a final ayubowan from sri lanka!

hello faithful readers!

first of all, thank you so much for reading our blog every time we managed to post. although the internet has not been our friend this month, we have enjoyed giving you all updates whenever we were able.

we have 36 hours of traveling ahead of us- one 3 hour flight to singapore where we'll stay overnight (and see harry potter), and then one 18 hour flight all the way home! what an adventure that will be.

we're sad to leave this phenomenal country and the places we have been doing ministry, yet we're excited to get back home and see all your lovely faces! we have all learned so much and can't wait to share it with you. unfortunately we're being booted off the internet, so this is all we can post until we get home. we have tons and tons of pictures, and we'll share as much as we can with you once we return.

thank you again for supporting all of us on this amazing journey by praying, reading, emailing, facebooking, commenting, etc. we have had a month that we will never forget.

sorry this is so brief, but we will see you all soon!

have you wondaful elepant safari

on our way to kandy, we stopped to ride elephants.

you know. the norm.

our first taste of the elephants was one moseying down the side of the road.

and then we arrived!

take careful note of this sign.

then we rode elephants, two at a time, through the jungle.

it was kind of cool, i guess.

they had workers take our cameras and walk in front of us to take pictures- this one cracks us up.

so. cool.

elephants are really rough, leathery, and prickly.

mine kept whipping me with it's ear.

as did melissa's,

and probably emily's.

as melissa and michelle were approaching the river on their elephant, they saw a long, black & yellow speckled crocodile-looking creature. they were definitely thankful that they were up on an elephant!

after that little safari we fed the elephants red bananas!

(who knew those even existed...?)

it was kind of gross,

yet really fun.

tali got elephant bogeys on her finger.

(HP reference)

ahh love this one!

note the man on the right. he is one confident sri lankan.

this was the most unique and enjoyable experiences of all of our lives.

we can now all say we have ridden an elephant through a jungle.

more pictures are to come of later in the day when we visited an elephant orphanage and watched them bathe in the river!

in rainbows

the photos you have all been waiting for...

rainbow making day!

this craft was the follow up to our telling of noah's ark the previous day.

although it was hectic and a little messy, the kids loved it, as did we!

all of these kids melt our hearts!

this girl had the cutest smile we have ever seen.

this girl cried the whole first day and most of the second and refused to participate in anything. however, when we started playing london bridge, she magically stopped and laughed and smiled along with everyone else. she didn't cry for the rest of the day! it was so heartwarming.

at the end of the afternoon, this was our status.

we are all going to miss their little faces, cute laughter, and how they jabber to us in sinhala even though we don't understand any of it.

but we all know that at the end of every rainbow...there lies a pot of gold.

no need for explanation. pretty much speaks for itself.

we really like the rain.

today the weather was just lovely,

it was cloudy and steadily raining all day.

we all love the rain, so it was perfect!

it rains a lot here, which is just wonderful.

the picture above is us dancing in the rain a few weeks ago.

that happens frequently.

A Beau-tea-full Par-tea

This blog is being written by the Team Mom, Shelley.   Which you can tell by the way I capitalize the first words of sentences.  And made up such an amazing blog title. Heather was too tired to participate in our tea adventure, so she obviously can't describe it for you. This picture is what tea looks like when it's growing. Who knew? Tea grows on bushes, and in Sri Lanka, they are beautifully sculpted into the mountainsides in straight rows. Very picturesque.

On the way, we were captivated by the Shangri-la-like scenery, such as this waterfall...

And, these twin waterfalls cascading down a lush mountainside of amazingness...

And finally, this scene of serenity and panoramic beauty, photographed by Michelle (she was the only one awake at this point of our 2-hour journey).

After our tour of the tea factory (did you know that there is a shriveling station and an electromagnetic stalk separator?), we got to enjoy free tea and cake. Let me rephrase that. THEY got to enjoy free tea and cake. I am probably the worst person to bring on a missions trip to Sri Lanka because I don't like tea. Or coffee. Or spicy foods. But enough about me.

For once, Oneil joined us in our snack time. He appreciated doing this driving duty today, I think. 

The two purple girls, savoring strawberry and vanilla tea.

An artistically-screened view of the twin waterfalls on our way back down the mountain.  See them there through the window stripe?  Yeah. I know. Totally artistic.

A fitting message for us all.

We returned from this adventure only to turn around and head for what turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip, our visit to the orphanage. But, that story will have to wait till another post.

Love, The Team Mom