It is the day before Maha Sivaratri and anticipation is mounting as we approach the most sacred Saivite festival of the year.

Maruthu Pandian has been working in the Ganapati this phase on various projects. He is also contributing an article for the next issue of Hinduism Today, in which he describes his experience of “Friendship Evangelism” by a fellow Christian student in Malaysia who tried to convert him. It’s quite a story. Stay tuned for the July issue to find out more.

Mohan and Shanthi Thiagarajah arrived from Edmonton, Canada for Mahasivaratri. Originally from Sri Lanka, they are Tamil speaking so they were very pleased to meet Yoginatha Swami who also speaks Tamil. Amit Arora (right) is also visiting for Mahasivaratri and is from Oahu, a neighboring Island.

A special baby blessing was given in the Kadavul Temple this morning for Kamala and her husband Bodhichitta who have recently moved to Kauai. They pose for a photo in front of the temple tank with baby Emilia who was born on January 12th. They observed the tradition of keeping mother and child sequestered for 30 days and today was the little Emilia’s first trip out in the world. They came to Kadavul for blessings with all their friends.

Iraivan is looking very much like a completed temple. It shine in the morning sun.

A picture of Iraivan’s roof. The stones have disappeared below the concrete.

One of the silpis sprays the concrete to keep it cool and wet so that it will cure slowly.

Yesterday’s cement work saw the team move from Iraivan to other areas of the Aadheenam with extra cement to do a few other jobs.

One of these was the footings that are going around the beautiful image of Pancha Ganapati that has been installed in the middle of our ve