Mission Trip

When you were 15 or 16 how did you want to spend your Easter break? Well this Easter eight of the KISC students decided that they wanted to spend their break doing a mission trip to the far west of Nepal, to a region called Dadeldhura.

Dadeldhura is so far that as I write on Tuesday evening the team should be just arriving, having left yesterday morning at 5am. They drove for 15 hours yesterday and stopped overnight at Nepalgunj, close to the border with India and about 500km west of Kathmandu. Today was a further 300km, including up a steep and windy hill road and a late arrival.

Click here to see a larger map of the trip.

KISC's owners, HDCS (Human Development and Community Services), a Christian Nepali NGO, run the district hospital in Dadeldhura (it's located in a small village called Armagadhi). It is the only hospital for miles and many people have to walk for days to reach it from all over the region. We have friends who work in the hospital.

HDCS - TEAM Dadeldhura District Hospital

For the next 5 days the team will be involved in the local schools and churches, painting rooms, teaching simple english classes and tai-kwon-doo and helping out in the local church service. Although they do have 3 teachers with them they have planned the trip and the activities themselves and in fact raised all the money for the trip.

The idea of the trip came from two students who used it as part of their manifesto as they ran for student council president in January. While they weren't elected Presidents, they didn't let that stop them and they have organised the whole trip pretty much by themselves and been the driving force behind it. The total cost of the trip was just under $1,000 and they have raised this money themselves over the last 6 weeks, through donations from home churches, a grant from BMS World Mission and a large chunk of the money through a bake sale after the international church one sunday a few weeks ago. In fact they have raised so much money they plan to do another trip next school year, for which they already have a significant amount of funds.

So, if you pray, please remember this team over the next 5 days as they try to make a difference in a remote and very poor part of Nepal, and in the following 2 days as they travel back. This is a group of young people who have inspired me over the last 6 weeks, as they have decided to try to do something to make a difference, and try to bring justice and love in their own way in Dadeldhura.

Time to go home?

As you may already know we are returning to the UK this August for a year. Dan has a place at Oxford Brookes on a Masters course in Educational Leadership and Management. God willing, we will then return to Nepal and KISC at the end of the course for another 4 year commitment.

We have decided to make this move now as we feel the timing was right for a number of reasons. It will be good for us as a family, especially the children, to have some time in the UK with our extended family, as we have now been here 5 years. Dan has reached a point in his work here where he feels further training will be really beneficial in the roles he is fulfilling. He has had so much practical experience in the 5 years here, but all have agreed it will be beneficial for him to do more study, and get more theory, to hang his practical experience on.

Both BMS and KISC have encouraged our decision and are helping us with the different aspects of this move. We will be based in Didcot, staying in a BMS house for the year. Sam will start school in Didcot this September. Becky is hoping to find some part time work to help support us while we are home and Mim will be spending some time with her Grandma Parnell while Becky is at work.

Many other things are already slotting into place nicely for the year ahead (in fact as we've been working on this blog we've been emailed with our flight confirmations!), and we ask that you join us in prayer as we plan to leave one home for another, for just a year. As we pack up here and try to find people to stay in our flat and for all the logistics involved, such as what to do with our all stuff so that they have room for all their things!

We also ask that you pray with us for the children's transition. We haven't told Samuel yet, although he often talks about when will we next go to England (he's had a couple of friends leave recently and this has made him more aware that we live somewhere that isn't where we are from), and so ask for prayer for wisdom as to when we tell him and how we prepare him (and Mim) well for this move.

Then finally we ask you to pray with us for our financial needs for next year. Firstly, that Becky will be able to find a part time job that will fit around looking after the children. One option is teaching locally in Didcot if a job is available, alternatively she is open to doing something else, just no idea what! BMS and KISC as well as a few individuals have already been very generous in offering to support us next year. We will officially be taking a year off from BMS and so will have to raise the money for our living costs for the year. We firmly believe that this year is an important part of the work that we are doing here in Nepal and are trusting in Him for all our needs.

We are so grateful for all the support so many have given us through the last 5 years, most importantly prayer support, but also financial and so we would ask that for your continued support as we change direction for a year rather than leave our work. We will continue to write prayer letters, update our blog and keep you informed of how we are doing. Of course this means we need to ask for financial support, and if you would be interested in finding out more then do contact us.

Thank you.

Can you hack it?

We thought we would set you a challenge in our latest blog.

We woke up this morning to find there was no power, when Dan checked we found out there is a new loadshedding schedule. We are now up to 14 hours of power cuts a day. So we wanted to see if you could manage 14 hours a day with no power. So for example today’s schedule is from 7am-3pm, then 7pm-1am with no power. Every day is different so you need to plan each day according to the schedule.  So here is how we manage.

1. Water: Our shower water is heated electrically so no hot showers during the power cuts. You can have a cold one if you’re really desperate. We also use an electrically powered water filter for drinking water so you cannot filter water during those hours. We have enough bottles to store about 12 litres of water so assuming they are all full we have that much water for drinking and cooking with during the power cuts. Of course we have to make sure we fill them up again when the power comes on. Last night we forgot (as we thought we had power this morning) so we had about 5 litres to get us through to 3pm.

2. Cooking: Our oven is electric so we can’t cook anything using the oven during those hours, we have 3 rings on our gas hob. We now have two evenings a week with power when we can use the oven. All other meals must be cooked on three gas rings.

Sitting under the light to read

3. Electrical items: We have a backup system so can have a light on when there is no power and can charge our  computer or phone if we have too, but we try to keep these charged during power time so we are not using our back up system too much. We put things onto charge overnight as that is often when we get the most power. However, despite having a backup system, during power cuts we cannot use the TV or the washing machine and the fridge-freezer is off. We only keep things in the freezer for a few days at the most as the fridge and freezer are now off for 14 hours a day so not much stays frozen in there especially when the weather begins to warm up next month.

So our challenge to you is can you hack it? Could you stick to our rules above and manage 14 hours a day with no power, limiting your water usage, timing your showers, planning your meals appropriately. If you’re really hard core and want to try it for real we can send you a weeks schedule and you can try for a week to live Nepali style.

We also ask that while you read this and if you try our challenge that you remember we are very fortunate with our back up system. It costs about £250-300 for the kind of backup system that we have. This amount of money is far too much for the average Nepali. So while we complain, many Nepalis are sat in the dark evening after evening with just candle light to see by.

A Christmas tale

Have you ever given blood in England? If you have then you will know it’s a very well organised affair as you donate your blood that you hope will benefit an anonymous receiver at some point in the near future.
Giving blood in Nepal is a different experience.

A good friend of ours has been expecting a baby and was due to have the baby at a hospital here. They needed to arrange their own blood donors to have on standby in case of an emergency. Dan, having the universal blood, offered to be a donor. Well it got to last Thursday and there was no baby so the hospital induced. They told our friends that rather than having the donors on standby they now needed the blood on standby.

So on Thursday evening, after the KISC Christmas Carol service Dan and another lady headed up to the hospital to give blood. On arriving at the hospital we discovered that we didn’t give blood there, but at the blood bank, a 5 minute taxi ride away. So we jumped back in a taxi and headed on up. The taxi driver that took us told us it would take a couple of hours at the bank; it was obviously a not uncommon route for the drivers who wait outside the hospital.


On arriving at the blood bank we handed over our sample of the mother’s blood we had brought in a cold box so that our blood could be checked to be a match. We were taken into the room where we would donate. Having been here for 5 years I didn’t blink, but thinking about it afterwards, if you had come straight from a hospital/blood bank in the UK you would probably notice many differences. The chairs you laid in to give blood where looking old and the coverings were starting to come lose. One of them had lost an arm. The room wasn’t dirty, but it also wasn’t "NHS" clean. The scales for putting the blood bags in had more in common with my kitchen scales than you would expect.  There was a big cardboard box in the middle of the room for trash, filled with used cotton wool and empty juice boxes.

The blood bank people then got quite funny about using my blood as she wasn’t a direct match. The other lady was, so gave her blood and then they agreed I could give my blood and they would give us the one(!) direct match they had in the fridge in exchange for my blood. So up I got onto the seat in went the needle and the blood was given. My reward, a juice box!

We then sat and chatted for nearly an hour while we waited for them to carry out all the checks on the blood (HIV etc) before paying (yes paying) about £10 for the privilege. The two bags of blood then went in the cool box and we went to find a taxi to take us back to the hospital. We dropped off the blood with the nurses and headed home as by this time the baby was well on it’s way; we found out afterwards it was born within minutes of us being there.

Thankfully baby Benjamin came without major trial in the end and the blood was not needed. We were told the blood could be taken back to the blood bank for a partial refund.

We got to meet Benjamin on Saturday afternoon when we dropped round some dinner for the family. Here is Dan holding him at about 40 hours old.

So a Nepal born Christmas baby for our friends. A baby born in a strange location for his family, born in a setting which wasn’t quite picture perfect, but born with parents to love him and support him and visitors who brought gifts. Really though, born into privilege and plenty as he was born to western parents who may have chosen to give up some things to be here, but have so much compared to nearly all that surround them.

Jesus, being God had everything, but he chose to give it all up. He chose to be born as a humble human, in a humble location and to live to serve all of mankind. He chose too, his death, on the cross for all people everywhere, whether born in a Nepali hospital, a British hospital, or born in a shed with the cows.
Happy Christmas.

A call to Pray

The bible teaches us to pray continually, in all circumstances. We believe in the power of prayer to bring about change. So we ask that those of you who also believe to join us in prayer.

KISC is starting 40 days of prayer and is asking all members of the community here in Kathmandu and supporters whether near or far to join in. So whether or not you are in Kathmandu or have ever even been you can join in.

The reason for these 40 days of prayer is that KISC for a long time has been working at trying to get a permanent site. There are currently two plots of land right next to our current site that are vacant and for sale. We believe that this is the place for KISC to build its permanent site, the location is perfect, the size of the plots is good. We just need more money! So we are trusting in God to provide and so spending 40 days praying in relay around the world. If you are interested in  finding out more or joining us in prayer, as an individual or church, then follow the link below to KISC's website and sign up on the right hand side.

www.kisc.edu.np/

The second thing we would like to ask prayer for is for our family's health. It is starting to become a bit of a joke, but we have had one illness after another over the past few months. We've had coughs and colds, the kids have both had a course of antibiotics for chest infections, they've also had conjunctivitis and stomach upsets. For the past three months I don't think we have had longer then a week without someone in the family being ill. We are thankful that none of us has had anything more serious wrong with us (a friends daughter ended up with pneumonia when ours had chest infections and had to spend a night in hospital). So we know it could be worse, and are thankful for that, but ask that you pray with us for some good health in the coming months.

A Nepali Winter

Wrapped up warm

So this week the cold has really set in. I shouldn't really complain, it is the end of November after all. Nepali winters are very different to English ones - and in many ways a lot better, just the lack of heating makes me forget that!

This year it started to get cold quite early, during the last couple of weeks in October. Normally the temperatures don't drop until mid November. This meant that instead of the normal two week transition from t-shirts to 3 layers (minimum) we had a whole month which was quite nice, a month of cooler weather but not too cold.

So conversation with other Mums this week quickly turned to how to keep children warm on these cold nights. To use a heater or not? Gas or electric? How many layers of clothes and blankets? Hot water bottles? Hats, gloves? This is now our 5th winter here (if you count our first when we arrived half way through, in January 2008) and so we have our tried and tested methods for keeping everyone warm - the kids both wear tights under his PJs, blankets over the side of Mim's cot to give a little extra insulation and blankets underneath us all as well as over us to name a few.

The good things about winters here though are that most days we have clear blue skys with amazing views of the Himalayas. In the sun it is quite warm so we spend some time each day on our flat roof warming ourselves in the sun and enjoying the views. The winter here is also short; so just as you are all wrapping up for another cold month we will be putting our jumpers and thermals away by the end of February. We certainly don't miss the cold grey days of an English winter.

However, all this beautiful sunny weather means it is the dry season and that there will be no significant rain until next monsoon (July) and since all electricity production here is hydroelectirc we are very short on power. We currently have 8  hours of power cuts a day. This is not good so early on in the year, so we worry what the next few months hold power wise. Hopefully it means they are being careful and making sure there is enough power to last us through. The snow melt in Spring should help, but there won't be much relief for some time!

Christmas in Nepal

Obviously the biggest event of the winter for most of us is Christmas. Christmas here is also very different from the UK. Yesterday being December 1st we decided to put up our decorations, but apart from a couple of the big tourist shops we haven't seen anything for Christmas here at all (mostly because people here don't celebrate Christmas). It is nice though to be somewhere without all the hype, all the TV adverts and songs for months on end. We were able to put on our Christmas music without thinking "not this song again." But the nicest thing of all was that we can talk to Sam (and Mim as she gets older) about what we are celebrating at Christmas without all the distractions of new toys and everything else. Sam is enjoying opening his advent calendar each day and hearing the stories from the first Christmas.

So as we begin this Nepali winter and our Christmas season we wanted to wish you all a very Merry and Blessed Christmas. 

The Roads, they are A-Changin'

Road works in Nepal, as you can probably imagine, are a different kettle of fish to the West. You will often come along a road to find somebody has dug a hole or trench, for reason that may or may not be evident. Sometimes they will put a leafy branch in the hole so it’s clear for motorists that there is a hole, but there are no cones, and certainly no cone hotline.

Over the last few months however the road works have taken on a whole new level. You see about 25 years ago a law was passed that set the boundaries of the council owned roads, and thus the limit to which people’s properties could extend. However, it was ignored by everyone and people just built the wall of their property a bit further out, claiming a little extra yard/garden space in the process. But many houses were built that stretched over the line.

The Walls come down

Until recently this wasn’t a problem, but then the municipal council for our part of Kathmandu obviously decided that a key solution to the busy traffic problem was to reclaim their road space. And so the road widening has begun. First the numbers appear on the walls. I’ve never seen anyone actually doing this, maybe they do it at night, but when those dreaded red numbers appear, indicating the number of metres to be reclaimed, you know your wall will be going soon. Then notice is given that the wall will be coming down soon. The notice is a sledge hammer through the wall.

At this point most people start building their new wall the required number of metres back from the road. One of the huge benefits of this whole process must be the amount of casual labour work it is providing for many Nepalis who may have been struggling to find work a few months ago. The streets soon look like the set of a World War II drama as they are filled with rubble of walls coming down. Kathmandu is already quite a dry and dusty city and so the air is filled even more with dust. The existing road actually becomes smaller as the rubble piles stretch out into the road.

Drastic redevelopment

Of course for the houses that extended too far it goes to another level, as for many they basically have to take off the front of the house and rebuild the front rooms a few metres smaller than before. The most extreme house we’ve seen is the one in the photo here where a four storey building seems to have lost the front room on every level. There used to be a shop in the ground floor that has now moved next door, but I don’t know what happened to the families that lived above it.

This is not a short process, the first street to be affected is a little way from us, but we think it was a about a year ago they started the process. They finally re-tarmacked a couple of weeks ago. It does look good, and hopefully in the long run will be worth the effort for the city, but it doesn’t half have a big impact. The red numbers have appeared on the road between our house and school. A road which also features a school of a few thousand students who are bussed in on dozens of buses every day. Thankfully there is a back road to school, which I think will become well used by us in the coming months.