Quick Prayer Request

(Please forgive the spelling/grammer I wrote this quickly)
At the red-light area there is one boy who I think is real special. I creatively call him "Special Boy." He was the child of a prostitute, the son of a "John." When his mother gave birth she took off and left her son behind. Over the past couple months I noticed that he is treated as the village outcast. Everyone beats on him (sometime he deserves it as you can imagine he acts out a lot but no one deserves the treatment this kid gets). We today I go into the Red-light area and notice that Special Boy is not wearing pants. Ok, not completely unusual for India but when he turns towards me I see his little left leg leg has a terrible 6 inch burn down the inside of his thigh. When I see it of course I must of looked startled. So I started asking who did this and then he showed me his hand; 1/2 of it is covered in a blister from being burn. I guess he runs away a lot (I wonder why) and so as punishment they burned him.
Please pray as tomorrow I am going to speak to "Big Mamma" about taking him out of there and putting him in either the RH Home or Suresh's home. Please pray for the staff members at the RH home that if SB comes to the home that they be prepared to deal with the many issues and difficulties that will arrise as we care for this child.
I will post a picture of him so you have a face with the "name."

Hindus believe today and the next 2 days are auspicious days for marriages so they cram in as many marriages as possible. But at 2am in the morning when I was awoken by the piercing sounds of a wedding band, I thought to myself how could it get an worse than this. Well, it is now 6pm and time for the Sai Baba temple to broadcast their chantings for 2 hours. So now the temple is chanting over their 1940 staticy megaphone and the wedding band continues to play. It is like some weird battle of the bands. I kind of feel like a prisoner of war and they doing some psychological mind melt on me. Please pray for me!

.....Ok, so that was a couple of days ago ,and you know what, it wasn't that bad. For some reason the weddings only went for 24 hours. I'm thinking maybe they moved local so as not to upset the surrounding houses. Anyways, I am so glad that is over!

Love you all!!!

Here I Am

I am sorry friends and family for keeping waiting so long for an entry with real substance. I could blame it on being so busy but the truth of the matter is that a wonderful couple gave me the first season of LOST and I am finding out what all the hype is about. No, but really, since the moment I got back from my holiday with Claire (and I mean the night I got back) I have been pulling double duty. Even now I am on a stage at a double wedding and I am writing this journal entry (by hand to be typed later) just to keep myself from dozing off.

... Well, that is all I got written before it was time to go and now I am in my room. It is 9pm and all I want to do is lay down so not to be rude but I think I am going to put a LOST on and call it a night....

Of course I wouldn’t leave you with nothing...

Below is an entry I wrote a couple months ago but never had the chance to post it.

(Quick prayer request: Joyfulness would carry me through my days here. And that I would be an example of God's love to all the people)

11/27/06

Ok so today was a rather interesting day. At the front of the red-light clinic right at the bottom of the stairs is a liter of brand new baby puppies. So cute, but if I learned anything from the day Dr.Kishore made me hold the baby goat it is to avoid scabbies at all cost which means don’t touch baby animals in India. But while I was at the clinic I heard this atrocious squealing sound. So I looked out the window and there was momma dog and another dog chomping into a live baby pig as it struggled to get away. After I squealed, I thought to myself, is this some kind of twisted wild animal show? Evidently it was entertaining to some because a group of young children sat mesmerized watching the whole thing. I swear kids in India seem fearless. Nothing frightens them. It is very common to see toddlers literally toddling along any road as car, trucks, motor bikes race past them with only inches to spare; no flinching from child or driver and I have never seen a child run into the street.

Anyways, that is how my day started. After I left the red-light area I accompanied the doctor to the hospital where one of our girls from the RH home was having her appendix removed. Little did I know that when they said they wanted me to be there for the surgery, they meant they wanted me THERE for the surgery. Bare foot and with my “surgical mask” firmly tied over my mouth and nose I entered the surgical theater (as they call it). Really it was just a room with a big light and some surgical tools that’s it. The procedure started right away; I watched them cut her, open the cut and cut deeper, clamp the skin, etc. etc. etc. I can save you the gory details. Bottom line is please pray my appendix doesn’t need to come out anytime soon because I will gladly die before I go under the knife in rural India!

And all this was before lunch!

What a crazy life I live!