This week, one of the families, Simon and Sarah, have left for England for 6 weeks, it’s only the second Christmas they will have spent there in 15 years! Rachel and I have moved into their house and will look after things for them while their gone. With only 3 families living here and us, when one is gone they leave quite a hole!

 I only have one day of teaching left before exams, and then its Christmas break! The teaching has been going fairly well, one of my gym classes is extra challenging, but their getting better. We’ve been playing football for the last week, and I resorted to setting them up like a human foozball game, (standing still and passing down the field) hoping they would understand passing and spreading out/getting open on the field. It worked until I then wanted them to play regular football and they all thought they couldn’t run!

W e made a quick trip to Ooty, which is a 6 hour drive from here, to drop one of the children off at Hebron boarding school last week. It was a beautiful drive up into the mountains! We saw 3 camels while driving and had to stop once because there was an elephant, separated from the pack on the road. When they’re on their own they can be quite vicious and unpredictable. Ooty is a very ‘Westernized’ town compared to where we are in the hills, so it’s one of the places where the families can get groceries to make non-Indian food. Always exciting!

Plans for a Christmas meal are coming together, and this year the focus will be cooking a meal for the people with the most need in this area. As of now the menu is emu biriyani, which is rice mixed with spices and then emu meat added in. Will be interesting to see what that tastes like. This will be done on Christmas Eve along with a special service in the evening. Then Christmas day, Rach and I will get to have a traditional Western roast dinner along with the other 2 families here. Yum! It doesn’t feel like Christmas as I know it because the weather is so warm, but I’m sure this is much closer to how it actually was the night/day that Jesus was born!

I would love to put pictures up, but the internet is quite slow, so that will have to wait until I get home unfortunately. It’s been so nice to hear from so many people, really encouraging to know that you are thinking and praying for me!