Finding your feet on a wonderful road...

After a fun-filled week in Delhi, we hopped on a plane and headed southeast to Bangkok, Thailand. We both love Southeast Asia. The kind and friendly people, the delicious (and cheap) food, the warm weather and sunshine…it really doesn’t get much better than this part of the world. For this reason, Thailand is somewhere that we had been looking forward to for a long time. Our plan was to start our time in Bangkok, then head to Chiang Mai and onto Phuket after that, but COVID-19 had other plans (more on that in a future post, but for now we’re back in the U.S.). We were excited to begin our Thai adventure in Bangkok with the opportunity to explore the Thai capital and learn about this amazing country. I (Haley) had visited Bangkok for about a week in 2011 while staying with some friends (who are like my second family) in between my time in Beijing and India. We took a short trip from their home in south China (Shenzhen) during the holidays. It was just enough time to dip my toes in

After an emotional goodbye in Hyderabad, Perry and I boarded a short-ish flight to Delhi, the capital of India. Before we had ever really done much planning for this adventure, getting to Delhi during this week was on the calendar. Why, you might ask. Well, every year India celebrates a festival called “Holi” that we really wanted to make it to on March 11th. You may have heard or seen this festival. The U.S. has a 5k race that started several years ago called the “Color Run” that is based on the festival. During Holi, people purchase colored chalk and throw it all over each other along with shooting water guns and throwing water balloons filled with colored water. It’s even more fun than it sounds. And the best part about this week in Delhi and getting to celebrate Holi? My cousin, Megan, and her husband, Josh, met us in Delhi to join in on the fun. It was fantastic to have them along. We had a blast! Delhi is a pretty interesting city. Though I had visited it for a fe

“Weeping may come for the night, but joy comes in the morning…” Psalm 30:5 This last week, we returned to a country and a place that has kept pieces of my heart over the years. Each time that I arrive, my heart beats a little bit faster at what awaits once the wheels on the plane touch down. And each time I depart, another piece of my heart gets left behind. When I first arrived in South India in January 2012, I had no idea what was awaiting me. I was excited and nervous about accepting an opportunity to volunteer at Sarah’s Covenant Homes (SCH) in Ongole. India was a country that I had always dreamed of visiting after reading the stories of Mother Teresa’s work in Kolkata. When Sarah (founder and namesake of SCH) emailed me a couple weeks before my arrival and asked if I would be interested in helping start and run a foster home for 12 girls ages 2 to 13, I thought, “Sure, why not?” Little did I know that those months would be some of the most difficult and joyful of my whol

Over the last two weeks, we’ve spent time in the Middle East within the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) and on a Middle Eastern cruise. When we started planning this trip and talking about where to go, we kept coming back to the idea of finding a way to visit the Middle East in a way that would make our parents happy…so after some thought and research, we found a cruise that left from Dubai, U.A.E. and starting planning around that. We started our time out in Dubai for a few days, boarded a 7 night Royal Caribbean cruise and then returned to Dubai for several days. And honestly, it was all so nice. I’m not sure what you picture when you hear the words “Middle East.” But for me, there was definitely a lot of sand, hot temperatures and Islamic clothing. If you thought of these things then you’d be correct most of the year (it can sometimes reach almost 130 degrees in the summer, but it “cools” off to the 70s and 80s in the winter, which is now…). But I think too, I have a lot o