This and That

Last week i got to visit my friend Rozi in Kolkata. Last time i visited her family i didn't get to see her cause she'd gotten married and was living with her in-laws. Last week she was in town, cause she had a baby girl, and is staying with her family for a while. i can't believe she has a baby girl. When i first walked in she told me i was an Aunt since she had a baby. Oh...how i love the Katun family - i continue to marvel at the gift from God they are to me!

Darjeeling was freezing cold, and foggy. no views of beautiful mountains - only the postcards taunting me. it was a nice slow paced place. i visited a Tea plantation, and walked around, and the Tibetan Refuge Self Help Center...and i'm just dorky enough that i loved the "Himilayan Mountaineering Institute" and the "Everest Museum." Note to self: avoid Darjeeling during the "off season"!

It is a joy to be in Kolkata...surrounded by people who love me dearly...and know me deeply. I am thankful for Beth...and the way she reads me like an open book...even when i think i'm being "secretive." I'm thankful for hard questions that help me to process how i've changed this year (for better and for worse). I'm thankful for truth she speaks into my life, and how she is a voice that helps me see things in me that i don't see on my own. I'm thankful for the Sari Bari ladies - and how excited they are when i get to spend time with them. I'm thankful for the Sari Bari staff - who are just plain amazing people - today we spent the afternoon at Victoria Memorial with some of the staff and it was so very good.

For the most part this time of travel has been fun, and adventurous, memorable - all sorts of good adjectives. but there have been a few moments that have been good in deep ways - where i can feel God peeling back the layers of this past year, and breathing life and truth and restoration into the broken places in me. Where He has cracked the hard shell that i wear for protection here. Moments where i have understood, or been able to verbalize lessons learned during this year, and the ways i've changed - the ways both my strengths and weaknesses have been accentuated during this time. I am so thankful for these holy moments, these little "sanctuaries" - on trains, looking at amazing mountain views, and sitting on my friend's futon where the Holy Spirit has been at work in powerful ways.