Picture of the Week: Filter

The light started blinking. Our water purifier needed its filter replaced. Two guys came with a gleaming white cylinder filter, opened up the tank and this (brown, slimy, putrid) bad boy popped out. It looked like...well....stuff that is brown and slimy and you probably don't want to drink. 

Honestly, seeing this made Brian a little grossed out when he went to fill his glass. It made me happy. Our filter is doing it's job! Kinda like that rewarding feeling you get when you blow your nose. Or am I getting a little too personal now?

And for those of you (nurses, hypochondriacs, concerned parents) who are freaking out a bit about our drinking water safety: this is the first of our purifier's filtering systems; the water goes through reverse osmosis and hangs out with a UV light before hitting our glass. 

A Christmas Mix

The Stocks' Christmas are having a very merry, bright and warm Christmas. What recipe would make a prefect Christmas? 

1) A cute girl in a dress and a Santa cap

2) A Christmas party with lots of smiles 

3) Christmas cookies... Yummy!

4) New kid-made Christmas Ornaments

5) A Decorated Christmas Tree

Picture of the Week: Festivals

This picture doesn't really capture the way this country lights up (literally) for a festival. It doesn't capture the noise of the too-big-to-be-legal-in-America fireworks that go ALL DAY. It doesn't show the idols being paraded around, the pictures of gurus adorned and the cars plastered with ribbons, sacred dye and flowers.

But here is one part of festival season: the exchange of sweets. We recently had the largest annual festival, which is smack dab in the middle of weeks of other festivals. It was like Christmas...well, without the Savior and redemption part. Anyways, all our Hindu neighbors brought us sweets. And when I say sweets, I mean the South Asian variety of SWEET! Imagine sweetened condensed milk, but more sweetened and more condensed. Then add some syrupy coating and sprinkle on a few glazed nuts. There you have the most sickeningly sweet thing you've ever tasted.

We got 6 boxes like this.

I graciously shared with my national friends. We at the Stock Household split one piece. 

Halloween

No, they don't celebrate Halloween here. But that didn't stop us and our American friends from dressing up! "Any excuse to party!" as my favorite mother-in-law says.

On our way to the party!

Molly was a caterpillar. She has on 3 onesies to make it look like a lot of legs. 

Brian said, "Let's be Indians." I thought it was punny.

Our little butterfly. She decorated her shirt and wings herself.

Darth Vader, Ladybug, Panda, Cheetah...

Pumpkin painting!

Picture of the Week: Simple Things

Becky (in her pjs...sorry Becky) reading to Lydia

In our job, people sometimes assume we do great and awesome things. Honestly, sometimes I'm carried away by that expectation too!

But in the daily reading stories and chopping up fruit, there isn't much to write home about. A group of women came over from the States a to "love on us" for a week. They got to see the city and works we are doing. They also came to the Stock Household. And I put them to work, un-apologetically.

Patty coloring princesses

They started reading stories, peeling pumpkins and washing lettuce. And I thought, this doesn't seem like a big cool thing I would expect to do on this kind of trip. But truth was, from this view, it was. I felt "loved on" and they served with joyful hearts.

Picture of the Week: Sticks and Stones

It was a common question we got before we came. It was a joke...but perhaps showed the fear of the unknown.

"What will your kids play with there? I bet all they'll have are sticks and rocks."

I have to admit, I was a bit scared too. What will my girls do without 75 stuffed animals? Are two wooden puzzles enough for their fine motor skill development? The playgrounds have tetanus-infested metal slides with gaping holes. The swings are always broken (or about to be). The mosquitoes swarm. Where is my soft-surface, eco-friendly, shaded park with a paved running trail and plenty of parking? Can they manage without their play-kitchen, play-stroller, play-vacuum cleaner, sprinklers and bath toys?

Turns out we miss those things, yes. But sticks, a piece of palm bark and a stone pathway make for a great row boat in a raging river...especially with a friend.

Friends at the botanical gardens

Picture of the Week: Worms

How do you know we've been here six months? That's right...it's de-worming time! Apparently, half a year is just about the time that you want to consider ridding your body of all those little travelers you've picked up from the foot, the surfaces, from sucking on your toes (if you are Molly). Each of us got this little pill to chew up and hopefully (ahem) dispose of any hitchhikers. 



We crunched up the kids' in their yogurt. 

Just one of the pleasantries of living here. But hey, at least I have a clean slate. Now to keep Molly from sucking on her toes....

Hey Mommy...

Everyone knows three-year-olds ask a lot of questions. I spend at least half my day answering questions...some routine (Mommy, can I have a snack?), some theological (Mommy, what did Jesus save us from?), and some just plain silly (Mommy, what does it look like in an alligator's belly?). I have had all three of these, just today! Almost every question Lydia asks starts with "Hey Mommy.." so thought I'd chronicle a few here. Maybe you have better answers than I come up with. (The "Hey Mommy" is understood.)

"Can you see my foot shadow?"
"Do people eat jellyfish?"
"Do some people eat people?"
"Why would you eat people?"
"Did the forbidden fruit taste sugary?"
"Can Molly have honey (lettuce/cheese/cheerios/grass/dirt) yet?"
"Is my booty super clean?"
"Where does my food go after my belly?"
"Do the fish drown in the ocean?"
"Where were me and Molly when you were getting married?"
"Did you have a sparkly dress at your wedding?"
"When can I have a brother? Tomorrow?"
"Can I have a caterpillar pet?"
"Can we go to heaven? Can we go now?"
"Do you want to play Abby and Emma?"
"Can we be a fish family?"
"Do you want to play duckapotmoses [pretend we are duckbill platypuses]?"
"How will we dry cow-ie after we wash him? Will he just need a time out?"
"When you were a little girl did you disobey/spill stuff/push your sister/lie?"
"Did you see me wipe?"
"Can Molly and I go barefoot?"
"Do some people not have shoes?"
"Did we have shoes in America?"
"Is it ok to get naked when it's just you and Molly here?"
"Do I talk a lot?"

A small sampling. And yes, when I was a little girl...I'm sure I talked a lot Lydia. Like Mother like Daughter. 

Picture of the Week: Muffin Change

There is an epidemic in this country.

We have a change problem. It can be your auto-rickshaw driver. It may be the shop vendor. It is definitely the vegetable-cart guy. No one has change!

I buy something for 87. I give 100. "Do you have 3 change, madam?"

No, no I don't. I gave it to the vegetable-cart guy this morning.

Don't worry, though. Here is the solution. That 3 (which is equivalent to a nickel) now becomes 3 pieces of candy, a pack of gum or if you are at a bakery (which my friend and I thought was a coffee shop...due to the name being a coffee shop...but we can talk about misnomers later)...a muffin. I bought bread, two cokes (replacement for coffee) and didn't have the 5 change. "No problem," he says. "Here is strawberry muffin."

It's just a funny thing that now I have come to expect. I gotta tell you, Lydia doesn't mind. She ate that strawberry muffin (it was pink) and asks me to carry big bills all the time. 

Edit: Found!

Minutes after typing the previous sad camera-missing post, we asked Teresa (our house-helper) if she had seen the camera. She apparently has a photographic memory (no pun intended) and led us to retrace our steps once more.

It was in a random box of toys.

Hurray! Praise Jesus! Thankful for the time it was gone (sanctification?), thankful for Teresa, and thankful we have our little blue point and shoot back!

Picture of the Week: Missing

Sadly, I think we lost our camera.

Brian got it for me two Christmases ago. A cute little blue point and shoot. We remember seeing it Thursday on top of the fridge (easy access for us, not easy access for a three year old). But now, we can't find it. Here are our three scenarios: 1) It is somewhere in the house...although we have looked seemingly everywhere. 2) It miraculously flipped off the fridge, into the trashcan (flipping open the lid) and was taken out Saturday morning before we realized it's disappearance. 3) It was stolen by the man that delivers our groceries...though I kinda like him. He seems honest and I was basically watching him the whole time he unloaded the milk and vegetables.

I do not like any of these options. And therefore I'm left with no solution, no probable guess and no closure. I really liked that camera, but (and maybe it's like this with you too) losing things bugs me more than the value of the thing. I feel out of control. I feel frustrated with my lack of omniscience. I wonder why God would allow this to happen. I mean, it's not a devastating tragedy. It's not insignificant either. It's mildly saddening, middle-ground-ish frustrating and I suppose irksome enough for me to see my idol of control.

So, no picture this week. We still have our phone cameras (so, please, it's not like we're suffering here!), and we'll adjust our photography and hopefully God will use even this lost thing to find my easily wayward heart.