Alive and Well! :)

My Dear Followers,
Whew! 2 weeks have flown by and there is so much to say. Thank you for continuing to pray for me and care about me even when you didn't hear anything! 2 weeks ago we left for Mumbai, India on a 30 hour train ride through India--which was quite the fun experience! I even washed my hair over an Indian toilet while on the train. We stayed in Mumbai for about 5 days to attend a Nazarene Global Convention. IT was pretty neat to be connected all over the world in worship and planning of the future of the nazarene church. The first night we were there we went to see the gateway to India and the places of the terrorist attacks. We also ordered dominoes pizza that night-I've never been so stinkin' excited for pizza in my life! We also got to see the YIM Mumbai team of 5 girls. They stayed the night with us 2 nights and we had a great time! After leaving Mumbai we flew to Coimbatore, India and then drove up a mountain near Ooty and stayed there to do ministry for 5 days. This is where my site coordinator, Kingsley, is normally pastor. It was a beautiful area and reminded me of some of the mountains in Tennessee at times...but other times not so much! :) We did some site seeing while we were there as well-like going on an elephant ride, staying the night in a jungle, and going to a rose garden. At the rose garden there was a green lawn and a huge group of children and adults playing the India "duck duck goose" and they were having quite an incredible time. It was so fun to see adults laugh so hard and see that they haven't lost to joy in that game. We all really wanted to play even though we probably should've been leaving...so I jumped in and my teammates followed in excitement! It was a blast! I laughed SO hard. We ate some of the best food we'd had over that week. At one restaurant we found juicy kabob chicken and delicious cheese naan (a bread.) yum. Last Thursday we went to a church on the mountain to help paint. We went outside at one point to chip off paint and I used a tool that looked like a dull pearing knife. Quite the experience, we joked that we wouldn't finish the building before Jesus came back-our lunch break came first and then we ended up doing other stuff. But during the chipping of paint we enjoyed a time of singing hymms, it was a beautiful experience as a team. After lunch I had an incredible time. We went down to pick green beans with women in a field and they were such a blessing. One of the older women taught me to dance Indian style. We were standing in a field, dancing, picking green beans, and I was wearing a head bonnet they put on my because it was misting! A funny site I'm sure! :) We went to another town on Friday and stayed there for 2 full days. Saturday we went to talk with women who do an AIDS/HIV ministry and prayed wth them and then we went to a leprosy village. We also went to a ministry that houses and teaches mentally handicapped children. I loved being wtih them. The joys of making faces, playing peek a boo, and giving high fives! Saturday night we briefly visited another Child Development Center. The family's house we stayed at Friday and Saturday was such a blessing. My teammmates and I slept on the roof and enjoyed the night like that! I wore Deet (hard core mosquito) spray to bed and found out in the monring that I didn't get enough on my left foot. I had a case of 25-30 bites in the monring from my left ankle down my foot and it looked like I had a crazy secluded version of chickenpocks. I was asked to preach Sunday monring and so I traveled by motorcycle with the local pastor to a nearby church, preached there, and then back to his church and preached there as well. It went well and I was thankful that I got the opportunity to share what God had placed on my heart. We are back in Musiri, our home, and I look forward to seeing everyone we created relationships with before we left. Please pray for our ministry as we continue here. Also pray for my team as we have all dealt with homesickness over the past 2 weeks. Pray that we will live in the moment and soak up our time here, giving our all to ministry. Thank you for your prayers. The Lord has been so faithful to us. You are in my prayers and in my thoughts and heart. I love all of you and thank you for being faithful and writing me mail! It is great to get so many cards!

You are Loved,
Jen