I am here in Ponguturu, the most wonderful place I have even been, feels like sallasulu from Dr. Sues where everything is lovely and troubles are few!!! Coconut trees everywhere that bear nuts all year long they tell me!!!! Papaya that tastes like heaven! Guavas, oh my,,,, NOTHING like guavas I have had from Mexico and canned, they are the size of grapefruits and so creamy and flavor like none other:)
I mended clothing most of the day for the boys. The old Machine is marvelous when it works but it won't sew some cloth, and the thread is so weak, it breaks all the time, so I double it up. Most incredibly most all of the clothes that I mended, had been mended before, by the boys themselves all by hand. Later found out they mend their clothes without being told!!!!!!! The children do speak English and today was the day that I truly broke into their lives and became one of them, up till now it has been all this formal greeting stuff.. I sewed their clothes while they were at school, then they came back, and I gave each boy the pant or shirt that happened to be his. Then of course we played more Cricket!!!!!!!! always Cricket!!!! Still getting the hang of it, (should have played more baseball, lol) It's so funny they have this guest thing so far out of proportion, the boys won't throw the ball to me from very far, for fear they might miss and hit me, so they throw it to a boy near me and he tosses it to me... haha
Up until today the Mallipudis have been feeding me all this fancy food all by myself, giving me all this guestly honor, and telling me, oh no don't eat the children's food, not good for you!!!
So, after much cricket and other games, I went back to sewing with one of the boys teaching him how to stitch a button whole on his pants, which turned into a surround of 20 boys all repeating my words as I would teach. It was now getting dark so we went to their bed room and had the evening prayer and teaching, always asking me to teach and play my violin. So I have been teaching by asking questions since I haven't known any of them yet. It was a really good time of learning, making them all think and answer questions that I came up with as the LORD led me from their responds. Then I went with the children and ate with them in their eating hut instead of eating in the house with the fancy food that is very hard to try to finish, So fifty smiling faces later, we were walking back to their sleeping hut and they start talking to me in English asking me to teach them English!!!!!!!! I said yes, and they said they were going to do home work, then so I ask about their English HW. They brought me their English workbook which had stories to read, so I gathered them all on the top bunks of the beds and read to them, and soon we were all speaking English quite plainly, so I had all the older ones read sentences between mine. Then we read all these stories for two readers, sharing the parts, veddy, veddy, veddy gud!!!!! their English books are so poorly written that they even had wrongs words in them, cake, instead, care etc, not to mention horrible grammar!!!! haha now I know why they always say: "Is it" for all questions, the books use that wrongly all the time.... haha
I traded all my clothes with the boys here so now I have Indian clothes and they have the "royal American" ones!!!! lol
Fifty has got to be the biggest number there is when it comes to quantity of children!!!!!!!! I thought I was good with faces and names, and I keep seeing new faces every day! and they are all the same size mostly. I have been keeping things back to give them and do step by step I will use all that I have for them, haven't given them some of the toys yet or shown them my Ipod, or slept in their hut, which I want to do soon, because then the will know that I am one of them and think equally with them. But I am still trying to please Joseph and Prema which want to give me this mega guest treatment:) one step at a time I will clime the coconut tree that they say I must not clime because it is dangerous,,,, seriously,,,, like I would come to Indian forest and not pick a coconut????
everybody must do that once in their life,,, I think?
This is winter for them, taking hot bathes and wearing ear muffs, and coats,,,, did I mention that it is also 80* lol well the coats come out in the evening when it is like 60*
I mended clothing most of the day for the boys. The old Machine is marvelous when it works but it won't sew some cloth, and the thread is so weak, it breaks all the time, so I double it up. Most incredibly most all of the clothes that I mended, had been mended before, by the boys themselves all by hand. Later found out they mend their clothes without being told!!!!!!! The children do speak English and today was the day that I truly broke into their lives and became one of them, up till now it has been all this formal greeting stuff.. I sewed their clothes while they were at school, then they came back, and I gave each boy the pant or shirt that happened to be his. Then of course we played more Cricket!!!!!!!! always Cricket!!!! Still getting the hang of it, (should have played more baseball, lol) It's so funny they have this guest thing so far out of proportion, the boys won't throw the ball to me from very far, for fear they might miss and hit me, so they throw it to a boy near me and he tosses it to me... haha
Up until today the Mallipudis have been feeding me all this fancy food all by myself, giving me all this guestly honor, and telling me, oh no don't eat the children's food, not good for you!!!
So, after much cricket and other games, I went back to sewing with one of the boys teaching him how to stitch a button whole on his pants, which turned into a surround of 20 boys all repeating my words as I would teach. It was now getting dark so we went to their bed room and had the evening prayer and teaching, always asking me to teach and play my violin. So I have been teaching by asking questions since I haven't known any of them yet. It was a really good time of learning, making them all think and answer questions that I came up with as the LORD led me from their responds. Then I went with the children and ate with them in their eating hut instead of eating in the house with the fancy food that is very hard to try to finish, So fifty smiling faces later, we were walking back to their sleeping hut and they start talking to me in English asking me to teach them English!!!!!!!! I said yes, and they said they were going to do home work, then so I ask about their English HW. They brought me their English workbook which had stories to read, so I gathered them all on the top bunks of the beds and read to them, and soon we were all speaking English quite plainly, so I had all the older ones read sentences between mine. Then we read all these stories for two readers, sharing the parts, veddy, veddy, veddy gud!!!!! their English books are so poorly written that they even had wrongs words in them, cake, instead, care etc, not to mention horrible grammar!!!! haha now I know why they always say: "Is it" for all questions, the books use that wrongly all the time.... haha
I traded all my clothes with the boys here so now I have Indian clothes and they have the "royal American" ones!!!! lol
Fifty has got to be the biggest number there is when it comes to quantity of children!!!!!!!! I thought I was good with faces and names, and I keep seeing new faces every day! and they are all the same size mostly. I have been keeping things back to give them and do step by step I will use all that I have for them, haven't given them some of the toys yet or shown them my Ipod, or slept in their hut, which I want to do soon, because then the will know that I am one of them and think equally with them. But I am still trying to please Joseph and Prema which want to give me this mega guest treatment:) one step at a time I will clime the coconut tree that they say I must not clime because it is dangerous,,,, seriously,,,, like I would come to Indian forest and not pick a coconut????
everybody must do that once in their life,,, I think?
This is winter for them, taking hot bathes and wearing ear muffs, and coats,,,, did I mention that it is also 80* lol well the coats come out in the evening when it is like 60*
With tears in my eyes I am Praising HIM!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat GREAT news! Keep it coming! We all read and enjoyed. Another identity problem might be that they all were wearing the same blue plaid shirts! What is the Internet access like? Can you upload photos?
ReplyDeleteVERY GREAT!!!!
ReplyDelete"the boys won't throw the ball to me from very far for fear they might miss and hit me, so they throw it to a boy near me and he tosses it to me... haha"
ReplyDeleteHahaha! Why aren't Americans like that? *feels broken tooth and hurt lip* ;)
Anyways, very exciting update! Glad all is going well. It's so cool how God uses all these different skills we pick up, isn't it?
And of course you have to pick a coconut!
Still praying,
Carissa
Much appreciate the pictures...
ReplyDelete