ADVENT

We celebrated the beginning of the Advent with style! Yesterday, Emily and I went with our friend, Johanna, on a trek to a waterfall. It might surprise you that there are so many waterfalls in north India, but we have plenty of beautiful ones thanks to the glaciers of the greater Himalayas. Jo and I even went behind the waterfall (which is much bigger in the summer after the snow melts) and it was amazing! We lost feeling in our hands but we didn't care. Don't be fooled when I compain about the cold--I love it here!

and the world keeps spinning round. my world's upside down and i wouldn't change a thing.

I was listening to this song tonight and thinking about this time last year. I'd only been in India for about a month and had no idea what to expect. It's probably been the craziest year of my life (South Asia is synonomous with crazy)--and I don't know that I would've ever chosen some of the experiences I've had. But somehow I'm so thankful for them now. Maybe it's easier to look back and say this but I really wouldn't change anything that's happened this year.

We decorated our tree today. Our tree leans as you can see from the picture below. We have colored lights that blink. It's all they have here. We put them on the tree and took them off and put them back on several times to try and make it look better. Our efforts were in vain.

Today we had our first Advent reading and candle lighting. The picture below the tree is me lighting our candle, which is actually a Pumpkin Spice Yankee candle instead of a real Advent candle. Emily put a picture of a tree up on our 'Jesse Tree' because today's theme is the Root of Jesse. In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious.'

I don't understand why there are all these issues in America right now about making Christmas less offensive to non-Christians. Christmas is a Christian holiday. No one in India cares if you talk about Christ during Christmas. They expect it. And India is not a Christian country. Beyond that, why are people getting so angry about things like this and things like Michael Richards making racist remarks and Britney Spears being a bad role model and going wild? I guess this is all bad stuff, but there are real reasons to be angry. Most of Malawi's AIDS victims are dying in 'hospitals' where three or four people share a bed with more people lying underneath. They are there because they can't afford the $1 a day required to get the right medicine. Why don't people get angry about that? On a more positive note I watched a segment about charity--and while many complain that the US government should give more aid, Americans, themselves, give more money out of their own pockets to charity than anyone else. So, way to go America. The biggest donors: religious people from the heartland. So, way to go Midwest.

We have a rat in our house. It comes in through the drain and we've tried all different things to contain it. We can't seem to find rat poison anywhere either. What to do? Actually, we never saw it--only evidence of it--until tonight. I was in the kitchen baking and the it ran out of the drain and behind the gas cylinder. It's not a normal rat--in fact, it looks a lot like Sensei from The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I didn't know what to do so I kept baking. It went back into the drain.

Ok...I'm going to end this post with a picture of my favorite kid. If I could pick one kid to bring home with me I would pick him.

i've got nothing else to lose. i lost it all when i found you and i wouldn't change a thing.