On February 4th, 1948 Sri Lanka achieved its independence from the British colony to become the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.

This year, 2010, Sri Lanka celebrates its 62^nd anniversary of Independence. It holds much significance for the people, since it is the first celebration of national unity since the end of the 26-year civil war, which ended in May, 2009.

This is Sri Lanka’s National Flag:

Each symbol of it represents something of Sri Lanka’s culture and heritage:

• The lion: represents the Sinhala race
• The sword of the lion: represents the country’s Sovereignty.
• The lion’s tail: signifies the noble eight fold path of Buddhism
• Curly hair on the lion’s head: indicates religious observance, meditation and wisdom
• The beard: denotes purity of words
• The sword handle: highlights the four elements of earth, fire, air and water.
• The nose: indicates intelligence
• The two front paws: profess to purity in handling wealth
• The green vertical stripe: represents the minority Muslim race.
• The orange vertical stripe: represents the minority Tamil race
• The yellow border: represents other minor races
• The Bo leaves: represents Buddhism and its influence and also stand for the four virtues of Kindness, Friendliness, Happiness and Equanimity.
• The color maroon: represents the other minor religions.

The kids really enjoyed the change. Josias really has a heart for animals. He was thrilled to see the deers, turtles, monkeys, snakes, parrots, squirrels, the lion, horses, goats and last but not least the peacocks. We think, we have no other choice, but to get him a pet in future.

Jocy
loves to run around with friends. In the last months, she has grown up so much and likes to do everything by herself - what she usually does very well!

Not only the kids enjoyed the day. Daniel had fun being a part on the traditional “group drumming”. On special celebrations here in Sri Lanka, you usually see women sitting in a circle and playing together on a big drum.

Since mid-March Jen from the States moved in with us. Jen is 26 years old and studied graphic design (specialized on prepress software). She is teaching the employees in prepress on how to make the best use of their software. Jen is already a tremendous blessing to the company!

Our kids love her and they get along very well. We are happy to have Jen with us and to get to know her!

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Beside the birthday cakes you could eat fruit salad, a fresh salad, spicy buns (but they were bought), sausages in puff pastry, meat balls with an hardboiled egg inside and a chocolate cake. The next day we shared all the leftovers with our neigbours. They were very happy about that. Jocy’s birthday cake (biscuit with a cream-cheese/curd filling and fruits on top) very interesting for them, because this kind of cake is new for them.

Jocy got a handmade kitchen from us, equipped with a coffee maker, a toaster, some cups and a tea pot. Josias, who didn’t care much for the whole birthday party, got a small car from us.
      

Here are some pictures of our friends, who celebrated with us together:

  
Left picture: Githika is holding Josias. In the back you see her mother-in-law. On the right pictures you see (from the left) Roshina with her two daughters Sithma und Nethmi. They are expecting another baby in October, most likely another girl!

Gloria and her little son came also! On the right picture you see (from left) the son of our houseowner, then Nethmi and her father Svend. Svend is the Norwegian guy of our team. He married a Sri Lankan (Roshina), who’s husband died some years ago. Further in the picture you see Tim and our houseowner Mr. Kenton. Tim and his wife Sharon are from the US. Tim is the director of the printshop here.

On the left picture you see Mr. und Mrs. Kenton again, our houseowner. Through the printshop we were able to get to know another German family: Ralf and Petra with their two sons (7 years and 4 months). They live here in Sri Lanka since December 2007. The birthday party was a good reason to invite them and get to know them a little bit. On the right picture you see Josias und Jocy, who were supposed to blow oot their candles. But the many people and all the attention was too much for them, so mommy and daddy had to blow oot the candles!

Jocy enjoys it to play with the colorful ballons. “Mama look, aren’t we cool with those bandages?”

Josias started walking just in time on his first birthday (actually a couple days later). He is very ambitious to learn and he is able to walk pretty good by now. Exploring is much more fun, when you are able to walk!

finally he arrived!! Josias Daniel was born on the 18th of July 2007 at 9:35 a.m. in the city of Siegburg. He was 50 cm (19 3/4″) long and was weighing 3460 g (7lb 10oz). Everything went very well, praise God! From the first contraction till giving birth was only 5 1/2 hours, compared to 36 hours with Jocelin. There were no complications and both of them are well off.

Thank you for all your prayers and support. Check out the first pictures of Josias or just stop by and see him life.

With love,

Irene & Daniel & Jocelin

His Peace

If you take a close look at the name of our webpage, you will see, that it says much about our passion. Roots and beyond! I have to take you back to the year 2003, when we got married. We pickeed the Bible verse from Ephesians 3:16-17 for our wedding and marriage. “I pray, that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray, that you being rooted and established in love…”. The strength in life ought to come from God, from His glorious riches. And believe me, He is rich. But strength for what? To be able to do much for God? To get things done in life? It says in verse 17, “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts”. Christ is to be made known, He should sit in the control room (heart) of our life. Not for the sake of controlling us, but for the sake of friendship and partnership with us. It is that closeness with Him, that I call love. To be rooted and established in His love means strength, security, acceptance, passion, motivation, and so on. This is, where our name “Roots and Beyond” comes from.

We strive to be rooted in the love of Christ, which He showed to us very practically by dying on the cross. We strive to be in an intimate relationship with Him. It basically is, to know Him and to make Him known. The deeper the roots, the bigger the tree can be, and the more fruit it can bear. Yes, we want to be deeply rooted in Christ, but we also want to go beyond the ground, far beyond.

And this is, where the family of Christ plays a vital role. Together we can get there, in unity and love. The family of Christ is the choosen means, by which the Kingdom of God is build and operates powerfully.

The printshop is not up to date in comparison to Western standard, and does not operate in high profits. And therefore, we are planning on building a supporter group. If you are interested in supporting us, just contact us.

We are planning on being home in Germany by Christmas and hoping on building a supportbase within a year, in order to go to Sri Lanka.