Home.

We are so glad to be home. We've spent lots of time unpacking, visiting with friends and family, and eating a lot of meat.

Samuel and Everett have settled right back into life in Dallas enjoying their old toys, bikes and bunk beds. They weren't home for 24 hours before they asked if they could go to McDonalds!

Going from here to there and there to here is an experience that I hope I won't soon forget. It is difficult to boil it all down to one last blog post, but I will just say this...

Over and over again as we drove through the streets, one thing came to mind. It was C S Lewis's quote describing a "child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea." Lewis uses this statement to describe people who are so taken with the things of this world that they find their satisfaction and joy in them instead of heavenly things.

This statement echoed over and over and over again in my head as every day for 6 months I watched children literally squatting in the street playing with dirt as content as they could be. It still resonates in my head as I look back on our experience and I am convicted.

Am I convicted because I didn't love these people enough? Yes.

Am I convicted because I didn't do enough or give enough to help them? Yes.

But those reasons are not what truly convict me. What truly cuts to my heart is that when I remember the sights and smells and sounds of driving through those streets, seeing the slums and children, I realize that I look at that life in the slum and believe that I came home to a holiday at the sea.

I would ride through the streets and be saddened by the idols built all over the city. Men, women and children worshiping the "creature rather than the Creator," but then I would go home and throw a hissy fit over not having hot water. We may not line our streets with temples but we might as well. Living without made me realize how much I worship cleanliness, comfort, and companionship.

In Jesus Christ and through His blood we have the greatest hope. And do not get me wrong, every single citizen of the United States of America is graced with the ability to live here but our hope of heaven is just as great as a naked little child sitting in the mud. We may dress better and have clean water but we are all just as poor, just as needful of a Savior and have just as much reason to hope in so much more than what we have in this world.

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
"The Weight of Glory"

Thanks for reading.

Here we come!

Happy Father's Day

*********UPDATE....we're ending our Father's Day celebration with a surprise trip to Germany for a couple of days! We will leave in a few hours. We are so excited....especially Everett who is thrilled about all the sausage!
****************

We had fun celebrating Father's Day with breakfast in bed for Carl and a new t-shirt that the boys picked out for him. I was so proud of Samuel for writing the whole father's day card himself.

Breakfast in bed is a Father's and Mother's Day tradition in my family. In all the years I've done it, I have to say that ordering room service in a 7 star hotel is probably the easiest way to pull it off.

We'll celebrate the rest of the day by running up and down the halls of said hotel terrorizing all the other guests and making our daily call to Continental to see if any seats have opened up on a flight back to Dallas!

Happy Fathers Day to all our favorite fathers!:-)

Hotel Business

My blogging days are about to come to an end. As much as I would like to think that my life in Dallas is interesting and amusing enough to warrant a blog....it's not.

So while I still have everyone's undivided attention (ha) I thought I would just post a little self indulgent prattle.

And here it is...

WHAT must hotel staffs think of us?

There was the first few days at the first hotel, where we loaded our room with groceries and household goods and carried it all out in plastic bags.....like 30 plastic bags.

There was the second hotel where we lived for 2 months. I can't even begin to list the things that we gave them to ponder over a two month period there.

There was the hotel in Delhi and the "incident" that I don't even want to talk about because it makes me itchy.

And now here we are on the last leg of our journey with a few more hotel days. We've had a stomach bug run through the family which has been.....messy. We've barely left the room and we've been surviving on pretzels (thank you kate) and sprite from the minibar. And we've sent out a bunch of laundry which has been....well I don't really want to talk about that either.....

Don't Cry For Me Bangalore

So, Kate happened to be here for "pay day."

Once a month we pay our household and the PMI staff. Carl happened to be out of town for this particular pay day so I was in charge on both fronts. There is a lot of distributing and labeling of money. Some had be put in a bag to be delivered and some had to have notes attached to it because household staff can be frisked upon exit from the compound and they need proof that they are carrying their salary. It's a hoopy as our friend LaDonna would say.

So after Kate watched me pay all these people, she said, "Wow, quite an empire you have here Grace." (We did have her over for her sense of humor)

It's true. I really do. And it will be hard to say good bye to all of them. In truth they are all honest and reliable and very kind to our kids and that's why we love them. We also love them because they take some of the burden of daily chores off of us (let's be honest, me) which is great when there aren't any modern conveniences to help with those chores.

So yes, I will miss my little empire when I get back to Dallas and have to start doing all the chores myself. No one to do the dishes, no one to run errands for me, no one calling me madame.

Also no poo in the water though....so you know....home sweet home.

Good

We are having such a great time with Kate here and I think she is enjoying experiencing Bangalore.

I knew I would enjoy having her here, but I underestimated how much the kids would enjoy it as well. Even though they are young I really think the most difficult part of this move for them has been missing the other adults that they usually have in their lives.

They actually told me today that they wanted me to go to get a job like Daddy and that Mrs. Byrd would take care of them while I was at work.

Yesterday at the pool, Samuel got out of the pool to give Kate a hug and kiss. He looked at her and said, "Mrs Byrd, you smell so good."

He jumped back into the pool and I told Kate that she must smell like America.

Homesick...

Also actually sick. Both boys are sick right now which is just more difficult to deal with away from home....particularly this far away from home. As I have said many times before, knowing what your kids need and being unable to provide it due to your circumstances is very frustrating.

Tonight at bedtime Everett said, "Mommy, I love you all the way to Dallas, Texas."

Me too buddy...me too.

Driver

One of the things I will miss in India is having a driver. I wouldn't say that Jose and I are best friends. Jose is honest and hardworking but he doesn't exactly have a sunny personality. I miss having the freedom to drive, but with the boys in tow, I do love having someone to run quick errands. If we run out of simple things like milk, juice, water, he can go get them for me. Since he's been working for us a while and since I have learned to call peppers "capsicum" and eggplant "aubergine," he can do a bit of produce shopping for me as well.

Where it gets a little dicey is with the protein. Let's be honest, protein is always a little dicey for us, but when I can't go look at it myself, I have to be very specific with Jose. For example, I just sent him for a chicken and I had to specify...."no head, no feet."

Then he asked, "no feathers madame?"

And no.....he was NOT kidding. Jose does not kid.


****For those wondering, it's not ho sa. It's joz.

Okay.......

Our maid comes in every morning and cleans up from breakfast (and I'll admitt sometimes from dinner the night before). She makes the beds and starts the laundry. She then leaves and comes back in the afternoon for everything else.

This morning, in the interim, I cleaned the floors in the living room. When she got here today, she noticed that I had wiped the floors.

Jennifer: "Madame, did you wipe the floors?"
Grace: "Yes"
Jennifer: "I'm so sorry madame."
Grace: "No, it's not you, I just wanted to do it."
Jennifer: "Madame, you let me wipe the floors, you rest, you are not well."

hmmmm....

More From the Street

The other day I decided to walk home from the eye dr. My mother and Carl almost had heart attacks. But you know, I'm pretty street tough now. This from the lady who wasn't able to go get her mail after dark in Lake Highlands....

Anyways, a typical street and by typical I mean, not terrible, is home to lots of dogs, cows, and chickens. There are babies with no clothes on laying in the dirt sleeping while their mother's sweep. There are professional men and women at food stands getting breakfast and drinking tea out of little thimble sized plastic cups. Children darting in and out of traffic barefooted with backpacks making their way to school. There are portions that are paved and portions that are just dirt. There are great smells like the indian breads cooking and there are terrible smells like animal and human waste, and then there are just "indian smells" like insense and burning coconut shells. On that maybe 7 K walk I passed by doctors practicing medicine through a window, women and children dressed in rags begging for money and food, and all sorts of working people making their way to both domestic and professional jobs. There are fruit stands, mutton shops with the freshest slaughter hanging from a wooden pole, and there are caged chickens from which we get our eggs. There are temples to many different dieties all the way down the street and people line up to stand or sit inside the structure before the image itself.

And then like an oasis in the desert.....comes the entrance to our "compound." By the time I got home I had layer of dirt from head to toe.

The streets in Palm Meadows make you feel like you are miles away from what is just outside the gate......but listen, they can still be tough...

Street Food

Carl is the only one of us who eats street food. Consequently, he is the only one who has been violently ill eleven times and lost 30 pounds. But you know what they say, "No pain, no gain...or loss...or whatever...

Here is a video of one of his favorite haunts.
(All comments regarding the wisdom of eating street food and of frankly even being on the street at this hour may be directed to the man himself.)

Power.

Yesterday...

Everett: "Mom, why can't you call the electwishun?"

Middle of the night last night...

Samuel: "Mom, the power came back on, can you turn on my air conditioner?"

About a half hour ago....

Samuel: "Mom? Is the power being mean to us?"

Now, I know this might sound like I'm going to take a negative tone...but I'm not. Despite the annoyance of the inconveniences of living here, at the end of the day, I am so glad the my children however young they may be, have had the opportunity to live under circumstances in which we don't take things like power and water and food for granted.

The other day we were leaving a restaurant and the same little girls who always stand out front were waiting. They are no more than 7 years old, dirty, barefoot, dressed in rags and holding out their hands for money. (As a side note if we were to give them money they would be forced to give it to whoever is forcing them to stand out there so we give them food.) Samuel simply looked at them and said, "Mom, the hungry girls are here do we have any food?" So I handed him a rice krispie treat from my purse to hand to them. He walked down the stairs onto this crazy busy street in the heart of Bangalore and walked right up to these children looked them in the eye, smiled and handed them the treat. They ran off and sat on the curb and shared the treat, and as we drove off Samuel stared at them out the car window.

I am proud of my son that he can walk into that swarm of people and come face to face with what is really the dark side of this city and smile. I am humbled that God in His grace and mercy has allowed my sons to see, experience, learn, extend and, I pray in some small way, accept that grace and mercy.

My Biggest Critic (and the love of my life) (he made me wite that too!)

Well.....Carl informs me that our blog is too negative. Apparently he doesn't appreciate that positive is rarely funny but anyways....

So begins our week of things we love about India (in no particular order).



#1 Mariannick

A few times week I send a text to Mariannick, a French woman who is married to an Indian man and lives here in Palm Meadows. The next day she shows up on her two wheeler with delicious hot baguettes, chocolate croissants, brioche or whatever I have ordered for the day. (the likes of which you cannot get in Dallas) Due to the lack of other available food, we are able to eat several baguettes a week and treats for breakfast and our old clothes still hang on us.

We will miss Mariannick!

But Now We See

To all the naysayers....I mean sweet concerned friends and family...Carl and I are both doing great and are enjoying seeing without our glasses or contacts!

And yes, the bug spray WAS necessary....wish I would have rememebered to bring toilet paper because as we were told, "toilet tissue is not a custom here."

Hoping Dr. Waldrep isn't a reader....

...because I am fairly sure she would disapprove of the fact that I am about to go have a little surgery, and I decided to spray on a bit of bug spray before I go....just to be safe...

Summer Luvin' (cuz it's summer in India)

Samuel was talking to his Dallas girlfriend, Dylan, last night on Skype.

But he accidentally called her Carolina....

He caught himself and just looked at me and raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

Sigh....juuuust like his dad....

Everett

I think the heat is zapping my usually glowing wit. So just a picture for the grandparents today.

This is Everett with his post head shaving conciliatory ice cream.

Family Matters

My sister and I have had quite a bit of traffic on our blogs lately. And we have both really appreciated people's prayers and support for our respective families, Clare for actual real serious reasons and me really just because we miss eating meat. Either way though, we both really appreciate people's concern.

That being said, a larger concern has arisen in the family. While Clare has been stuck in a hospital for 5 weeks and I am stuck... in the east, Cook has been holding down the fort on the home-front. I think taking care of mom and dad all by himself might be getting to him.

Consumption....

So...Despite the lack of hot water for the past two weeks, Carl and I are still married and still messaging...

He especially like to message me from a rickshaw because it's so loud he can't talk on his phone.

Here is our conversation from the other day.

Actual Text:
C: What are you doing?
G: Nothing how was your meeting?
C: Good on my way back to office. Had to take auto.
G: Oh sorry Channa (driver) is on his way.
C: Rickshaw just ran out of gas.
C: Driver got me another rickshaw. That was nice.
C: Think new driver has TB though.
G: I guess you have some immunity.
C: What's for dinner?
G: Rice.
C: Great.

Implied Text:
C: Love you
G: Me too.

Hey Hey Hey....Good Bye

Good bye hospital, nurses, doctors, needles, stethoscopes, and all things stinky.

Hello home, horses, chickens, dogs, all other things stinky.

James is home today!!!!!

Thank you Father in heaven for the safe keeping of this child and the upholding of his parents.