India/Nepal Report #21: Sun, Nov. 25, 2012 at 5:30 a.m. from Kathmandu, Nepal
Dear Family and Friends:
Thank you for the Thanksgiving emails, some of them very creative. They were a link with back home. Home for us now is where our suitcases are, but we are looking forward to storing them again for a while at our real home (this side of Heaven).
We have made many new friends, but they do not REPLACE the ones we have from all the earlier years. The list just keeps growing. Yesterday (Sabbath) we had a good group again for the two sermons and health talk. They want to hear more while we are here and don’t seem to mind sitting on their cushions from 10:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. We have them stand and take deep breaths in between sermons and they seem to really like that.
The sermons were “Will a Loving God Burn Sinners Forever?” and “The Gospel in Priestly Garments.” I chose to present them in that order because it is easier to trim the Sanctuary sermon using a local person to wear the robes, and fit it into the available time and interest. They really came alive when they saw one of their own being dressed in the robes. I had two copies of my Sanctuary book in English and gave one to the pastor and the other to Bhaju Ram who translated for us several of the sermons and health talks. He and pastor work together in producing the Sabbath School Lessons in Nepali each quarter. Apparently they do not get financial help for that from the Mission. They depend on help from others to make it happen. We gave them $100 to help with their work and wished it could have been more. They both see the need of translating my book into Nepali when they can work it into the schedule. There is not much available in Nepal on the Sanctuary.
One nice couple who have attended consistently have a beautiful little girl and wanted our pictures together with them. He chose to not go to his job at the United Nations in order to attend the meetings. He knows English very well along with Nepali. His wife (Grace) is the Associate Principal of the Zenith School, a private school that is not under the Mission umbrella but is SDA and teaches Bible along with the other subjects. She is from Bangladesh and her sister has worked with an SDA dentist there (Mascala) and he is brother to Marie Konupcik at Gentry. Small world! Grace is the one who wanted to bring her students to our meetings and so we changed the time in order to make that happen. The problem is that we lost some who had been coming at the other time but could not meet the revised schedule. We gain some and lose some.
After the services we came back to the Mission by three p.m. and had a great meal. Jared and Tanya Wright had joined with Chuck and Cathy Jenson to celebrate Thanksgiving with special food including potatoes, gravy, veggie choplets, a real tossed salad that was safe to eat, black-eyed peas, and a small piece of home made pumpkin pie. They had already eaten but there was plenty left over for us. That was followed by a bit of fellowship and a short nap before Bhaju arrived at 4:20 to take us with him to a small group meeting at the house of some of his friends/relatives. They are people whom he led into the SDA message out of Hinduism. They are so very glad for all they have learned and the hope they now have in Jesus.
I was asked to bring them a short message and I talked about hanging in memory’s hall some pictures of how Jesus has led us in the past to encourage us in the present when trials come. They do have a lot of trials and troubles. One family has taken in 20 orphans that were living in unspeakable conditions when their parents died. Now they are happy once again. It is a struggle for this man and his family to keep the orphanage going. They occasionally get some help from people outside Nepal. The family we were visiting had photos of family hanging on their wall and that gave me the idea of what to talk about. I started by telling them of Israel crossing the Jordan River on dry ground and Joshua having them carry out of the river bed twelve large stones to make a pillar on the western side. When their children would see that pile of stones and ask about it, their parents could tell them how the Lord had led and blessed. We need things today in modern setting to remind us of past blessings and to use as a tool to educate our children in the Lord. Maybe our PowerPoint presentations and Shutterfly picture books can accomplish some of that.
Some of the group had been to our meetings even though they lived within walking distance of where we are staying at the Mission. We walked there by fading sunlight and back “home” afterward by flashlight. There is a lot of construction going on now all over Kathmandu that makes walking (and driving) very difficult. The sidewalks are covered with dirt or broken up for later replacement. On the way we passed a public Laundromat that is really just a water source surrounded by stone floor and sides that provide an area for individual families to do their washing. People’s needs are really the same all over the world. They just have different ways of meeting them.
Jared and Tanya Wright had an email from Jonathan and Karen Lovitt who are now safely back home in USA. They spent Thanksgiving with family. You remember that they had to leave West Bengal by order of the Indian Government after being there with Adventist Frontier Missions for seven years. The Wrights are going home also in a little while but plan to return to do some work at the SDA Hospital here under a visa the hospital will provide. In USA they will get some specialized training first.
We learned from Jared that they were not forced to leave Darjeeling but chose to leave before being forced to. Jared said he saw a small boy trying to take his keys out of the motorbike and thought it was an attempted theft, so he wrestled the boy to the ground. Then a policeman came and said that the boy was deputized for the day and thought he was protecting property. At any rate there was harassment that followed and they could not tell Jonathan from Jared (he said) and so Jared thought it best to leave while he could still do so on his own. That way he may be able to return if it is ever feasible to do so.
There is a definite chill in our room and we are happy to have use of the propane heater. By pointing it into the bathroom we can get a somewhat warm environment to dry off after the shower. So far the solar heated warm water has been sufficient for us and the Jensons. Both of them will leave today—she is back at the hospital after being here for the weekend, and he will ride his motorbike some 200Km to where Bob Robinson and the Olivers (Ken and Virginia from Washington State) are conducting another evangelistic series. We will not see the Jensons again on this trip. Chuck feels he does better riding the bike than going by crowded bus. In the past he has had to ride on the bus roof when the inside is crammed full. He doesn’t get an inside seat until they reach a police checkpoint and everyone has to get off the bus. Then even if he gets a seat inside the environment is so crowded that it is not pleasant. Cathy fears for his safety driving the cycle since so many motorcyclists here drive so recklessly and get into accidents. It doesn’t leave many good choices for him.
It has been so pleasant being here with them and sharing stories. They are very open about everything and fill us in on what is really happening here with the various entities. Jensons will be leaving for USA shortly also to be with their grandchild until January 27. They have a son at Loma Linda who has a year and a half remaining until he is through his medical residency. It is hard to be away so far when family needs them too.
We won’t see much more of Bhaju since he has many other irons in the fire, but he plans to be to at least one more meeting. He had planned to take us to see more things, but we recognize his other needs too and don’t mind just enjoying a little quiet in our room for study and sermon preparation. Today we start the tedious packing of our suitcases to adjust them to fit airline requirements. It is good that we brought the little hand lift scales with us for a final check before we hit the scales at the airlines window and variations can cost you a lot of money. Flying is no longer a pleasant experience for us.
It is good that we bailed out of the dedication of that distant church Bob Robinson insisted we visit and help dedicate. No doubt he is thinking of our being able to share that experience at home and encourage others to give toward building needed new churches. We do not feel right about leaving the last two meetings here in order to do that. And, maybe he doesn’t know even though we have told him, that we do not ask people for funds for our projects. We trust the Lord to impress those who should give to do so. We realize there are many worthy projects other than ours. If it is all the Lord’s work we don’t care where the money comes from and where it brings the blessing. The Lord is in charge of that. We just want to do our part faithfully.
Speaking of keeping warm, before the heater we used the strategy of simply getting in bed with clothes on (except shoes) and letting body heat be contained rather than dissipated into the chilly room. Bed is also the refuge when power is off just at sundown when you need it for study and getting ready for bed. By going “early to bed” we are able “early to rise” and study when the lights are back on again. Sometimes it does stress the schedule a bit. We are never sure just when the car or taxi will arrive to take us to meeting, so we have to just BE ready whenever. That is also true of preparing for the Second Coming of Jesus. Life is full of lessons to be learned if we are sensitive to them.
So far we have not found a good place in Kathmandu to cut my hair. This close to the flight home, we’ll just wait for my own barber who knows what to do with the surplus. Maybe he will charge by the bushel rather than the job. If strength came with hair length (as with Samson) I’d be able to carry our suitcases easily. It does take some doing to get our two carry on cases up and down the airplane steps when you mount the smaller planes that do not get to the gate with the walk ramps. We get exercise in one way or another. Almost everything we do here involves climbing lots of steps or else hiking through narrow streets with traffic in all forms buzzing by. People here are used to it and don’t seem to give it a thought. They have “near death experiences” every day. We continue to be amazed at how the experienced taxi drivers can thread their way through crowds of almost any composition with alacrity. We have seen a few scrapes but nothing of any serious consequence yet.
MONDAY at 8:30 a.m.
Last night showed once again how Satan has many ways of trying to interrupt or prevent the meetings. We were to meet our taxi at 1:15 to do a little shopping on the way to church. We were ready but the taxi did not show up. Pastor Umesh was hard to reach since his phone is not always on. Well, he finally called to say that the taxi we usually use was “broken” and was being repaired. (From the sounds while traveling in it and the constant shaking on the rough roads, we fully expected that to happen but did not know just when). The driver would come as soon as he could. So we waited and waited until finally we knew we could not reach the church in time for the 3 p.m. beginning with the Jesus Video. It takes a little bit to set it all up.
At last we hailed another taxi and tried to communicate how to find the church. It does not have a recognizable address. One taxi gave up and went on. Another stopped and we were looking at his map (couldn’t reach the pastor’s phone to get directions to the driver) and decided we would try to pick out way along. Just then the usual taxi and driver arrived with apologies for the hour plus delay. He knew all the back roads to avoid the congested highways that are smooth and he did not slack his pace much because of the bad roads. We wondered if the car and we would be “broken” before we got to church. We arrived just at the time to begin and were only ten minutes late in starting the Jesus video. There was an excellent group out for “Why I Am A Seventh-day Adventist” and several indicated they also wanted to become SDA when they have had proper preparation. We want them to know just what it involves before going ahead.
Bhaju came back with us to the room after the meeting. He had been gone all day until our meeting. There he led out in two songs and we discovered that he does not hit the right notes either in spite of playing classical guitar and piano.
We didn’t tell you that the other day Pastor Umesh tried to lead the group in singing without accompaniment. They have not used the Harmonium as we expected. Maybe on one knows how to play it or it is broken. Occasionally someone tried to play the guitar softly, but my impression was that they were playing something entirely different from what the congregation was singing. Of course, I am of no help at all to them in that part of the program. Well, pastor began singing about two octaves higher than the normal voices could reach and sustain. He could not either. The resulting “caterwauling” (look up the dictionary meaning for best results) almost sent me into a fit of laughter. With great effort I held it in and tried to look somber. When the second stanza was the same, I almost lost it for sure. Mary Alice in the congregation noticed but I don’t know if others did. Maybe they thought I just always looked that way.
Following the meeting the taxi driver took us (and the usual other passengers that led to wall to wall stuffing) on our way back to our room. Our tightness was aided by his having to take the generator back to where we rented it. The space for trunk is so small that the generator leaned our back seat forward until we really needed a shoehorn to get it in and a can opener to get out again. Even then we have our laps stacked high with the computer and video projector etc. that we don’t want to get ruined from shock when we hit the bumps in the road.
When one passenger got out at his place to catch a bus to his distant village, we had a little more room to put the equipment. And by then we had returned the generator so the back seat was in its usual place.
The reason we were the ones to return the generator is that pastor had to walk to church rather than drive. The alley we use to get to the church is so narrow that pastor cannot drive his car there. He can’t turn around when he is there and if he parks the car off to the side it is likely to get scratched. He has a motorbike but has broken off the key twice and can’t use it now until fixed by a locksmith.
The taxi took us home by a different route. We learned that he was taking us to a shop where I could buy a Nepali hat. His late arrival to take us to the meeting prevented any shopping stops as we had planned. In the conversations I had told pastor why we wanted to shop on the way to the meeting. He then revealed that the church has just such a hat they plan to give me at the farewell tonight at the closing meeting. Lack of communication led to the useless stop on the way home. As you see, communication is very fragile. You can’t counteract what you don’t know about.
Bhaju Ram came all the way with us because he wanted to show us on his laptop (in his backpack) a little PowerPoint slide show on Nepal that he had taken to USA to show as a mission story in one of the churches. Now we have a copy of it. He also wanted to copy our sermons and health talks to use in his outreach here. We are using materials from a very old CD Rom series that all the newer ones by Share Him and Quiet Hour and Mark Findley have based theirs on. So we don’t feel bad about sharing the visuals now. Much of it is in slides I have made in the Mizo language and they are not copyrighted.
The reason Bhaju was wearing his backpack is that he had been recording more programs at the studio for the radio program he and Pastor Umesh air on several stations in Nepal, and had his little laptop in it. He is a busy man! I was able to show Bhaju how to make the pictures bigger on his screen when presenting it without a video projector.
He had not eaten all day since breakfast so we shared with him a power bar to eat on his walk back to his home where supper awaited him. His eyes lit up when he saw that bar. They are not available here but he has been to USA several times, a gift from his children.
The taxi driver told us last night that he would not be able to come for us today. Deepa, the Hindu helper with paperwork at he office here, told us that Pastor Umesh had told her to get a taxi for us this morning and tell them how to get to the church. Pastor will meet us at some place where the driver can easily find and we will walk from there with helpers to carry our equipment. We are fully capable of doing it but they insist on helping in that way because “we are a little bit older.”
Deepa tells us also that Kapil will not take us to the airport tomorrow since he has to be down at Butwal where the other meetings are and will translate for them. He leaves before we do since it is more than 200km there. That means we will go by taxi with a carrier on top in case our two larger suitcases will not fit into the small trunk space.
We are here alone now with the Jensons away, but know where everything is that we need. It is not a problem. There is always more to write about as we remember little happenings, but we will send this now while we still have an Internet connection. If enough news warrants it, we will try again tomorrow before heading for the airport.
With love,
Glenn and Mary Alice (Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma)