Nigeria + India= Church

For the past few weeks our church has been blessed to have some special visitors. A group of over 250 Nigerian students has moved to Bangalore to study IT (computer software).
50 of those students are staying in a guest house directly across the street from our church. Many of these male students, along with female students staying in another dormitory, are Christians. So now they are attending our church for the next year!! Our church went from fully Indian to 1/2 Indian 1/2 Nigerian in one week!! It is so cool.

This past Sunday, 4 of the students led a worship song in their native tongue for the church. Tears were streaming down my face as I listened to their beautiful language and felt how "alive" the song was! They were not timid at all and the students sitting in the pews sang along and one by one stood up, clapping and swaying. I wanted to jump up in my seat and say "YES! Can I dance and shout to the Lord with you?!!!" It was a glimpse of heaven--singing praises in all languages and I know there will be dancing and clapping there too!!

I really hope they get to come up front again to sing--i just hope i don't cry every time:)

The New Nano

TATA, an Indian company, has started taking orders for it's new Nano--the smallest car on the road--and the cheapest. This means that now someone who could only afford a motorcycle can now afford a $2500 enclosed vehicle. There has been concern that the already overloaded roads will be devasted by the new accesibilty of owning a car. And not only will it afford lower income families to own a vehicle but also middle class families to add a second car to their garage (although there aren't too many garages in India:). I only know one family in India with 2 cars and one of them is used to transport employees to their factory. Most families if they have a second vehicle own a motorcycle or moped.

TATA has received over 500,000 pre-orders and at $6 per pre-order they have raked in over $3 million dollars! One article said they expect up to 1 million pre-orders which would bring their profit before sales to $6 million dollars--alot of money! After the pre-order deadline on April 25, TATA will hold a drawing to see who the first 100,000 owners will be in July. Loans for the car can be taken out for 7 years.

We are hoping to go to our nearest TATA dealer and get a picture taken with the new Nano. I don't think Brian could fit inside one so we'll opt for the family picture standing next to it:)

And we'll see how the traffic changes here in the next few months.

Busy Days

The last few weeks have been very busy for us. Here's a break down in pictures...

Corban and Haddon have taken swim classes the last 3 weeks, finishing this past Saturday. They are now officially not afraid of the water, and as an added bonus, swimming! They both did great and at 3 1/2 years old I think Haddaon is on his way to an Olympic gold medal:) They loved their teacher, Mr. Nixon.


We spent 4 days at the Foreign Registration Office applying for a visa extension. Granted it wasn't full days but it surely wears you out driving an hour each way and sitting in line...waiting. The boys and I made use of our time by making funny faces. Here's some pics of those and smiles from the boys. BTW Brian went a fifth day and has to go back again tomorrow...that'll make 6 trips in all. They don't make it easy:)


On our way to the FRO we pass my favorite little neighborhood (I call it a village, but it's right in the city.) I think it's so colorful and visually stimulating. You really do feel like you've left the city and are visiting a rural community. There's also a pic of the Pappa John's I previously talked about and the typical pizza delivery vehichle in India.


We had a surprise visit by a beloved friend, David France, from Minnesota who now teaches violin classes in Bermuda. He travels the world and happened to be in India for 2 weeks. He had a layover in Bangalore so we got to spend a couple of hours with him. He is now in NY City performing in the YouTube symphony comprised of 100 talented musicians who auditioned on youtube, received the highest votes out of hundreds of contestants and will perform at Carnegie Hall. He took a few minutes to play for the boys who were thoroughly entertained.
David's YouTube Symphony Intro


Brian's work has been extremely busy wrapping up their "end of year" accounts and auditing. The month of March to the present has been intense with many long hours and stressful obstacles. Hopefully they'll be back to normal soon.

We celebrated Resurrection Sunday and the week leading it to it by making a playdough Calvery mountain and tomb. On Good Friday Jesus was on the cross for our sins and later placed in the tomb. On Saturday He was sealed up. This morning the stone was rolled away and Jesus was ALIVE! We also made "Resurrection Cookies" last night and found them ready to eat this morning in the oven. Our friends Sini, Sunoop, Nadia and Nayza came over for lunch. Just for fun we ordered this Alligator bread. The kids loved it and it was the size of a baby alligator!

Tomorrow the boys will go to VBS at our church! School is still in session until June at the Frazier house but since it is summer break for the children here (their school year runs June-March) we are getting to enjoy all the fun summer activities. So I guess we're on Spring Break this week:)

We hope you had a blessed Easter! He is Alive!!

The 3 R's

Jack Johnson has a fun song from the Curious George cd that we listen to in the car...The 3 R's...Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. And even though I like to sing along I am one of those Americans who even when the city of Minneapolis provided me with a green recycle bin and the trash truck picked it up for free I still did not take the time to sort out my trash and felt no guilt about it. (slap on the wrist)

Being here in India has shown me alot about the 3 R's. I think I'm a changed woman and someday if I ever have a green bin to fill I will do it, but for now recycling is made soooooo easy for me. There is always someone who will take your leftovers, rotten bananas, stained clothes, broken toys... in a heartbeat. I really have no excuse to waste A THING because my housekeeper will take anything (except long grain rice--she eats short grain only so i'm thinking there's some religious rules involved in that one:) She even keeps all the boxes, cardboard, plastic and glass in a pile and once a month takes it home. I think she must turn it in for money. So no driving to Goodwill or whincing as I throw out a full leftover meal into the garbage disposal like I did in the states. I have seen people digging in the trash on the side of the road eating food out of baggies. It's very motivating when people right outside are in need. I do wash ziplocs here--yes--only because i get them twice a year on my U.S. trips and my stash is not very big:) I wish it was b/c i'm trying to save the world from non-degradable plastic waste but my reasons are selfish:) Toys and books go to our housekeeper and our church nursery. And I think I am almost on the verge of bringing my own re-usable bags to take home the groceries except that I reuse those plastic bags to line the trash can...hmmmm...plastic grocery bags or buy plastic trash bags? Tough call. No paper bag options here.

And what's amazing, for all the trash that is out on the streets here, I really do see an effort being made to sort out trash which I'm assuming is for recycling purposes. I even see the trashmen inside the bed of the truck going thru the trash to sort it out--or maybe they are looking for treasures? Now that is a DIRTY job! I'm told that the cleaning ladies at our complex go thru the garbage each morning (we put our trash outside the door in the AM) first to find things to keep for themselves then to seperate cardboard for the complex. I do hear them rustling thru the bags and wonder "how much in need do you have to be to dig through the trash?". We see children digging through the trash pile behind our complex. I really can't imagine it.

So I'm sold...I'm a 3R girl now. Dare I say, even if I have to drive to a recycling center someday to drop off my glass, plastic and paper I will use my memories of India to motivate me. Please hold me to it!!!

The 3 Rs

Fine Dining Pizza

Three American pizza delivery companies have locations in India...Dominoes, Pizza Hut and the latest, Papa John's. They all deliver but they also have restaurants--fancy restaurants. I know Pizza Hut has dine-in in the U.S. but i think it's really interesting how nice they are here. Pizza is a novelty food in India so it's much more of a dining experience. Whereas for Americans it's a part of their weekly diet... you throw one in the oven or call up Dominoes and order 3 for 5-5-5 if you don't feel like cooking:) Here it can be a nice dinner.

We ate at a new Papa John's this past weekend and it is really upscale. i wish i could have taken pictures of the white leather chairs! They have "real" garden salads, desserts and the awesome PJ crust is the same. The best part is that at all these places pizza is served with ketchup:) I don't find it appetizing but from what i've observed it seems to be popular to combine the two...i guess like pizza and ranch dressing in the states...who came up with that?:)

The best part is that we got a full course meal...appetizer, salad, pizza and drinks for the same price we'd pay for a large pizza at PJ's in the u.s. Gotta love that!

Pizza Hut