Prayers of little saints

Tuesday evenings mean Bible study for the Eichers - and a few others too.  Just after 7 PM the 5 of us pile into our Papaya and drive over to sister Shanti's home.  This evening a local festival saw the main road being blocked and turned into a fun-fair around a temple - and so we took a wide detour and then crawled through the crowds before we finally made it (1/2 an hour late) to the home.

We remembered Yohan's meds this time - and so when my alarm went off at 9 PM I had the little pill box ready and slipped out the pills and gave him his water to drink - while the study was moving to its end.  I expected Yohan to just swallow them down - we have not seen him grimace at the pill burden so far.  So I was a bit surprised when Yohan did not immediately take his meds. 

A split-second later I saw why.

Enoch was next to Yohan.  Eyes closed.  Holding Yohan's hand. Quietly praying into Yohan's ear for the medicine to be a blessing to Yohan.  All this while the study continued.  A moment to melt a father's heart.  Spontaneous love from one son to another.

At the end of our Tuesday nights at Shanti's home we share a meal together.  We normally bring one of Sheba's famous dal or bean dishes (this evening it was rajma) and plenty of papads. Shanti provides the rice and has started adding something else too (this evening some 'chinese' noodles).

But before the food is dished out we have a time of prayer.

Yohan looked and me and asked me when we asked people to share what they would like prayer for.  He asked me quietly whether he could ask for a request - and I said of course...

"Please pray for my friend Kushal" said Yohan.  "He is very sick and has been admitted at JSK."

Kushal (not his real name of course) was admitted yesterday evening.  Re-admitted I should say, since we first admitted him for care on December 14th last year.  At that time he was very sick.  Yohan had just pulled through his first 2 weeks at our centre - and was a real encouragement to Kushal.

Kushal's parents had died last year.  And he was left alone.  All alone.  So alone that he was starving and sick.  Finally, a cousin of his took him under her wing.  She was studying in a simple 'Bible college' and persuaded the folks there to take in Kushal into their 'orphanage' (a small hostel for children from difficult situations). 

Kushal really was not cared much for at this place.  The head of the college had called me a few weeks earlier and told me that they had a boy who was HIV positive.  I asked him to bring the boy to us so that we could assess him and help with treatment.  They finally brought him in a precarious condition.  Kushal was semi-conscious.  Sheba thought we would lose him.  He pulled through.  And this is where Yohan met him first.  He prayed with him.  Encouraged Kushal to eat - as Kushal was painfully thin.  Told him that he also has the sickness.  And eventually played with him.   We discharged Kushal just before Christmas as his cousin had to rejoin the college.

Sadly, Kushal has slipped back to where he was.  He is very sick again. 

Yohan went to JSK today to be part of the first session of our Adolescent groups.  There he found out that Kushal was back and went to see him.   The meeting was not a happy one as Kushal was sleeping and Yohan knows that he is very sick.

And so we have the prayer request from our son Yohan to pray for his friend Kushal.

Could you join in this prayer too - for a brave, skinny, sick orphan boy who our nurses and doctors are working to keep alive tonight?

The prayers of the little saints directly touch the heart of King Jesus.

Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these... (Mark 10.14)

Eicher Academy

So here we are - in our mid forties - engaging on new careers as educationalists!

The Eicher academy used to be a coaching shop.  A low-profile mom-n-pop operation where our two kiddos got their home-work done over and prep for the dreaded exams by Mummy - with Daddy being the go-to man for help with class projects and printing out pictures and general ideas for essays and such like.  The main learning was (supposedly at least) taking place at Asha n Enoch's current school - the Bombay Scottish School at Powai.

Well, coaching days are over - well they continue - but there is a new educational enterprise in town.

Enter master Yohan.  11 years young.  Knows the alphabet in Hindi and English.  And apparently precious little else.

Details are still sketchy on exactly what he did in 'school' - he was enrolled at a govt. school in Juhu.  We have a 'bona fides' certificate for him (which lists his birthdate as 1.1.2003 ... go figure).

But the lad with the charming smile is deeply functionally illiterate.  He can do some sum using his fingers to count.  But that's about it.

I asked him the other day "did your teachers shout at you?"  I was expecting him to say 'yes, all the time, and so I never liked going to school and played in the streets"   But instead he said "no."  And then the heart-breaking reason "they knew I was sick."

There is a lot more to all of this of course.  Yohan talks about what seems like a pavement school where people came in some kind of a bus.  He seems to have been in different places too... so there is a fair amount of murk that may or may not clear up.

But what is crystal-clear to a set of new parents is that their boy needs to get learning and learning fast! 

And that no school in any direction would take our charmer.

So we took a deep breath, and are jumping into home-schooling! 

We are of course good friends with our very own home-schooling-evangelist Dr. SP Mathew - and have had some good discussions over the years as our kids have grown up together.  But it always seemed a luxury that we could not afford.  But now we cannot afford not to.

And so for the sake of Yohan, Sheba and I have just gotten the Std. 1 materials from Griha Shiksha in Pune and on the 12th of Feb, we plunged in!   

Currently Sheba starts the day off with scripture, english and maths - all that between 9 and 11 AM.  And then I come over for the 11.15 - 1 PM slot.  My brief is to help Yohan in a pot-porry of other subjects.  The ones I have tackled so far are science and environmental studies - and in coming days will be venturing into social studies and some IT too...  But in the end - at this point everything is actually one big English lesson for Yohan.

It's all so new - for all of us.  And we are discovering p a t i e n c e - and will need ever greater measures of that precious resource as we plunge ahead.

After lunch the plan is for Yohan to do some artsy-craftsy stuff on his own while I do some 'work from home from 1.30 - 2.45 and then drive him over to the home of a lovely young couple from our church - Rajesh and Shweta Kamble.  Shweta has very kindly offered to help out with Hindi and we hope to have her help 3 days a week from 3-5 PM.  Yohan had his first lesson with her today and loved it (and came back with home-work which he did while Asha and Enoch were poured over their books).

Learning by doing.  It's all happening here at the Eicher academy.  

By the way - we are most interested in having others help out too!

Sweeping changes in Delhi?

A few months ago I had my finger 'inked' for the first time.  No - it wasn't a tattoo - rather I had my left index finger daubed with permanent ink, with half of it on the sensitive skin at the base of the nail, and the other half painted up my index nail.  

That was the 15th of October last year.  A day when I voted for the first time.  The elections were for the Maharashtra state and the ruling national party easily overran everyone else.  My little 'beep' in the electronic voting machine was one of the many that supported a losing candidate - certainly not one who celebrated with saffron flags and fire-crackers a few days later.

I have been watching how that 'permanent' mark has gradually been making its way up my finger nail as the nail grew.  No amount of soap could get it off.  The only way out was to let it grow and clip. But over the weeks and months since, it was a small reminder of participating in the choosing of our rulers.

And deep inside there was a small question.  Given what seemed such an avalanche of wins that the Lotus guys have been having over the past year, given the almost ubiquitous popping up of the Prime Minister in almost every space imaginable, given the way that folks who had previously been on a platform denouncing corruption were happy to jump into the band-wagon when a CM-ship is dangled in front of her... was it even worth voting?  Does it make any sense to vote when folks are so steeped in corruption and the whole setup comes down to money?

Last week I clipped off the final bit of black - and now I have an unstained index finger again.

And over the past two weeks some of the faint rays of hope started showing up.

And then today happened.

Counting time for the votes in Delhi.  The nation's capital.  The heart of power.  The place which rules the land.

In 2013 a quixotic chap and his merry men (and women) managed to upset the odds and get 28 of the 70 seats on offer.  Not quite the majority, and not even the largest number of seats (the BJP wallahs got that with 32 seats), but enough to be the spoiler - and then surprisingly - enough to form the government.

They lasted 54 days.  Arvind Kejriwal resigned when his anti-corruption bill was blocked by others - and after the national elections were called he and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) rolled out a plan to take the nation by storm.  Contest 434 seats across the nation.  Have Kejriwal fight against Modi himself in Varanasi.  The results were a wipe-out.  They only won 4 seats.  All in the Punjab.  Kejriwal lost heavily to Modi.  They got over 30% of the vote in Delhi - but that didn't translate into a single seat as the saffron boys (and a few girls) wiped up the spoils.

So when the Delhi elections were notified for Feb 7th this year, few gave the apparently rag-tag folks from AAP a chance.

I was talking to a local pastor yesterday.  He told me that one of his church members is a new follower of Christ - and also connected politically.  He has been given Rs. 5 lakhs by a local political leader.  Cash.  The brief: get him votes.  How he uses it is up to him.  He can keep it all, he can give it out in crisp Rs. 500 notes.  He can buy booze.  Whatever.  As a person who has just started following Christ his question to the pastor is - what should I do now?  What do I do with this cash?

For the past decades this is the story of our democracy.  Vast amounts of cash flow out before every election.  The locals love it as free liquor and notes flow around.  Who will not accept something for nothing?

Well, the Aam Aadmi chaps had something up their sleeves in Delhi.  In the run-up to the Delhi polls they blanketed the areas where the main handouts are given (read:slums) with volunteers who walked around at night, smart phones held out in front of them at arms length, and loudly telling people that these were 'spy phones' which would take pictures of people giving cash or booze...

A different world.

And then the results were announced today.  The media was saying that AAP would win.  The boys in orange had changed their tune.  The exit polls are distorted! Wait and see - the lotus will bloom after all!  Don't be swayed by people who try to buy you went the refrain - all the way up to our respected Prime Minister himself...

But what a result.

Who would have thought the BJP would not only be humbled, but humiliated.  Aam Aadmi getting 67 out of the 70 seats on offer.  Well over half the votes cast.  

Appropriately enough, since the Aam Aadmi Party's symbol is a broom (to sweep out corruption) they literally swept everybody else off the board.  Including the Congress who had been ruling in Delhi for years and years before them.

 Lessons to be learned:

1) We actually do live in a democracy.  People do vote. Governments can be humbled.  Every vote counts.

2) We live in a time when there is a tremendous hunger for change.  People want to see a government that cares.  That will make a difference.  That is why they voted Modi in.  Not because they wanted to see churches burned.  Or Surya Namaskar mandated in schools.  They were told that Modi will bring about progress - and so they turned out for him.  Note to the victorious Aam Aadmi chappies and to Muffler-man Kejriwal: you and your folks have to deliver now.

3) Kejriwal, with all his contradictions, is a man who has tremendous courage.  He can come across as almost comical at times, but what chutzpah to actually believe that they could do what seemed impossible.  His willingness to apologise for 'resigning' seems to have been accepted lock-stock-and-barrel.  Instead of running away from defeat, he and the AAP folk have shown that they are the real deal - working harder than before.  Mobilising, mobilising, mobilising.  Showing that they mean business but actually getting out on the streets.

4) Defeat can be a great blessing.  By resigning and bearing disgrace Kejriwal got two huge benefits. People could see that he is afraid of nothing.  And many of the fellow-travellers who were just there for the power jumped ship.  Good riddance to Kiran Bedi.  Tata to many others who decided to become lotus-eaters - and got eaten in the process.  The folks who remained are the real deal.

5) It is possible to do something about corruption.  Yes, it's not going to just evaporate.  But the man on the street talks about how during the 54 days when Kejriwal was CM the first time, the policeman stopped taking the Rs. 500 bribe to 'allow' a truck to enter a street.  Every politician worth his (or her) salt always says that they are 'anti-corruption' - but who has actually acted on it?  We live in interesting times - get ready for a lot of public washing of dirty linen!  But more than getting the big boys (and girls) it is letting our nation know that we will not accept the constant demand for bribes that will pay off in the long run.  Can one change of government in Delhi do it?  Probably not alone -but what a welcome step in the right direction.

So here's to the folks who are wielding the brooms!  Our dear Prime Minister has asked us all to clean up our country - and I for one am so glad that this was done effectively by our Delhi voters on the 7th of February this year.  Here is to a lot of other dirt being swept away!

Mera Bharat mahan!

musings on death and life

Yesterday afternoon we watched what Enoch said was 'the saddest movie I have ever seen.'

The Book Thief tells of Liesl, a German girl who is placed in a home of a middle aged couple as Germany veers into the full horrors of the Nazi years and the war.  There is a lot of death.  In fact, the narrator is Death himself.   Based on the novel by Markus Zusak, the film takes a beautiful look at a very ugly time.  

Take a look at the shot above.  The scene is the dirty grey steps outside her lower-middle-class home.  In the war. But Liesel looks gorgeous.  The colours are full of promise.  The clothes plum (literally).

Yes, there is beauty in despair.  Yes, candles shine brightest in the darkest places.  Yes, the film did not shy away from showing some of the horrors of the war and the terrors of Nazism.

My eyes were wet with tears at seeing the horrible actions of the German people to those they called 'sub-human.'  Liesl's agonising run in the midst of a column of Jews headed for the concentration camps cut to the heart.  Sorrows come in battalions.  And then some.

It's all the more real for me since my mother was a young girl at the same time in the same place.  Christa Fischer was born in Leipzig in 1937 - 5 or so years younger to Liesl - when Hitler and his henchmen (and women) were at the height of their power.  As the war escalated to large scale bombings she was sent away to her relatives in the Black Forest.

Her parents remained in Leipzig - my grandfather too small and because he supplied coal - too vital to be sent to the front.  My grandmother worked hard along side him.  I am told that they listened secretly to the BBC to hear the 'real news' of how the war was fairing.   As far as I know they hid no Jews - but their simple deep faith meant that they were more than kind to the allied prisoners of war who were drafted to help them in the coal business.   An elderly relative that I met many years later from their generation washed her hands off the Nazis by telling me that 'Hitler was actually not German at all'...

There are stains on all our hands.


Credit to the film.  Very little fairy-tale ending.  Many many deaths.  But an exquisite celebration of life.  With each life shown to be so precious.
So what jarred about the film?  I go back to the beginning.  The sheer beauty of every shot.  And the sub-text that you can be good without God.

I can't even pretend to comprehend the vast evil that has come to be summarised by the four letter word "Nazi."  But I do know that there were real life people who did stand up.  Men like Deitrich Bonhoeffer and others in the Confessing Church - some of whom were executed in the concentration camps themselves like Bonhoeffer was just days before the Allies took over Germany.   Women like Corrie Ten Boom, whose family served as a place of refuge to dozens of Jews when the Germans overran Holland - and who lost her father in the concentration camps - and who later was able to forgive some of the very men who had been her nemises during the years in the camps.

I wish I could talk to my grandfather about what he thought.  What his decisions were.  How his simple faith in Jesus had taken him through the dark years.  And what he would have done differently in hindsight.

But this I know.  That truth must be told.  That forgiveness and justice can embrace.   That life is very ugly many a time.

The four of us looked at each other with tear-stained eyes yesterday (Yohan was asleep).  We talked a bit about what we had seen.  We prayed.  We need to keep talking.

Death is real.  But certainly not a kind-sounding gentleman as the film characterises him.  There is a fundamental shabbiness to death.

But there is an alternative to the 'pie-in-the-sky-in-the-sweet-bye-and-bye.'  It all happened 2K years ago when a brutally executed and tortured man was laid in a freshly cut tomb - only to leave it on the third day.  Fact.

I humbly serve the man who took our pain upon Him.  To Him I look for hope.  Because death could not hold Him back.  He knows the deep sorrow that death brings to so many - and He can carry us through.

I have a lot to talk about with Willi and Roslie Fischer.  We will have a lot of time when I join them in the new Kingdom where death has no place.

Blessed medications

I used to have two alarms set on my mobile.  This week I added a third.

My 5 AM alarm wakes me up for the day - Asha and Enoch have to be out of the house with their uniforms and 'tiffins' at 6.50 AM.

The 3.20 PM alarm tells me that it is time to pick up our older 2 as their bus returns anytime between 3.30 and 3.50 PM.  

And now Sheba and I have added a new alarm for 10.00 PM.

It's an alarm to remind us to give our newest son his life-sustaining medication.  One dose every night.

What a blessing this medication is.  And how sobering it is for us to now be praying with our son - that the meds will really work in his little body, that he will grow and develop to be strong and healthy, that his mind and will and spirit will be honed and built up as well.

Till now there are no paediatric doses for the specific set of meds that Yohan has to take - and we have been cutting the adult dose into 2/3rds and giving it to our lad.  After praying with him, he takes the pill with a big smile and a large glass of water and just gulps it down.

Today we learned from our colleagues at CMC Vellore, that Yohan's weight is enough so that we can safely give him the adult dose.  No more cutting pills!

And so every evening we now have a new focal point.  To make sure Yohan takes his meds.  A week ago we quietly crossed a rubicon in our family - from helping and serving others - to becoming a family who ourselves is affected.  Humbling.  Today I pray for a cure in a very different way from the haphazard way I prayed before.  These days I project forward how Yohan will be as a young man and feel a very different set of emotions and hopes, than I had before.  There is a concreteness, a clarity and urgency to my talking with God, a clear edge which comes from being part and parcel instead of looking in from the outside.

We know that Yohan has many other needs besides meds of course.  His healing will be life-long - just as it is in each one of us as we allow ourselves to be fashioned and shaped into the persons God wants us to be.  As new parents we face a new set of issues - dealing with the shadowy sorrows that our son has already gone through.  Things come up in some of the talks we have had so far that tell us that this little fellow has already experienced a life-time of sadness.  And so much healing of the soul and spirit is in order.  Our prayers are that we will be able to facilitate a closure and restoration of Yohan's inner person as well.

In the meantime, we plunge joyfully on.  Lots of hugs every day.  Building a routine.  Trying to get a remedial learning programme up and running for Yohan as soon as we can (we are talking to Grih Shiksha for their curriculum).  Working with Asha and Enoch to integrate our newest and quite unexpected member in our home.  Helping Yohan understand that life is not just eating chocolate all the time - that we need to grow in love and self-control.  All of this happening all at once.   We appreciate your prayers as we step forward.

In the meantime, the alarms keep going off.  The next one will do so in just over 5 hours from now.  Another short night ahead!

Onwards!

His name is ... Yohan!

An aged man was in the middle of a long-sought-after honour.  To be in God's holy temple in Jerusalem, presenting the insence to the Lord, laying out the bread, worshipping God Himself on behalf of all the worshippers outside in the massive temple courts.

To be the sole priest to go into the actual sanctum sanctorum was something every priest in Israel wanted to do.  So going in was governed by casting lots.  It was Zecheriah's turn.

And then things went strange.

Instead of being alone with the unseen presence of God in that holy place - a rude shock.  An angelic being there beside the inscence altar - and he is addressing Zechariah: "do not be afraid, your prayers are heard, your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will call him John."  The angel goes on to say marvellous things about the boy to come: that he will "be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth" and that he will "to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."

What a prophecy to get about a coming son!  The only problem was for Zachariah, it sounded too good to be true.  Especially as he and his wife were childless and into their old age. 

The old man was afraid.  And the answer was a stumbling one. "How can this be? My wife and I are old..."


Well, this passage resonated with Sheba and myself.   Ever since we married 15 years ago, we have talked and prayed about adoption, but I had a lot of fear.  And fear meant putting things off.  Last year God helped me overcome that fear.  And so suddenly last week, our prayers for a home for little Valmik reached a tipping point.   We had been praying that someone else would adopt him - and we gradually began to realise that Jesus was telling us that we were the answers to our prayers. We realised that God was showing us in multiple ways that we were to take him home.   We shifted from praying 'God show us if you want us to adopt Valmik' to 'God show us if for some reason you do not want us to... and do so very clearly!'

And so we are suddenly parents again!  How strange and unexpected.  With deep butterflies about the next steps - and also wonderful rays of joy. 

On Saturday Valmik came home to us.  On Sunday we dedicated him to the Lord Jesus in our house fellowship.  We all came to the conclusion - including Valmik - that we wanted to start our son with a special name.  What better name than the passage which spoke to us:  His name shall be John! 

We wanted an Indian version for this and quickly settled on "Yohan."  Yohan is Syriac for John and means 'God is merciful.'   And indeed He is.  We are recieving wave after wave of mercy and grace these days.


So it was with great joy that on the 25th of January we first used Yohan.  And Yohan first started calling us Mummy and Daddy.  What sheer joy to hear our son address us as parents.  To come home to another set of hugs and have another little one to tuck into bed and pray for at night... How much our heavenly Father too must rejoice when our faltering lips first call Him 'Daddy' too.

 

What a joy to have 'Oma' and 'Opa' with us this month.

We asked them to extend their stay with us after Asha's birthday because we thought I would be visiting Rwanda during this time period.  Little did we know that we were actually setting the ground for them to be with us as Yohan became part of the family. 

Their love and prayers and encouragement have been such a blessing and help for us in these days of grace.  We are deeply touched by the affirmative words and prayers from Amma and Appa from far away outside Vishakapatnam.  We are eagerly waiting for Yohan to meet them too!

So we are now in a new world.

A world where we are exploring with a new family member.  Introducing our dear ones to Yohan - and having Yohan experience an ever widening set of relationships.   And also for us to take the intial steps of experiencing who Yohan is and who he is becoming!

One of the scriptures which spoke to us was 'children are gift (some versions say 'reward') from the Lord (Psalm 127).  What a gift we are experiencing. 

Yohan was prayed for at church.  And has been covered with prayer in so many ways.  We know that we do not have the capacity, energy or wisdom to care for another child - but God does.  And He has graciously encouraged us to take this step which we are still rubbing our eyes about... did we really do this?  

We earnestly need more prayers as we work through the next steps.

Getting the paper work done.  We are in uncharted territory here.

Understanding Yohan's learning needs.  He is 11 but has hardly seen the inside of a school.

Seeing healing and wholeness take root in our son.

Building a common language - we have suddenly become a bi-lingual household, with even Enoch switching to Hindi when he speaks with Yohan.

Rescheduling our time - especially in these early months - so that we are able to spend as much time with our 'new' child - and also keep moulding Asha and Enoch too.

All a tall order - but as before - nothing is too difficult for the Lord!   We feel like the man who said to Jesus: "Lord I believe, help my unbelief!"

And it helps that Yohan has a king-sized smile.  That he is just soaking up the love.

Tonight at our Bible study at Shanti Francis' home, we asked people to share their prayer needs.  Yohan was one of the first to speak - and he said that he is thankful to Jesus that he was sick but is now better.

There were a number of moist eyes in that small room when Yohan said that - especially those belonging to the two new parents.

We have been overwhelmed by the love that people have poured out to us - a cascade of greetings from all corners of the globe thanks to facebook - calls from loved ones and hearty hugs by so many of our local friends.

We know that Yohan has been brought into our little family for a purpose and are excited about the steps ahead.

Some of them have already begun!

Asha is showing herself to be an indefatigueable teacher - and has pounced on her at times a shade reluctant but nearly always smiling (so far at least) student.

Here she drills Yohan through the 3 times table...

 And then there is self study too!

Today we found Yohan in a box - looking through Calvin and Hobbes!  Perhaps he was trying transmogrification?

But most of all, we are all learning the new contours of our family.   We are on a new track of our life-long journey.  One which if you had told us about in November 2014 we would have patted you on the back and encouraged you to take up writing science fiction.  But which has moved very rapidly from an outside chance fantasy to real life 'fact'ion. 

For unto us a son is born, unto us a son is given...

Valmik Eicher

This morning we welcomed Valmik into our family!

For the last month and a half we have been praying for a home for this lovely 11 year old orphan boy.

Over the past week we took the step of faith - from our scripture readings over the past weeks we see over and over again that God cares for the fatherless and the orphans.  We have gradually, incrementally come to the conclusion that God is answering our prayers - and that He has chosen our family to be the answer to our desire for Valmik to have a home.

So Sheba and I have a new son - and Asha and Enoch a new brother.

What a blessing to have Oma and Opa with us at this amazing time.

By mid-week we made our decision - Saturday morning we will bring Valmik home.  

This morning Sheba went over to JSK at 9 AM - her usual time.  But she came home with a new son.  Valmik brought his tiger "Karan" along with him as well.

So this is what the Thane Eichers look like as of 24.1.2015

As soon as we welcomed Valmik into the home - he went with Enoch bhaiya to play.  Out came the duplos and the two builders got to work.

 Half an hour later - the house was brought out for our inspection.

Who would have imagined at the end of 2014 that we would start 2015 with a new son.  But here he is - a living miracle and a blessing to us already.

In the coming months we will be built up as a family.  Like the bright duplo bricks - we have different sizes and colours  and functions, but we are being built together by our Master-builder Jesus Himself into being a dwelling place for Him.

We solicit your prayers as we embark on this new chapter to the Eicher adventure.

The next few weeks will see us work through the paper work and rework our schedules to be able to look after Valmik.  We are going to be immersing ourselves in non-traditional education as we help Valmik read and write.  We are going to be exploring ourselves as we find out who we are in a new way.  It's a wonderful journey - and a terrifying one as well - but we know who holds our hand.
  

With Oma and Opa with us for another week - we have a beautiful opportunity to dedicate Valmik to the Lord tomorrow morning at the house church which meets in Jolly and Suma's home.  We wish all of you could be with us on this happy day - but know that many of you who read this will be rejoicing with us in spirit and that your prayers are going to be carrying us forward!

We look forward to all of you getting to know the newest Eicher a lot better over the coming weeks and months.  This morning Valmik has come home.