The Lewis Family Goes to India

A Bit About The Zoo & The Headmistress

2009-07-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

We got the opportunity to take the Hope Centre children to the Vandalur Zoo last Friday. None of them had ever been to a zoo before. They were so excited about seeing a real tiger, and they loved the white peacocks. They got to eat ice cream cones and have lunch in a gazebo. The children all rode the bus with us (not recommended unless absolutely necessary), and Danush got to ride around on Dustin's shoulders during travel to and from the bus. Overall, it went swimmingly, and the kids all had a fabulous time.

We took Jack with us as well, but he had a very slight fever, and it was his nap time, so he was getting grumpier and grumpier until Pastor Caleb let Jack "drive" the bicycle he had rented. I think Caleb pushed him around most of the area in the zoo that we visited while Jack squealed with delight. We only stayed for two hours, but those kids have a tendency to get really naughty when they are tired, so it worked out well. Rabi, Caleb, Devi, Keziya, and Pastor Sateesh all came. I think there were about 20 kids in all. I'll post some pictures on the web album.

Dustin's at the Hope Centre with Rabi right now, and Jack and I are at Rabi's sister's house. His sister Freeda and her family live here, and across the patio is Rabi's dad & mom's house. They are always so sweet to let Jack and me stay here during the days Dustin's at the Hope Centre. Rabi's mom, Mariel, is giving me the occasional cooking lesson so that I can learn some useful South Indian dishes. (Dustin keeps asking when I am going to learn to cook vadai and chutnies.) Jack absolutely loves being here and seeing Pati (Grandma), Tata (Grandpa), and Auntie (Freeda).

I had a chat with Bridget's headmistress yesterday. She said Bridget is very friendly with every child in the school, and every teacher. She has gobs of friends there, and when any child is crying she'll put on a mask and roar at them until they start laughing. The only thing is, if they try to get her to sit down and do her classwork, she'll do it for about five minutes, and then she'll get bored with it and want to go play on the slide or visit Abisheik. (Abisheik is in an older class upstairs.) If they try to force her, she'll start crying for mommy. The headmistress said she can't bear to force her after that, because she knows Bridget isn't from there, and she wants to go easy on her. We talked about it, and she and I both agreed that Bridget needs to learn to sit down and do her schoolwork when she's supposed to. She said they'll start treating her the same as they do the other children. We'll see how it goes... I guess.

I'm hoping we can get a white board for the Hope Centre again soon. We had one there on loan from Calvary Ministries (the church Caleb is a Pastor at), but they took it back. Bummer. We desperately need something there, though. It's nearly impossible to teach another language without the ability to write things out for them, or draw pictures. We have almost no supplies there anyway.

On School Uniforms & A Double-Decker Bus

2009-06-15T03:06:00.000-07:00

Well, The Hope Centre reopened today. I have never been so happy to see those naughty little faces! I missed them terribly during the last 6 weeks of summer holidays. When I remember how they were when we first opened the Hope Centre the difference is like night and day. Nobody even tried to climb the shelves or windows. Bridget started kindergarten today! She looks so cute in her little red uniform, and white shirt. I hope she will adjust to it well. She said the teacher let her watch t.v. and play on the slide today, so I'm not really sure how that will go.

In the last few weeks we were very busy. We went to London for 10 days so that we could renew our visas. We got to see a lot of marvelous things there: The Tower of London, the Zoo, Windsor Castle, a few Starbucks :), LEGOland. Not to sound too corny, but the best part of the whole trip was getting to see my kids with their grandparents (Terry and Tammy met us there). Dustin and I got to go on two dates! The first in 5 months. We went to see Terminator, and we went to a medieval banquet. And, yes, I got to ride on a double-decker bus.

Well, I think I'll leave it at that for now. For missing updates see next posting.

Ash

The lake and Bangalore

2009-05-15T23:57:00.000-07:00

On the first of April, Rabi invited us to go to the lake just outside of Vandalur for the day. We followed him to the YWAM house (which he sleeps at most of the time) by autorickshaw and, from there we went the rest of the way by three separate motorcycles. Ashlin rode with Rabi on our scooter, Bridget rode with Sasi Kumar, and Jack and I rode with a very large man named Mari. Now, don't ask me why I, as the heaviest member of our family, rode on a bike with Rabi's bulkiest friend, but the rear fender bounced up and down on its tire for most of the trip. At the lake, Rabi showed us how to fish with a huge net and Ashlin even got to help empty the net.
After lunch, Henry Daniel happened be driving by and Rabi cornered him and made him teach me how to drive our scooter. After a very short while, I was officially qualified to drive it alone, and later that day, I took Ashlin out and taught her to drive it as well.
That Friday, which happened to be Bridget's 5th birthday, we took an overnight train to Bangalore. Trying to sleep with your children on a crowded train is not fun. Actually, I slept fairly well on the top bunk while Ashlin tried to get a little rest with a sick Jack in her bed. She didn't sleep at all that night. We arrived in Bangalore at about 7 AM, took a taxi to drop Ashita off at her parents' house, and finally got to Rabi's friend James' house at 9. After several hours of resting, we were off to go shopping. Traffic in Bangalore is crazy. It took 45 minutes to go about six by auto to a mall suggested by Ashita. The mall didn't turn out to have anything we were looking for, so we went nearby to Market Street (or maybe it was Commercial Street) where you can find almost any sort of shop imaginable. We spent most of the remainder of the day shopping, until Bridget started to get sick with a high fever. Luckily, the fever broke during the night, so we were free to go exploring in the morning.
The next day was spent mostly at the botanical gardens. Bangalore's gardens are amazingly beautiful, and we got to take our time wandering through them. I'll make sure that Ashlin gets pictures from Bangalore up in the morning so you all can see what it was like.
I'll be getting posts up for all of the weeks that we've missed in the last two months soon. I mean it this time... promise.

Dinner at Rabi's

2009-04-21T04:59:00.000-07:00

We are going to dinner at Rabi's Parents' house tonight. It'll be fun to meet new people. Hopefully Bridget will eat.

Communication problems have gotten very difficult. It's frustrating being in a place where we aren't allowed to do much, without asking permission first. Please pray that we won't feel so discouraged about this.

"Weekly" Update

2009-04-19T23:52:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know that we're no good at keeping up on the blog. :( Tonight, Ashlin and I are going to put up multiple postings about our travels over the last month, work at the Hope Centre, and some prayer request. Ashlin will also post a bunch of photos. Thanks for putting up with us, everyone!

A month's worth of miscellany

2009-03-24T06:12:00.000-07:00

I'll start things out with a brief explanation. As I'm sure you've all noticed, were doing a really great job keeping up with our promise of updates every few days. There is a reason for our lack of posting, however. Mostly it's the heat, the darn, darn heat. Typically, after we get the kids in bed we collapse in a heap and stew in our juices until morning. Thanks for being understanding of us, we're so thankful that we have people at home praying for us. Ashlin did update the photo album a week or two ago, but we forgot to do a post to let you guys know. Anyway, on to the stories!

A few weeks ago, Ashlin was at the Hope Centre early when this guy named Babu showed up. He said, through hand signals, that he was supposed to measure something at the daycare but no one had actually called him and, as Ashlin doesn't speak Tamil, there wasn't much else to say. Later that day, Babu stopped her on the side of the road and insisted on giving her a bag of vegetables, saying that God had told him to do so. With the encouragement of the cook and teacher she was walking with, she took them. The next day, I was walking to the daycare when Babu pulled up next to me and told me he would give me a ride the rest of the way. I, having misunderstood Ashlin's story and thinking that Babu was from our church, accepted said ride. Upon arrival at the Hope Centre, Babu offered to have Ashlin and me over for lunch. I tried to explain that it was Jack's birthday and, as such, it wouldn't work to have lunch that day. He ended the conversation with, "Okay, two o'clock." I tried to have Caleb call him and work it out, but he was too busy and said not to worry. At a quarter till three, as Ashlin and I were decorating the flat for Jack's party, I got called over to Caleb's father Rajan's house. Babu was there and wanted to know why I hadn't met him at the school. Using Rajan and Bina as translators, I explained again that it wasn't a good day for this. He insisted that, if we couldn't go to his house for lunch, that he would bring the food to us. So, around four, we got called down to Caleb's house where Babu was waiting with some food for us. Babu and Ashita talked to each other for a while in Tamil, and eventually, Babu left the meal for us. After he was gone, Caleb and Ashita more or less ordered us to dispose of the food. They said that you never know about people here and that sometimes being white makes us instant targets.
Anyway, I wanted to share the above story to shed some light on the difficulties we are having communicating with people without getting things hopelessly mixed up. About half of the people in Vandalur speak English. Only, they don't all speak very good English. The language breakdown has led to multiple times where Ashlin and I have ticked people off by not doing what they thought they had asked us to do. Twice now, Ashlin has scheduled to go with Keziya and Devi around the neighborhood praying for people only to have them never show up, and later, they were convinced that Ashlin didn't go with them because they had done something wrong.
As I mentioned earlier, all of the craziness with Babu happened on Jack's birthday while we were trying to set up for the party. Trying to plan a party within a culture you aren't familiar with is difficult to say the least. The night before the party, Caleb took me for a terrifying nighttime motorcycle ride through a zoo of traffic to Tambaram for Jack's gift and all of the party supplies. We got Jack a mattress, and yes, I rolled it up and carried it on the back of the bike. I figured that, if we got in a wreck, the mattress would serve in place of the helmet I don't own. So, Jack's birthday fell smack dab in the middle of a ten day long fasting prayer at the church (although I'm not sure if anyone besides Bina was fasting) and, even though we started at the time Caleb suggested, most people didn't show up till after the prayer, which was about 8:30. We also made the mistake of getting pizza from Tambaram. Boy howdy! that was expensive. For Bridget's birthday, we're going to have Indian food. Jack had a great time, though, so it doesn't really matter that it was an awkward situation for the adults.

A couple of weeks ago, Ashita's mother, Shirley and sister nicknamed Pinkoo, whose real name I can't remember, came to Vandalur to visit. Ashlin got to spend a couple of hours one day hanging out at Ashita's house with them. They invited us to visit them in Bangalore if we ever make it out that way, which we will be doing next weekend. We'll get lots of pictures (in theory) for you guys while we're there.

Two weeks ago, Caleb found a scooter for us to buy. Its very manly. I haven't been able to get anyone to teach me how to drive it yet, but Henry Daniel (a friend from church) said he could teach me on Saturday. I'm desperately looking forward to having a little bit of freedom of movement. As it stands, we have to call Rabi anytime we need to go anywhere outside of Vandalur. I'll be sure to let everyone know as soon as I crash it. :)

On the 16th, Caleb left for a trip to the U.S. He'll be visiting family and then travelling around to some churches and letting them know about all of the work being done in India. Please pray for his safe journey and that he can raise the funds and awareness that he needs to. He'll be in the Vancouver/Portland area as of April 10th or so.
After two and a half weeks of holiday, the Hope Centre is back up and running. We haven't been getting as many children coming each day due to some squabbling amongst their parents. Instead of fifteen to eighteen kids, we've been getting eight or nine a day. The upside of this is that we get to spend more time with each kid. We have four kids that Rabi thinks will be ready for regular school by June. Ashlin and I aren't so sure that they're ready for that yet, but they certainly are improving. The kids don't climb the bookshelves and windows anymore, and today, Ajith and Tirisha actually slept at nap time!

One of us will post more info in a few days, but before I go I have an announcement. Jack is in love. He's decided that Caleb and Ashita's daughter Chickoo is the coolest girl ever. It's really cute, he'll be in our room playing with his toot-toot (that's how he says train) and he'll hear her voice from downstairs. He'll stop playing, stand up meerkat style, and start chanting Tee-coo! Tee-coo! Ashita asked if we could sense a future marriage proposal.

Lastly, someday I'll put the recipe for egg curry up for everyone, but we'll see how long that takes. We love you all. I promise we won't keep you all waiting so long before we post again. Goodnight.

Middle of a sultry Indian night

2009-03-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

Waaay to tired to post tonight. I'm so sorry it's been so long. We're still alive, obviously. No terrible diseases. Will write soon.
Love you all,
Ash

A Battle Between Good and Weevil

2009-02-15T10:31:00.000-08:00

Weevils. These things are awful. Not because they're scary or dirty or poisonous or anything, but because you can't get rid of the dang things. Let's back up a bit. About a week about Jack peed on our bag of rice while cuddled up on it, and even though we dried the bag quickly, it seems that the rice got moist enough to become appealing to the local weevil population. We asked Rabi what to do about this and he said to lay it out in the sun, so we took the rice up to the roof, laid in out on a sheet, and let it dry for a few hours. Alas, the blasted things still live in our rice and we now have to throw it out and buy a new bag. Lame.

In other news: Bridget lost her second tooth, and this time she didn't swallow it. Oh yeah. I helped tug it out the other night and she wrapped it up in a napkin as a gift to the Tooth Fairy. She says that the tooth can be used to build the Fairy's "fortress". When she found the three 10 rupee notes, she exclaim "Wow, I got three rupees!" I told her that each one was actually 10 rupees and she said, "Wow, I've got seventy rupees!"

A couple days ago, Caleb took me to pray for a nine year old boy with leukemia named Meganada. The doctor at the hospital sent Meganada home two weeks ago saying that there was nothing left that he could do. He gave him one day to live. It has now been nineteen days, but without God's intervention, there is little hope for him to pull through. He's very weak and lies on a mat at his grandmother's house all day. He asked to go to church on sunday and said that he felt much better after listening to the sermon. Please pray for him.

We also ask for you to pray for Sarathkumar, a nine year old gypsy boy who fell into a fire on tuesday and was taken to the hospital. He has three sisters. His father is dead, and his mother is very sick with breast cancer, so they are being cared for by their grandmother. About 30 percent of his body is covered in second and third degree burns and his face is most likely going to be ruined from scarring. The biggest worry would be the chance of infection due to the fact that he has open sores and minimal access to medicine. What's left of his hair has been cut to about a quarter inch and he's covered in blisters. Ashlin prayed with him on thursday, and I went to see him on friday. Our prayer is that God will heal him and that Sarathkumar and his family will know that God healed him.

Work at the Hope Centre is going well, I suppose. After the weekend, the children regress to their original amount of self control. Monday is not a fun day (sorry about the bad rhyme) at the Centre. Ashlin made up some scenes from the Bible out of felt and the kids loved them. I saw the kids sit still for the first time when I told them the story of Adam and Eve (which they pronounce Yeva). She's working on Noah's Ark as I'm typing, it's pretty rad looking. A few of the children seem to be making progress with their English, but most of them don't seem to want to learn.

Lastly, we ate lunch at Devi's (the cook at the Hope Centre) house today. She lives in a small house with a woven palmroof. She made us rice, of course, with sambar (a lentil sauce), rice crisps, egg-chilli patties, spiced beef, fish jerkey, and sweet orange-colored wheat based dessert...stuff. Yummmmmm. Jack and I ate a ton, Ashlin had three servings forced on her, and Bridget boycotted her food which made Devi and her husband worry that Bridget was sick. Eating at someone's house here is weird. They don't eat with you, instead, they sit and watch you eat and wait till you finish before dishing up for themselves. Awkward. After we ate, Devi took us to her neighbor's homes to pray for them. It's sad, because it seems that a white person's prayer is of higher value to them than an Indian's.

Anyway, sorry to ramble on like that. I'm putting up a new recipe tonight when I finish typing this. Let us know if you tried the other one, or if you would like us to email it to you now that it's gone.

Goodnight Everyone.

Dustin

Bugs.

2009-02-09T16:13:00.000-08:00

Work at the Hope Centre is going fairly well. I suspect all of the kids there have lice. But there's not much you can do about it. Even if they were all treated for it, they would go back home and become reinfected. Ugh! I don't want those!

Because the ant powder used here only kills the ants on site and not back at the nests, we can't get rid of these wretched things! They are everywhere! Ants are not good pets.

Roaches. We've had two so far. And, they are about two inches long! Ahhhhhhh! That, I cannot deal with. Luckily they were about a week and a half apart. But still...

Bees here are terrifying. I haven't seen a cute one yet. I keep expecting to see fuzzy bumblebees on the flowers. Instead, horrors, bees with two inch wingspans. And they are smooth, shiny, and black like beetles. Very creepy. There are also entirely black hornet things that try to come in through our netlon (screens). They are so persistent I'm really afraid they will notice the gaps on the sides someday.

And of course, the ever popular mosquitoes. I was cleaning up some of the garbage outside the Hope Centre the other day, and I noticed a stinging sensation on my ankles. I looked down to find a carpet of approximately fifteen mosquitos on each ankle, feasting. It was horrifying. And those were just the tightly grouped ones.
Ok, my rant is done.

Teaching these little kids is unbelievably difficult. They have almost no attention span. And we have pretty much no way to control them. Cessia, Devi, and Rabi threaten them with sticks, with the occasional whack, but to no avail. They feed on ANY attention, and nothing delights them more that to misbehave. Any, distractions or teaching ideas, or games, songs, rhymes, stories, anything you can think of that require very little or no supplies, would be so greatly appreciated. I can't even tell you how much we would love it. It's hard on them to be there. They like it, and they like being fed, but they aren't used to being inside, and having to sit still, and do organized games and learning. If we could learn the language it would help so much, but no one will teach us. Everytime we try to ask, they just say, "Why do you want to learn Tamil? Just speak English, it's fine." But it's not fine. It's making life here a lot harder. Especially with those kids.

We finally got to go to the zoo today! And we live right next to it. In an autorickshaw it takes about ten minutes to get there. Apparently Vandalur Zoo is the largest zoo in Asia. We only had time to see a small part of it, but we'll go back. AND, we got to ride on an elephant! It was so cool!! I didn't get to take very many pictures, because the accursed, "rechargeable" camera batteries keep going dead.

I have posted more pictues on our web album though, so be sure to check the link on the left had column of the page. And, if you look at my other web albums posted in Picasa, you can find the "Opening of the Hope Centre" pictures.

Please pray that we will all be healthy, and that we continue doing what God wants for our lives.

We love you all,
Ashlin & Dustin, Bridge, & Jackie

The Dangers of Trains

2009-01-26T22:44:00.000-08:00

Now, here's the thing:
We've all become very accustomed to the amazing cacophony of train noises from right outside our window, which is usually a good thing, seeing as they are the loudest during the middle of the night. However, because of said familiarity, not one of us was awoken by what must have been an unspeakable amount of pounding, coming from our new washing machine walking itself across our living room floor, and subsequently flooding half of our house. Thankfully, all of the floors are tiled, and nothing except a refrigerator box was ruined.

The orientation at the Hope Centre (the Gypsy school) started yesterday (Wednesday). Pastor Caleb wants me to make a sign for the front grate (where a window would be), and "charts" for the office room. Dustin and I are alternating days at the daycare, so I worked yesterday, and he did today.

When fed at the daycare, each child ate as much as two adult men. Imagine the hunger involved there! Even when bribed with candy, they were only able to stay on task for a few minutes at a time. When I was working there, they would, literally, start climbing the built in bookshelves, and trying to escape out the doors when they got bored. They started out sitting a reasonable distance away from me, but every few seconds inched a little closer, so that very soon, they were beating at each other in order to be closest to me so they could lie across my lap. Several times, when I was left alone in the room with them, they started climbing all over me, and pulling on me so vigorously, that someone else would come in because of the raucous, and reprimand them in Tamil, and they would sit down again. Dustin experienced random, violent bouts of dancing, and the insertion of unknown, found objects into the mouths of even the oldest children.

Last night, when we were being plagued by an exceptionally long power outage, we learned that all we've had to do this entire time to fix the problem is, turn some dials at the bottom of the fuse box to a different setting! Another one of those daily life things that are so obvious to people here, that they forget to mention them to us.

Dustin, Jack, and I have experienced our first food poisonings. Dustin and Jack were much worse off than me. Apparently, my vast food poisoning experiences in Mexico may have actually been good for something!

We haven't been able to take any pictures as of late because our AA batteries went dead. Dustin went down to the local store to buy some more, and the proprietor asked "How many?" and chopped two off of a roll for him. When we got them home and into the camera, they were completely dead. That was before finding out that you aren't supposed to buy batteries in the local shops, because you have no idea how long they've been on that roll.

Well, it's getting late. I love you all! Goodnight.
Ashlin

Included in the next update:
The Indian Head Waggle

Sticky and Covered in Mosquito Bites

2009-01-20T10:01:00.001-08:00

Oh my is it ever hot here! So very humid. The power goes out at night sometimes and it feels like we're trying to breathe through wet blankets. I, personally, haven't mastered sleeping in that particular situation yet. The mosquitoes are very aggressive here, and Bridget and I are covered in bites. There are train tracks right in front of our flat and Jack gets so excited about the trains that he starts chanting, "Toot-toot! Toot-toot!!". Bridget lost a tooth, and promptly swallowed it. Dustin and I are learning to cook Indian food.

As far as the mission work goes, we've gotten to go to the Gypsy camp once, and the Ragpicker camp once. Dustin went to pray at peoples houses twice. The Gypsy school is going to start on Monday, and at first, until our children have adjusted to the situation a little, Dustin and I will be alternating the days we work at the school. So, one of us will be home with the kids at any given time. It is frustrating feeling like I am not as valuable to some people here, because of being a woman

Now that we've got our internet connection running, I set up the web album so everybody can see pictures, and I'll be able to update the blog regularly.

We love you all and miss you,
Ashlin & all the Lewises

Finally Here!

2009-01-16T01:22:00.000-08:00

We arrived safely in India! We are adjusting to the new timezone and lifestyle. Unfortunately, I can't write for long today because we are using Pastor Caleb's computer. However, we will have our own connection in a few days and be able to talk and post pictures, and whatnot. We miss you all desparately! We've all had our hard times so far, missing Washington and all that. Dustin and I hope you are all doing well. More info soon! P.S. Please pray for our family to be able to focus on what we came here for.

Welcome Blessings

2008-12-18T22:48:00.000-08:00

Yay! We got our tickets! This is something that we could not do without the help of so many of you. Thank you! Our departure date is still going to be January 11th. We have been so blessed in all of this recently. We have gotten several donations, that have made the difference between us going or not. We are still falling short of our monthly survival goal amount. But it will happen!

Dustin's parents gave us a new laptop to take with us to India. (It's awesome being able to blog from underneath a blanket on my couch.) It's ridiculously cold here for not getting hardly any snow.

Allow me to grumble for a minute here:
Question, Why is is that even though it's not any warmer in or around our house, we are one of the only places that doesn't get any snow. Example, This morning, I looked out the window at a black, wet sidewalk, only to notice, yet again, the neighbors across the street had snow sticking on their sidewalks! This is so unfair. If we're going to endure the cold, why don't we deserve the snow!?! It's not like this is the first year this has happened to us either, where we find out all of the rest of Vancouver has gotten snow except us. Such a huge bummer.

Answer, a snow shadow. (I have to credit Tammy for this.) So true though, it's the only explanation. Lord, for the sake of my 4 year old, please give us snow.

Anyway, back on track. We were given a beautiful Christmas tree last Sunday! Unfortunately, because of a misunderstanding, on my part, we weren't home to say thank you. However, Justin and Julie (my brother & his wife) brought us an awesome 7 1/2 foot tree all of the way from Sandy (on Mt. Hood). It was so great to come home and have it there waiting for us! It instantly felt like Christmas in our home. And, Bridget had been asking me over and over when we were going to get our tree.

We finally got our visas sent off, again. 10-year this time. Now we just have to wait for them to come back to us in the mail. India won't allow us to be in the country for more than 6 months at a time, and so we'll have to leave at some point and visit either Sri Lanka or Singapore for a bit. We still have to figure out the details of all of that, though.

My cousin Amy's elementary school class of 9 students has decided to support us. This is the sweetest thing ever: they have a money jar for us, & they've been collecting stuffed animals from Ikea (because they can squish flat) for us to take to the orphans in India.

The Living Hope extensions ministry, Only God International, has offered to give us a send off party on January 9th at 6PM at Randy Questad's house. Any people who have supported us, or have an interest in all of this are welcome. Contact Audrey Carson for details - audreyc@onlygodinternational.com or 360-944-3905 and ask for Audrey Carson.

Tammy, Dustin's mom, is also having a send off party for us before we go, because she and Terry will be going on vacation a couple of days before we leave. It will be at their house and anyone is invited. Contact Tammy for details - tamaraklewis@comcast.net

Thank you all so, so much for being here with us!
Thank you God for all that you are doing for your people.

Ashlin

P.S. We're interested in who's reading our blog. So please leave a comment for us.

An Answer

2008-11-19T23:04:00.000-08:00

The Lord is doing amazing things to help us get to India! About 2 weeks ago, Dustin & I estimated that the cost of the entire year for us including airfare would be about $12,600 and that we had about $1,500 of that. The tickets alone are $4,450. Unfortunately they've gone up in the past week, but not unexpectedly. Anyway, in one day, we had some friends of ours offer to pay our health insurance for the entire year, $2,400 donated, a pledge of $150 per month from one household, and a whole gob of school supplies purchased for us to take to India to teach with! Whoa! God is GREAT! Greater by far than our limitations.

Thank you, Lord, for doing this for us - for helping us. Please prepare our hearts for the next year.

We are going to be selling silicone bracelets to try and help raise funds. If you are interested, just let us know. When we are in India you will be able to get a hold of us through a Skype account. We can give details to whoever wants to know.

Please continue to pray for our family and for India.

We love you, truly. And I am praying for you.

Ashlin

This picture was from dinner on our 5 year anniversary!

A Deluge of Info

2008-11-02T23:35:00.000-08:00

Firstly, I'd like to apologize for the infrequency of blog updates. However, until recently, I've had almost nothing of consequence to report. As of now (two months from our departure on January 10th), there are more interesting things of some substance to post. I will be posting more and more frequently as things progress.

Dustin & I started cultural training with Duane (the missions pastor at Living Hope) the other day. He said that we can be an example of how a healthy Christ-centered marriage should be a balance between a man and woman. Unfortunately, even among believers in India, men and women are not equals. This is something that can only be changed by prayer, the example set by others, and time. Our friend Audrey, who went to India this past summer as a Living Hope missionary, was at the meeting and gave us a list of things that are next to impossible to find there. Chocolate, work gloves, and Band-aids are a few things on the list that I definitely want to take with us.

We started studying a few of the sounds that make up Tamil. Tamil is the main language spoken in Chennai (formerly known as Madras for those of you who knew it as that) which is in the state of Tamil Nadu.

Let's see... Ah! Finances, of course. We found out that our flat in India is going to be $200 USD/month now, but that includes all of the utilities. We will have to furnish the flat (as far as we know). So we'll have to buy beds and clothes, and basic living items when we get there. I'm not sure what I'll do about diapers for Jack because of the lack of washing machines for cloth diapers, and the lack of garbage service there for disposables. People just throw all of their garbage out into the streets (or across the street), and about once a week someone tosses a match out there, and burns it all up. I just hate the idea of contributing to that so much with disposable diapers. Blech!

Anyway! The health insurance cost for the four of us/for the year is $812. I was actually amazed at how little it will be. We could have gotten it for like, $687 or something, but I didn't want us to have to try and come up with some deductible on the spot when we're in need of care. (And then have it mean that we're out of food money for the month.)

As of today, the total cost for the four of us to fly to India, round-trip on British Airways is $4,286.18 USD. God will take care of this! However, we are faced with a difficult situation here. Dustin and I know that there are some family members and friends who want to support us financially, and for whatever reason, haven't yet. But now, we are to the point where airfare will, most likely, only go up in price over the next two months. And, we don't have the money to purchase it. If there is anyway that some of the funds can be pulled together please contact us. Shoot! Contact us anyway! We can use any kind of bolstering right now! If you support what we are doing in anyway, please let us know.

Also: to those people that have supported us, financially and/or in prayer, thank you so much! We completely appreciate that this cannot happen without your sacrifices during a hard time. Dustin and I know that if God wants this to happen, it will happen. However, it will be through, not only us, but all of the people around us that he will achieve what needs to be done. What an awesome blessing! We are so excited to go help. Yes, this will probably be the most difficult thing in our lives up to this point, but we can do all things through Him. Our daily prayer is that this will not be something forcefully achieved through our own will. That it be God's will alone that we can follow through all of this. If He's not behind it, we don't want to go. (Now, don't get me wrong, we're all in!)

We have a few requests:
If you have any fund raising ideas (large or small) send them along to us.
We need help with childcare - specifically so that we can start packing up our home, and get little things done leading up to our departure. If you are available to help us, and want to help us with that, please tell us.

We also have some ongoing prayer requests. We want this to work, and the most important thing in getting this whole project to happen is everybody that can, rowing together. Prayer is MASSIVE! When we ask God to bless this, he hears us.

1. That the LORD will bless this whole mission. And that He will provide for it.
2. That our family will be spiritually prepared for what lies ahead.
3. That there will be prayer for all of this. (Is that like wishing for more wishes?)

Oh, fabulous news! Ellen Joslin, a friend of ours, who is a teacher, has offered to help train us up a little bit in the ways of teaching! Woo hoo! Thank you Ellen! So awesome. We are meeting her to get some teaching supplies on Tuesday.

Thank you so much for any speck of interest and support you might have for this!
I'll blog again soon.
Ashlin

Places to Live

2008-09-27T01:23:00.000-07:00

Exciting news! Only God International has secured living quarters for us in Chennai. The flat is actually a three bedroom. Woo hoo! Apparently, it's a more westernized style of apartment (I think Duane said it includes a kitchen) so it costs quite a lot for a place over there. It's $166 (USD) per month.

Also, the final $4500 required to build up the land for the orphanage in Rajahmundry has been sent. It was raised, I believe, mostly with a golf tournament fundraiser Only God put on. With monsoon season coming to a close, they just have to wait for the earth to dry out a little bit, and then they can start raising the land. So many little children are spending every night on the floor of some church waiting for anyone to come see them in the morning. They are going to be ecstatic to have a place to belong. This next year is going to be so awesome as Living Hope will get to see the dramatic difference their money is making in these kids' lives. I can't wait for that place to be built!

Ashlin

God has your flight plan

2008-09-14T04:00:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally have our sponsorship letter finished (aside from a dollar amount to insert). Please pray for us; that people will be receptive to our need for this mission God has put on us. We have our passports, and our visas are on the way. Next goal to accomplish is shots! Yay, the kids are really gonna love us for that one.

Bridget is excited about going to India, but doesn't want to leave our home, and her cousins, and her toys. But she does seem to have an understanding of what's going on. When we first told her that we needed to go, she said, "I know, God said that we just need to go and take care of the little kids in India." What an amazing connection! I hope that I can listen enough to hear his voice as simply as she seems to.

Please pray for us:
1. That we will be spiritually prepared for this trip.
2. That we won't let the details overtake what is truly important in our lives right now.
3. That God will provide what we need.
4. That we will follow His lead in all things that we do.

There seem to be so many little things to do, that I forget where we are going sometimes. It's difficult to be at the middle of so many opinions, most all of them very supportive, but a few, well, not as much. I believe that God is doing something great in our lives. But also, that the evil one is not very excited about that, and will do whatever he can think of to discourage us. Including filling those who are close to us, and susceptible, with doubts about GOD'S own plan for this. And believe me, there are always more things you can find to worry about. If he wants us to go there, we're sure not going to stop him. So, despite any doubts that may be felt, I know that right now, I'm where God wants me. I spent quite a portion of me life arguing, turning away, and always telling myself, "No, this is what I need to do."

I'm going to do everything I can to listen to Him. Because, when I tried to do things on my own, I really screwed them up. I was the most unhappy of my life!

God has a special plan for each person. It doesn't matter how old you are, or how young you are, He wants you to listen to his voice and hear what He has to say. Then, you will be truly happy.

I'll try to be better about posting again.

I love you,
Ashlin

Big Changes

2008-07-25T23:47:00.000-07:00

Well, we found out, recently, that it would be neither safe, nor very realistic for us to go to Rajahmundry. So instead, the church is going to have us just stop in Chennai. Which is easier for us, by far, as our plane will go straight there. Also, they aren't nearly as wary of white people, let alone christians in Chennai.
We will be in close contact with Pastor Caleb (possibly living on the same land as his family), who is Living Hope's connection in Chennai. He wants to start a sort of daycare for the children of the Rag pickers, Gypsies, and Eelers, as they don't get to attend public school, and have nowhere to be during the day when their parents are working. The daycare will provide them with two meals and a bath and what ever education is possible. We also heard that Pastor Caleb is thinking of getting some small orphanages started up in Chennai. Which, of course, is easier said than done.
I've been researching travel medical insurance lately, and it looks like it will be about a thousand for the year, but you know, early stages, and what have you. I just can't contemplate going across the world for a year, with two young kids, without having it, though.
I hate money. Everything is so limited by it. Yuck! Too bad I can't just make crafts and barter them for our travel insurance.
Duane (who is one of the main people in charge of missions for Living Hope) said Rajahmundry in comparison to Chennai is like Yacolt, Washington compared to Chicago, Illinois. He meant progressively, though, not size-wise.
Anywho, I digress... It's definitely time for nighty-night.
Here's a new map:

View Larger Map

Nursing My Coffee in the Wee Hours

2008-07-17T23:39:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average!

From what we've heard, due to the weather, the orphanage is probably going to be completed mid-year 2009. So we might actually be renting a house somewhere in Rajahmundry, or maybe even be staying in Chennai for a portion of the time.

And, for the benefit of concerned family and friends: There are immunizations, and our children will get them, O.K.? I may be a nutcase, but I'm not crazy.

Also, I would like to mention that, we don't just see this as a romantic family vacation, in which we'll be cocooned in mosquito netting sipping chai teas. I know it will be extremely hard work. But, this is something we feel God calling us to do. We may not be experts, but we can definitely tell what He's saying this time.

Other tidbits, if you would like to financially contribute to our mission (which is tax deductible, just so you know) you can send checks to:

Only God
4907 NE 123rd ST.
Vancouver, WA
98686

Please be sure to write "India, Dustin Lewis" or "India, Ashlin Lewis" in the memo.

You can also have an automatic deduction set up through forms available at the church. We'll have some of these very soon, if anybody wants to get them from us.

Anywho, the night is young, and there's always more research to be done. Ewww. That sounded like the start of some really bad verse. I better go before I start rhyming.

Things are Getting Busier

2008-07-15T00:29:00.000-07:00

Well, life seems to be getting more and more complicated. I've never been greatly talented in the arena of multitasking, and the details of going to India on (tentatively) January 2nd are taking over our lives. Organizing Immunizations, and grant letters, visas and passports, airfare. I guess all I can do is my best. But I've been reminding myself a lot, God's doing this. He'll take care of it.

Meanwhile, life goes on. Jack's got gobs of teeth coming in, and Bridgie's so excited to start school with Grammy Tammy in the fall. We decided it would be best not to put her into a new school, have her just be getting used to it, then take back out and away in January. She's such a cute little waterbug!

I've been trying to sort through the endless stack of grantmaker pages in hopes I'll find a golden one, but what I really need is help writing a letter to the organizations. Complicated. Blah!

Just pray for us. That we can be spiritually prepared for this journey. That we can stay focused on what God is telling us to do.

What little we know so far

2008-07-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, Dustin here with the small amount of info we currently have.
As Ashlin said, we're leaving for Rajahmundry in January of next year. We'll be living in a compound that is currently in the early stages of being built. From what we hear, they're having some trouble filling in the land on the site of the future compound due to the monsoon season starting early.
Currently, there are 308 children living at the orphanage, but that number is always rising. The problem with that is only a hundred something of the children are currently sponsored by people funding Living Hope for Children.
Ashlin has done a bit of flight-cost research and it appears it's going to cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of $6,000 for airfare. Please pray that we can find the funding.

The Idea

2008-07-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

Here we are, not really sure what just happened to us. All we know is that God put something here in our hearts that we can't just ignore. We have to, at least, give it our best try and wait to see what God does with it. We are going to try as hard as we can to make this real.
A little while back, our church, Living Hope, had a service where they encouraged the people that could do it, to pick up an application to sponsor an orphan in India for 30 bucks a month. Dustin and I decided that we definitely wanted to do it, so we adopted a little, 10 year old boy named Vanka Babji.
But, we both felt like there was something else, like we wanted to do something more. What could we do? We don't have much extra money laying around, but we realized there was something bigger we could do.
I was singing in the choir one weekend, and there was a table set up with all of the Living Hope For Children stuff at it. I talked to Duane and he asked me if I've ever thought of doing mission work in India. I said yes, but that I have young kids. I found out that the compound would be finished in 6 months if we wanted to go then.
Dustin and I talked and prayed about it, and kept feeling like we needed to do this. So here we are. With six months to plan a one year trip across the world. We'll be needing all the help we can get.