Wedding Attire

About a month ago Stephen, Matt, Rob and I went to a friend's wedding at the Taj Krishna, the nicest hotel in Hyderabad. This hotel is not just nice for India but is seriously one of the nicest hotels I have ever been inside. The night before we went shopping to find an outfit to wear to the wedding. After trying on outfit after outfit I finally settled on one and was feeling pretty good about it... Boy was I wrong. Here is a picture of my outfit...not bad right...well as I looked around the crowd (there were about 3,000 people at this wedding) there was only one other person wearing an outfit like mine - A 7 year old girl. Imagine this...going to a $100,000 wedding in downtown Dallas wearing a light pink tool ballerina dress - I did the Indian equivalent of this.














Today I had the opportunity to redeem myself because we went to a wedding of a friend in this same crowd. After my past embarrassment I decided to wear a saree, which is definitely a grown-up dress. A saree is one piece of cloth (in my case silk) that is very long and beautiful and wrapped around you in a crazy way so that it looks kind of like a dress. It is amazing how much better you feel when you are dressed appropriately!!

Honest or Rude?

One thing I have noticed about relationships in India is that friends pride themselves on being extremely "honest." Although I do value honesty and openness in friendship some of the comments made just seem plain rude. Here is my most recent example:

Yesterday I was at Prasads (the largest movie theater in Hyderabad) to watch Slumdog Millionaires. I ran into a friend of mine from October named Nishat in the bookstore before heading up to the movie. I was really glad to run into her because I haven't been able to get ahold of her recently. Right after greeting each other the conversation went bad.

Lacey: "So how have you been?"

Nishat: "Good and you?"

Lacey: "Good."

Nishat: "What is it that has happened to your face?"

Lacey: "I'm not sure what do you mean?"

Nishat: "Well when we hung out in October your face had a glow and you were looking so beautiful but now your face is so tan and pimply."

Lacey: "Oh, well I'm not sure why - maybe it is the pollution?"

Nishat: "Maybe. It just does not seem that Hyderabad is agreeing with your skin."

After quickly changing the subject we parted ways so that I could head up to the movie. Luckily she was seeing the same movie so I ran into her again on my way into the theater. She looked at me, shook her head and again said, "I just do not know what has happened to your face."

I told my team and laughed it off. Do not come to India if you can not handle a little "honesty!"

Countdowns

Today is the 27th of January. Although I do not have a countdown for days left in India, I know that we will need to leave around the 27th of June. So, every month when the 27th rolls around I am reminded of how much or how little time we have left here. Today marks 5 months left which seems pretty crazy on two levels.

1. If feels like we just got here so I can hardly believe that we will head back to the US in merely 5 months.

2. We have been through so much in 7 months that having 5 months left has potential to feel like a very long time.

Life is crazy like that. Always flying by but moving slowly all at the same time.

A count down that I am keeping: 3 days and 6 hours until my parents get to Hyderabad!! Can you believe it?? I hardly can focus on anything because I am so excited. On Sunday afternoon I washed their sheets, made their beds, cleaned their room, set out their gifts, and did just about everything that needs to be done to prepare for them to get here. For some people this might be normal behavior, but for me this is rare because I am a procrastinator. But not this time - I am longing for other tasks to fill the time until they arrive!!!! I can't wait!!!

Psalm 121

Fear is something that I have struggled with a lot while living in India. I have felt less in control of my circumstances which has forced me to trust the Lord in a totally new way. Praying and reading God's word are two of the only things that can bring me comfort when I am feeling anxious. In December I was sharing about this struggle with my friend Pam. She wrote me a note the next morning after reading Psalm 121 in her quiet time. It is an incredible Psalm and I have spent a lot of time meditating on it since.

Each day I get a Bible verse sent to my inbox and today it was Psalm 121: 1-3. I thought it was cool that a verse that has meant so much to me this past month was sent to me so I wanted to share it with you.

“I lift up my eyes to the hills- where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip- He Who watches over you will not slumber.”

When you are feeling out of control or fearful are there any particular verses that bring comfort to you?

Ringworm 2

Last spring Stephen and I went camping for a week in Northwest Arkansas. It was such a fun time of relaxing, hiking, hanging out with our friends and crawling through muddy caves. The only problem with the camping trip is that about a week later, I noticed a strange red ring on my right calf. After about a month I went to the doctor to find out that I had a ringworm. DISGUSTING...I know. I began treating it but it did not go away for 5 months.

A few days ago I look down at what I thought was a mosquito bite scab (yes, at 25 I am still scratching my bites until they bleed-I can not help it) only to find another ringworm. This one is much smaller but after my previous ringworm I identified this immediately.

The only good news about having a second ringworm is that I still have medicine left over from the first time so I do not have to go to an Indian doctor. I began treating it twice a day right away. It did seem to be working. Yesterday I decided to read the instructions on the medicine to find out how many times a day I could apply it. As I was reading the label I was horrified to see what I had been applying to my leg.

"Miconazole Nitrate Cream: Vaginal Antifungal"

Stephen and I have been laughing about it non-stop and I have began applying an appropriate cream for ringworm but I thought that this story was a little too funny to keep to ourselves.

Eating our way through Thailand

As I was looking through all of my pictures from Thailand to put together my facebook album I realized something scary. A surprising amount of our pictures were of us eating some type of food. We spent one week in Koh Samui, an island off the east side of Thailand. There we had great pad thai, seafood and even hamburgers!! It was amazing to have beef again!! On the way home we spent two days in Bangkok. Stephen and I stayed at a different hotel than the team so we had one day on our own and one day with the whole team. We ate at the coolest restaurant right along the Chao Pharya River which runs down the west side of the city. So, although there was a lot more to our trip than food, it seemed appropriate to start off by showing you all the pics we have of us eating our way through Thailand!

Happy 2009!!

Happy New Year Friends!!  I am leaving to visit Thailand until Jan. 14th so I won't be blogging for awhile!!  Hopefully I will have fun pictures and stories when we return!!  

We brought in 2009 while driving Mark, Jan and Jennifer Magers to the Hyderabad airport.  They were so great and we really enjoyed our time with them.  It seemed like a good thing for their family to come over here- for them and for us.  

Because we were driving at midnight we decided to celebrate the New Year again with all our friends living in central standard time.  So we woke up, made pancakes and watched the Fox New Years show via slingbox!!  It was fun to watch the ball drop and to yell "Happy New Year," even though it was 11:30 in the morning.  

Hope all of you had a fun New Years Eve!!