Monsoon Wedding

Well, last you heard Celestina's visiting visa to Canada was refused and we were sad. But things have a way of going on, and you can't be sad for long. Also, the Almighty has his people, and they rallied and now we have a great honeymoon/vacation lined up in the British Isles for the summer, including two weeks in a scrumptious country cottage in Yorkshire. The Lord has given ...

But now we are in Pakistan, and it's really about to happen. I don't have time to get into all of it (turns out that weddings are all-consuming things), but a few highlights were:

*My parent's frantic re-packing job on the floor of the check-in counter at Vancouver International, after I told them they could take two carry on bags and this was proven true by the emphatic staff of British Airways ...

*The arrival at Islamabad International, and the sort of stunned look of my relatives as they exited the terminal into the gigantic milling crowd of expectant looking men in tunics and turbans ...

*Going through the crowd after that ...

*Telling the cheeky would-be baggage helper that, No, I would not pay him anything for touching one of the bags as it went into the van, because No, that did NOT count as helping ...

*The sudden sharp intakes of breath from my relatives in the back of the van when we drove anywhere ...

*The moment at Celestina's house when her sisters insisted that my cousin Deb sing a song ...

*Singing This is the Day after that ...

*The moment that the pastor took my earlier fumbling assertion that my mother could sing as a license to inform her in the middle of the rehearsal that she would be singing the English hymn ...

*The subsquent practice session with a keyboard player who insisted that he could pick up the tune if she would sing it for him, which assertion he managed single-handedly to disprove soundly over the course of the next hour ...

*The moment at the rehearsal when Esti and I practiced our vows and I knew the whole thing could fall apart around us, but this was dead sure.

So that's a bit of a summary. We've also found a place to live in Islamabad for the month of June while we get our immigration application ready, and it has internet access, so I'll be writing in a bit more detail later. In the meantime, I've decided I hate Flickr, and I've been talked into Facebook, which means that if you want to see the photos, you need to either join Facebook yourself and become my friend (you'll see what I mean) or stand resolute, don't join, and click this link ... HERE.

I'll see you on the other side ...