It's been super busy and super exciting lately as I found out on Wednesday night that a couple, *Moon and *Rish that I've been working with from Pakistan will be able to get married on Sunday!  That's given us about 3 days to put together and pull this thing off.

Every girl dreams of her wedding day and unfortunately Rish's parent's aren't able to be here with her, so we wanted to make it really special.  But it  quickly dawned on me that we had about a $10 budget.  I called Chris, the president of Life Raft International (the NGO that I'm working with to help these families) and he contacted a friend who donated $150 for their special day!!  Praise Jesus!

So Thursday evening the couple came over and we started planning, and on Friday we went to Sophia's house for a dinner party before heading out to the flower market near China Town.  Everyone says that the best time to go to the market is around midnight, so that's exactly what we did.  It was SO beautiful!  And SO cheap!  We got bundles of roses and orchids for under $3 each and a her bouquet for $10!  I think the flower exporting business might not be a bad idea ;-)

On our way back to my house the police had set up a checkpoint along one of the major roads.  The taxi slowed down as police peered into our car with flashlights and pulled us over to the side of the road.  Rish and *Joshua (Moon's brother) haven't overstayed their visas quite yet, but Moon has so he could easily be arrested.  All of our hearts were beating fast as we screamed silent prayers.  All I could say was, "God you need to show up. God you need to show up." I know that there's a lot of corruption here, so I slipped the wedding budget into my back pocket (I've had police look through my wallet and count my money before. No joke).
One of the cops opened the door and asked, "What country are you from?" "America," I said.  "Pakistan," they said.  
"America fine. Pakistan get out of the car," demanded the police officer.  So naturally I got out with them.  "Where are your passports?" said the cop.  Moon pulled out Rish and Joshua's passports, but not his own.  "Where is your passport?" screamed the officer.  "I left it at home. I'm so sorry," was all that he could say.  Everything kind of hung in the balance at that moment.  The officer was not happy but by the grace of God he let us get back into the taxi and go home.  Oh my gosh we were all shaking. That was a really close call.

My friend Chris gave me the idea of starting an online journal to let people know what my days look like here.  While I already have a blog, I tend to make sure that those posts have a purpose or overlying theme.  Maybe that's why blog posts have been so few and far between.  I've been struggling to gather my thoughts into one place and organize them into something worth reading.  So my friends, this journal section is not so much for developed thoughts or deep reflection.  It's a record of the raw in's and out's of our journey together.