Happy New Year!

Greetings from Bapatla India!  It is the new year here and the kids have a holiday.  We will still run the dental clinic today for the boys who are here.  The kids drew a beautiful Happy New Year greeting in he sand last night. We really didn't do much to celebrate last night, most of us retired early and relaxed and caught up on sleep. Currently Mom and I are trying to get Skype going to call into Faith Lutheran and give Happy New Year Greetings at midnight.

So today we will take turns running the clinic some of us will go to the girls hostel to visit and tomorrow we may go to the leper colony.

It is Friday Dec. 31st here in India, new Years Eve. We had a program last night with the chidren performing that lasted til 11:00. We are very tired, so we hope we can stay up to watch them. They love performing their talents.

Today was another day at our dental clinic. I was again the assistant for the morning. We have Kusuma's neice who runs the orphange when Kusuma isn't around, to interpret for the children. Many of them are very frightened about the shots and dental work. We are mainly filling teeth and pulling teeth. Whatever we are not able to do wil be referred to the local dentist. We were moving along with the patients til we blew a fuse in the equipment. There is a loss of electricty during different times of the day. They have a generator for a back up when needed. However the power surge wasn't good for the equipment. We had to shut down for an hour while new fuses were found. I was able to take a break from the dental work when one of the nursing students from the orphanage helped out along with Kimberly. It was good on the back for a break.

Over all, things are going great. We had requested sweaters from church to bring over with us because the children think 80 degrees is cold. I helped Kusuma pass out the sweaters to the children the principal selected. To my amazement, I was told by Kusuma the pink turtleneck shirts were boys. The girls agreed, and the boys seem to like them. I tried to set them straight to no avail. So I have pictures to show te children wearing the sweters. The new little 1 year old boy is now wearing a pint sweater with a pink furry collar. Well...I tried.

Penny

In Bapatla

We made it by train to Bapatla yesterday and arrived to Reach and ere greeted by all the children. All 250 of them shook our hands and introduced themselves to us, then laughed when we couldn't say their names. Today we will be doing dental screenings and work for the children. We will try to post more later when we ahve more time.

We Made It!

Namaste!

All ten crew members have finally made it to India safely!  Pete, Betty and Lynn flew in from MN to Chicago where they met up with Penny and Kimberly who had arrived by bus at Chicago O'Hare.  We hung out at O'Hare for 5 hours before enduring a 15 hour flight to Delhi, an 8 hour layover, then a short 2 hour flight to Hyderabad.  After 38 hours of travel, minimal sleep and losing a half day, we met Dan, Sharon, Leah, Mike, and Siri at Kusuma's house.  Then went shopping for traditional Indian clothing and a few odds and ins to take with us to the orphanage. Hopefully we will get a good nights sleep because we leave for the train station at 5 in the morning!  We are excited about getting to the orphanage and meeting/reuniting with the children.

So far everyone is a little sleep deprived, but otherwise healthy.  Please keep us in your prayers and thank you so much for your support!

God Bless!