Hello from India! 

Our last week in the states was full of goodbyes. It was probably one of the most difficult parts of this transition. Our community in Waco was rich with friends we hope to continue to have relationship with for a very long time!

On our last day in Waco we went to church for one last time. It was fun to worship with our friends before we left. Afterwards we said goodbye to my [Emily] parents, loaded up our car and drove to Houston.

We spent the evening and next day with Adam’s family. His brother, Ben, recently proposed to his girlfriend Kat. We had fun celebrating their engagement and talking about their upcoming wedding.

That evening we boarded a plane and after a little over 20 hours we arrived safe and sound with all our bags in tow. Our travel was peaceful with lots of movie watching and some cat naps along the way. We arrived early in the morning and then rested a lot during the first few days trying to fight off jet lag.

We have almost been in India for a whole week now. The first two days were full of calling realtors and visiting stores to look for all we need to set up a home. It wasn’t long before a unique opportunity fell into our lap and we now have a place to live! We will be renting the top portion of the house pictured below.

With a place to live, our days slowed down quite a bit. We’ve used our mornings to catch up on emails, unpack some and work on updates for all of you! In the afternoons we venture into the city for adventures! We’ve found a nearby grocery store where we can get a lot of staples (although we’ll normally order our groceries online and have them delivered to us), a mall where we can watch movies and get a Starbucks drink and a park that’s just down the street from us where a lot of families like to spend time together. Our neighborhood might be one of our favorite parts of this house. It’s full of life and beauty!

Next week is turning out to be a really fun week! We’ve scheduled some Skype calls with our family so we can show them around our house and see each other. On Tuesday a film crew arrives to record the story of all that is happening in India. We hope to join them to hear the fun stories ourselves and be with some of our Indian friends who we will be working with from now on. Later in the week some of the leaders of our organization will gather for a strategy meeting. While we won’t be in the meetings, we will help host them and watch some of their children so the wives can join the meetings. I’m sure somewhere in there we will celebrate our first 4th of July overseas! 🙂

July 7th we will travel about an hour out of town to attend a training for Indian leaders for one week. This will be a unique experience for us as all the leaders will be in one place. Our main goal of attending will be to learn everyone’s name (which can be complicated when they sound so different from names we’re used to!) and build relationship with everyone. These people are the heart and soul of the work here in India. We want to come along side them to serve and bless them well.

In general, it’s been a blast living here thus far. We are still getting over the shock of uprooting our lives to such a foreign country, but we’ve held on tight to each other and God as we settle in.