. We headed down the county roads, I was turning here and there attempting to get lost and away from the lights.

Finally, I found a good spot. It wasn't too overgrown with trees and I hadn't seen any other cars for a few miles. There was a turn-in for a pasture so I wedged the jeep into its driveway so we weren't in the road in case anyone did come that way at midnight in the middle of no where.

Z and I got out and looked up. :-) We sat on the hood and then eventually climbed up to the roof of the jeep and watched the sky. We speculated about what makes stars twinkle, found the big and little dippers, looked for Orion (he was apparently on vacation), and talked about how cool it was that God choose to let us have a little glimpse of His creativity that is 1000s of miles away from us. We listened to the crickets and the wind, saw a single firefly, heard some animal breathing heavily in the pasture behind us (bovine or equine, we couldn't decide) and enjoyed the life God has blessed us with in that moment.

Eventually, we headed home. At 1:43AM I crawled into bed and set my alarm for church later that morning, kissed my husband (who was out as soon as his head hit the pillow), and drifted to sleep smiling!

I can't believe how much I am blessed and loved by my Heavenly Father and the husband He gave me. I love to go and do things at the drop of a hat. Planning is also wonderful, and I enjoy planning things almost as much as a spontaneous adventure. I don't live my entire life by the seat of my pants, but I love the idea that at any moment I could just go and do something crazy! I can't believe I now have a husband/best friend who will go with me.

Z is more than I dreamed up in my years of dreaming up the perfect man!

New Blog!

Hello there, my name is Karen. I'm newly married and am having a blast building a new home and life with my husband, Z. In just a few weeks I've learned that I have a lot to learn about being a wife to the most amazing guy I've ever met, but he is so gracious, loving and up for the new adventure.

The purpose of this blog is to share some of our stories, adventures and lessons I've learned with family, friends and any new readers who happen upon my url. I hope to make my readers laugh a little and I hope to honor Christ with each post.

Thanks for stopping by! Happy reading!