Monday, Monday... so good to be.

FIRST, let me say thank you to my sister Jennisa for designing a new blog for us. We are very pleased!!! Check out her business at “Once Upon a Blog” (click on the left… over there…a little down… yep, that one!)

Today we woke up to no electricity for two hours. Usually we don’t have it from 5:30am – 6:30ish. But for some reason it didn’t come till 7:40. No matter, water in buckets is still water in buckets, and we use propane lanterns until it arrives.

We continued to long road to cleaning up the place. We actually moved on from the main store room to the laundry room. The offices here were at one time a large room, 15 x 25 feet. Several years ago a wall was erected between the this space to separate the formal office from a file and office storage room. There was the accumulation of a decade of stuff, but the main reason this happened is due to the lack of room in the main store room. Now that this has been remedied—we were able to place the barrels, dryer (for the monsoon season) and several chests of files in the store room.

And now we have A LOT of room in the laundry area. Enough so that Emrys can iron back there. Pictures to come. I also decided to take an old hand crafted book shelf from the 1960’s and bring it into the living room (to provide more room back in the laundry area). We moved several items from the living room back into laundry and then moved the bookshelf (the main one) in the living room about two feet back. It has given the living room a different feel. Open space, not crammed together like before. I think it will go over well when we have meetings in the house.

I played cricket with Santhosh from 4:30-5:30pm. All the time the clouds were getting darker, and huge thunder was rolling above (dry thunder is loud and common before the real rains come in India). Around 5:45pm the power went out.. and then flickered…then flickered again… and this is basically the worst of all signs! We basically spend three hours and fifty minutes of the next four hour in the dark (with the lamps). But it was raining out side so it was nice and cool. A much needed rain.

It actually was good though. We were able to begin talking about the transformations that need to take place in the mission before and during the stage of handing off the “Directorship” and “Deputy Directorship” when Emrys and Usha retire from administration to enjoy life and help various church leadership and women’s ministry. All five of us (In-laws and 3 kids) were there talking and eating cheese sandwiches (actually it tasted alright to a Wisconsin boy).

There was much discussed and I think we are getting close to having a real schedule of 4 main topics to hash out this month (the top four concerns/opportunities/needs… and then hopefully 14-16 secondary and tertiary needs that we can place into a 3-4 year plan including the transition of missionaries sometime in the next 24-36 months.

Prayers: That our conversations are heavily spiced with faith in a God who can handle all of our problems. That our conversations are honest and loving at all times – even when we disagree or are “venting” frustrations. That our conversations will have goals that are not only godly, or God honoring, but have a healthy dose of dreaming big enough for the Creator to have his hands in it all. Please keep remembering Kathryn’s hands. Her “bumps” in the hands have subsided, but the itchiness is still there.

Praises: Rain. It rained from 6-8pm. It was glorious!!! Rain is good! I hope it will be cool here for at least two days. And praises for the power being out, and being force to have a deeper conversation as a family. I good breakthrough I feel.

Thanks for your continued thoughts, they are shared from this side as we think of many of you... often!