August 15 -- Independence Day in India

India celebrates its Independence Day on August 15th.  On August 15th 1947, India was granted sovereignty by the British Empire.  This coincided with the Partition, which divided India into the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan.  The purpose of the division was to create a country for the Hindu majority (India), and a country for the Muslim majority (Pakistan).  An interesting note is that Pakistan's Independence Day is on August 14th and India's on the 15th. This was done so that the Viceroy Mountbatten could attend ceremonies in both countries.
On the 15th of August, our church in Mohali celebrates Independence Day by raising the Indian flag in the morning, and then having a youth meeting and lunch.  Here are some pictures from our Independence Day celebration.

The flag of India

Ready for flag hoisting

We decided to do a race, where two teams had to follow clues that would lead them to 10 different locations nearby our church.  Some of the clues were at shops in the market, others at the homes of church members, and one was in the dorm of the college.  It took me hours to come up with the clues and to organize the whole thing...it took about an hour for the teams to complete it and return to the church, which was the last stop.  I guess they enjoyed it, since everyone said they wished it had been longer.  Longer!  Hmmm..maybe I should start now getting ready for next year!

Visiting the barber...one stop on the race list..this barber has a chair and mirror set up under a tree near our house where he cuts hair all day.  But not on Tuesday, Tuesday is the holiday for all barbers.

Another stop..a church members home

Last stop...the church

After the race, the young people sang some songs and listened to a message from the Word of God.  We also gave out prizes to those who had learned the most verses during our summer Bible memory contest.  They were required to memorize Psalm 119 first, and after that they could recite other verses from the Bible for extra points.  Six of them memorized all 176 verses of Psalm 119.  Congratulations Pooja, Naomi, Alyssa, Sahil, Ritu, and Melody!

Kara checking out some of the prizes.

Preparing lunch

Serving the food

Don't judge by looks...the food was good!

Time to clean up...next time I think we should go for the styrofoam plates!

Happy 65th Independence Day India!

Alyssa's 13th Birthday!

Alyssa has been reminding me for about 11 months that she would "soon" be turning 13!  The day of her birth, August 16, 1999, is a day still vivid in my memory, but in some ways it actually feels like another lifetime.  Alyssa celebrated her first birthday in Maryland, and her second in India.  Most of her other birthdays have also been celebrated in India, though she was excited in 2010 to celebrate her birthday in Gettysburg, PA. 

Alyssa is the outgoing one..the responsible one among her siblings.  Of course, it's exciting for any child  kid,  young person to enter the "teen years".  Also, a little bittersweet for mom and dad.  But, when I remember that now I have girl who is able to cook, clean bathrooms, and take care of her younger siblings (among other things), I can't stay sad for long! 

Package from Grandpa and Grammie in Maine...flip-flops from LL Bean..what's not to love!

Special lunch out..she ordered taco salad (made with chicken of course)

Grandpa and Grandma Pratt called on Skype at just the right time, and were able to attend part of the birthday party.  The wonders of modern technology!

Happy Birthday to a beautiful 13-year old, Alyssa Rose!

Ethan's birthday

It's been a few weeks since I have updated this blog.  Let's just say that there has been a lot going on here in our life and ministry, so I have a few posts in mind to update you on our comings and goings.

Birthdays are always exciting, and in August our family celebrates 2 birthdays, only 2 days apart. 
August 14th is Ethan's birthday and August 16th is Alyssa's.  Ethan was asking me before his birthday, how is it that his birthday is 2 days before Alyssa's, but he is still younger! :-)   Well, since his birthday is first (even though he is still younger), I'll share a few pictures of Ethan first.

Ethan celebrated his 8th birthday.  I think in this picture he is trying to look older!

Presents!

Balloons!  No helium, just a ceiling fan on high speed.

Since it's my cake, I can have the cherries, right?

He was not so impressed with the frosting in the eyes!

A package from Grandpa and Grammie in Maine came on Alyssa's birthday.  He was so excited when he saw the box of ice pops they sent him.  Ummm..don't get too excited until you look inside.

Ok..so he was even more excited to see the legos and building sets inside the ice pop box!

We welcomed 3 little girls into our family first.  Then the Lord decided to shake things up a bit, and show us how exciting it could be to have a son.  He definitely keeps us laughing and wondering at his antics!
 Happy 8th birthday Ethan Marshal!

Prayer Meeting

We have a midweek prayer service, which we call "Family Prayer", on Thursday night.  Instead of meeting in the church, we usually meet in a church members' home.

Most of our families live in one or two rooms.  The bed is the main piece of furniture and takes up most of the floor space, so the children and young people are sitting there.  This particular family of 5  has 2 rooms; this main living area, plus a kitchen out the back door (not attached).

The men were sitting on the floor, and I was sitting on a small bench with 2 other ladies, and Kara.

 Many times people will request a meeting in their home if they have a special need, or have had a recent blessing in their family (i.e.  a birthday, new baby, new job,  recent travels, etc).

During the meeting we sing, take prayer requests, have prayer (3 or 4 people will pray), and we have a message from the Word of God.  We pray for God's special blessing for the family hosting the meeting, during this time also.  After the meeting is over, we have a time of fellowship, tea and snacks.

This past Thursday, we left home with 8 people in the vehicle (10 passenger, I think).  We pulled up in front of the church and a torrential downpour started, so naturally everyone wanted a ride to the house where the meeting was being held.  We packed 9 more into the vehicle, 17 total.  Too bad I didn't get a picture of that!

Blackout

Here in Punjab, it is not uncommon to lose power.  It may be a scheduled power cut, or unscheduled.  Personally, I like the scheduled power cuts.  At least, you can plan ahead, and know how long you will be in the dark.  The last month or so we have been getting power cuts up to 8 hours a day.  Usually, it is one or two hours at a time.  Thankfully, we have a battery back up that will run a couple lights and fans, but it will not run any high voltage appliances, like the fridge or washing machine.  Last Thursday, during our weekly prayer meeting, the lights went out for 2 hours (our meetings are long) and the battery eventually failed.  So, we listened to the end of the message by candlelight, and the light from cell phones!
India is still a Third world country, even though politicians try to convince the world that they are not.  The infrastructure is sadly lacking.  So, at 2am Monday morning, when the power went off, we were not surprised.  But...it didn't come back on...the morning water supply comes between 4am and 9am, but without power, there is no water supply.  So, Monday morning came and went, with no clothes washed.  No clothes washed on Monday!  To wash clothes anyway, I have to have light on and water on at the same time, which doesn't always happen. We have a tank that stores water, which is on the roof, but without a morning water supply, we have to be conservative in our water usage, until the next supply in the evening.

A scene from the Delhi metro station..Monday morning rush hour and no trains running.

Waiting at the train station...This is a common sight here.  There are no facilities to speak of in train stations, so if people have to wait for long periods of time, they usually curl up on the ground.  When we are stuck in a train station, we usually find a corner, and use our luggage as makeshift furniture!

We heard that the entire northern sector of India was in blackout, because of some fault in the system. The power was off for 9 hours.  The blackout affected much of North India.  It came in the paper today that this was an unprecedented occurrence, that would surely not happen again.  I am writing this in the dark with the fan off, using battery power.  The light went out again today at 2:00pm.  It is almost 5:00pm now...no light.  I just saw the news, that this is an even more widespread blackout than the first one, affecting 19 states.  ...unprecedented occurrence...hmmmm.  You can read about today's blackout (which is still going on as I write) in this article.  Blackout story

Starting School

Yes, it is that time of year again!  For the Pratt family anyway, time to start a new school year.  Here on our field we homeschool our children.  This is not only because we don't approve of the Indian school system (which we don't), but it is a conviction for us, that we, as parents, are responsible for the training and education of the children God has given us.  Even if we lived in the US, we would be homeschooling.

Ready for the first day of school!

 The school year, here in India, runs from July to April, so we follow the same schedule.  We usually like to start the first full week of July, but because of finances our order was a little late, and then we had to wait for it to ship here from the US.  The last box of books arrived on the 23rd of July, and we started school on the 25th.  I'll throw in a few days of extra work here and there, so that we can still finish by April.

I have found that it works best for us to have a moderately strict schedule for homeschooling.  If you would visit our house on any given day, you would see the many people who come and go, and the number of activities that are always going on.  In the first couple years of homeschooling, it was easy to let school get pushed to the back burner.  I soon realized that this would not work for us.  So I started a schedule for school, that we only deviate from as needed.  Things work out a lot better that way...i.e.  less stress for Mom, and less time playing catch up for the kids! 
We start school between 8:00am and 8:30am in the morning, after devotions, morning chores, and breakfast.

We have a break at around 10:00, and they usually finish up by 12:30.  This year Alyssa is in 8th, Naomi in 7th Melody in 5th, and Ethan in 3rd.  The girls all use Abeka video school, which has worked out pretty well for our family.  They watch the video teacher give the lesson, then I help them with the book work.  I also give and grade quizzes and tests.  Since, we don't have access to good libraries, and not many resources, it has been helpful to stick with one curriculum instead of trying to mix-and-match. 

Since we don't have any extra rooms to make an actual "school room", the kids are kind of scattered throughout the house, wherever we can make room for a desk. :-)

Ethan is still taught by Mom..and doesn't he look happy about it!  I, personally, don't like to put the kids on video until they are in older grades.  I think it is more beneficial for them to have one on one time as much as possible, until they are firmly established in their reading, writing, and math skills.  Ethan's school work usually takes us about 2 hours a day.  He will probably start on videos next year. 
People here think it very strange that we don't send our kids to school.  Being foreigners, they expect us to pay big money to enroll them in a good private school.  Homeschooling is unheard of here, so we usually just get down to the basic facts:  We get curriculum from the US, and Mom's the teacher!
For those of you wondering about "extra-curricular" activities...they also take piano lessons, the older 2 have started flute and guitar, and they take language lessons. Right now they are working on Punjabi.  They all have already learned to read and write in Hindi.  As for socialization...I guess that's a topic for another post! Better yet, come visit me!  If you can make your way through the crowd of kids, teens, and adults that are daily in and out of my house..we'll have a long conversation about socialization! 
So..there you have it..Pratt International Christian Academy is open for the 2012-2013 school year.

Happy Birthday Mom!

My parents: Reggie and Valerie Billings

Taking this golden opportunity (since I can), to send a big Happy Birthday to my Mom!  You know I wish I could be there, and bake you a big cake, or take you out to the Olive Garden!  Maybe we would watch a sappy movie, or make a quick trip to the Free Store. (Is that still open?)  I want you (and all those reading this) to know that I realize the sacrifice that you and Dad are making, to have us live on the mission field.  It is a sacrifice and heartache for you, but you have only always supported us and helped us in any way that you can.  How would we ever survive over here without all the packages from Grammie?  How would we survive on furlough without your spare room and living room to crash in? (out in the middle of nowhere BTW)   I could list a thousand ways that you have helped and encouraged us.  You are an awesome Mom and Grandmother.  I love you and miss you every day!  I hope you have a great day on your birthday, because no one deserves it more. 
(OK...better go grab the tissue box now!;-))