Church Happenings

Recently the young people of our church hosted the First Annual Nepal Youth for Christ Conference, or NYC as it was commonly called.  They worked so hard and I'm happy to announce it was a rousing success!  The location was this lovely campus's Multi-Purpose Hall and some classrooms.  It's only a hop, skip, and a jump from our hospital's campus (five minute walk).

Preparations lasted for months, with everything falling into place at the right moment, and finally it was time to get the rooms ready.  This van was among the vehicles filled with books, flowers, blankets, and I'm not even sure what else that carried supplies to the site.

Here is one of the helpers eager to refill his box.

And he's off--so fast I almost missed him!

Here is the beautiful hall where the meetings were held.

The team worked hard to get it ready--and it was no small task!

Here's our helper again, running to tell me what he's been doing.  (Can you tell he's happy?!  :)

 

(The cute thing is that for days afterwords he (and actually several other children who were there also) would say to me, " 'Member when we were there?!"  :))

 Finally the big day came, 

 and with it, the young people!  What a blessing that so many youth from various locations around Nepal and N. India were able to come.  It wasn't easy for some of them--such as those who had to walk for days just to get to a bus stop, those with financial worries, and those who have difficulties just being a Christian.  However, despite all the obstacles, there were close to 350 registered attendees for the Wednesday - Sunday conference!  Praise the Lord!  Besides whole group meetings, there were break-out seminar classes with topics of interest and relevance to the situations young people face in this part of the world.

On Sabbath, the hall was packed as our church members were all invited to attend the church service.

Sabbath School had a panel discussion with the guest speakers (from India and America) along with our Nepali Field Director who came with his wife from Kathmandu.

Song service was next.  I loved hearing the large group all singing together:  Nepali, English, and even perhaps some other languages!

Our Pathfinders (similar to Boy & Girl Scouts) took up the offering.

Our divine service speaker was Jeffrey Rosario from America and the translator was one of "our boys."

Not everyone was able to stay awake during the sermon!  :)

However, everyone else was greatly blessed and inspired by the message.  At the end, young people who were willing to go home and be leaders in their communities were invited to stand.  We are continuing to pray for these brave young people willing to take a stand for the truth, often in difficult circumstances.

In other church news, Ramon recently gave the sermon in our church.  We all enjoyed listening about how Peter put his faith and trust in the Lord.  Translating was Ramon's good friend Sundar. 

Recently I was able to attend a birthday celebration at this nice church in a neighboring town.  (Ramon was working and unable to go.)  When there is a special program, some of their members visit our church, so I know some of them.  Many of the members of our church were also there.

There was a nice song service.

Here is a drummer in training.  The drum kept rolling out of his hands and he finally solved that problem by laying on it!  :)

Pastor spoke a few words.

During the sermonette, a friendship formed before our very eyes!

Too cute for words!!!

To end the program, we all lined up to give the birthday girl her presents and I learned a (new for me) Nepali custom.  Before giving her their gift, everyone fed her some cake.  It was nice. 

Well, that's all for now!  Stay tuned for more news soon!  Take care and God bless!

Riding in Buses with Crowds!

Recently I had my first bus ride in Asia!  Ramon was busy and unable to go when I went with some of the other missionaries to see the lovely mountain view in the nearby town of Dhulikhel. 

Here is "our bus" rounding the corner to the stop where we were waiting.  I'm not sure if we were actually at a bus stop.  When it came near, everyone waved their hands and it stopped!

You can see that it wasn't so crowded that people did not have to sit on the top like you often see here.

However, it still was crowded, and this is the view I had when I got inside.

I had to hold on to the top rail with one hand, and stand against the seat closest to me to keep myself from falling.  Yes, it was crowded, but I must say it was not as crowded as the London Underground Tube ride I took during rush hour when I could not bring my outstretched hand to my side!  :)  As you can see, I could move my hand around to take pictures (as my other hand firmly gripped the rail) and the people I bumped into as the bus bumped along graciously smiled each time I bumped them!

At each stop, more people got on.

Soon my view was like this...  

and this after a bump.

Here is all I could see of the view outside.

I worried about these boys (including two that you can't see), but they were not worried at all!  They played and joked with each other right there in the open doorway as the bus sped along.

Another bump



and it was time to get off.

As we exited, we paid our fee of about ten cents to the "bus boy."

Thanks for the good job Driver!  May you have a successful career!

Now we just need to ride in a rickshaw

and a Tuk Tuk (the three-wheeled taxis).

This one thing I do know, it will be some time before I ever drive here!
(Ramon says he can wait before he drives too!)



Safe travels to all, however you're traveling!



Bandh!

This past week there was a Bandh in the Kathmandu Valley.  "Bandh" is a Nepali word that means "closing."  Bandhs are a form of protest used here in Nepal when there literally is a "closing" of traffic and shops, and usually schools and offices have to close too because of the traffic closing.  It was announced that there would "probably" be a bandh, so no one was taken by surprise, although we had to wait until the morning to find out for sure.  It happened to come this week on our "Town Day," so we couldn't go to Kathmandu.  (This happened once before on our town day not too long after we arrived, and you can read about it early on in the blog.  If you missed it, check out the August 2010 post called "Strike!")  Our doctors who live in Kathmandu were allowed to travel to the hospital.  They were stopped (I heard) but were allowed to pass.  Things were normally busy at the hospital.

The newspaper said that medical shops were allowed to be open, but that staff of government offices would not go to work.  Some people did have to work though and here's the quote, "...peons, however, went to work." 

My friend and I decided to go into Banepa and see if we could find anything open.  We saw people gathered in the town square...

... where someone was reading a newspaper out loud to those standing around.

Indeed, the shops were closed.

However, as you can see above, some sidewalk food stands were open.  I was also able to buy some fruit at a stand.  We did see some people working hard however.

The bus you see here was parked and not going anywhere.  (Down this street I was happy to find the shop that sells fresh yogurt open and I bought some.  It really is delicious!)

We read that about 25 buses and about the same amount of trucks were stranded (near and about here anyway) that didn't make their destination before the bandh started.  Some passengers waited it out with the drivers, and others just walked to where they wanted to go.  About three dozen motorcycles were seized for defying the strike, but were returned after it was over.

Well, true to their word, it was a one day bandh, and soon everything was back to normal--except for the fuel shortage Nepal is experiencing.  We saw looooong lines (maybe a mile long) of vehicles waiting at gas stations on our way home from Kathmandu the next day.  The "lane" on the left is one of these long lines of traffic waiting to get into a gas station.

Oh boy, look at this.  The gas station had run out of fuel and is closed.  However, these guys aren't going to lose their place in line!  They just will stay there all night and wait until fuel comes!

I HOPE that we'll be able to go to Kathmandu next week, but who knows?  I'll keep you posted as to what's happening here in the Himalayas!!! 

By the way, Happy Labor Day!  Here in Nepal it's a holiday for International Labor Day!  (However, Ramon is working since some surgeries can't wait!  I hope he gets home in time for a walk.)  Whatever you're doing today, please enjoy it! 

(Update:  Ramon did get home late and then had to leave again so we missed our walk today.  Since it was raining (we had quite a storm which included hail) we wouldn't have walked even if we had had time.  Oh well!  Maybe tomorrow.... :))