"ok ok now we just need some rice trees to feed the sheeps. you know what I mean right?" "yup yup" I reply "we need hay to feed the goats".

Ahh how literal and weird translations never cease to amuse me.

oh so i just had a new experience. i was delivered my morning coffee just recently.. which my indian father loves to do each morning. but this time instead of letting me drink it in a daze as i slowly wake, he stood there watching. my curiosity piqued. i look in the cup. black as usual, no problem. what could it be. i smell, yup nescafe.. still nothing unusual so far. tentatively i take a sip. bam. what the! lemon! he has put a whole buncha lemon juice in our coffees this morning. he smiles lovingly back at me as i look up in shock. but actually, they complement each other really well. i recommend you inform your morning coffee provider to make the necessary adjustments. my two other favourite coffee additives are chili and cardamon.

no other news really though, i just wanted to share that funny story, also study is going well:

oh actually, check out: www.compassionbengal.com. its an awesome new project of a good friend of mine.

No, of course not, that is a crasy idea!

There are many things He cannot do based upon who He is. Although that sounds suspicious, it is not so, for it is only based upon our difficulties in understanding His mysteries. A W Tozer says it well:

"It is, for instance, to rob Him of His infinitude: there cannot be two unlimited substances in the universe. It is to take away His sovereignty: there cannot be two absolutely free beings in the universe, for sooner or later two completely free wills must collide. These attributes, to mention no more, require that there be but one to whom they belong."

To see it from a different way: He cannot lie because anything He says is true.

Who He is dictates what He can do. 'He cannot deny Himself'. So if we posit omnipotence, then He cannot give power to another that would restrict it. Because if that was possible, then we could not describe Him as omnipotent in the first place.

Hrm... interesting.

I love it when old guys get worked up, check out this following passage from Pascal in his Pensees. I imagine him writing each line and stopping in exclamation 'gah!' as he shakes his head and he proceeds to write the next, each with increasing rapidity:

"I can only feel compassion for those who are distressed sincerely by their doubts, and who regard it as their greatest misfortune. These spare no effort to escape from the situation, but instead make their search their main and most serious business. But I feel very differently towards those who live their lives without giving a thought to the final end of life, and who are unconvinced by the light that they have, but instead neglect to look elsewhere. These don't decide an opinion from mature reflection, but merely accept opinions out of credulous simplicity or those, which, though obscure, do posses a solid and unshakable foundation. Their neglect in an issue that should vitally concern them, for it deals with their eternal destiny and everything they have, fills me with more irritation than pity. I am not saying this out of pious sentiment. On the contrary, I mean that people ought to feel like this from the basic principles of human interest and self-esteem. It calls for nothing more than what is apparent to the least enlightened among us.

We do not need to be high-minded to realize that there is no true and solid satisfaction be had in this world. For all out pleasures are mere vanity, while our misfortunes are infinite. Death dogs us every moment. In a space of only a few years we will inevitably be bought face-to-face with the reality of eternity, which for those who have neglected it will be eternal damnation with no prospect of happiness.

There is nothing more real than this, nor more terrible. We may seek to put on as brave a face as we can, but what lies in store at the end of the most successful career in the world is only this. Let people think what they like, but the only good in this life lies in the hope of another life. We are only happy in the measure to which we anticipate it, for there will be no misfortunes to those who are completely assured of of eternal life. But there will be no happiness for those who have no knowledge of it. Clearly it is a great misfortune to be in such a state of doubt. But it is at least an indispensable duty to seek and inquire when we are in such a state. It is the man who both doubts and yet does not seek who is most miserable and most wrong. If, in addition, he feels smug about what he openly professes, and even sees it as a source of complacency and smugness, which he blatantly professes, then I can find no terms to describe such a creature.

Whatever can give rise to such feelings? What reason is there for rejoicing when we cannot look forward to anything but unmitigated misery? What reason is there for vanity in being plunged into such an impenetrable darkness? How can arguments like this even occur to any reasonable person?

"I do no know who placed me in this world, nor what the world is, nor what I am myself. I am deeply ignorant about everything. I do not know what my body is, what my senses are, what my soul is, or the very organ which thinks what I am saying, which reflects upon everything as well as upon itself, and does not know itself any better than it knows anything else. I only see the terrifying spaces of the universe that imprison me, and I find myself planted in a tiny corner of this vast expanse without knowing why I have been placed here rather than there, Nor do I know why this brief span of life has been allotted to me at this point rather than another in all the eternity of time that has proceeded me and all that which will come after me. I see only infinities on all sides, enclosing me like an atom or like the shadow of a fleeting moment. All I know is that soon I shall die, but what I am most ignorant about is this very death from which there is no escape."

"Just as I do not know where I came from, so I do not know where I am going. All I know is that when I leave this world I shall fall forever into oblivion, or into the hands of an angry God, without knowing which of the two will be my lot for eternity. Such is my state of mind, full of weakness and uncertainty. The only conclusion I can draw from all this is that I must pass my days without a thought of trying to find out what is going to happen to me. Perhaps I may find some insight in my own doubts, but I do not want to be troubled. I do not even want to put out a hand to seek for it. Instead I shall go without fear of foresight and allow myself to be carried off helplessly to my death, uncertain of my future state for all eternity"

But it is a glorious thing for true faith to have such unreasonable man as their enemies. For instead of being dangerous to it, their opposition only helps to establish it. For the Christian faith consists almost entirely in establishing these two truths: the corruption of human nature, and its redemption through Jesus Christ. I maintain if they do not server to demonstrate truth of redemption b the sanctity of their lives, at least they show admirably the corruption of human nature by having such unnatural attitudes...

He goes on.. but I won't, although I have just realised instead of typing it all out, which I admit was fun, I should of just google'd it. And pow! here they are: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/pascal/pensees-contents.html.

Been listening to this recently that mike linked me to: http://www.disciplemakingintl.org/media/series/series_list/?id=2

Also my fingernails have been growing really fast this last month. I'm sure way faster than normal. Anyone else notice this?

A mango farm:

it starts to make sense:

good can no longer be the standard.

we need to drop good.

to forsake it.

there is only one way now.

and one path to get to it.

we need to reset our eyes. renew our mind.

there is a sacrifice to be made.

i'm afraid it is good.

it has to go.

its reign was long, and indeed it was nice.

but it passed the time and now but a second remains.

in this last flash we need the best.

we need the most. we need more.

and for that all else we must pass by.

deny good! take best!

while the sun was setting and the icy winds began to rush by us faster and faster. as we careened down what was passing for the nepali highway in this part of town. i turn my head to dev my passenger behind me and yell: 'hey dev, how far till we get to our destination for the night?'. he replies yelling back to be heard over the blaring horns all around us: 'umm, two jungles'.

so anyway, my nepali visa finished for the year. 150 days completed. i am now in kolkuta again with my friend David (who i met when i was staying at the orphanage here in may). he has nicely shacked me up with his parents and here i intend to stay for the next 6 weeks or so. That is, before i head back upto nepal in feb ish to begin my studies for the year.

so david is a pastor guy here. he is very awesome. i have been visiting around with him and getting a feel for the work going on here and what the needs are. we have come up with an awesome action plan for the next stage of the ministry he is doing and i will be building a website over my time here to help make this whole situation more visible. I have become concerned about the scandalous wealth imbalance in the body of Christ (which you cannot avoid noticing if you come to the developing world) and I have been working on a thing regarding this. I am also happy to use the word scandalous as it is a rarely used word, and rightly I guess, scandals are not good things. anyway, it is all actually quite exciting but i wont reveal much yet, though i know it is next to impossible to be excited about something you dont know anything about yet, though trust me, this one will be oh so good, hopefully noone will come away unscathed.

ummm in awesome achievement news, i have now been to 4 out of the 7 (or 8, i forget) of nepals borders, sadly the last ones are going to be a little harder to cross as they are in the far far west.

Recently david assigned me some homework, which is reading the history of Serampore. There is plenty of info around the house here, since his thesis was on William Carey, so there is no shortage of study materials . Next week we are going to go visit and tour around all the things Mr.Carey started and did whilst were are on some other work in the area. Fun tiems.

Currently reading: Nothing

Just finished: Simply Christian - Tom Wright, The mind on fire - Pascal and An Introduction to Indian Church history.

thanks to whoever gave me the books.

ps: another travel rule i forgot to add:

10 - A few things come to mind as examples, but since i cant quite seem to find the common best course of action, i will make this rule one step removed, there it is: some things you can only learn the hard way. (though on the bright side, your disaster stories will always be the funnyist and most interesting.)

11 - When purchasing items. If it can be opened, open it and check. Sometimes things are not as new or unused as they seem. Being in a box or container implies nothing. Make sure your products are full.

pps: here is mee eating some food last month, boy was I hungry:

"who will you pray too when you are standing in flames? you cant pray to Jesus he wont know your name" .Tourniquet

so today i have roughly 2 weeks of visa in nepal left. What to do? Well, we will get to that in a few minutes. First some news and stories.

So i went to a bank to open an account. Walking in past the (security) guy causally holding the 12 inch gorkha nife. I learnt some funny things about banks here. First they won't give you foreign currency... they only give to locals... a little annoying. Second, they have no such thing as 'withdrawal forms'. You have to write a cheque to yourself. This led to a confusing situation since I told them 'of course I dont need a cheque book, no one uses them these days'... turns out nepal made a system to keep them in use. You also do not require any id for withdrawing and anyone can get your statement by just asking.

We installed our first illegal bike modifications last week. A lovely under the seat set of speakers and accompanying mp3 player. This will add another edge of awesome to those long trips to the village.

Orphanage news in short: With the arrival of winter we have started 6am runs with the kids. All my coffee recently tastes spicy since I bought beans and we only have one mortar (which we grind everything on.. including the chillies). All the kids got caned recently with my big bamboo cane. We fixed the table tennis table, painted it green and I think all my lice have finally gone.

Ok so I ran out of time to write this, anyway here it is in brief: a few days ago I got accepted into a uni here and will begin studying nepali in a one year course starting in feb. This means I get the cheap study visa!

We are off now on a trip down to the border to pick the girls up from India. Exciting. I hope it goes well.