innnnnndia!

well we made it to india and now we are at the rising star campus near a little town called chingleput. it is beautiful here - very heavenly in fact. we are getting busy doing projects with the kids at the school. we love it here and feel so blessed to be involved with such an awesome organization and to see the changes that are being made for these beautiful people. we will post more experiences and stories tomorrow but here are some pictures for tonight :)

at some real cool ruins at a place called mamalapurum - we took a little trip there last night. we also got to go see the leprosy patients in the colonies. we will write about that later...

the girls at the school! aren't they so cute?! we fell in love with them immediately. in this picture they are waiting for the engagement party to start - two of the people that work here at rising star have been arranged by their parents to be married and we celebrated their engagement today with all the staff, volunteers and kids.

the boys waiting. they are adorable. we love them.

this is the groom and the bride (third from the right) with relatives. aren't their sarees so beautiful?? we have been marveling at the fabrics in this country since we got here and yesterday bought some fabric to have made into outfits for us! the groom and bride would not stand anywhere near each other during most of the engagement party. they have said about 5 sentences to each other. they will be married at the end of the month.
this is us in chingleput near the fabric store. here at rising star they have a whole room full of traditional clothes that we wear every day. it is awesome. there in the street you see a million vibrant colors, people begging, cows wandering around, people selling all kinds of things, stray dogs, lots of dirt...it's great. we are learning to love india.

some of the girls at the school and oaks, who is the son of the new directors. they got here 2 months ago and they have five young kids. it is so fun to see the little white kids going to school with all the kids that came from the leprosy colonies. they are adorable.

okay - we are exhausted and off to bed but we'll post more later. basically this place is heaven and we love and we hope we can do a lot of good here. mostly we will be teaching english to the kids (they have english teachers who really can't speak much themselves) and helping with the computer class. we get to go into the colonies every once in a while and help with the mobile medical clinic. more details coming.

hooray for incredible india!