Saturday Church

Saturday - we went off to another church at one of the hostels and saw some more of our girls.  It was very cramped but freezing.  Then in the afternoon , we went to Tusal for one of our Australian sponsors   who  came all this way to met Ruth.  It was a very teary meeting, and then they sat a chatted for a couple of hours.  Lyn and her daughter Katie have flown out this morning to the place "Garbage River" where the girls come from just to get an idea of how they lived before they came here.  Grahame has gone also with three other men who are working on the micro financing programme.  They will be gone till the evening of the 15th.  So Miriam and I are here by ourselves.  Miriam has worked so hard in the past two weeks, so today we are having a girl day and going into Thamel, the tourist area, for a bit of a look around and lunch at the Garden of Dream  Miriam flies home tomorrow so tomorrow night I am home alone.  I need to start trying to pack up our stuff (there is lots of it) as we will be moving on the 20th into our new guest house, that is if the current tenants have moved ( I know Nepal and how things work)

Robyn

Friday- Ups and downs of Nepal

We only had two 15 min. blocks of electricity in 24 hours, today.  We had food defrosting in out little fridge, I just started the washing as soon as the power came on and then it went off again.  I had to go all the washing Nepalese style, by hand.  These poor women do it all the time.  Then the washing machine broke down when the power came back on again,  We had new people arriving and we were stumbling around in the dark, as they hadn't brought torches.  But on the other hand we took some of our folks to see the girls and the babies at Tusal, and Stephen Fyson taught the kids some action songs  and they really loved all that. During the day it is lovely on the flat roof tops of the buildings here.  The kids have their lunch there.  Eating mountains of rice with dahl and curried veges.

Robyn

Knowing how to celebrate but big!!

What a wonderful and open people they are here in Nepal.

Today we had the graduation and celebration ceremony for the end of this training course.  These people are so open hearted that they applaud for each other for long periods of time (back home in Australia we seem to fatigue in our ability to keep encouraging each other)...

They also think to say thank you in substantial ways to all those who have helped in any way at all.  The cheer that the cook received was long, loud and incredibly appropriate :)

And more than all of this, they express joy, gratitude and hope in our Lord through music and words in ways that stir the heart.  For me, the time here has enriched me in more ways than I can currently put into words.

When I get home I will look again at Grace - because here in Nepal God has used the time of fellowship to remind us of His throne of mercy and grace (you can read about it at the end of Hebrews chapter 4).

God is good...

Stephen J Fyson PhD

From Craig Murison

I am just finishing a week in Nepal with Educate Nepal. I have been teaching on leadership. While I have taught in other third world situations in Africa, I have never experienced a more receptive audience than I have experienced here. The people are really beautiful. They are very hungry to grow. Not just for the sake of growth, but so that they can see their nation transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

They want to see the nation of Nepal transformed and all the surrounding nations as well.

Seeing the Badi girls, the girls who would normally be sold into the sex trade, just worshipping God brings great joy to my heart. We visited the hostels and the half way house where these girls, and women, are given the chance to live lives free from fear and abuse. When they sing praises to God they really lift the roof. They know God's grace. They really know God's grace.

I have been left in awe of their hunger for more of the Christian life.

As always, I have been changed and impacted far more than any impact I may have had through my teaching.

As  go back to my school in Australia I pray that I might take even just a small measure of the humility and hunger of the Nepali Christians.

The work of Educate Nepal, facilitated by Grahame and Robyn Kerr, is making a very big difference in this amazing nation. God is alive and well in the shadow of the Himalayas, in the shadow of Mt Everest.

Thursday

Today, my doll making class finished and then we had a party.    They were all giggly and excited.  I bought a cake and lollies and we had and great time, then we all danced together.  They are so great.  The conference also finished today, and the graduation ceremony was after lunch.  It is difficult to describe the atmosphere, but there were about 115 delegates and they are all so appreciative of what they have been taught and they just soak up everything.  At the beginning they played Nepalese music and some of the lovely girls came out the front and danced in their graceful style.  They are so honouring of all the trainers.  It is so refreshing how the show such respect.

The trainers say they have been so blessed and feel they have learned so much from these lovely people here.  Once people have been here, they always want to come back.

Robyn

What a Privilege!

Imagine what it is like to travel about 10,000 kilometres to meet people who are mostly strangers, live in community in a home in a street in the back of a foreign city, and then spend your days working with translators while you teach teachers.

That is one way of describing this week of privilege that I have had as part of the teaching team here in Kathmandu at the Educate Nepal conference.

The other way of describing this is that it is a sweet experience of unity and fellowship in Christ.  It is inspiring to see what brothers and sisters in Christ are achieving and hoping for in the face of adversity and with so little (compared to back home in Australia).  It is transforming in the way it renews hearts and minds as we consider and learn together about the impact of God's grace on our lives - both personally, corporately, and professionally.

So I give great thanks to God for the opportunity for this privilege.  May God continue to bless those who work so faithfully in organising these opportunities - especially 'Papa Grahame and Mamma Robyn'!

Shalom,

Stephen J Fyson PhD

Tuesday8th

We went to sign up for the new guesthouse this afternoon.  At present there is a carpet factory on the ground floor.  They were cutting out patterns in the carpet with scissors.  I have never seen anything like it.  One man was cutting out rose patterns with no pattern and it was really beautiful.  The first floor will be our new abode, the second floor will be for mission teams and then on the top of the building there is another few rooms that we will probably have some caretakers live permanently to keep an eye on the place and work in the vegie gardens.  It is older than our present digs but it is quite nice.  It seems like a rabbit warren to get there through narrow winding  little lanes but Grahame tells me there is a shorter way.  With my sense of direction, I will probably get lost.
The training is going really well and all the delegates are really appreciative. The Keynote addresses have been complimentary and this is the first year we have had ETS 1, 2 & 3 running.Together with that the leadership teaching has been a high standard and Kumar started on Micro Credit today. I sat in for most of it and was very encouraged by the answer to the question Why we do MC. To help the poor and build the church. We have had two men come to Christ yesterday and a young intellectual young man breakdown this morning when trying to tell the impact the conference is having on his life.
Another women told of how she has wanted to come to conference for years but had been hindered and was so glad to be there and how it was helping her so much. She is the house mother at the Sychar Halfway House and said that she has been scolding the women for not doing things right. She has now learned that she needs to relate to them as equals. Only God knows what a difference that will make to the power of her witness. There is a man who has been working in Saudi Arabia for 6 years and through the teaching he has learned what his purpose is for being there which is more than to earn money for his family but rather to witness for jesus. There are 40,000 Nepalese working in Saudi Arabia. Also fas a direct result of the conference Raju is now including sending in his mission statement as he has been challenged by the Lord for Kathmandu to be a centre for training and sending missionaries to Transform the surrounding nations as well as Nepal. We have been so blessed by the presenters and the responsiveness of the delegates.