Moving Guesthouse

Robyn and i are on our own now for the next week.
I still have some things to do catching up with Leslie from  KICS and Bimala from Higher Ground as well as the registration for the Vocation Training Centre.
Today is the day we move. We are surrounded by boxes and the beds and curtains are all stripped.
We are expecting a bus load of people to help after 10am because in Nepal life begins at 10am.

We are expecting to be off line for a couple of days due to the change in location and the need to set up the Internet and Wifi in the new place.

Going from one floor to four floors is a bit of a leap of faith but there is every indication that we will need the extra space to accommodate the growing number of teams who have expressed interest in coming later this year. We pray that the extra use will defray the extra cost.

The Bottom floor of the new Guesthouse will be the Vocational Training facility and will also provide a cafe for guests.

A Young couple from the church will be married soon and will move into one room to be the caretakers.

There is enough ground to enable the Sychar ladies to cultivate vegetables. The Half-way house is only 5 minutes walk away.

The Vocation Training has already commenced at the half-way house and Tusal hostel and the equipment from both these venues will be moved during February.

It is an exciting new phase for the ministry and one which we believe will bear much fruit leading into sustainable Micro businesses.

The new facility will be called 'Transformation Guesthouse' and the likewise the Voc. Ed Centre will be "Transformation Vocation Training Centre" Raju has really caught onto the concept of Transformation.

Saturday 19th

We have just returned from church.  It was a little sad to see Lyn and Katie saying goodbye to their two girls as they are flying home this afternoon.  Last night we went to a nice restaurant  with the two girls,  and they loved to be a "little bit fancy".  Lyn was able to spend a fair bit of time with Ruth and goes home with a greater understanding of the culture, and has seen where they come from, and to rejoice to how far they have come.   We went , once again, out to Dololghat, the site of our future camp area, church, community centre and school , plus much more, if Grahame has anything to do with it.  It is a lovely drive out there (2hrs) on a winding road, overlooking valleys , all terraced, where at present wheat is growing, and later there will be rice and millet.  The river is beautiful, winding through the mountains.  In the future we hope to be able to take our Badi girls out there for a holiday; as , at present' they don't get out of Kathmandu.  There is a massive statue of "Shiva" , a Hindu god, on the way out.  It must be 70ft. high and stands on top of a mountain for all to see.  Sort of reminds me of Nebuchadnezzar and his great statue. But Shiva will come tumbling down like all other idols, as we see the church growing from strength to strength in spite of opposition.  Opposition is probably what makes the church stronger.  A couple of weeks ago at church, the sermon was about having a Thankful heart; an attitude of gratitude and this week, it was a challenging message on the power of the tongue for good and evil and what comes out of the mouth, shows what is in our heart.  We are having lunch with Raju, before Lyn and Kate fly out.  Then Grahame and I will be here alone ready to face moving into the other quest house.  That is if the tenant has really moved out.  If you don't hear from me in the next few days, it will because of internet troubles and we have to move all that technology and from past experience, I'm not all that confident that it will be up and running.

Robyn

Thursday

 We may have another little baby soon.  Apparently, there are two mothers who gave birth.  One had a little boy and the other a little girl.  Both women claim that the boy is theirs.  They are doing a DNA test to find out who is the real mother. (Solomon would have benefited from modern technology)  But the end of it is that no one wants the little girl so once the confusion is sorted out, and we are assuming the mother of the little girl won't want her, we will take her in with our babies.    Bill Newman was planning to come here in April for a crusade, in the Chitwan district, but it has had to be postponed due to political unrest.  We have been advised by a member of parliament that it could be unsafe and there will be strikes, so no one can travel.  There is also risk of personal injury if we were doing something if we were so overt in the gospel.  It is Hindu and Maoist stirrers  who are very unhappy with the government so we don't want to put our Aussie friends in harms way; nor do we want the people in the church down there to suffer any backlash after we leave.  It shows how unstable things are here still.   Bureaucrats are wanting to pass a ordinance that stops Christian orphanages from preaching the gospel to the children.  It is not a law officially passed but they are trying to  enforce it.  Raju said if they enforce the proposed ordinances,  he will go to the government and say "You take care of the almost 400 kids , if that is what you expect to do.    Lyn, Kate and I went to the school today to show our school and to visit with Ruth again.

Robyn

Wednesday 16th

Grahame, Lyn, Kate, Lloyd, and Kumar arrived at about 9 p.m. last night, weary from their few days out bush.  They arrived with three girls, one that had been out there for the court case I mentioned, another girl in her mid teens,  who Kate has decided to sponsor, and the other little girl. Didsya, if you  know how to pronounce it.  I don't.  The girls have great fun listening to us trying to get our tongues around these names.  There was a very happy reunion as they were back with each other.  Today, I took Lyn and Katie to the half-way house to see the ladies, who were busily sewing some new clothes. There are three little children there, two belong to one of the ladies and one little boy belongs to another.  They are pretty unruly and the poor little puppy gets a bit of a hard time.  We were hoping it wouldn't be catapulted over the balcony on the flat roof top where the children were playing.   We then went onto Tusal to meet up with Lyn's girl as she came home from school.  They look so much younger when they are in their  uniforms and their hair in little plaits with ribbons.  It is hard to believe what she had been through in India.

Robyn

Tuesday 15th

The troups out at Chinchiu have had a very eventful  day on Monday.  I had a phone call from Grahame last night to say that Raju went to visit the family of the young women he had led to the Lord the day before and the Mother and Brother also accepted Christ.  It turns out that the mother, brother and sister are the family of one of the girls in Tusal, Sima, who was in the sewing class.  Apparently, the girls pray 3 times a day for their families to come to the Lord.  They were also able to locate the little girl who did not come in last time, and she will be travelling home with them.  Also the girl who had to testify at the trial of the trafficker will be returning also.  The machinery for the block making was also delivered to the church leader at Garbage river, who will be responsible to begin this little industry.If all goes well, we hope to build on it in the future.

Robyn

Monday

It is Monday afternoon and it is very quiet here.   Miriam is having a nap, as she has to fly out this evening and the rest of the team are 600 miles away in Chinchiu.  I will be home alone till tomorrow night.  I don't feel at all nervous though,  Grahame rang this morning to say Raju has lead a young women to the Lord at the hotel where the team is staying.  He is a remarkable man. This is a regular occurrence   The Micro financing guys are up there, also Lyn and Katie.  Grahame is trying to locate a little girl we thought  was coming in last September, but her father wouldn't let her come.  She is a cousin of the 3 other little girls we brought in.  There is also a young girl , 15, who was kidnapped and taken to India to a brothel there.  She has since been rescued and is living in one of the hostels here.  But she had to go back to her town, as there is a court case about her kidnapping and she has to testify against this guy.  He has been trying to bribe her to lie, so he can get off.  Raju told her just to tell the truth. If this guy gets off, it is a message to other traffickers  that they can get away with it.  It must be a daunting thing for a 15 year old to be in this position, but these girls must be strong or they wouldn't have survived the ordeal they have already been through.  The last couple of weeks has been very full on, but we were blessed with great team members and a great deal has been accomplished.  Our last team members leave on the evening of 19th and we move house on 20th.  I'm glad Raju has arranged for other people from the church to do the heavy lifting.  The double bunks weigh a ton and they have to  be taken down stairs and up again at the other place.

Robyn

Gifts of Gold

When I arrived here two weeks ago, armed with literally kilograms of lessons plans, photocopies and textbooks, I had no idea of the joy this experience would bring. Phase 2 of the Effective Teaching Series challenges all notions of the purpose of Education here in Nepal.  In a system where you are ranked against your peers on report cards, making high marks is the ultimate goal, and where the only strategy to learning is by rote, the truth of each of us having different gifts, learning in different ways and our ultimate goal being to serve him in our own unique way brought freedom that was often visible on my student's faces. I got to return to my primary training roots and played games and sang songs.  At first my challenges to think creatively and ask questions were a bit too much for some, but they took to opening their mouths eventually and were getting the hang of our noisy communicative Australian style by the time the course was through.

For me, I was in heaven teaching these wonderful people who are so eager to learn God's principles, so honouring in their approaches, so invested in their nation's future. Raju is literally equipping his people to be transformers, of this region, this nation, the neighbouring nations and the world.  The degree of vision and taking responsibility for welfare of this land is like nothing I have seen before in my travels. Like many of my fellow presenters, I am leaving knowing that it is I who have been blessed and changed more than I can begin to describe. God brought me here to Nepal to meet people who have poured wisdom and love into my life. They are, all of them, gifts of gold!

Miriam Ham
Lecturer CQU