Our new place. We landed on a Saturday and within a few days started looking for a place of our own. Unlike many, where we lived wasn't as important as most of our job, counseling, will be done out of town, or in different parts of the city. Our work isn't dependent on being strategically located in a certain area, so we wanted to be as close to the kid's school as possible. Delhi is broken into small colonies, or sections of town, like Kendall or South Miami for those in Miami, or Pantego or Lake Arlington for those in Texas. So we started asking about living in the different parts of town, having no clue just how nice they were. We hadn't even visited them. We acquired a map and quickly found other areas. Bhogal looked good. It was close to the school, but apparently, it is mostly a market. Next was Jangpura Extension. We looked at 6-7 places before we found our apartment, known as a flat here. We saw tiny ones, some with a bedroom accessible through the balcony, with outside toilets, outside kitchens and very very dirty places. The place we found, like most of the ones we looked at has granite counter tops and marble floors. Apparently these stones are pretty cheap here. They use them like Americans use tile. Carpet is very rare here as it is extremely dusty. Each bedroom typically has a bathroom attached. Kitchens are usually manned by a house helper so they are rarely a part of the rest of the home. Storage is a rare find. Our place has an open kitchen, a great view off the balcony overlooking the railroad, with trains coming and going all through the day. We have storage closet, more on that in a minute and a place outside for our washer and even enough room for a dryer. Most people here don't have a dryer.

Our landlords live upstairs, which is great, as no one has lived here before us and there have been several little kinks to work out. One of which is water. There is a large tank on top of the roof that is supposed to be filled twice a day. Our switch for filling the tank doesn't work, so our landlords have been most generous as to not only fill our tanks each day using their switch, but have also gone to the city on our behalf. They have been doing many things on our behalf. Let me introduce them to you. Doc, is the owner, a general physician, devout Hindu, husband and father is three well educated grown children. His oldest is a lady who holds two masters degrees and teaches at the international school. Next is Vik, who has been our ally and is becoming a friend. He is a banker and married to a lawyer. They have a little girl who adores Karley and they live upstairs. He speaks excellent English. Vik doesn't seem to practice his religion, so he has been on my heart in a real way. His wife is another kind of Hindu and disagrees with many of the things the Doc believes. The younger brother just returned from working on a cruise line and speaks like he is from America. He is very open to spiritual things.

Doc is very devout and the other morning when we were headed out to house church we ran into him on the stairs. He was dressed in all white and was carrying a candle. He was chanting and had a far off and very strange look in his eye. He looked very different than normal. He is in his late 60's and he and his wife visit the temple every day in the morning and at night. In addition, that storage room I mentioned earlier, is a puja in their home, a shrine. They have it set up so that they can worship their gods at home also.

India is a very dark place with idols all over. Every shop, store front, or press walla, a person who irons on the side of the road, has a shrine with little idols set up.

Each day at least one beggar, usually many more will ask for food or money. Some kids have been so bold as to grab my arm and hold on, which breaks my heart as their small hands are so fragile. The Almighty God desires that each of them come to a saving knowledge of His incredible power and unfailing mercy for them. Tomorrow we will go to language school again for the second day. Our words are incredibly infantile for now, but our hope is that soon we can speak to those who beg and those who are devout and seemingly satisfied about the One who will never stop loving them.