8/2006 - Colorado Springs
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God is willing, and in the spring of 2007, our family relocated indefinitely to Kathmandu, Nepal. There we serve at a school and have begun to learn the language and culture of a country in transition.
Nepal's transition is not just political, it is spiritual as well. The vast majority of the country, 95%+ depending on who you ask, is a combination of Hindu and Buddhist. The last 50 years have seen tremendous progress in this Country and we want to continue that work.
The school we spoke of earlier needs our help. Ryan serves teaching IT. Chandra is helping as the primary secretary, but with the kids so young it will not be full time for her.
So here is where you come in. The spiritual climate in the whole region wears heavily on Christians here. One couple we met, whose kids graduated from the school, have been there for over 15 years. They have encountered a lot of challenges, but are still going strong. We believe with them that it takes a foundation of spiritual support to free us to succeed. It is a principle God put in place, that we are truly a body. It is our hope that every one of you will pray for us as often as possible in the years and hopefully decades to come.
Matthew 6:21 - "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Nepal
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The school cannot pay us to work. Most of the students come from missionary families that survive themselves on the shoulders of their supporters. So we are asking for you to consider allocating some of your treasure to support us. We realize many of you are not in such a position, for you we ask that you pray for us as though you had given us your treasures. If you do support us financially, please pray for us like you have given all you have. Sincere spiritual support is the key to long term missionaries and their success. It is only in believing the Matthew 6:21 (above) and 1 Corinthians 12:12 (the body of Christ) principles that I can rebuke my own pride and ask you to be our partners. Please allow us to climb on your shoulders and go to Nepal to contribute our talents to the move of God there.
The students are nearly all children of nearby ministers involved in medicine, church planting, education, and more. We consider it an honor to help empower these families to stay longer and do more. It will take us years to learn the culture well enough to even begin to communicate well with the locals. So we consider it a double blessing to be in a position to be fruitful as soon as our feet hit the ground. We love the people of Nepal, and we have every intention of being part of local ministry to nationals. It's just great that we can step into this support role immediately. Praise the Lord.
Nepal
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Psalm 50:10 - "...for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills."
We believe the principle of Psalm 50:10. God owns everything. He can and will provide for us. We just hope to some degree that you, our brothers and sisters, will be the vessels He uses. In that way we will be part of the vine, exactly where God wants us. Leaning on God and you to achieve things we could never do alone.
Nepal
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This month school is out and we are as busy as ever. Ryan works on campus normal hours preparing for the coming school year.
Chandra works at school several mornings a week while still putting a lot of care into the kids. Evenings can be quite busy too.
Often Ryan slips away to help someone or goes to his desk to keep up with work back in the states. Chandra has her hands full with the house and two very active children.
After everyone settles in, the kids start to relax, and when the day's work comes to an end we try to spend time together every night.
Surrendra and his family are around several days a week. They come to church every week and have spent time there with a very
saintly Nepali lady who just happens to be also named Sarasoti. Last month we mentioned that Sarasoti (Surrendra's wife) seemed uncomfortable at church. That has been changing
and we are so excited that there are people who have time to disciple them.
The kids are doing really good. Thankfully Chandra has time to spend with them and Punam has been a great helper too. We are committed to
making sure Chandra isn't gone too often. There is so much to do here that we are daily tempted to commit to more, but there needs to be a limit and our leadership are very respectful of that reality.
Last week (6/29) we had a birthday party for Punam our helper. She is a sweet young Christian Nepali woman. She spends a lot of time
with the kids, teaching them Nepali and helping Chandra around the house and with her Nepali. The other day she came to work and told us that when she left our house she was dragged about 10 feet
trying to get off of the bus. She seems to be okay but was quite scraped up.
This month we said goodbye to a lot of our new friends. This will be common occurrence here as the average stay is less than 2 years. On the bright
side we had several visitors, including friends from Colorado Springs. Here's a picture of the girls all dressed up!
We have connected in a LOT of ways. Computers are used extensively here but there are very few formally trained technologists around. Many computer folks have just had to learn what they
could out of necessity. Ryan has already networked with several ministries and does what he can. We've made some friends and had some neat experiences in the process. We have even been invited out
to the remote Dholpa region to help a training center with their systems. Computers seem to find their way to some interesting places these days. The trip would be a bit expensive and there is a
lot to do here just now. So we'll see what happens.
An Indian fair moved into our choke (intersection, circle, a designation for finding things here). Yesterday we heard about the ring of death where several young folks drive
motorcycles and even cars around at very high speeds almost vertical in a small bowl shaped ring zig zagging back and forth and ... well we have only seen it through the cracks in the track. As you can imagine there isn't much regulation here
so we opt to maintain a safe distance from the thrills. Though so far as we can tell there haven't been too many injuries.
The kids really seem to have settled in a bit better this month. Alicia finally seems to be potty trained. Elijah is holding out on the walking and talking bit, but he's
sure a mellow dude. He can entertain himself for long periods. He likes to climb on everything so we have to limit his access a bit. The solid concrete floor is not the best place for him to learn.
We sure appreciate all of your prayers. God has not let us down. Somehow 1/3 of budget has kept us in the black. We are getting much better at doing life here. Remember,
when you are asleep we're working, and it's likely while you're reading this we are asleep. It's funny how big and small the world is at the same time. 
VIDEO: To watch the video tell us: how fast is your internet?
