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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How funny. Consider this outlet. It is a reality of life in Nepal. There are at least 6 different plug types common here. This one tries to
accommodate several at the same time. It takes care of a few quite
well, but others are just terrible. We are constantly "jiggling" them to get them to work. I think this adapter is a great example of what we do. We try everything, our pride tells us we can,
but we only do a few things really well. Investing our talents back into the Kingdom of God, that's our desire!
The kids are doing great! Elijah tries to squeeze himself into any space he thinks he can fit in. He fits in a lot of places these days too.
Just this morning I found him under & behind a desk sitting on a UPS and screaming cause he couldn't get back out again. It is really very entertaining. They have a lot of fun. That is an answer
to prayer. It took them a while to adjust, but we are so happy to see them developing. Please pray that we find more opportunities, especially for Alicia, to spend time with kids her age.
Alicia is learning Nepali pretty quickly. She counts to 10, says goodbye, and lots of random other phrases. Chandra is reading and writing
now. She can read most words she sees very slowly. The lessons are moving her along very quickly. Ryan hasn't gotten to reading yet because he is dherai bistaari (very slow).
This picture was taken just outside our gate after school. The monsoon has pretended to let up only to turn our yard into a mud pie the next day.
Ryan's guitar "blew up" in its case one evening. It is VERY humid these days. We guess that's what happened. He pulled it out in the evening
while the power was out and as he strummed it realized that something was wrong cause it really shouldn't go that far out of tune. Sure enough the bridge had broken and the strings all came loose.
VIDEO: To watch the video tell us: how fast is your internet?
