We arrived in Manali three days ago, after a six-hour white-knuckled twisty mountain road trip from Chandigarh. We’ve been going non-stop since we got here, but at every spare moment, I notice each one of us stopping to take in a breath of this sweet mountain air and an eyeful of the natural beauty of our surroundings. A large portion of our story rests in these Himalayan foothills, as Mia spent most of her life here at the Dar-Ul-Fazl children’s home. Yesterday we spent all day with Mia and some of her friends who still live there; she gave us a tour of the areas she grew up in, she took us shopping in Old Manali, and we took a hike up the mountain to look down over the town the home is settled in. In this short time that we’ve been together, Mia has become very comfortable talking to us and opening up about her life; through this, we have been able to solidify some of the lingering questions we had surrounding the closure of this story. It has become necessary to once again change up our travel plans; shortening our trip to Leh, spending more time in Manali, redefining our time in Delhi — Nick has altogether stopped creating call sheets.

We are all so grateful to be here on behalf of Child of Mine, to fully understand their call to ministry, and to be able to walk with Mia through this story of her life. Heartfelt-thanks to each one of you who are praying for this project and to those who have provided financial support to help make this happen. You can imagine that all these changes to our itinerary are quickly stretching our budget; if any of you are feeling the call to Send, we would greatly appreciate your donation to this project. We also humbly ask for your continued prayer for the team, for Mia, and for two other characters who have developed in this story.

All photos taken by Nick on his iPhone.