Family Update: Nov '11

The kids enjoying a bit of swimming at the River Godavari in Tanuku, when we visited that place during the Management Seminar Workshops in early Oct. '11.












Jowen enjoying a dip too at the River, under the watchful eyes of his father, Vimal.







Theo concentrating on his lego art work, while the Management Seminar sessions were on.


From the Wednesday evening Bible Study group, we decided to have a 'social evening', where we invited some friends to join us for a time of fellowship with Dinner & Games & having some fireworks. It was a great evening! 2 friends from Kerala & 2 friends from Saudi Arabia were there & it was a great time.

Part of the evening fun was lighting the fire-works. Theo was scared to come anywhere close to it, but Tryphena enjoyed lighting the sparklers and the flower pots.

This is now our 'new addition' to the family - GOLDIE.
A friend of ours gave this Doberman puppy to us. She is 3 months now ... came when she was 2 1/2 months. Quickly she is getting used to the routine and staying with us. Seems like a good watch dog - though she doesn't like to be alone, when the rest are in the house and she is tied in one corner. She is all for jumping & running around and messing about.


October 31st (Monday), was a family day for us, as we celebrate the kids' "family birthday". We didn't send them to school, but took them out for their favourite meal - McDonalds!!

Evening, we had a time of fellowship with friends from the Vineyard church, Ankit & Toshi. We all enjoyed a nice sumptuous & delicious chicken biriyani with pork fry.

Overall a great day for us as a family!!!

Kids Music Lessons

It's been our desire for long to put the kids in a MUSIC class .. and we tried towards the latter end of last year, when we had enrolled Tryphena at a Music Academy here for vocal training. But by March this year, we had to discontinue as the Music College was going through some internal conflicts.





Now, we have resumed by having one tutor, Alovi (from Nagaland) .. who is studying her final year in Music come home and teach the kids every week.
She devotes one hour totally to them and the kids are enjoying it - though early stages, we are glad that they are beginning to enjoy it.

Tryphena is learning the keyboard and Theo is learning Guitar.

Tryphena turns 10

Tryphena had been waiting for a while to get into double figures .. and now here she is - officially 10 yrs. old on the 24th July '11 - and she is quite excited about that :-)

To make this a memorable occasion for her, we decided to put together a Collage of her JOURNEY IN LIFE the last 10 yrs. It was fun and she really enjoyed watching it .. and so did the guests who came to celebrate with her on Saturday (23rd) evening.

Here you can see the first 3 slides from that show.

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Receiving a 'kiss' from daddy!






That's the order of the day ... food at the end. Some didn't turn up - so there was plenty for those who had come :-)




And finally, it's time to open up the presents - she was one happy girl at the end.

July 2011

These photos have been long coming :-)
These were pictures taken while Carmen and the kids were in Chennai during the summer break.
Tryphena, with her cousin Jeanette.









The kids enjoyed an outing to their favourite eatery place in Chennai.









Theo with his roller-skates.











Theo and his best friend 'Ken' - having fun together.















The latest addition to our family came in the guise of Tryphena's 10th birthday gift - a Dachshund pup.
Ever since we had given 'Sparkles' away, Tryphena had been missing her and she really wanted another dog in the house - so, we decided to get a dog which will be easy for all of us to handle - the result: PIXIE, the Dachshund pup, who was only 32 days old, when we got her.

Summer Holidays

THE KIDS:
It's SUMMER HOLIDAYS for the kids - Tryphena & Theo both did very well in their final exams and were promoted to the next class, which begins on June 1st.
Tryphena will be going to Std.V and Theo will be going to Std.II


Now, it's time to think of some ways to keep them entertained.


Our host, Vimal & Hannah along with their little boy Jowen - had invited our whole family, so the kids could spend some time there.

As a family, we had to planned to go to Tanuku (in Andhra Pradesh), while we conducted the Preacher's Workshop there.


But with the turn of events (as you would read later on), they had to cancel their trip.
The kids were a bit disappointed, but we assured them that we will take them there during the 1st term holidays, later in the year.



THE DOG:
In the meantime, we had to give away our dog "Sparkles". With the dog growing big and wanting a lot more attention, we decided to give her away to the Dog Shelter - who will find her a good home, or keep her in their care.
Sparkles had been with us since Dec. '09 and the kids were quite attached to her.
But due to the increased labour for Carmen in taking care of her, we decided it's best to give her away, where she will be more free and taken care off too at the same time.


CARMEN:
Please keep Carmen in your prayers, as she is having a spasm on her back. It's been a recurring thing on and off, and she thinks it could be Spondylitis. We had undergone a test initially and the doctors advised her some rest - but with the ongoing household chores, she is finding it difficult.
Please pray with us for someone to come and help us - which will be a big relief for Carmen.


RAJAN:
On the 20th of March, while I was in Mizoram - i was on my way to the "Faith Ministries" church, when i felt something quite not right with my Prosthetic leg. It was jammed and it wouldn't stretch itself forward - this created a bit of a problem for me, as Aizawl is on a hill.

Anyway, I got back home and took it to the Prosthetic Clinic here in Bangalore and they inspected and told me that it has to be sent back to Germany, as something was not quite right with the Hydraulic function.
In the meantime, they had given me a replacement - which is an older model.
This one doesn't support me as much as the other one did, and it started giving me some problems. I tried to balance myself in awkward positions causing a disturbance on my lower back and eventually onto my hip and then on my stump.

I was in excruciating pain on the day before we were scheduled to leave for Tanuku (AP) for the 2nd of the Preacher's Workshops.
<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 I was writhing in pain & no pain killer tablets seem to have any effect. When I couldn’t control any longer, I called for some doctors to come home and give me some pain killers – but no one was available.

So, I had to be rushed to the hospital that night – where I was administered the pain killer – but to no effect again. They had to give me 3 pain killing injections (shots) to bring the pain down – the final one being a real strong one.

The test results showed everything as being normal and the Orthopaedic surgeon said that it could be the prosthetic device which is causing this.

To cut the story short, the following day we flew into Vijayawada and then travelled by road to Tanuku (about 120 kms.) and conducted the workshop - which was a great blessing. Read more about this in THE NEST NETWORK UPDATE BLOG.

Upon return, I visited the clinic again to see what the cause could be .. and i realized that the length was not adjusted properly. It was slightly longer, which forced me to follow a different gait (walking pattern), which caused the stress and the pain eventually.

So, the new one had to be cut short by about 1.5 cms to make it more even for me to walk properly again.

Now, my original prosthetic leg has been sent to Germany and the latest update is that it should be fixed and arriving back in Bangalore on the 25th of this month.

Family News

For a long time, I haven't posted anything in here. Have been tied up with work or it's just that nothing spectacular has happened in our family, or at times, i have just been too lazy to bring an update :-)

For long the kids have wanted a 'bean-bag' in the house ... and we got this one at a sale - pretty good buy!












The first week in February saw me teach on 'Sin & Repentance' in the DTS (Discipleship Training School), here in YWAM Bangalore.



It was a good mix of students and very responsive.











The kids are entering into their last 2 weeks at school and are getting ready for their final exams, which will start some time next week.

The summer-heat is setting in and it looks like it might be a horrid season.
Also, with the road-work set to start in front of our house .. we are in for some dusty summer :(