The Boys Are Back in Town

C showing of his newly-acquired smile

At the Queen's Gardens, with our favorite driver, Udom

C and his mountaintop experience at the Queen's Garden

At our favorite pad Thai restaurant

The kids loved being back in the kitchen with Mani (mah-nee).

A joining the ranks among the big kids

We arrived back in town very early (about 1am arrival into our apartment) last Monday morning. It took a couple of days for us to adjust to the 'new' environment. Our house helper, Mani, kept laughing at us because it just took some time for us to process accents again. It's much different hearing English spoken by someone's who's heart language is not English. It was a good reminder of why people have such a difficult time understanding our Kannada.

It has felt very good to be back in most instances. Getting back into a routine and not living 'out of a suitcase' has felt very good. (Though, admittedly, we still have one of the nine pieces of luggage to unpack!) It has been very good to see the nationals again. We've made some very good acquaintances and some good friends. It has been good to see them again-to know you've been missed is a nice feeling.

The kids have enjoyed being back as well. They missed our courtyard that we can just walk right outside and play in-a luxury we didn't have in Thailand. A got a bike for his third birthday and has really been enjoying it. "Big Eyes" is doing well. He'll be two months old on Friday! It's so hard to believe, but the nationals always think he's much older because he's bigger than their kids are, typically, for his age.

Thank you to all of you who have been lifting us up! It really has been a blessing to be back-a MUCH easier transition than we had anticipated. We attribute this ease of transition to the pr*yers and the answering of those pr*yers! Thank you again!

For some reason, we're still having trouble loading pictures, but we did want to share this picture that we took during a trip in the hills of Thailand.

More to come, but for now...

More pics will follow, but we've enjoyed laughing at this one several times and thought it needed to be shared. My opinion is that the only thing that could have made this better is to have baby C incidentally doing the same thing in the picture!

Invitation to Pr*y

A friend of ours serving in our same city sent this recently. We thought it would give you some good perspective of the things we see in our city on a regular basis.

Love,

The Colliers

Dear Pr*yer Helpers,

Our hearts are very sad. This afternoon the city government bulldozed down “Tent City.” It was the slum where we have begun B!ble stories. Over 100 desperately poor people were pitched out. They were land “squatters.” Their little blue tarp tent houses were pushed down. Families are in shock and pain. Children came to our house telling us in Kannada what happened. Finally we understood. When we saw it, our hearts ached too. Rain started. Tiny children, nursing babies, young ones, old people, and others stood wet and sad. Mothers and fathers were walking about picking up what they could salvage. These adults left home this morning to work with all OK, but returned to nothing this evening.

Then rain came hard. As P3ggy started home, several kids and some mothers followed her. How could we refuse them? They were the two ladies who had been saved in our house. Their kids came too. Others joined them. D8vid tried calling pastors, Chr!stians, and anyone who could help. Nothing worked. How do you leave 100 people homeless, hungry, and sitting on the street in the rain?

We took about 12 of them into our house. P3ggy cooked a huge pot of rice with the small amount of chicken we had. All ate and got dried out. We have no idea what to do next. The L0rd will have to guide and help us.

At least we expect a big crowd to attend church with us tomorrow! We were able to use our weak Kannada language skills to show our sympathy and concern. We hugged, talked, encouraged, and cried a little. We believe G0d is able to help our friends. We just do not know how HE will do it. Maybe we can rent a truck and carry their stuff to some other place. We’ll see.

As your Sunday Scho0l classes and church services meet, will you take a moment to pray for the 100+ poor slum people of Tent City? One asked us, “We wondered, has this come on us because we began to pray to Je$us?” One month ago B!ble stories and, and we love them. The L0rd Je$us will work as you intercede.