travel

flying in airplanes is becoming a part of normal life for Jeremiah and Annie.

missin the fam

Annie misses everyone back home and sends her love often over skype. "I lu loo nainai"

Dali

Jeremiah and I had a blast kayaking in Erhai lake in Dali. We had some great father-son time on our 5 day retreat.

Water Well!!!

We have our first drilled well in the ground. The next well drilling project to start the end of August. We used water4.org hand well drilling equipment.

Nursery

We recently rounded up the whole team to help out with building a nursery. One of the guys on our team and a local friend helped to finish off what we couldn't in the first day. It's not too big but we're hoping to begin to influence others in the village once they see the success and benefit of it.

We recently celebrated my daughter Annie's birthday. She is a true two year old princess.....most of the time. :) We have been truly blessed.

Nepal

I recently visited Nepal for a few days. I didn't have a chance to get outside of Katmandu, but enjoyed my time there none the less. I went to visit friends and try to be an encouragement to them. I really enjoyed spending time with them. Nepal is a poor country with little infrastructure. I saw many street children and homeless people. Passing out candy and bringing a smile to their face was one of the highlights of my trip.

Red Light Road Rage

So the other day our taxi is sitting at the stop light waiting to turn left and maybe slightly over in the oncoming lane. The oncoming traffic pulls past us and one guy yells out his window at our taxi driver. Our taxi driver yelled something back. The next thing we know the guy that had had yelled at our taxi driver was out of his car and standing at the taxi's driver side window. The window was down and he proceeded to swing at the driver through the window. All in one motion the taxi driver opened the car door, grabbed a metal pipe strategically placed beside his leg for occasions such as this, and took a step out of the car with his arm raised ready to return a blow. The other guy responded with slamming the car door on our driver. The fight continued while Mel and the kids watched all from the back seat. Finally someone else stops there car and begins to pull the other driver away as Im yelling to get his attention that Im calling the police. He finally left. We pulled away when our light turned green with our taxi driver spitting blood and the kids very shaken up. This was another pretty normal day in China.

Meetings in Kunming

Had some productive meetings in Kunm!ng. Finally a real water project in the making. The water cisterns we did in the past didn't turn out to be so good. It hasn't rained much since we built them, so everyones new cisterns remain dry and we're in the middle of a drought. Water well drilling has to be the solution. Lets hope everything comes together to make this work.

First Day on the Aza route

This is my first attempt at doing an Aza route in town. I talked with 3 people today. This old lady has six daughters and a son. Finally the language is coming. I've always assumed that an Aza route just wouldn't work in town. But now I'm more determined than ever to make the route work and get this language down.