Chris and Kris in India 26

Hi all, lots to say this month .
But first.

Sin, where does it start?

As a lot of you will know I was no stranger to sin, but what do we mean by "Sin"?

I believe Sin falls into three distinct categories (and yes I know they all overlap).

1/ Deliberate Sin that as a person you are aware of doing wrong and do it anyway.

2/ Unknown Sin, where you sin without realising it, through either lack of knowledge or misinformation.

3/ The small sin, the white lie, given over change and you keep it, swearing at a stupid car driver, etc.

To be clear Nobody is without Sin, only Jesus led a sinless life, we can’t, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try to live up to his standard. But in everyday life what can we do? A friend in the USA says he wakes every day and prays to be sinless, every evening he prays for forgiveness. I think for me that summarises our aim, we may fail but what is important is that we try.

Deliberate Sin. You don’t do this do you, Adultery, theft, foul language, lies. Ever phoned in ‘sick’ for a day off? That’s theft, been undercharged and said nothing? Even thinking about something sinful can be a sin Jesus said

 “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

 If we choose to sin are we forgiven, only I believe if we repent that sin and mean it deep in our hearts, after all its God we are repenting to and He knows all the truth in you, all the lies, all of you.

There are those in our society who believe ‘the end justifies the means’ It NEVER does, you can't do good through sin.

You can’t stand before a congregation and preach the word of God and be in deliberate sin. This is the worst hypocrisy, the greatest lie.
Neither can you truly be Christian if we don’t at all times strive to be sinless.

Every day we sin, we should all try to avoid wilful sin at all costs. Don’t lie, live your life as if Christ was with you (as he is) and see’s each moment, everything you do or think he knows. Remember that.

Unknown Sin. All too often now in western society we see and hear God’s name taken in vain, our prisons are full, our justice system corrupt, our Police politely motivated.

Children roam the inner city estates forming gangs with little or no respect for anything but gang loyalty.

They know no better, when they become adults they will live all their lives unknowing of the great good news of Jesus.

Why? Because we have let it happen, Jesus said, “Love thy neighbour as thyself”

Do we? Honestly do we? No we don’t and why, because most of us are afraid to try. I'm not suggesting we all troop off to an inner city near you and preach, many cant so what can we do?

Try this, think “How can I help” really think, if everyone reading this shared it and we all helped just one person to free themselves of unknown sin by showing them the love of Jesus the world would change, people would change, nothing would stay the same. Share the good news in the certain knowledge of Gods armour surrounding you.

The small sin. I have saved the worst until last; I know many of you will be thinking how can this be the worst of all reasons to knowingly sin!

You know the sort of thing, your boss say’s “if anyone asks I’m…………….

Have you ever lied to protect someone?

Used one invented tale to cover for a friend?

When asked your opinion of something are you always honest?

There’s no harm in a white lie……………isn’t there. Did Jesus lie, ever?

If you had the chance to save a few hundred pounds off your tax bill by ticking a wrong box, would you?

If inflating your costs can save you money, would you?

The list could go on almost endlessly. 
Sometimes it feels as though instead of the meek it is the dishonest who will inherit the world.

Satan isn’t stupid. He knows he can’t always turn a believer into a sinner overnight, destroy your faith in one hit, although for some he manages it. For most losing your faith is a slow process.

How often does he begin by letting us gain from “the small lie” ‘Sorry officer I didn’didn't know this was disabled parking only, or I didn’t know this was a 40mph limit and you get away with it? Off you go feeling ‘that was close’, no it wasn’t, Satan got you to lie, one victory to him. Keep doing it and you will probably improve your life, or his other approach: destroy your life. 
Both attack your faith and love of Christ and draw you to Satan. Remember the teaching, “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;

Faith…….the shield of faith is all you need to deny Satan his small victories, those little lies that don’t matter! Be honest, it may cost you your friends, your job. The life you are living.

The alternative may cost you your Soul.

                                               ...........................................................

Things that make us go mmmmmmmmmmm

Crazy weather. A week of sun 40degC in town Friday, no rain. Yesterday it rained for most of the afternoon but again today its full sun..............................Lost, one monsoon.If found please return to Rajasthan we need it, and soon, water levels are really low everywhere.

Kris on her scooter telling a weston couple to get out of the road, they thinking she was Indian , shocked jumped onto the path............traffic in Udaipur is getting worse now the tourists have started to arrive.

Seeing large black cat run across a wall late at night, I did say large. About a small collie dog.

Indian Census report... Christianity is India's third largest religious group.

Yummy, this is supper, feeling much better these last few weeks
started to get a bit fitter and lose some of the weight doing nothing
for six months has put on me!

Hoppity has arrived again, 
winter must be coming and its not so warm at night now.

Its wet, i'm cold, fuss me .

MY bed.......Whens supper then guys?

My spot, people ask when they see the bed
 'Oh you have a dog?'
 the reply really confuses some
'No but a dog has us'

Evening in.

Debidutta and family came for a meal with us , really good evening, put 'Those Magnificent Men in their flying Machines' on while Kris and I cooked. Debi nearly fell off the sofa laughing.

We gave them an "English" evening, great old film, Braised Chicken in a rich sauce, Garlic mushrooms, crispy par boiled then deep fried potatoes, home grown white cabbage followed by bananas oven baked in brown sugar syrup served with vanilla ice cream.
Nobody leaves our home hungry!!

Kris gets a pressy!

There you go honey, your very own leatherman.                  
      NOW PLEASE STOP BORROWING MINE!

Garden

Runner Beans Scarlet Emperor sown mid monsoon with winter coming!
seasons are weird when we are used to four.

Climbing cucumber

Bitter gourd, we also have bottle gourd, Ridge
gourd and loki, all good eating!

Lady Fingers

More on the way, 

We have planted the following seeds in the trays above which are Lettuce, Red onions, Celery, Gazinia (flowers), Geranium (Flowers), Daisy (flowers), Tomato, Chinese Cabbage, Zinnia (flowers), and last but not least a mystery seed packet which we do not have any clue what they are.
Chris also planted some cucumbers in my compost heap in my kitchen garden, so heres hoping they grow in such good compost.

 

Moon Flower, only blooms as it goes dusk, or well over cast day, lovely flower, grew it from seed.

Bittergourd

 
HOT Peppers, 

two years old now, still going strong

Great added to curry or rice

Lady Fingers

Trailing cucumber growing on last years compost heap.

Loki...sort of marrow taste

Two weeks old!

Its one of our first cherries, wasn't supposed to
fruit until next year, we have had about ten ish!

Mango Tree, Kris planted a few 'stones'
and look what happened

Roses all starting to flower, they will keep it up until summer heat stops them.

All the locals

Told us this was a weed, it  has large white flowers then grows these excellent 

spikey balls. We love it, we also have two cakti.

Out on the Bike

280k in all 14 of those cross country, yeah we fell off....wet stones and mud, the lesson

 (with sympathy) Kris learned...................move them feet faster!

Ouch!

Luckily we both wear full body armour for just this reason, the rack caught her foot as we gently toppled over with the front wheel stuck against a rock.

Went for a visit

This is the NGO "PACE" they teach rural (village)
 students the Hotel Business,
 English, Health Hygiene etc. then
 find them jobs in Hotels.

We have known Virendra since we first came to India, he is a lot more fun than he looks in this picture! The work they do is very impressive, and the best part for most of the students its a free course. As they advance they get uniforms until they are fully trained and can speak English . Its set up like an Hotel, except all the knives and forks etc have labels on.
Kris and I were there on a visit Virendra has been on at us for months about the new building, we kept promising to go and never until now made it!! Had a great day.

Comments from Kris

Hi it’s that time again, I can’t believe how quickly the month seems to go. We don’t seem to have had much monsoon  this year as Chris says where has all the water gone.

Latest update

We are returning to the UK leaving Udaipur 11^th October and arrive 12^th October, we will be there for around 3 months as the Indian government says you have to be out of the country for 2 months before returning. 

We are coming back to apply for new Visa’s so we can work with a new NGO. We can do without the expense as it costs a lot in flights etc but this is the only way we can continue with our work in India. Please pray that all goes well for us and that there are no problems getting our new Visa’s. 

Our current NGO has decided to have it’s “in house” as Indian only and have no future plans to use Foreign Volunteers on long term projects. I quote from them

“As an Organization we have adopted a HR policy on expanding the core "in-house" team for execution of all PMF programmes. Therefore, I'm sorry to say that we don't find overseas volunteers a strategic fit for the moment.” 

We believe if this decision was made in a Godly way, then we accept that God has a different plan for us than working with PMF and will continue to let the Lord Guide us and steer our boat, we continue to paddle and put our trust in him.

We look forward to catching up with many of you when we get back, we have had a kind offer of accommodation from Andy and Isla Biggs for which we are grateful as our finances are very stretched following Chris’s illness and high medical bills we will be unable to stay in hotels. The Adventure Continues.

Chris as you can see bought me my very own Leatherman Juice toolkit it’s fantastic and a friend thinks I am mad to prefer this to gold or jewellery but I don’t. I had wanted one for many years but never got around to getting one. Chris had given me his old toolkit when we were in the UK it wasn’t a Leatherman but it was useful unfortunately we could not bring it to India too heavy we were taking things out of packaging when we packed to keep the weight down. Chris spent a long time choosing the right Leatherman from their range with me in mind and it complements his as I have some tools he doesn’t have. 

The Leatherman Chris bought me is slightly smaller than his so it fits in my hand brilliantly, there are a good range of high quality tools and to top it off its purple my favourite colour. What more could a girl want, well maybe a pouch to put it in so I can carry it on my belt, actually Chris thought my Leatherman came with a pouch so was a little disappointed and he has ordered one for me online it comes soon, he is so thoughtful. It was a total surprise and very much appreciated, I have used it everyday since I got it and carry it in my pocket for now. Thank you Chris  I will treasure and use it.

Chris and I made the frames for the English Runner Beans you can see in the photo, it’s my first time growing them so I am not sure how fast they will grow. However they do seem to be growing very well at the moment. I went to a neighbour’s house to collect all their grass cuttings about 8 trips in all so we can use it as mulch and keep down the weeding. The rest of the neighbours still think we are weird. The garden is looking very nice at the moment but we still have things to plant, it may seem odd to be planting as we have to return to the UK to renew our visa’s but we have a really lovely lady Amberbai who helps me in the house and she is an excellent gardener. She will look after the garden and keep any produce for herself whilst we are away, which she can either sell or use to feed her large family. She is an extremely hard worker and feels very much part of the family, we still have some communication difficulties but sign and body language work well, if I get stuck I ask a friend to translate. Yes she still thinks Chris and I are mad and she is good at shooing Chris away when she wants him to move, but he gets his own back and does it to her which she thinks is very funny. The other day we were busy exercising on our multigym and Amberbai came early so as usual she just got on and did some gardening she pruned all the hedges, she is so slight in build but nothing stops her getting stuck in, especially when she prunes the privet hedge. It had grown far too large and needed 'the treatment' it will look better soon as new growth appears.

Things I find that still amuse and amaze me include the misspelling of English words which appear on signs eg the local resort had a sign up offering Salon Services for Ladies but they had spelt it Saloon, as I knew the manager I had a quiet word and explained the difference. He was grateful as he did not want his guests to think they were not educated.

The local sign writers having a bad day when they wrote on their lorry Bowl Horn rather than Blow Horn, Signs for Restaurants saying Dinning rather than Dining and Honnest Restaurant rather than Honest Restaurant. There are many more but I don’t want to bore you. Chris’s favourite is quite rude but very funny but I think I will save it for when we get back.

Hopperty as you can see is back! Ok we are softies.

This is our little visitor who we caught peeping through our screen door at the rear of the house, she is very shy and just a few weeks old. This picture was taken through our screen door so sorry it is not as clear as we would like. She decided to peek out from under our patio chair and be brave. So far she has not officially adopted us but you just never know. She spends time between us and our neighbours house. So far she does not have a name other than grey cat as named by our neighbours. Her sibling is white cat. 

Chris and I have been talking about the NIV, King James and ESV Bibles have you ever read the introduction to the King James Version? It reads like "please King we have done as you have asked hope it is what you wanted", these guys were scared of getting their heads chopped off, I would have been wary too. The NIV is so far from original text that it could in fact be called a rewrite rather than a translation, this is why we use the ESV as our main Bible. It is based on William Tyndale's new testament of 1526, its main emphasis is on accuracy of text rather than an interpretation of meaning.  We would be interested in your views on this, which Bible you use and why!

This is all from us for now, next month will be a last from India before we leave, looking forward to seeing and catching up with you in October.

Take care and God Bless

Kris and Chris