A few pictures from here and there...

We all learned how true this really is....

The Lord was absolutely with us the entire time!

Paper flowers from the Cherish kids

Excited about his gift from his Trinity sponsor

All waiting to open their gifts from Trinity sponsors

Birthday girls

Learning some dance moves

(Brad Uncle and Tyler)

Cherish girls teaching Trinity ladies some dance moves

(Kailee and Kirsten)

Cherish girls teaching Trinity ladies some dance moves

(Tory & Laura)

Cherish boys teaching the Trinity men some moves

Cherish boys teaching Trinity men some moves

Teaching the Cherish kids "Arise my Love"

Teaching the boys a song

Friday Morning @ an all boy's school

Happy to be at Cherish

(Kailee & Rachel)

Happy to be at Cherish

(Kirsten & Laura)

Thumb War!

Performing

Welcome board

Their amazing welcome banner

Our way back from shopping

One of many random cows in the rode that we saw

A typical street in Hyderabad

Is this up to code?

At David Alvin and Hannah Auntie's house/church

Monday Night

Construction

Making sure it is still in one piece

Our beautiful luggage

A little upset about our luggage being lost

Riding the bus to our terminal

Hey everyone! I wanted to post more pictures from our adventure in India. These pictures are more from the end of the week, later today I will post about Friday and our travels home. :-)

Cherish Home

All of us at Cherish!

By:Laura Schmatt

1 flight and 1 van ride to go!

Hey everyone....we made it back to the the US! Everything went well, and we are on schedule. Our flight leaves here (Denver) in about 2 hours. We can't wait to get home, and we all miss some part of India. The trip was amazing and a life changing experience for all. Tory and Brad Uncle made it to Georgia safely. I wasn't able to post about Friday because the internet was not working at the hotel. Later after I get some sleep I will post about Friday and tons of pictures from the trip. We can't wait to tell you about all of our adventures! We love and miss you all....thank you so much for all of your prayers! :-)

By: Laura Schmatt

Bittersweet

Finished product

Rachel getting henna done

Tory getting henna done from Grace Auntie

Tonight at Cherish, the children dancing for us.

This morning (600 girls)

Today was an amazing day! We all had so much fun :) After breakfast, we made our way to Stanley's, an all girl's school. It was different from the one we went to on Tuesday. We preformed in a very nice auditorium. The school girls were very energetic and happy to have us at their school. After we were done, they sang for us, which we loved! We packed up and then as usual met with the "princi" for tea and biscuits :) We enjoyed talking with her and praying for the school. Hannah Auntie met us at the hotel and took us girls to a very nice shopping center to find scarves and salwar kameez's. All of us girl's had a great time spending time with each other and finding goodies. While us girl's were shopping the boys went on their own shopping excursion. After we were all done finding our treasures, we met back at the hotel for lunch, half of us had our normal buffet lunch and the rest had dal and nan (lentils and flat bread) yumm! It was then time to rest which we all took advantage of...we all needed the sleep. When nap time was over we loaded up the bus and made our way to Cherish Home. All of the children were so excited to us, we met them all and quickly had many friends. Sweet Basil donated many frisbees to us to give to the children. We played around with soccer balls, footballs, and frisbees until it was time to set up and formally introduce ourselves to each other. We all sat down and the children one by one told us their names, age, class (grade) and what they wanted to be be when they grow up. As they finished introducing themselves they gave us each a bouquet of flowers. Many of them wanted to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, pastors or engineers. There was somewhat of a language barrier so we needed an interpreter for the speaking parts in our skits. That is always a little tricky when that happens, but as always it went well. All of the children then sang songs for us and danced. A couple of the girls did a special dance in beautiful sarees, that we thoroughly enjoyed. More game time came before dinner was served. We feasted on curry chicken, rice, nan, beets, american bread, fresh tomatoes and mutton kabobs. One of us from exhaustion made the mistake of drinking tap water. They quickly got mineral water (bottled water) and flushed there system....only time will tell if they will be really sick from it. The girls had the privilege of getting henna done on their hands, we had been looking forward to this all week. The boys played more games with the children while our henna's were getting finished. When we were done, we all loaded the bus and went on our way back to the hotel to get a good nights sleep. Tomorrow morning is our last performance of the week, pray that all goes well!

We all appreciate your prayers and love for us all! Only a couple days until we are home, definitely bittersweet!

A little more than half way through....

Tonight at the Hostel

Meeting the children this morning

At the Catholic church

Today was a VERY exciting. Morning came early at 6 am, we all rolled out of bed and made our way slowly down to breakfast with our smiles painted on our faces. The food was interesting yet good as usual... until our lovely morning meal was interrupted by our new friend "Mickey Mouse"! Yes that's rights ladies and gentlemen we were visited by a rat that had made his way across the restaurant and under our table and so graciously scurried across Laura's feet. Gross but a memory maker non the less. Now every time we will go down to eat I'm sure we will all be more cautious of where our feet may rest. After breakfast we got all packed up and headed out for our first adventure of the day. Many minutes later we finally arrived at David Memorial School, shockingly a school of 2,000 students all ranging from ages 2 1/2 to 15 1/2. We performed for only 150 kids. As accustom we made our way over the the administration building where we had met the "Princi" James David and enjoyed a warm cup of tea and biscuits. We finished our meeting with praying for the school and then returned to the hotel. Finally it was time to sit and take a breather. All of us soon decided that we were all a little home sick for some "good ol' american cooking" so a handful of us slowly made out way down the busy streets to the nearest Dominos Pizza. 30 Minutes later we all met in Brad Uncle's room where well proceeded to stuff our faces with the India's version of pizza after disagreeing with our taste-buds and our stomaches we all decided that we did not satisfy the craving we desired. We then had an additional 3 hours to roam the colorful streets of India. We went to an old Catholic church/school where we admired the history of the building, and then made our way to Rajendra's office (CARE) where we enjoyed his company and some more biscuits. Then we walked some more and interacted with some people. We then split into 2 groups, one group went back to the hotel and the other went to the local train station to do some more site seeing. After an hours rest our group rejoined down in the lobby for tea and yes... you guessed more biscuits! We joined David Alvin and his family and socialized for an hour or so where the presented gifts that we so graciously accepted. We took off once again and headed to Wesley's Hostel for Girls, they were more than excited us greeting us with open arms and beaming smiles. We performed and surprisingly went smoothly considering the building was not grounded and every time we touched metal our hearts were jump started! The girls already knew 2 of the songs that we had planned to teach them so they were very energetic and took well to our message. After we performed for them they performed for us by singing 2 songs that were AMAZING! We packed up and very slowly said our goodbyes... they were sad to see us go some even followed us out to the bus to say their last goodbyes. Straight from there we made our way to the YFC office where the had prepared dinner and wonderful entertainment. It was nice to unwind and fellowship with our new friends after a very busy day. We were all very exhausted and quickly made our way back to the hotel where we unloaded our equipment and hurried to bed. Today was a very fulfilling day our patience and our flexibility was tested to the max. Thank you so much for your continued prayers and thoughts. We miss you guys!

Oh and by the way, check under your kitchen table's before you eat! Squeak squeak.....

Written by Cory!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Staring to embrace India!

View from Charminar

The team and friends from YFC on our way to "Eat Street"

Stanley's all girl's school ( over 500 students)

Yesterday we went to an all girl's school and performed for over 500 children. They seemed to interact better and understand with the changes that were made. Basically same stories, just easier to understand with the language barrier. After the performance we met with the principal (princi) for time of refreshments (tea & biscuits) and prayer. The school is mostly Muslim, but all the administration was Christian. We then made our way to Charminar in Hyderabad, which is a Muslim meeting place. We purchased tickets and were given a tour by our YFC friend, Nehemiah (he is our comedian, gangster friend). We were able to see for miles in all directions from the top of Charminar. After our tour we experienced crossing the street with our YFC friends helping us. (which was very scary, you must pay close attention or they will run you over). The team went down a market street and each shop specialized in bangles. We had fun looking at all the sparkly bangles. That was quite an adventure trying to ignore the beggars. We made our way to a place called 'Eat Street'. Once again they went through our bags and the girls went into a booth to get frisked for security purposes. We were expecting to have lunch there, but unfortunately hardly any of the restaurants were open. It was much more of a Western setting than we had experienced before. We are still getting used to having the people take double and triple takes at us before they smile and wave. Then some of them take out their camera's while driving by and take many pictures of us. The Indian guys enjoy having their photos with the American girls. Craig said, "This is the closest that we will get to being celebrities". We kind of like waving to people and watching their fascination with us. Our friend Nehemiah said to Tory, "When Cory waves at the girls, they all smile, wave, and giggle. But if I do it, they slap me". Then we came back to the hotel and some decided to have lunch on their own in their rooms, while a few of us went downstairs to Pickles. We had a meeting and talked about our performance earlier that morning while enjoying tea and biscuits. We had a couple hours of down time before we left to Brad Uncle's friend's house. Rajendra Uncle and his daughter, son, niece, nephew, and friends joined us for dinner, conversation, worship, and prayer. We had a great time meeting new friends and joining in fellowship with them. We headed back to the hotel for a much needed good nights sleep.

Prayer requests:

Continued good health, Kids will be responsive to our performances, Appropriate weather, Positive attitudes, and the food will continue to taste good.

Thank you so much for your repeated prayers and support! We love and miss you all!!! :)

So far, so good!

At the school on Monday

Sorry we haven't updated in a while. I tried uploading a bunch of pictures yesterday, but the internet is so slow here that it takes 5 minutes to upload one. I will work on that later to get to up.

Monday:

Today we got up and had our first Indian Breakfast. We ate at the restaurant at the hotel called Pickles. There was an omelet bar, American pancakes (that tasted like cake), cold cereal, fresh fruit, Indian pancakes, chutney and donuts. After breakfast we left to go to a school that is associated with a church that our friend Ebenezer attends. There were 300 kids from ages 2 1/2 to 15 1/2. They were all so excited to see us and have there pictures taken. Everything went well, it was a little windy out which made it difficult to keep the stage from blowing away ( it is so light). We did our puppet show and dowel rod performance ( the one from Easter) then after that the kids went back to their classrooms, we then had tea and biscuits (cookies) with the pastor of the church. Before we left we prayed with the pastor for the church and school and went on our way back to our hotel. When we arrived back to our hotel we all had lunch at Pickles, buffet style. After lunch we met in Brad Uncle's room and talked about how things went that morning. It came to our attention that some of the things that we were trying to teach the children that were a little too complex , so we had to make some changes. We also went to Youth For Christ (YFC) and met some very nice people there. They taught us two songs that some of the Indian kids know, that way when we sing with them, they can catch on faster and have more fun. We were at YFC for about an hour and then rushed back to our hotel to grab more water and then to head out again to Pastor Alvin's home/church. As we got there, we had to take off our shoes before going into the house. We had all talked about this, but this was the first time that we actually had to do it. Pastor Alvin and his wife, Hannah told us about there ministry as kids from an orphanage came that they help out with. We then performed for them, doing puppets, songs and the dowel rods. We messed up quite a bit because we were all very tired, and it was our first day of performing. We were a little nervous because we had to make so many changes to our performance to allow the children to understand our message. The kids still enjoyed the show :) Next we taught then how to play 'Head's up 7 up' which they had fun with. Dinner was next which consisted of white rice, lamb curry and vegetable stew type dish. We all sat on the floor 'indian style' and ate with our hands. Very fun!! Dessert was then served; it was a small round orange ball, with the consistency of tapioca. It was sweet and very good! Dinner was cleaned up and the kids sang a couple of songs for us....we took some pictures and said our goodbyes. It was a very good first real day in India.

I will post about Tuesday ( today, tomorrow (wednesday). Please continue to keep us in your prayers!

We made it!

We are here in India! We are safe, tired and glad to be here....all details and fun stuff to come!

Yes, we are alive!!!

Hello everyone! We are safe, alive and here in India! :)

We had a crazy time getting here, I will tell you a bit about it....

Pastor Brad and Craig Uncle (what we call Craig here) talked to the United and figured things out.We got on a flight to London @ 12:30. The plane worked and off we went to London, we arrived at 6:30 a.m. (London time). We went to the toilet and freshened up slightly. Then we all waited in line @ Air India for our entire layover time, which was about 3 hours. During this time the transfer agent confirmed that our bags were there in London and that we all had seats on the flight to Mumbai. We got on our second long flight to Mumbai, 9 hours later we tried to land but kept getting delayed because of congestion in the air (too many planes trying to land at the same time). Finally about 20 minutes later we land in Munbai and get in line to transfer to Hyderabad. After 10 minutes in line we were informed we were not supposed to be in line, but going to get our luggage. We proceed to get our luggage, but before that,we had to be cleared for the Swine Flu. We filled out a paper that confirmed that we didn't have the swine flu, and got cleared by airport workers in masks (to prevent them from getting the Swine Flu). We then were lead to a desk to get authorized to get our luggage (didn't make sense to me). We eventually found our baggage claim belt and waited for our suitcases to come. We waited for an hour, then went to the lost luggage counter - ( a worker of the airport recognized Pastor Brad from 4 years ago when his luggage was lost, kind of funny) and was told that they had no idea where our suitcases were. After each one of us described our pieces of luggage and checking passports to match us with them (2 hours) we then were told that they had no idea where our luggage was, but would let us know when they did know. We joked around that God could have sent our luggage to Hyderabad without us. All of us then went to find a bus to get to our terminal, the airport was spread out and required bus transportation to each section of the airport. We were on the bus for 30 minutes before we got to our terminal. It was then our priority to get Cory a ticket to Hyderabad because they were able to print him one in London. In the process of printing him a new ticket we were informed that they couldn't use our tickets from London that we had. We handed over our passports and previous boarding passes and waited for 3 hours while Pastor Brad, Cory and Craig Uncle talked with the "ticket man" to figure things out. Everything eventually got situated and we all went to security. We were all standing in the same line when us females were told we were in the wrong line. Opps! The girls went through a different line and got patted down. We were all about to go to our gate when Tyler realized that he lost his boarding pass. Pastor Craig went back through security with Tyler while Craig took the rest of us downstairs to get to our gate and grab a small bite to eat. Most of us experienced our first taste of Chai and were realizing that things are coming together. After 3 hours, our bus came and took us out to the runway to our plane to go to Hyderabad!! All 12 of us got on our final flight to our destination! They served us breakfast on the plane and had a great flight...we landed in Hyderabad, India at 9:10 a.m. Sunday morning. Walking in our final destination airport we were relieved to learn that all of our luggage was there waiting for us 5 hours before we got there! Praise the Lord...we were so happy. If not to draw attention to us enough being some of the only Americans at the airport, we were jumping up and down so happy to finally be there in Hyderabad, India with our luggage! Two young men from Youth For Christ graciously came and picked us up at the airport. The hour long ride to our hotel was an eye opener. We were taking pictures left and right, trying to take in as much as possible as we were in a whole different world!

We arrived at the hotel, got settled into our rooms, took showers and went down to the restaurant to get some food into our bodies. After about an hour after dinner we met and discussed our plans for tomorrow. We went over songs and made sure that all of our props were here and in one piece (which they were). We just finished up with prayer time and get to go to bed in about an hour and a half. Thank you again for all of your prayer and support! We love and miss you guys!! :)

Total trip time planned: 35 hours

Total trip time in reality: 68 hours 28 minutes

Time that Craig Uncle and Pastor Brad spent fixing the kinks: 17+ hours

(on the phone/at ticket counters)

All in all God taught us to trust Him in EVERYTHING!

Our prayers were answered and we arrived safely to India

Luggage was not lost completely after all

Patience was always there, and complaining was not

We are alive and safe

You can prayer for us in these ways:

We all get a good nights sleep, getting our schedule on track and getting rid of the the jet lag

People's stomach's wouldn't be too sensitive to the different food

The smells of India would not bother us

The hearts of the people here in India are accepting of our message

AGAIN?

Hey guys, back again. We are booked for flights to get in to Hyderabad at 9 am Sunday morning, and heading to the airport...but we need to negotiate with United to get them to pay the difference for our tickets. If United won't accept responsibility for this problem, there still may be no trip. More later; keep us is your prayers.

Down by the Bay

Hey guys, this is Tory with a quick update! We got up this morning at 7 am and met at the hotel restaurant for a team meeting and breakfast. We now know we have a flight to London...but none to India. A bit of a problem! So now we are hanging out in our hotel rooms while Craig and my dad (Pastor Brad) are working hard on the phones to get us to Hyderabad as quickly possible. There are several options for how to do this, but none of them fit our budget or time limit. Everyone is a little discouraged, but overall surprisingly energetic. It was VERY NICE to sleep in a soft bed and take a hot shower. We are all praying HARD that God's work will be done through all of this...and believing it will. Your thoughts and prayers are VERY needed.

Here are a few specific prayer requests:

--That the people at United will soften their hearts and find a way to get us to India ASAP

--That Craig, Brad, and Earl (our travel agent) will have the wisdom to know what to do

--That the team's attitude will stay positive

--That our luggage (in a container at the SF airport) will stay safe

Thanks, guys, for your support through all of this. PRAY HARD!

"And we know that in all things God was for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose." --Romans 8:28

Our day in a few Pictures

Our hotel.....finally

Outside San Fran airport waiting to go to the hotel

A little tired? Yes!

Kirsten and Kailee ready to get to San Francisco

Reid and Caleb from Pasco to San Francisco

Support socks and foot powder anyone?

4 a.m.

San Francisco?

So as Mrs. Olmstead has commented, yes we are still in San Francisco. We arrived at the airport at 8:30 a.m. and planned on having a 4 hour layover before going to London. The time came and we boarded at 11:45 a.m. We waited as everyone got settled into their seats and prepared for a 12:30 departure time. We were told that there was a mechanical problem and that we would have it fixed in 90 minutes. The minutes came and went and still we were on the plane at our gate waiting for our problem to be fixed. 3 hours later we were all informed that we were going to wait back in the airport until our plane was working correctly. During the 3 hours we took little naps, watched a movie, had some snacks, not making any major decisions (trying to really sleep or having a big meal). Finally they announced that mechanics were still fixing the plane and that we were going to try to leave at 6:30. 6 o'clock came and they still didn't have the plane fixed. We all went to dinner and stayed positive. At 7 they told us that they thought they had fixed the problem, but in order for them to test it, we all had to board the plane and go out on the runway to test it. We all got back in line to board the plane and as the final people were getting on the plane, the crew announced that we all had to get off because the plane was not fixed and our flight had been canceled. Keep in mind that we had met at the church at 4 a.m. and had a total of 1.5 hours of flight time. Brad jumped in line before everyone else to figure this all out. We were given hotel accommodations and a shuttle to get there. So we are here in the very nice hotel that the airline gave us, not sure that we will be going to India after all. Our bags are waiting for us at the airport with our clothes that we would very much like to have. The airline is being difficult and not compensating us for our loss of tickets. We are here praying and trusting God that this is His plan for us. Please continue to pray a lot for us as we are tired, and very confused as to what is to come. Thank you for your continued support! We will update you as soon as we have internet to do so! :)

Almost time to go!!

After many practices, fundraisers, questions and support we are excited and ready to go to India! Our bags are getting packed, ministry suitcases are full and all of our practicing is done. Now we are praying and hoping we don't forget anything important. :) We had our last practice tonight (Tuesday) going over songs and our testimonies one final time. Each and everyone of us feels blessed to be able to experience the love that Jesus has for everyone through this trip! We want to thank everyone for all of the support that you have given us.

Team Photo

Here we are at the parent meeting, all 12 of us, excited to leave in one week!