Mangos, Monkey, and Mysore

Prem and Rita James
Children on the School Bus to Asha Kiran

Hello from India! We have had a full week with the kids at the school and what a week it has been. Kevin and Roderick have each been assigned an autistic boy to spend one on one time with. Kevin’s student, Samarth, is really quite brilliant, but lacks social and communication skills. Roderick’s student, Mahesh, has been frustrating and difficult, but he is hopeful that Mahesh will warm up to him. Heidi has been working in the office and getting to know the accountant Subhadra who is a Christian convert married to a Hindu man. Heidi also works with the hearing impaired students. Marykate has been working in the art room in the mornings making pottery to sell to raise money for the school. In the afternoon she works with the clinical psychologist. She has to watch the 6 kids and do activities while the psychologist spends one on one time with the kids. In her room there are students with epilepsy, with autism, with mental retardation, and with ADHD.

We had our first mango experience. We sat around the table after a full dinner and Rita cut big spears of fresh mango picked from the trees at the school. We sat, faces drenched in mango juice, slimy to our elbows, passing the spears and scraping the sweet, soft, orange flesh from the skin with our teeth. 5 of us ended up eating 8 mangos. Time stood still, we laughed and scraped and slurped, amazed something could be so wholly good.

We spent yesterday on a tour bus visiting Mysore, 135 Km from Bangalore, and to describe our experience we are going to play 2 truths and a lie (where we say two things that are true and one thing that is a lie and you guys guess which is the lie and we will tell you which one it is next week).

1. We visited 3 temples, a palace, and witnessed the famed “Dancing fountains” at the gardens of Mysore.
2. We saw monkeys, a big lizard, cows, warthogs, and huge swarms of mosquitoes.
3. We went rollerblading as a team and had a dance party. Hey Riley.

Although some of the mystique and awe has diminished, we continue to love this city. The more we travel the more we appreciate the shops, streets, and parks nearest Prem & Rita’s home. More and more we find ourselves identifying with and reminiscing about the kids at the school. And more and more Prem and Rita challenge us to find what God is teaching us and to reflect on our time here. We miss all of you and are grateful for your prayers and well wishes. Until next week.