Oh my goodness it is madness here.

I was talking to someone the other day about how to even begin describing India, and some said, "It's like a fair!" That's totally true. More true than anything else I can think of to relate it to at least. Ever since getting off the plane I have been bombarded with heat and smells and colors and dirt and grime and noises that I don't usually, if ever hear. Ya know how at the fair you smell food you don't normally eat, animals you don't usually smell, people you don't usually smell, you hear lots of loud big noises and a murmur you don't usually hear while seeing lights and colors and people you hardly ever see, and how you get dirt on you even if you just walk around? That is India....where I am at least. I feel like my senses are being assaulted all the time. This sounds bad, but it's not. It's so India is what I'm learning. There are soooooo many people here that I don't really see how it could be any other way.

A few things you should know:
1.Traffic here is out of control. Street lines are mere suggestions, but it's totally fine if 3 or 4 cars drive where 2 would in the States or if it's clear to just drive in the lane of oncoming traffic. There are scooters, motorcycles, tiny tiny cars, autos, and rickshaws everywhere. In case you don't know, this (http://www.ictpm.co.uk/images/resources/auto-hyderabad-india.jpg) is an auto. That's our main mode of transportation. My teammate and I caught and bargained for one our own today. Generally, the auto driver tries to super rip off westerners because they don't know better. We know how to get the correct price now (in Hindi!), but even if we didn't, what they consider to be a really high price wouldn't be that much if it were American dollars. 1 US dollar equals about 45 Rupees. Our normal auto ride costs 50 Rupees, and it's about a 20-30 minute ride. Also, people honk all the time. Not to be rude, just let the other drivers know they're there.
2.There are beggars and poor people everywhere. It's heartbreaking. It's really really hard for me to just walk past them, but there's really nothing I can do other than pr*y for them. The children are the hardest for me. It's even harder to know that many of their parents are raising them to do this starting at a very young age. Today, 3 children, the eldest being no older than 7, came up to me, said hello in English, held my hand and asked for money. I was ready to grab my wallet and give them everything I had. I'm a sucker for kids. Lucky for me, our sweet new Indian friend we'll be spending the summe with told them something no in Hindi, and they left. I'm sure many of you are reading this thinking that she and I are jerks. Until you see or understand the mass corruption and poverty that is going on here, please don't think that we are heartless. I no where near fully understand it, but I've already seen enough to know that giving to them is not always (usually) what's best.
3.BUT, we have our first day in the slums tomorrow, and I'm SO excited. It's a weird thing to be excited about, I know, but the organization we're working with is doing so much to empower the people in the slum! The slum we'll be working in is one of the largest in the city and contains between 45-50,000 people. That is 20 times the size of my hometown in ONE slum. There are so many slums here. More than I can imagine or describe even. They are literally on every street, sidewalk, and corner. This isn't why I'm excited though. I'm excited because we will meet the women this company is working with in their Income-Generation program. Some of the women come to the local ch**ch to make cards and jewelry. Working 2 days a week increases the women's income by 30%! This empowers the women and has aloud them to install a water pump in their slum. People in the slum thanked some women from the organization, and they told them to thank the women from the slum. Their work paid for it! The goal is to empower the women to hopefully get out of their situation at some point, and of course, tell them about our sweet Father. Additionally, this organization runs a medical clinic for the slum and A PRESCHOOL! I've been told that I can help come up with curriculum and teach some english/help out as much as I want while I'm here! The children in the preschool are from 1-5. I know it will break my heart to see them in this setting, but it is so cool to know that they are being helped and reached at the same time. Also, during the time we are here, my teammate and I have to come up with a 6 lesson series about different values to teach some of the adolescents in the slum. Each value will be accompanied by a elb*B story, activity, and craft. This means that these children will have the G*sp*l shared with them directly! I am so excited Papa has aloud me to be a part of this.

I have Hindi homework I need to do, but I'll try to update again soon! Thanks for reading and thank you so so much for lifting me up! Here are some more requests of mine, and really SEND ME YOURS!

Against sickness (also called, "Delhi Belly"). I'm only here for a short time and really don't want to be sick.
That I'll be able to sleep. I've woken up around 2 or 3 every morning and stayed awake until 5 or 5:30 every night since we've been here. It apparently takes one day per hour of time zones you change to get back to normal, but I jumped 10.5, so I'd really like it to be done sooner, and to get some rest! The heat takes a ton of energy.
That I will be a teachable servant while I'm here to my teammate, field mentor, and the women/children I work with.

Lovelovelove

I'm here!!!

I'm here!

This will be short, but I am here and safe. Thanks for lifting me up. I'll update you ASAP. All I can say about India right now is that it's hot, stinkin' hot actually, dirty, neat, full of people, and has a very distinct smell. Ha! Don't let those words fool you though, I'm super excited to be here.

Hope y'all are having a great summer! Lovelovelove!

See ya States!

I'm hopping on a plane for India in a little more than 24 hours! I'm SO stinkin' excited. Training was great, but really. I want to go.

Here's what I have learned at training: (this is the ultra brief version. I mean, I've been here for almost a full week!)
1. I will most likely be spiritually attacked in India.
2. I will most likely experience culture shock.
3. My teammate and I will most likely experience conflict.
4. I will mess up in India.
5. I will most likely get sick (like food sick, not serious sick) in India. (That was really more from friends, not training. :)
6. I'm still so excited to go, and not really scared even though I probably should be.

Highlights:
~I'm surrounded by awesome people. Really. There's close to 100 young people here going to the nations this summer. PTL!
~I'm learning a lot about myself already while I'm here. That's good/difficult at the same time.
~After talking to some staff, I've decided to redo how I'm doing emailing/blogging this summer. My sweet friend has volunteered to be my editor for the summer. You can send emails to the same address or whatever, but Sarah will now be checking my email/editing anything that can't be sent to me and changing it, so I can read it while I'm gone. So, moral of the story is don't send anything you wouldn't want someone else to read. :)

How you can be lifting me up:
~Closeness with my teammate. She's awesome. I want to continue to be awesome together and love and serve one another.
~I will pick up the language, Hindi, as quickly as possible.
~I will be a blessing to the people I'm around and staying with.
~That my heart will hurt for our Father and His lost children. I want to be burdened with this.
~I want this to be another life-changing summer that draws me nearer to our sweet Father.
~Against everything mentioned about that I said will most likely happen. :)

I love you all so so much! I'll try to keep you updated pretty regularly!

~Celeste

Training!

Oh my goodness, I am so excited! I FINALLY got to meet my teammate today! She is incredible! I cannot wait to spend the summer with her!

For the past 2 days I have been in Palm Beach, FL doing a leaderish type of training for this summer. Rough life, I know. However, although we are in Palm Beach, we've been spending most of our time in a dorm/cafeteria/classroom. I did get to go to the beach this morning, but it required getting up at 6am to fit it into the schedule. Worth it? Debatable. We did see dolphins though, so that's super excited.

During the training we've been instructed on pretty much anything and everything you can imagine to prepare for this summer. It's super overwhelming. There's so much that goes into everything that I had no clue about. It's challenging, but I know I will grow a ton from it. :)

It's only training, but ridiculous/funny/awesome things have been happening already. I've used 17 pages in my journal, and I've only been here for 4 days! All that to say I should have lots of stories when I get back assuming I keep it up.

**Sorry this is all so random. I'm doing it in short intervals when I have time.

Fun facts:
1. There are 10ish people (I don't remember if it's 10 or 12) here from UofA. Isn't that cool?! We make up 10% of the total group! NWA is so great!
2. A lot of the students here go to Christian schools where the ratio is like 1 guy to 7 girls. Isn't that nuts?!
3. Less than 1% of North American missionaries go to unreached peoples (You can read about what an unreached people group is in my last newsletter). Most of the teams (about 21) this summer are going to unreached peoples! Isn't that cool!?
4. I'm still in America which is why I'm using all of these "Christiany" words. :)

I miss you all!

See ya Fayetteville!

So, I'm leaving for Florida for Training/Orientation in less than 8 hours! (This will be short. I'm going to bed soon :)

I just wanted to assure you that you are in the right place. This is where I will be updating this summer. Don't let the older posts confuse you. They're from last summer. :)

Thank you for reading and lifting me up! I so appreciate y'all!

Lovelovelove

Done!

It is a sad, but refreshing thing to be writing my final post of the summer from home. Home as in my real home. In Arkansas. With my wonderful parents and brother :) I'm very very excited to be home and see the fam, but I love Kaleo and could definitely have spent more time there.

Fun things~

We went on a Christmas in July themed D-Group date and it was so fun! The guys did awesome! They built a fireplace with a fire in it (a computer playing a fire screen saver), made hot chocolate for us, did white elephant gift exchange, and even took us caroling after we made cookies!



A lot of us from the project also went on short float down Turkey Creek. It was so so fun.



The day before everyone left we went to this place called Crab Island and it was also a blast!



Greatest things I've learned this summer:
~There is no such thing as sacrifice for God. Anything that we are "sacrificing" to do something for Him isn't a sacrifice. It's what He deserves and what we don't. He doesn't have to use us to spread His Gospel and be in His Kingdom, but He chooses to.

Thank you all so so much for your prayer and monetary support. I am so thankful for all of you and can't imagine what my summer would've been like without you. A super thanks to my parents for being so generous and supportive. They are such a blessing. I love you all and hope to talk to you soon!

Happy end of summer!

9 days?!?!

Yes. I know. I have failed miserably at updating often. Once again, I apologize.

However, I’m super excited about everything that has been going on here! Again, my thoughts will be random and in no specific order.

WE HAVE 9 DAYS LEFT!!!! That's ridiculous. Know what else is ridiculous? The fact that I wrote a huge update the other day, but when I tried to post it it disappeared. Tragic, I know.

Story: One Saturday, my girls and I were going to my coworker’s son’s birthday party in a wonderful place called Navarre. We’d never been there, but it’s a pretty little island. So, while driving around this island after the super awkward but fun birthday party, we saw a sign that said Arkansas St. We/I freaked out. We decided we must take a picture by it because hello. We go to Arkansas. Side note about Navarre: There’s sand everywhere and very little vegetation. So, leaving the island we were going to stop by the sign and take a picture. Navarre is very not busy, so there was NO ONE around the sign. Wanting all of us to be in the picture, I asked if I should pull off to the side of the road, set the camera on my car, and turn on the timer so we could all be in the picture. My girls said yes. I pull off the road. The minute all four tires hit the sand (it looked like sand/gravel daddy), my tires started spinning. We started laughing hysterically because earlier that day we were talking about our friend Matt getting his truck (2wd) stuck in the sand. While laughing we were like, “no big deal, we have four wheel drive.” I soon came to find that I had no clue how to put my car in 4wd (I’ve never had to.) All of our windows were down and around the corner came a golf cart. I/we started laughing more because as I said earlier, no one was in sight. THEN an expedition with 3 guys came around the corner behind the golf cart which had slowed down to see what was going on. They asked if we were stuck. We said a little bit. One of the men (which turned out to be a dad and his two sons), asked (rather rudely) if I was trying to take a shortcut or what I was doing. I was confused. I didn’t understand what I would be taking a shortcut to, but I just replied (because at this point I was laughing so hard I was crying) “Well you see sir, we’re from Arkansas, and that sign says Arkansas, and we just wanted to take a picture by it.” I thought this was a fine response because it was the truth, however this man kept asking if I was trying to take a shortcut. After the questioning and I think realizing that I was being serious he told me to straighten up my wheels (as did another car that came by) and how to put my car in 4wd. Then he and his sons began to push my car, but really they didn’t have to push at all. I just crawled out (because I have a Jeep. Duh.) I said thank you (still laughing) and they left. It was a wonderful memory and lucky for you it’s on film. J (Don’t worry daddy. Jep is fine. I learned my lesson.)

We had Missions Conference last weekend, and it was incredible. Life changing. Awesome. I think I wanna be a missionary.

5 things I've become more thankful for this summer:

• How organized Kevin is (and the rest of the Springdale crew of course)
• My family and friends. I love and miss ya'll a TON!
• Jesus' death on the cross. Seriously, think about it. Someone PERFECT loved YOU so much that He died a horribly gruesome death for you. He WANTS to spend eternity with you.
  
• Quietness.
• Large bodies of water
  

One thing God has really been growing in me this summer is a heart for the lost. I mean, there are people that have NEVER heard His name. They have no idea how much He loves them, and scarier than that is that they will spend an eternity in hell. That's sad.

I love coffee a lot.

I love you all a lot.

Favorites:
~Jon Mclaughin
~Panera Bread
~Cambodia
~Kansas State
~2Corinthians 5:21: For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Isn't that INCREDIBLE?! A man. A perfect man who never sinned died....willingly....because God loves us and WANTS us to want and have a relationship with Him!

I forgot my camera, but I'll put more pictures up soon! Love you all so so much!

I'm gonna try to update this at least one more time before I go home :)