Late Friday night I was awakened by what I thought was an earthquake. I looked at the time and told myself to remember and then went back to sleep. When I awoke in the morning I wondered if I had dreamt the whole thing, especially since Rick didn’t feel it. I checked online and learned that there had in fact been a 6.4 earthquake in Jajarkot that was felt in Kathmandu (300 km away) and even in New Delhi. Sadly there has been a lot of damage and loss of life. They are still working to get to the village areas that were cut off by landslides and so expect the death toll to rise above the current 157 people. The government is organizing relief to the affected areas. We are looking at the possibility of helping, perhaps with semipermanent housing. We’ll see what is needed and what we can do. We feel safe in our apartment that was built to US standards and withstood the devastating 2015 earthquake that killed over 9000 and destroyed cities near the epicenter.
We were shaken this week when we learned that one of our projects was rejected. We knew going in that it was a long shot, but it still hurt. We made an appointment with the partnering organization to share the news in person but that was made more difficult because they invited us to lunch. Declining the offer would have been rude so we let them know over a delicious organic meal. We hope to be able to propose another, less costly and more directly beneficial project with them that will be approved.
This morning while playing badminton at the park, as we usually do, a woman in uniform informed us that we were not allowed to have the net tied between two trees. Ok, we have been playing in the park for five months. She apparently didn’t speak English and must have thought we didn’t understand, although she made it perfectly clear especially when she so “kindly” started taking down the net. When I asked if we could play without a net she seemed to indicate that we could not and a woman nearby answered in English that in fact we are not allowed to play badminton AT ALL. I don’t get it, but we will comply. We went outside the park to an area we discovered last week that is an open field and has a basketball court. There was a group playing cricket in one part and another playing volleyball so we went a safe distance away and started batting the birdie back and forth only to have a busload of young men start to play soccer. Time to head home. I felt really annoyed and disappointed. However, we will be unshaken in our efforts to get regular exercise and we will find a place to play badminton.
I wonder if Clapping Man will be allowed to continue his aerobic dancing in the park. He is wearing headphones and is a very exuberant dancer. There are many other people exercising in the park as well. They do yoga, calisthenics, martial arts, and Tai Chi to name a few.
I only took five pictures this week! None of which is very noteworthy. I’ll share three.
I’ve named a few of the dogs we see regularly. We have Scout, Mutt and Jeff, Scruffy and Bently. They don’t recognize their names yet and I don’t think I can come up with names for them all. (Today’s count was 46.) Some of them are pretty cute and some are quite sad with their mangy hair, wounds, sunken eyes and ribs showing. Our driver says they are trying to address the issue by picking up the female dogs and taking them in for “family planning” surgery.
I thought this chicken on the sand pile was funny. It looks like the guy shoveling sand wondered why I was taking his picture.
We had a guest from Utah stay with us before his trek to Mt. Everest Base Camp. He is the son of our friends still serving in India. He let us know today that he is having a great time and shared a couple of pictures.
This week has been busy with figuring out the details for submitting our wheelchair project and planning for the next neonatal training which included figuring out the messed up and inadequate budget. It has been rather tedious with too much time sitting at the computer.
Here are a couple of monkey pictures in case we don’t spend much time at the jungle park in the future.
. 
I felt pretty discouraged several times this week. I know that life has ups and downs and that what I was experiencing was minor especially in light of the effects of the earthquake. We can be shaken by the challenges of life but with our foundation in Jesus Christ we can come out on top.
Hebrews 12:28-29–“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for God is a consuming fire.” (NIV)
Leave a Reply