This is the life!

This was the last place we stayed in, just north of Trivandrum (for those who are checking the map!). A real paradise. So peaceful, right on the beach and undiscovered by tourists, other than the 10 or so that were also staying here.

'Wild Palms On Sea' (sounds more like it should be in Blackpool?!) is only about a year old. Owned by the same family as the previous hotel we stayed in. Really nice. Quiet and quite personal.

I managed to grab some alone time here which was fantastic. I even read a book (!) and enjoyed swimming in the Arabian sea when I got too hot. Alistair was entertained much of the time by 2 French boys that took him under his wing. He's quite independent and would disappear with them for hours on end which was great!

A perfect end

What an amazing find this place was. The beach was deserted but for these working fishing boats and the Keralan fishermen who brought in their nets every morning. Such a peaceful way to spend the last few days of our holiday.

Alistair and Freya loved the beach. Ali woke up saying "Can I go to the beach again today mummy?"and was there before breakfast each day!

Sunset over the Arabian sea. The last evening of our holiday.

Freya's 1st Birthday!

The first day of our holiday in Kerala was Freya's 1st birthday (15th Jan). A great way to celebrate together as a family. Here she is first thing in the morning in our hotel room. We managed a few balloons and smuggled her first dolly into the suitcase for the day. They were equally as excited by the big bed and mosquito nets - great for hide and seek!

This was Adam selecting the freshly caught fish from the beach for Freya's birthday lunch. It was cooked for us on the spot - delicious! Not quite jelly and ice-cream but Freya loved it!

Freya was chuffed to be up at the table with the big people and did very well feeding herself!

India's finest

We have just returned from holiday in Kerala we had a great time, and there will be more photos to follow, but Jo is quite keen to tell you all about our holiday herself, so I'll leave the the major part of the tale. However, I'd just like to say that here you can see that The Police in Kerala use Bajaj CT100 bikes (like mine).

Who needs a truck?

I made a previous similar posting. If you look closely, you can see that this joker is actually riding the same type of bike (and colour- just to remain in touch with my feminine side) as mine! It is not uncommon to see people with rediculous loads on their bikes/scooters. The problem is catching it on camera, but I'll try to post a few more similar pictures in the future. Sometimes you'll see a family of 5 on a bike, with bags.

Wedding season!

The "winter" (it is still mid 20's to 30 degrees!!) months bring many weddings as the weather is less sweaty I guess! This first wedding is of a Christian friend who goes to Church in the fellowship that used to meet in the ground floor of the hospital's main building, but now meets in a hall to the rear of our HIV/AIDS project that I work in.

Christians in India tend to be fairly strict with themselves, and are very disciplined. They tend not to drink any alcohol, and dating is fairly frowned upon. In fact arranged marriages are common even in Christian circles, as are large dowry gifts. This lovely couple actually met through Church. There were a lot of difficult circumstances surrounding their engagement and marriage, and it was lovely last week to go to a bible study in their married home, and have a meal afterwards. I am sure that they will have a very fruitful future.

Hindu Wedding

Jo and I were very fortunate to be part of a friend's brother's wedding recently. The groom sits on a horse, and the guests dance to a live band in the street! The groom has a garland round his neck of money, and the whole affair is very impressive and large scale. There were around 600 guests.

Neil's visit

Jo's sister's boyfriend Neil had a very fleeting visit with us for 2 nights and one day in-between. He loved my bike (good way to get on my right side), and is contemplating buying one to get around London (good way to avoid congestion charges apparrently- maybe they should introduce those here? Hmmm, Actually, I think it would be pretty un-enforcable, and would only give the police something else to take bribes for- this is not just a cynical view unfortunately)

Judith's visit

This is our friend Judith Barron. She had a fundraising concert in aid of Lok Hospital before she came to visit us, and raised 1207 pounds for the work of the hospital. Pretty amazing! We're hoping to also organise a Ceilidh when we're back in the UK in the summer. We'll keep you posted. I'll love getting my kilt on and swirlin' aboot!

These photos are of the gateway of India in Mumbai, and of a boat ride in the harbour. Jo and I are now organising tours if anyone else is interested!!?

Superhuman new-year

Judith a friend from our church in Glasgow, has a tradition of dressing up as super-heroes for new year with her friends. Sadly Judith had a 24+ hour tummy-bug at Christmas, and so she brought in the new-year with oral rehydration salts in a glass!

We didn't quite get round to all dressing up for new year, but we did all buy superman T-shirts (and sadly I also got a belt). This was a few days later.

I did enjoy drinking 2 miniatures of Bowmore whiskey! (thanks Peter Foster)!

Judith's visit (II)

On a horse-and-cart ride at gorai beach. Alistair loves horses, and he also went on a big horse up and down the sand with his Dad. It was a good day. In the evening, I asked Alistair what he'd done that day, and he said "I've been on toooo horses!"

Here's Judith in Crawford market. It is a good place in Mumbai to source difficult to find food items. We bought weetabix for Freya's breakfasts, and Golden syrup - for flapjack! (yep, visitors can now stop brining these items!!)

This picture is also of a stall in Crawford marked sellin steel kitchen items. I love it. Cut and paste it from here to your desktop. It looks cool blown up larger!!

Last Christmas party (I think!!??)

This was taken at the "Purnata Bhavan" Christmas programme. It was on the 22nd of December, and was a very well run and enjoyable evening. I stayed with them for tea, and then drove home at 9pm in the dark.

Purnata Bhavan is a project that I've mentioned before. It is a Christian home 2 hours from Mumbai run by "OASIS INDIA" that cares for women and children. Some of them are HIV positive, and we provide them with medical care.

Anyway, about me driving home.....
.....I drove home in the dark. The head of oasis india (John Nonibel, whose brother Andrew Nonibel used to go to my Church in Glasgow, and was in my bible study group! It's all too small a Christian world isn't it!!) was horrified about the prospect of me getting flattened by a truck on the night roads, and tried to persuade me to stay the night and drive back in the morning. When I said that I thought I'd go back that night, a bystander who I didn't know asked if I was a surgeon- "Surgeons are the Doctors who are known to take risks"!

The journey wasn't actually that bad?- Only twice on the narrow hillside twisting road did I have to leave the road for the hard shoulder for the oncoming vehicles on my side of the road overtaking round a blind corner! NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT!? Seriously though, a friend of mine was recently hospitalised after a head on collision under similar circumstances. He's thankfully OK now.

Another thing that another friend had warned me about was the oncoming vehicles that appear at a glance to be motorcycles, but on closer inspection are larger vehicles with a light out "Don't go into the light"

All in all, night time driving should be avoided here!

Merry Christmas from Clanblack!

Howdy! The above photo is a bit of a cheat, as It was actually taken a few days before Christmas, and I was planning to be really organised and put it on the Blog on Christmas day- however thid didn't happen (obviously). It's a bit of a cheesy photo really!

This is alistair dressed appropriately for a red and white themed Christmas party at his nursery! Yep, those Christmas parties just keep on coming!

Saroj's House

The lady who comes to work in our home in the mornings is called Saroj. We visited her house recently with a Christmas hamper. Her home is fairly typical, and involves about 12 foot square with a cooking corner, and a washing corner.

She, her husband, and one son sleep on one bed, one son sleeps on another thin bed, and one son sleeps on the floor.

It is a very simple life.

Saroj was very excited that we gave her a small Christmas bonus, and bought a new sari to wear to her Christmas service at her Church (she is also a Christian). She wore her new sari today to our house, and was really happy and giggly when she came to the door wearing it. It is quite humbling how small things can make such differences to peoples lives. But it is also quite revealing that the more we have, the more difficult it is to make us happy!

Saroj has a lovely, happy, family. We are very blessed to have her coming to our home.

Church children's Christmas party!

Yep, another Christmas party!

This was a party for our church sunday-school. There was a magician and santa, then a meal, and Alistair had a good time.

Dress to impress!

Thankyou to 4 Australian students who were recently with us; Alison, Bethany, Esther and Jess. They came from a Church in Aus to help at another youth conference in Hyderabad.

They were only with me for one day, but they gave JSK lots of girls dresses that a friend had made, and we were able to get a fair few of them to girl patients on Friday afternoon before Christmas.

So thankyou to the friend, whose name I don't actually know!

Jeevan Sahara Kendra Christmas Do

Well, it is certainly Christmas party season here in Thane, which feels very surreal, as it is still 25 degrees at night, and more than that, we are not being bombarded with "X"mas consumerism constantly.

I still haven't managed to think of a Christmas present for Jo. I'm thinking that maybe I should have told her that the keyboard I got her for her birthday was actually a joint Christmas and birthday present! (do you think I could still pull that off?- her birthday was in May!!). Alternatively, we do have some painters coming to re-docorate our bedroom next week, it was at Jo's request, so could I tell her that's her Christmas present? - to put this in perspective, Jo has already told me that the bike I bought myself is actually my Christmas present!

Anyway...
...About the JSK Christmas party, it was on Saturday, and was a very successful programme. Lots of patient's gave very encouraging and uplifting testimonies, and as I looked round the room, I was struck by the number of patients who had attended our centre very sick over the past year, but that now by the grace of God are doing really well. Many of them would have been dead without the help and support of the team at JSK.

It was quite humbling to share with the people there the story from Luke 17:12-19;

As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!" When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him--and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no-one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well."

I shared that Jesus is still working to heal the sick and outcast through the hands of we his servants, and that we all still need to go back to Jesus and say "thank you" for everything he has accomplished in each of our lives.

I also read Psalm 103:2-3;
Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits- who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.

I really felt fulfilled and content at the party. Being here in India is not just about helping others. It is about fulfilling God's good and perfect will for our lives. If we humble ourselves and do as God directs us, that will ultimately bring us more satisfaction than following our own selfish desires.

Lok Christmas party II

Our JSK team did a sketch as part of the programme for the Lok hospital Christmas party on Friday.

We got a bit of a laugh- here you see Shanti dressed up as a local politician! (see Alistair stage right!)

Yours truly also spoke for a few minutes about Jesus being the light of the world.

Lok Christmas Party

It was the Lok Christmas party on Friday.

There was a mix of old and new in the nativity play, with santa meeting Mary and Joseph!

The party was held in the centre of a housing society with lots of highrise flats overlooking the proceedings. This meant that all the inhabitants heard the Christmas message, as well as the party attendees.

It was a really good night, with a free meal as well.

Denise and I also won the "paper dance" game, and so we now have a couple of presents under the tree!