Back in Lanka

We are back in Sri Lanka, but only for 16 hours. But it does feel great to be back home! We leave tomorrow morning for Vienna, Austria to visit my parents. My sister & her husband, and my brother & his girlfriend are all coming as well. We are so excited to see everyone.

We will be traveling to Croatia as well while we are there. Should be a great time of relaxing! Jesse will be there for a week, while Rachel & I are staying for two. IJM will be deciding next week if we will be able to come back to Sri Lanka to finish up our time, or if we will have to pack up everything and move to India. Please pray that IJM will make a wise decision on where we need to be.

Sparky's

There is this resteraunt here called Sparky's. It is run by an american named Tom Petty (his real name!) and actually has some pretty good food. Everyone from IJM eats here all the time, and on Sundays he gives a 20% discount to everyone who goes to the church we've been going too. So needless to say Sundays is packed with all the expats who love to get some american food.


Jesse & I always laugh at the situation, b/c it's almost like a sitcom. Everyone knows everyone, we all know the staff's first names & they know ours. All the kids just run around the resteraunt, & the owner just sits & hangs out while we are all there. It's very nice to see such a great community. It is the one thing we will miss about India.

Lots & lots of gods

We really haven't gotten out to see much of Chennai since we've been here... although honestly there really isn't that much to see. : ) So today we went to Kapaleswarar a Hindu Temple. It is the biggest one in Chennai.

It's very interesting to hear about the different religions in the world, and to hear their take on Christianity. They often think that there is not much of a difference at all. For me the biggest difference is that there is not much grace if any at all in Hinduism & Buddhism (mainly about works/penance) where as grace is what Christianity is all about. (okay enough of a sermon) : ) I really enjoy seeing all the beuatiful art work and architecture that goes into all their temples. The big temple above has over 300 statues on it, & was just repainted which took 3 years. Amazing. Our guide is going to do a fire walking ceremony tomorrow evening, we were thinking of going, but they also do a lot of piercings, and body mutilation, which I'm not too sure Rachel or I could take. So don't count on any pictures...sorry.

Adjusting

So we are still in the hotel, & it looks like we will stay in the hotel for the next 11 days. We leave Sept. 21st to fly back to Sri Lanka so that we will be able to make our flight on the 22nd to Austria. (a trip we already had planned before we were told that we had to leave Sri Lanka) While we are in Austria IJM will make a decision if we can go back to Sri Lanka or if we will have to stay in India. If we have to come back, we will stay in an apartment.

We are still adjusting, but doing better. The one great thing here is that there are a lot of people working for IJM here, so we already feel apart of a community. Rachel has already met a lot of new friends here. and they've been great with inviting us to lots of activities. In fact Jesse & I were able to go on our first real night on the town since May on Friday without Rachel. Our friends have a housekeeper who watches their two girls every Friday night, so let us leave Rachel with her as well, so we could all go out. It was great.

Yesterday we got invited to the beach. It's about 1hour drive. But it was worth it. It felt so nice to get out of Chennai for a day. Rachel loved playing in the pool, & is getting so good at swimming.


Sorry I don't have more pictures for you all. I will try to get some up soon.

Oh yeah, other good news is that our vonage phone works here too, so we can be reached at our 703 number.

Hello from India

Just wanted to let you know that we have arrived in India. Very different from Sri Lanka. We are looking for a place to live this week. Hopefully we find something soon. I'll get pics up soon, but just wanted to let you know that we are here. : )