I am feeling quite foolish right now. I sat in the open-air lobby of John and Sunita's apartment building two nights ago to write my last blog post, and forgot one VERY important detail. Bug Spray.

Thanks to my blonde hair and unassuming nature, my ankles and feet are now twice the size they should be, and are covered in about 30 mosquito bites, some of which have turned to blisters. I promise not to show you any pictures, although I did take a few to send to Kate and my Mom for their sick and twisted doctor/nurse pleasure. Some antibiotic cream and hydrocortizone cream are now my two best friends, and I can't wait until everything is cleared up. I had to tell the children today to be extra gentle with Miss Emily because her feet hurt. They ran with the idea and treated me very nicely all day long :)

Class today was really great. I spent most of the time "testing" each student and writing down observations about where their skill level was. In a few days, Sunita and I will sit down and evaluate each child based on their official diagnosis (down syndrome, mental retardation, etc) to create a new curriculum for the next few months.

In the evening I accompanied John to a community meeting which is held every Wednesday night at the church in the bar/astrologist. Representatives from about 15 different ministries in Mysore gather together to give updates and pray for each other. John shared some of the most recent news from BGSS, and it was encouraging to hear about all the things that God is doing in this city! Hopefully I can go again to another one of these meetings.

Prayer Requests:

-Quick healing for my bug bites and for the swelling to go down so I can walk normally.

-Opportunities to share the Gospel with Laura, Jana, Hannah, and the mother of one of our students, who is Muslim and lives in John and Sunita's building

Praises:

-Productive work at the pre-vocational school

Laura and Jana left today for Bangalore to have a debrief of their time here with the entire group of international volunteers. This means that I am alone in the apartment until Thursday night, and also that I have taken their spots in the prevocational school with the older children.

This is both exciting and scary at the same time. When I work with the younger children, all I need is a smile and flexibility. Working with the older children requires much more patience, understanding, and a bit more preparation. One other male volunteer who is a graduate of the Mysore YWAM (Youth With A Mission) DTS (Discipleship Training School) works with the older children, and another young woman comes for part of the day to assist. I am teaching the language class, where we work on sight words, reading, and writing with two children at a time. Since it was only decided this morning that I would work in the prevocational school this week, I had no time to prepare. Things are very low-key, but I had no clue where each student was as far as skill level goes. I had to guess as I went along, using their completed work to guess what they could accomplish in our 45 minute class. God has a funny way of using everything for a purpose, and it's no coincidence that I'm studying TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and that I've been asked to teach this class.

On Sunday I went with John and Harley (one of the Locklear twins) to a church where John preaches once per month. It was the same church where I went to the DTS graduation on my first night. Many of the YWAM DTS graduates stay at this church, and it is mostly young adults and university students. Three of the BGSS teachers who completed DTS also go to this church. They were 30 strong in a very small room, and the worship was passionate and vibrant. One of my favorite things about the global Church that I have seen in my travels is the expressive and sincere worship that shines forth when all the extras and distractions are stripped away.

Two other things struck me about the service. First, the prayer. Except for one time when John prayed before his message, all the prayer was spoken aloud by every person at the same time. Whoever was leading at the moment would suggest a topic of prayer, and each person would immediately begin praying aloud at their seat, allowing the Spirit to lead the conversation. It reminded me of Christ's warning to the disciples in Matthew 5 not to pray loudly to be heard by all, so that they may think more of you. When the fear of man is removed by the fact that you can't hear what other people are saying, the prayer that happens is pure and honest. It's not about who can pray most eloquently and use the most theological words; it's about adoring God in a moment of worship and fervently asking him for things in accordance with his will. It was brilliant.

The second thing was the importance of sharing testimonies with each other. The pastor invited a young man up who decided to pursue Christ three months ago. Until his conversion he spoke no English, and was able to stand on Sunday and share his story in remarkable English while quoting verses like nobody's business. His story was encouraging, and I was convicted that we rarely share like this in service at home, be it HBC or Mosaic in Spokane. Is it because we are worried that we will go over our time limit when someone gets too wordy sharing their story? Sorry, that was harsh. I have just been thinking about it for a while.

Sunday night I went with Laura, Jana, and some of their other volunteer friends to see the famous Mysore Palace all lit up at night. Every Sunday evening from seven till eight pm the palace is lit up with hundreds of thousands of old-fashioned yellow and glowing lightbulbs outlining every single edge of the ornate architecture. It was incredible. None of this silly eco-friendly spiral lightbulbs, just the beautiful and warm glow of classic Edison lightbulbs against the backdrop of a dark night sky.

Just an anecdote for fun:

All Indian-made cars play Indian jingles out loud when they are in reverse. Haha. I guess to alert everyone who isn't paying attention. Also, some of them speak when you turn them on and say things like, "Welcome to your dream ride. Please wear your seatbelt for optimum safety." But only the driver and passengers seats have seatbelts. No one wears them anyway.

I have resigned myself to the fact that I can't share everything here. But what to say? Mysore is a blur of color, people, and action all day and night. Sometimes I have to stop and remember where I am and how everything worked out for me to be here.

My time with the children at BGSS has been wonderful. When I am with the younger children, I work in the computer class helping them play simple games and work the basic functions. They have very little control of their speech, and even when they do say things it is in Kannada (the local language) and only a few of the teachers speak that. Even then, they always tell me that what the children say makes no sense.

We start each morning with all the children from both schools meeting at the main school for songs, simple prayer, and attendance. Then we separate for the day and the older children go to the pre-vocational school down the road.

Outside the main school building, where the younger children are taught and where four of the volunteer teachers, Prasana and Santhi (husband and wife) Clinton, and Nganba live.

On Friday I went with the pre-vocational class to Karanji Lake, a nature conservation park about 15 minutes from the school. There are all sorts of birds including peacocks, the national bird of
India. The older children are so much fun to be with, and are very eager to please and make us teachers laugh. Trips with them in BGSS' bus are always enjoyable. They sing Hindi and popular Bollywood songs for us.

I went out shopping with Jana and Laura later on Friday, and spent my first considerable amount of time in Mysore city. I am so thankful to have them with me, otherwise I would be lost! They are teaching me all the names of the places we frequent and fair prices for the auto drivers (rickshaws) so I know not to get cheated when I go out alone. The vendors here are incredibly friendly, and never fail to ask where I am from and tell me about a distant relative or friend of theirs somewhere in the US.

Today all the teachers met in the morning to clean both schools from top to bottom. With everyone taking a bit of the work, it went quickly. In the afternoon, Laura, Jana, and I met up with another German girl named Hannah who is working at a different NGO in Mysore. We took some children from Hannah's school to the famous Mysore Zoo. One of the children's father works at the Zoo, so we all got in for free. This was good, because I don't have a residence permit, so I have to pay the foreigner price for everything. It was 100 rupees (Rs) for adult foreigners at the Zoo, and only 40 Rs for residents. (Right now the exchange rate is 48 Rs = $1). It's hardly a large sum of money, but still!

The children loved pointing out the animals to us and telling us their Kannada names. They were also always asking me how to say things like hippopotamus and lemur in English. In the middle of our visit it started pouring rain, which was a bit of a challenge. After 30 minutes in the rain, we gave up and embraced being totally wet. We still saw tigers, elephants, lions, kangaroos, giraffes, hyenas, mice, rabbits, crocodiles, and peacocks. Any of those sound out of place? Yep, they had a habitat with about 50 rabbits. Those aren't very common here apparently. The children didn't believe me when I told them that I had rabbits as pets growing up.

I have already gotten used to the fact that people will stare at me wherever I go. Just walking down the street or waiting outside the apartment for the school bus draws a crowd. They're not being rude intentionally, but they will stare and not look away. People driving past on motorbikes will stare behind at me while flying into oncoming traffic. Haha.

One of my favorite things so far is being able to go down the street and get delicious fresh fruit anytime. It's mango season!

Prayer Requests:
-Continued health
-Usefulness at the school
-Building relationships with the teachers
-Sharing the Gospel with Jana and Laura, who don't believe in God

Praises:
-Still healthy!
-Good first few days at the school

After two uneventful plane rides (the longest of my life) I arrived early Wednesday morning, around 5 am local time. John Locklear picked me up from the Bangalore airport and we took the four hour ride to Mysore in a taxi. Many of you know that 3 years ago I was in Nairobi, Kenya where the driving is notoriously crazy. Well, Kenya has nothing on India. I've decided that this is due mostly to the sheer number of people who live in India, but this was, nevertheless, a pretty scary drive.

Bicycles, motorbikes, taxis, trucks, pedestrians, wild dogs, and cows all wove in and out of two lanes, appearing out of nowhere and paying no attention to the rules of the road. It was better not to look at all :)

After stopping for breakfast at John and Sunita's apartment, I was taken to mine over in the adjacent building. On the weekends I will be sharing it with two German girls named Laura and Jana who have been volunteering at BGSS since August. They are so nice and I can't wait to spend more time with them. I visited both BGSS schools yesterday (they are split between the lower-functioning or younger children and the higher-functioning or older children) and got a taste of the work I will be doing.

Prayer requests:

-continued health

-quick adjustment

-fruitful work in the school in whatever way I can

Praises:

-safe travel

-provision of funds to purchase new clothes (I really do stick out like a sore thumb! Every woman is wearing a variation of the same thing---No jeans or tshirts here!)

I have arrived! There is so much to say, but I'll have to write more later. India is beautiful and I am still shocked to be here. I could stay forever. But really, I promise to write more tonight. Just wanted you all to know that I am alive and well :)