Happy New Year 2013

For our church, we always like to have a New Year's Eve celebration every December 31st.  This is one of the most anticipated events of our year!  This year, both of our churches came to our house, to celebrate together.

Yes, this is our living/dining room...and yes there is usually some furniture in there!

We had about 75 people in attendance, which made for a packed house! 

Please remove your shoes at the door...

It was a blessed night all around, with a good spirit of fellowship. 

 There was a lot of special music....

The young people put on some great skits...

Aftar and Sahil

Bro. Gainingam showing his true colors!  (Just kidding...maybe)

Naomi stuck in the "sin box".

Alyssa

Melody and Ethan (can you recognize him under all that hair?)

We heard 2 messages from the Word of God, and entered the New Year on our knees in prayer.

Many people have told us that this was the best New Year's Eve celebration ever!  Happy New Year 2013!!

Alyssa and Jasmine

Kara

Ethan and Ajay

Brian and Kara

Niper students

Accidents

We've just passed through a busy time of year here.  So many activities took place, since we are now associated with 2 churches in Mohali and Chandigarh.  We feel extremely blessed to see the Lord working in lives here, yet amidst the blessings there have also been oppositions.
In the midst of our busy season, Brian had a car accident.  It was Sunday morning, and he was on his way to a village for an early prayer meeting, before coming to church at 10am.  He had 3 teen boys with him that day.  He was in a traffic circle when a speeding car entered the circle without slowing down.  CRASH!! (No one knows how to drive in traffic circles here!)  Thankfully, no one was hurt, but both cars were damaged.  Because of the "creative" justice used here, even though it was not Brian's fault, the police required him to pay for repairs to both cars, unless he wanted to make a court case, which could drag on for years (literally). The cost to repair both cars came to about $800.  We are so thankful to those who came forward to help pay for these car repairs.

After the New Year, things usually start to settle down, or at least go back to our busy routine!  We started school again on January 2nd.  The next day, after prayer meeting, Naomi jumped out of the vehicle to open our front gate (heavy, iron gate).  When she shoved it open, it caught on something and swung straight back, hitting her in the head.  Let's just say the next few minutes were "very intense"!!  She got a deep gash on her forehead, but thankfully did not fall or pass out.  We were debating which hospital to take her to, and decided on the "good" hospital, since the cut was deep and we wanted to cut down on a risk of infection. 

(With some hospitals here, you feel infected just by walking in the door, but that's another story)  It was a very difficult time, for all of us, but we saw God helping in every aspect of this ordeal.  They waited a long time at the ER, and the nurse finally asked Brian if we wanted the General physician to stitch her up, or if they should call in the surgeon.  While we were discussing this (he was in favor of the GP, while I was all for the surgeon!),  my OB/GYN who delivered Kara walked into the ER for another emergency.  She is an absolutely awesome, no-nonsense doctor, that we love.  She asked what was going on, looked Naomi over and said "Get that GP out of here and call in the surgeon!"  She explained that the general physician would just stitch her up quick and probably leave a nasty scar (in the middle of her forehead).  They called in the surgeon whose name is Dr. Prabhu.  "Prabhu" is a Hindi word that means "Lord", so if you believe in signs...I guess that's a pretty good one! HA!  He stitched her up with multiple stitches, and told us that the cut was all the way to the bone!  Thankfully, there was no concussion or other complications, and her wound is healing fine. 
Sometimes it feels like, "it never rains, but it pours", as the saying goes.  Please keep us all in your prayers.
For some reason, I couldn't post any photos today, I will try to edit this post later and add the photos.

A haircut

Today, I took Ethan for a haircut.  Now, admittedly, this is usually Brian's job, but since he is out of town, and I couldn't stand looking at Ethan's shaggy hair for one more minute....!  I took him to the barber down the street.

     This barber sets up under a tree, not far from our house.  There are also barber shops here (or hair saloons, as they are called..serioulsy that is not a typo..they call them "saloons"), but the shops will charge 2-4 times more for a cut.
     Now, for any of you who will tell me to cut his hair myself, there is a simple answer.  Brian can testify to the fact that hair cutting is not one of my talents.  I cut his hair, to save money when we were first married and lived in the US (*shudder*).  When we got to India and I found out the price of a men's haircut, I gladly retired from cutting his hair!  Ethan's haircut this morning cost about the equivalent of 40 cents!

Kara waiting impatiently for Ethan to be done

A picture of the kids on 12/12/12 at 12:12pm

Winter (??)

A Maine winter...

                          OK..I will admit it.  I'm still a Maine girl at heart, so it's very difficult to call anything that doesn't involve snow, ice and sub-zero temperatures, winter.  But, we are in "winter" season here in Punjab. (Notice, I still had to put it in quotes!)
     Some people may be surprised that India experiences winter.  North of us is Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, both of these states get snow, but they are both mountainous regions.  Here in Punjab, we are living in the plains, so we never get snow.  Yes, I said it..a winter with no snow...sad, I know!   So, what is our winter weather?
     I have already posted about the summer here, and the summer for me is always an endurance test.  But, most people here, find the cold months as hard to bear, as I find the hot months.  People always ask me "Don't you feel cold?"  My answer is always, "Sometimes, but I like to feel cold!"

A pleasant October day

       Usually by September, the monsoon rains have stopped and the temperature starts its slow descent out of the high 90's.  October and November are extremely pleasant months, with the temperature ranging between 65-85 most days.  By the end of November, the day temp. won't rise above the 70's and the evening temps. fall to the 50's.  By December we have to pull out the sweaters!    This week, the temperature is hitting a low of 45 at night, and highs in the 60-65 in the daytime.

Visiting in a village...warming up village style!  Villages get colder than we do here in the city, because they are an open area.

     By the end of December it will dip close to freezing (around 35), but usually only for a few nights, while the highs will be in the 50's.  January is usually a very foggy, damp and miserable month.

Waiting for the train to Delhi on a cool morning in December

January fog

    
Some interesting things to note...our houses here have no heating system, and are not sealed.  So, whatever the outside temperature is, the inside temperature is not much higher.  Also, our house is brick, cement and tile, so when it is chilly and damp, it gets very chilly and damp in the house. Many others live in much less substantial shelter than we do, so they are even more affected by the cold.  We wear the same amount of clothes indoors, as we do outdoors, and it is very difficult to get clothes to dry. 

Thankfully, this type of weather only lasts about a month, and then by February the temperature will start creeping up again.
    The children have only seen snow a couple of times in their lives, and are hoping to someday visit the US in December and January, so they can experience a "real Maine winter"!!!

Thanksgiving Day 2012

Thanksgiving is a favorite holiday for the Pratt family!  We have spent quite a few Thanksgivings here in India.  Of course, it is not a holiday in India, but we enjoy sharing the history and meaning of Thanksgiving with neighbors and church people.  Usually the planning for the meal starts weeks in advance, so that I can search the shops to find the ingredients that I need, and then revise my menu when the ingredients are not available!  We try to make the meal as traditional as possible, though there are always some traditional foods that we do without. We were not able to have a turkey this year.  Brian found a local turkey, but they wanted to charge about $6/lb.  This, for a turkey that only weighed about 6 or 7 pounds, in other words, skin and bones!  So, we decided to have pork this year. 

Here is our Thanksgiving menu:
Pork
Mashed Potatoes
Green beans w/bacon
Corn
Homemade bread
Sweet potato casserole (for some reason the sweet potatoes here are greenish, instead of orange..weird)

The girls were a big help to me in the kitchen this year.

Desserts:
Raspberry Pie
Apple Crumble pie
Pumpkin pie (this is the first year that I've found real pumpkins here..Brian happened to see one in the
market one day.  I'm sure they've always grown them here, but I never saw them or knew what to call them in order to ask someone!  The skin is not the bright, orange color that we are used to for pumpkins, but the inside is orange and it has a pumpkin taste.  So, for the past couple months, I've been cooking and mashing fresh pumpkins and freezing it to use in pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie.)
Cookie Dough bars
Eskimos cookies
Sugar cookies
Thin Mints
Chocolate/orange cookies

A team effort

Coloring their Thanksgiving pictures

The completed art work

 Thanksgiving is an exciting and fun-filled day, but there is always a tinge of sadness at being so far away from our families at this time of year.  Thankfully, we were able to Skype with both sides of the family on Thanksgiving Day.  (Although, it was not necessary for my brother to share with us that they were having cheesecake for dessert!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Church Anniversary

November 2-4, we celebrated the 6th anniversary of Grace Baptist Church in Mohali, with a three day mission conference.  The theme was, "To God be the Glory".

Pastor Babu, from Guragaon, preached stirring messages, dealing with using our life to glorify the Lord. 

Boys singing an action song during Sunday School

The crowd on Sunday morning

Naomi and Melody playing special music

Some of the believers from the Zeliangrong Fellowship (our Manipuri church in Chandigarh) joined us on Sunday morning.  There are some great singers in this group.

We were so blessed to see some of our college students step up and do a lot of the cooking (and cleaning up!) for the meeting.  There have been many times when our family has shouldered most of the work for the church.  It is exciting to see our church people come together to work for the Lord.   We believe that the church is a family, and each one has been given gifts by the Lord to use in His service.  (The food was good too!)

The Lord truly blessed with a wonderful three days of meetings.  He spoke to many hearts, including mine.  On Sunday, during the preaching, I was sitting on the floor, surrounded by our church people, those from the Mohali and Chandigarh churches.  We have people in our church who cannot read or write, people who do manual labor for a living, college students pursuing various degrees, some pursuing PhD's in various field, some who work in offices for Multi-national companies.  As I was sitting there, the Lord spoke to my heart, that I was exactly where He wanted me to be, living and serving among these people at this time.  Very powerful....

A Sunday with the Pratts

Ever wonder how we spend our Sundays?  For us, Sunday is one of the busiest days of the week.  Melody asked me last week..."Some people say Sunday is a day of rest, is that in the Bible?" Hmmm... To consider Sunday a "day of rest", would not be true for us.  But, Sunday is a day that we spend in serving the Lord, and worshiping with His people.  So, here's a run down of our Sunday activities.

6:30am   Time to wake up!  At least for Mom...
7:30am    Kids wake up 

"I'm ready for church, Mom"...Hmmm...the shawl is nice, but maybe you should change out of the pj's!

7:45am    Brian leaves to go to Tira village.  We had a morning service going on here for about a year.  There were some problems here, and at this point only one older lady is faithfully attending.  So, Brian goes to her house for prayer, and then brings her to the church in Kumbra for the service.

Sunday is usually a quick breakfast for us.  It's the only day of the week we eat cold cereal (cornflakes, special K, or granola are the only options), or we might have quick bread or muffins that I made on Saturday.

Practicing a song for special music

 8:45-9:00am  We leave for S.S. and church in Kumbra

Waiting for our ride to church.

9:15-1:00pm  Sunday School and church service in Kumbra at Grace Baptist Church

Bro. Mohammad leading Sunday School opening

Sunday School class having a sword drill.  Bro. Mohammad teaches the adults and teens, and I teach the children in S.S.

Alyssa occupies the small children during S.S. time

Church service

 1:30pm  Reach home for a quick lunch.
2:15  Leave to go to the Chandigarh service.  Brian has recently started being interim pastor for this group of people from the North East of India.  Most are college students or young working people.  This is a different type of ministry for us.  Pray for these young people, as many are from Christian families, but have not truly been saved.

 2:30 - 4:30pm Manipur Service

 5:00-5:15pm  Arrive home from Manipur service
5:45pm   Back to Kumbra
6:00pm   Bible games/Trivia/Sword drill for the youth
6:45-8:30  Evening Service at Grace Baptist Church

9:00pm Reach home to eat supper and get to bed after a long day.