of oatmeal cookies and India

So today started out like any other day.. Who knew it could end so awesomely :) Mrs. Waid charged Elliot and I with the task of creating the Christmas cards for all 104 kids here. It doesn't sound like too hard of a task but when we got started yesterday we realized how difficult it was going to be. After all, all we have here is Paint, Word, and Powerpoint lol. We tried searching for cool templates and designs but found nothing... We had a couple ideas going but Mrs.Waid didn't seem to like them. We hit gold when Elliot found some premade templates on her Mac and we went from there.

In other words, all of our spare time today was spent working on getting all 104 kids separated into their respective files. I'm not going to lie, I've been here for two months now and I swear I've never seen some of these kids YET! Also when there are names like Tonna, Vonna, Donna, and Lana you can see how you can put the wrong name with the wrong face. After we were making some headway, we decided to try to print the cards. Again problems arose between Elle having a Mac and trying to get two pictures on one page to print--but once we made it through we began working quite quickly. And even though we worked most of today, we still have about 25kids left to go :P

As of 6:30pm tonight, I still didn't have my passport. I had to leave it in Dhaka with the mean embassy people and then it was picked up this last Monday. No one really had to go to Dhaka this week but luckily, a young Canadian guy flew in last night and will be staying with us at the orphanage for a couple months. He brought my passport to me :) Yay! I didn't get to talk to him much tonight but his name is Josiah and he's a theology graduate from CUC. I'm sure we will have a lot of the same friends so it will be nice to have another piece of home here.

Speaking of HOME, Josiah brought in a package from WallaWalla for me too :D As I ripped through it, I couldn't believe how excited I got! They sent Elle and I the Barn party edition of the Collegian (better late than never), three laminated leaves from WallaWalla, instant mashed potatoes, cornbread muffin mix, OATMEAL COOKIE MIX (just add eggs, butter, vanilla and water and voila!), Jello, and some hot drink mixes. But by far, I'm so excited about the cookie mix :) What a great idea eh? Elliot and I are going to make the cookies in the next week or so before she leaves to Spain for Christmas. My package looked like it had been opened up in customs but I hope everything stayed intact!


[Funny story, I had to do worship for the caregivers tonight. I was so excited that I began to pull out stuff, my smile growing bigger with each item. I pulled out the newspaper and explained where it was from and showed some pictures from the Barn Party. When I got to the center page, which was packed with pictures, I realized my boyfriend Michael was in one of the pictures. When I told the caregivers that he was my boyfriend, they all got really excited and passed his picture around the whole circle--it's a big thing in Bangladesh to have a boyfriend because marriage is really important in their culture. I heard "shoonder, coup shoonder" a couple times and I even pretended to fight Melotie for Michael at one point :) lol it was really funny... Ah good times!]

I also got a letter from my grandparents at home. I wish I could fully explain how I felt to see that someone had taken the time to actually write me a card and send it all the way across the world. They said they had been reading my blog and how proud of me they were. In that moment, I began to miss home and family so much I actually started to cry. So thank-you to Grandpa and Grandma White for thinking of me and for giving me an early Christmas present :) I appreciate it SO very much! I love you guys!

Tomorrow I have to go into India to renew my 60-day pass in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, no one here at BanglaHope has an Indian visa. The nurse here has family just on the other side of the Heli border crossing, so they will be meeting me as I venture into India. I'm not sure how long I need to be gone for in order to qualify that I've been out of Bangladesh but I'm hoping it's not more than a couple hours. I'm a little nervous to be going without Elliot but I know I'll be in good hands with these relatives. Still keep me in your thoughts and prayers as you go through your day...!

I'm heading to bed now to get some much needed rest before my adventure tomorrow. If nothing else, I'll have an Indian stamp to add to my passport collection :)
ami tomake bhalobashi