Thank You Stephen Bell and Brian Kato

Stephen Bell deserves a HUGE THANK YOU!!!! He read my last blog post and in the comments directed me to a free program called Restoration, available here. It's a program created by some guy named Brian Kato, that restores deleted files. When I realized that I really had erased everything from Raysha's SD card, in the back of my mind I thought, "I bet if I knew more about computers I would know of some way to magically bring those pictures back." Thank you Brian Kato for sharing your computer magic! I don't know if anyone understands just how awful I felt about having deleted Raysha's pictures. What a relief to have them back! The Restoration program was really easy to use, even for a person like me who is basically illiterate when it comes to computers. Restoration wasn't able to retrieve all of the files perfectly. There were a few that were damaged but I would say that about 95% of what I deleted was rescued. So if you ever accidentally delete something from your computer's hard drive or camera's memory card, I definitely recommend giving this program a try! Again, thank you Stephen for coming to my rescue!

Introducing Mervin

This is Mervin. Mervin is a rooster (In case you couldn't tell). Outside our bedroom window is an empty lot. Mervin lives on the other side of the empty lot. We had to give him a name in order to prevent Raysha from killing him. You see, Mervin likes to crow really early in the morning. He starts at about 3AM and crows every few minutes or so. He doesn't seem to understand that he should only crow when the sun is rising, or maybe even later than that! Our relationship with Mervin is a rocky one. We say good morning to Mervin but we aren't always glad to see him.

On a little side note, somehow I managed to delete all of Raysha's pictures off of her SD card tonight. I'm really not sure how I managed to do it. Thankfully I have all of her India pictures saved on my computer. Her pictures from Christmas however, are lost forever. I feel absolutely sick about it! She doesn't seem too upset but I still feel sick! Considering I was looking for a picture of Mervin when it happened, I blame him!

The Big Hike!

Ever since I first went out to the Bread of Life Academy at Kalapani I have wanted to climb the hill that is out there. Yesterday was the day. I had SO much fun! Probably the most memorable thing I've done since arriving in India! It was a reasonable day temperature wise which made our hike a very pleasant one. I don't think that I would have enjoyed it as much had it been any warmer out. There were quite a lot of thorns to work our way through but I managed to come out unscathed for the most part. Just a few scratches here and there. It was quite the climb but totally worth it to experience the amazing view from up top! It was also great to spend some time visiting and getting to know the students from the Bread of Life Institute. I hope that we get to do it again sometime. We were up on the hill for a good two hours but we could easily have spent many more hours exploring.

The two buildings in the centre of this picture are Bread of Life Academy and Institute.

This is Jiten, not sure about the spelling on that but it's pronounced like G-10.

Jiten and Andrew.

Ray Guite

Raja, Ray, me, Samuel and Timothy

Raja, Ray, Samuel and Timothy taking a breather and enjoying the view.

Samuel pointing out some detail to the group.

So I told you I feel like a giant in the is country right? This picture illustrates it.

Raysha fits in much better size-wise.

I love this picture of Samuel. It illustrates the immensity of the boulders we were climbing.

It may not look terribly high but it sure was!

He didn't get up there by himself, he was given a boost.

Autumn, Ray and Raja.

We passed by this house on our way back to the Bread of Life Academy.

Samuel and Jiten walking through the rice paddies on our way back to the school.

He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals his thoughts to man, he who turns dawn to darkness, and treads the high places of the earth—the LORD God Almighty is his name.

Amos 4:13

Greatest Sister Ever!

This is my "not-so-baby" baby sister, Michelle, and she rocks!!! She made my day today! I got a Valentines Day Card in the mail from her. It didn't matter that it was late, it was the thought that mattered! Little things like a snail mail card mean a lot, especially when you're in a foreign country! Thanks Michelle for being the greatest! I love you!

P.S. I fixed blogger so my posts are now being labeled according to India Standard Time...or maybe I'm the only one who cares? :P

Ray's Words on What's Going On

The following is what Ray emailed out the other day. I thought I'd share it with you and maybe supply you with a little more detail about the Bread of Life Institute than what I have so far.

The village of Kalapani is a 40-45 minute drive from where we live and also from the main office of the Bread of Life Centre.

The Bread of Life Academy (at Kalapani) operates for children (40+) in kindergarten and up to grade 3.

The Bread of Life Institute (at Kalapani) is an opportunity for adults to study biblical and other life-related subjects.

We offer three-week block classes. We are into the third week of a study of the Life of Christ. On March 3 we will begin a class on "Transforming Grace."


At present there are 12 students. They stay in some very basic facilities with no electricity. The girls sleep in one large bed in a hut about 50 metres away, while the boys sleep on the beds that they sit on while attending classes. We have classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons and on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Pamela (that's me people!) and Raysha come along and teach the academy students English and Bible while I have class with the -- just about called them college students -- most of them are not at that stage. Sarbananda (third from the right in the picture) has an MA in the Assamese language and does well translating when needed. Sachin (third from the left) has a B.Com. The rest have progressed up to some point in high school. Half of them understand the Assamese language; the other half speak a Burmese language.

Sundays we have a 9 AM service at the Bread of Life Centre (20 minute walk from our house) and then drive out to Kalapani for an 11 AM service.

Effloresce = Bloom

Tim posted a link on his blog to a cool site, FreeRice. I like it a lot so I'm posting it too. You are given a word and four options to choose from as it's meaning. If you get it right you get a harder word, if you get it wrong you get an easier one. For every word you get correct 20 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program. So go improve your vocabulary and feed hungry people. Joyce, I think you'd like this and be really good at it! I was surprised at how many I didn't know that I still got right. The title of this post is an example. A word that came up that seemed appropriate for myself was "wanderlust = urge to travel." :)

P.S. Tonight I donated 3,000 grains of rice and my vocab level is at 36...whatever that means.

Flexibility in The Words of My Rockstar Friend JJK

In a recent email to my good friend Jennifer I told her about some of the ways in which God has been growing and stretching me since I arrived in India. I told her that this growing and stretching can sometimes be painful but I know that it is necessary. Her response was such a good one that I felt I needed to share it with you. So in the words of Jennifer Jade Kerr,

"I know the growing and stretching part is hard, but hang in there. It's like an elastic band. Have you ever tried to stretch an old elastic band that has been lost in a drawer for a long time? It doesn't stretch, it just falls into pieces and bits of weird powdery stuff. It's gross, but this relates, I promise. We have to keep stretching and flexing, otherwise we just sit around and get crusty, and then when we do try to stretch - we fall apart. So, just think about it... stretching is keeping you from getting crusty. It's a good thing!"

P.S. If you haven't voted for Jennifer's song yet go here and do it now!

Afternoon Hail

Normally on Tuesday mornings we go out to Kalapani to teach. Apparently the "underground" or terrorists threatened that they were going to do something today so we were told to stay home. So we had school with Autumn and Andrew in the morning and then we had the afternoon off to relax. We couldn't go anywhere to do anything but it was really quite nice to just stick around the house. At about 2pm we started to hear thunder so we ran upstairs to the roof to take all the laundry off the line. We got it done just in time. It started to rain pretty hard and before I knew it there was hail. I really enjoy thunderstorms and so I went out on the landing area and watched it come down. There were pea size hailstones that landed on the landing. After it stopped Autumn and I went down to the lawn and picked up a few of the hailstones. They were pretty big. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be without shelter when they were coming down!

This is looking out from the landing. Look at all the white hail on the lawn.

Here are some of what Autumn and I collected.

I think these may be the largest hailstones I have ever experienced.

Jennifer Jade Kerr - an update

To my disappointment I discovered that you can only vote once. So go here and vote and then tell all your friends to vote too!

Jennifer Jade Kerr

I have this amazing friend named Jennifer Jade Kerr. I pretty much think she's the bomb! I like to refer to her as my "rockstar friend." Jennifer is an extremely talented musician. I'm anxiously awaiting the release of her debut album, "Somehow it always does...", scheduled to come out sometime this year. She just launched her new website, http://www.jenniferjadekerr.com. Go check it out! You can also listen to some of her stuff on her myspace page.

Jennifer's song "I Don't Want You to Know" was recently chosen as the regional winning song for Z99 Regina in the 2008 Radiostar National Songwriting Competition. She will be going to Toronto in March for the Canadian Music Week, where she will be performing in a songwriting showcase with other regional winners from across Canada and competing for the grand prize of $10,000. Public voting on the regional winning songs started TODAY, Monday February 18 at the Radiostar website. Public voting will continue until Friday, February 29, 2008 at 5:00pm. I want to encourage all of my avid readers to take a few minutes to listen to the songs and vote for Jennifer!!!! :) I don't know if there is a limit of how many times you can vote so do it often if you can!

Happy Valentines Day

A Brazilian Weekend, Our First Sunday School Lesson and a Visit to the Zoo

My Brazilian friends, Fabiano and Ducy invited me to spend the weekend with them at their place. They picked me up on Friday afternoon and I stayed until Early Sunday morning. I shouldn't have been surprised by the first thing we did together which was "passear no shopping," wander through a mall. It is such a Brazilian thing to do. It was so great to spend nearly two full days speaking only in Portuguese. They really spoiled me. They made me Brazilian food, including beef, which is something that is not exactly common in this Hindu area. I think the best part of getting to know Fabiano and Ducy (besides speaking Portuguese and eating Brazilian food ;) ) was getting to hear about the ministry that they are involved with here in Guwahati and meeting people from their congregation. It was an extremely encouraging weekend and I was sad to say goodbye to them. They are on their way to Brazil to try and resolve some visa issues and, Lord willing, will be back in Guwahati by the middle of May. I'm looking forward to seeing them again!

I came home early Sunday morning so that I could go to Kalapani with everyone and help teach our first Sunday school lesson out there. I was expecting a handful of children to be there but to my surprise there was about fifteen. First Ray gave a short lesson which was translated into Assamese, then we took the kids outside and had our Sunday school lesson. We started with the creation story and we will continue with that over the next week or two. In Sunday school we will focus on Old Testament stories and during the week when we are out teaching all of the kids we will be focusing on the Gospel stories.

Here is Ray and his translator.

Making little creation story books with the kids.

After lunch our friend Samuel took us to the zoo. It was a pretty good time. This wasn't the first time that I have been charged more to do something because I was a foreigner. I was just as displeased this time about it as I have been in the past. Discrimination is such an ugly thing. It's not so often in my North American bubble that I'm on the receiving end of it though. Another reminder of how blessed I am.

I love going to zoos because I love looking at the animals. I always find zoos extremely depressing though. It makes me so sad to see the animals cooped up in cages. The zoo here in Guwahati was probably the most depressing zoo I've been to yet. It was awful to see elephants changed to trees and large cats in such little concrete cages. I joked with Raysha that there was a one day only exhibit going on while we were there. It was "Canadians outside of there natural habitat." I think I got observed just as much, if not more than any of those animals in the zoo did.

Andrew, Samuel, Autumn and Raysha.

This was not extremely reassuring. There was a rhino living on the other side of this "fence."

I made a new friend.

One Month

It's hard to believe that one month ago today I left Canada...or at least I left Saskatoon. Technically our flight didn't end up leaving Vancouver until after midnight so I guess we left Canada on the 10th not the 9th. In some ways it seems like I've been gone much longer than a month and in other ways it seems like it was only a few days ago that I was packing and getting ready to go. It has been a good month, full of new experiences and lessons. I'm looking forward to the next four months and what God has in store for us.

My First Visit to Kalapani and The Bread of Life Academy

Today Raysha and I had our first visit to the village of Kalapani and The Bread of Life Academy. The Bread of Life Academy is a school that was started when it was discovered that 80% of the children in Kalapani were not attending school. Currently there is one permanent building on the property and a second one is in the process of being constructed. Raysha, Autumn, Andrew and I will be going out to the Bread of Life Academy on Tuesday and Thursday mornings to teach the kids. I think that we will also be going out on Sundays to teach Sunday school. Also this is where the Alpha Bible College classes are going to be taught by Ray. They are scheduled to start next week.



Raysha and I spent the morning singing songs with the kids and trying to teach them new ones as well as some games. They don't speak much English so it was a challenge but it is amazing what repetition can do for you. Also they're good at imitating. As we taught them new action songs there was one moment when I scratched an itch on my knee and about half of them did the exact same thing. Too funny! This video is of them singing "Five Little Monkeys," that seemed to be a favorite along with "Father Abraham."




When we first arrived we got to help hand out their new uniform t-shirts. I don't think that they really knew what to think of us at first. Most of them warmed up to us after a while though.

Raysha helping one of the little boys with his new t-shirt.


Here they are singing to us.

Are these not the cutest kids ever?


It was pretty much love at first sight.

Something Ray mentioned when we first arrived at the school was that most, if not all of these children have never even heard of Jesus or the Bible before now. It is going to be like planting seeds in soil that has never been cultivated before. Tonight he talked about how we can only imagine what these little people are going to grow up to do and the impact that they might have on their families, their village, their country and their world. Since arriving in India I've had doubts about whether I can really make a difference in this place. There are so many people and such diverse beliefs and traditions that it feels rather overwhelming. Visiting the school today reminded me of something, God uses us to plant the seeds and where it goes from there is in his control. Jesus' time on earth was spent influencing those who were around him who in turn influenced more people who then in turn did the same. Like the ripples of a pebble thrown in a pond so is our witness for Christ, ever spreading further and further. My life is a ripple, the effect of seeds of faith planted by others.


I'm really excited to get to see and participate in a more rural part of India. At the same time I am thankful that we are living in Guwahati where we have running water and electricity etc. I feel like I am getting the best of both worlds. Kalapani really is a beautiful area. As we walked down from the Bread of Life Academy these were a few shots that I took.

Carrying fodder for the cattle...Makes me realize how easy my life is.

Here is the milk aisle.

Home Sweet Home

As you can see from my previous posts blogger has stopped hating me and I've finally gotten some pictures posted. Yay! A lot has happened in the last two weeks. I've had my first, and what I had hoped would be my last, experience of being sick in India. Unfortunately after about 4 days of feeling good again I had my second experience of being sick in India. I think I've had my fill of being sick in India!


On Friday we made the big move into our new home. That's it in the picture. We occupy the second floor. The owners live on the first. It was a busy weekend as we worked at unpacking and getting settled in. It's an ongoing process really.

Today was a pretty exciting day. First of all we got internet hooked up. Maybe you heard the cheer we all sent up from where you are? We were all pretty excited, and still are actually!

The other big excitement for me today was that I made some Brazilian friends! I can still hardly believe it. Fabiano and Ducy Prado and their little ten month old daughter Karin. Ray actually met Fabiano while running some errands yesterday and got his business card. I called him up last night and then they came over to the house this afternoon. We visited for at least an hour and a half before they had to leave. They have been living in India for the last three years. Fabiano is going to university and Pastoring a church. Unfortunately they are on their way back to Brazil next week to resolve some visa issues as well as introduce their daughter to their families. Lord willing they will be returning to Guwahati in the middle of May. I am still completely amazed that I connected with Brazilians here. My Brazilian father, João told me on MSN that Brazilians are like ants, you can find one everywhere. I'm beginning to believe that it's true. What a blessing to make new friends, especially ones who speak Portuguese! :)