As you can imagine it has been another week full of new and interesting experiences. We have found the best way to navigate our week is with faith and prayers. We rarely know what our schedule will be, with a few exceptions, and always need to be ready for anything. Hence previous blog titles like–Go with the Flow, Trust in the Lord, Expect the Unexpected, and One Step at a Time. Plans come up suddenly and are changed at the last minute. We often feel out of our element and inadequate but we just keep putting one foot in front of the other and then we find we have walked through another week.
We went to dinner at the home of the director of CHOICE Humanitarian here in Nepal. The food was very good but the entertainment afterwards was a delightful surprise.
We had office work that occupied some of our time this week but we were able to go the Paropakar Maternity and Women’s Hospital to donate two Bubble CPAP machines. At this hospital they deliver an average of 80 babies per day! When babies are in respiratory distress they sometimes have to be sent to another hospital because of a lack of equipment. Hopefully we will be able to do more in the future. We will continue to provide training through the Helping Babies Breath program as well.
Stated like that the donation seems pretty straightforward, however it was anything but…! Dr. Kalpana set up the appointment with the hospital director not realizing that our liaison, Ranjan, was not going to be in town. Because the appointment could not be rescheduled Rick and I had to take care of things. After confirming our afternoon appointment with Dr. Kalpana we went to CHOICE and looked through the poorly labeled boxes they had picked up from customs and put in their overcrowded, disorganized storage room. No one was available to help that knew what we were looking for or where to find it. We found two boxes and brought them back to our apartment thinking we were ready to go. I had a thought that we might need a letter of donation so we asked our supervisors in Hong Kong. While awaiting a reply we tried to find a sample letter we could copy, to no avail. We contacted one of the HBB doctors in Utah and waited. The information we received from Hong Kong was unclear. Ranjan drafted a possible letter that we decided to modify and use. The next problem was that the Wolfgramms had left and locked the office and we needed to use the printer. Fortunately our landlord’s son knew where to find a spare key. After hearing back from Dr. Mike (11:45pm Utah time! and 45 minutes before we needed to leave) we found that one of the boxes was the wrong thing so had to return it and find the correct one. Part of the challenge was that the Wolfgramms were using our driver to visit a project so we were waiting on a substitute driver. Fortunately he came 15 minutes early so Rick didn’t have to speed walk in the rain to CHOICE while I waited for our driver and directed him to the office. We headed over to together find what we needed. Of course the power went out while we were searching in the windowless storage room so had to use Rick’s phone flashlight. After silent prayers and multiple small miracles to overcome the challenges thrown in front of us we were able to get to the hospital on time and find our way to Dr. Kalpana’s office having only been there once. The “donation ceremony” was a success.
Work is progressing on a new home that we can see from our apartment window. The process of construction in concrete and use of manual labor is fascinating.
Another outing arranged by our friends Sunila and Sugam, took us to the office of the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens where we met with the Minister for a brief courtesy visit. It is helpful to have connections with people in high places. His assistant assured us that he will be happy to help with anything we need, particularly our visas. Good to know.
This is the Wolfgramm’s last week here and we have gradually been taking over everything. Rick signed his first check as Country Director. It was delivered to our accountant but had to be returned because Rick abbreviated ‘associates’ in the payee line. The bank won’t accept it unless it is written out. These details are important to know. Besides assuming new responsibilities this week we went out to Simply Momo for a farewell dinner. They have a surprising variety of momos–buffalo, chicken, vegetable, fried, steamed and sauces varying in spiciness. It was very tasty.
At church on Saturday we were blessed to have a visit from our mission president and his wife. It was so good to see them again. I was surprised to find myself missing our time in India a little. They both spoke in Sacrament Meeting as did the Wolfgramms. It was surprising to find myself in charge of Primary since no leaders were there. Yikes!! It was just the pianist and me but since there were only six children it was ok. After church we had an unexpected linger longer in honor of the Wolfgramms so we cancelled music class. Something added, something taken away.
It has been quite rainy here with about an inch of rain per day. We are still able to get out and exercise although one day we needed our umbrellas for our walk and bailed on badminton. It was raining mostly at night but has changed to off and on daytime downpours. Everything is lush and green and the flowers are pretty. No surprise there.
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