Clean, safe water — a matter of life and death that we take so for granted. Especially the convenience of having it by turning on a faucet at our kitchen/bathroom sinks!

The highlight of this week was our trip to visit some past and present project sites. What a marvelous experience seeing firsthand the fruits of the labors of CHOICE Humanitarian-led workers on water supply projects!

These projects were implemented in the hilly Lamjung District of central Nepal. They did it with local labor contributions, the beneficiary villagers helping to dig the trenches, lay the pipeline, and then backfill the trenches.

Our outing started early Wednesday morning so we could make the 6-hour drive and still have time to visit some people and villages before dark. Kiran’s 16-year-old son Abeesh came with us. He had to go to Besishahar (where we stayed Wednesday night) to apply for and get his citizenship papers. (You’re not automatically born a citizen in Nepal!) Besishahar is where Kiran still has his permanent residence papers, this city being the headquarters of the Lamjung district he was born and raised in.

As we’ve come to expect, the roads were terrible. Construction is underway to improve some stretches, but that made for more dust and delay. But we endured the discomfort and it was worth it!

 

 

 

 

The best part of our trip? Seeing the people who didn’t before but now have clean, safe water so conveniently available at (though not in) their homes, so happy and so very grateful to those who made it possible and made it happen.

 

 

We met in a pavilion they built for community gatherings for a little celebration. An old woman told her story, which I’m sure her neighbors have heard many times before, as some of them looked bored or maybe slightly amused (perhaps they were thinking “She embellishes it every time she tells it!”).

 

But she knew she was playing to a fresh audience even though we didn’t understand her. Kiran video-recorded it and promised to provide us with the video and transcription.

Many others echoed what she said. A common sentiment in this particular village — what surprised and delighted them the most — was that they could have water delivered to their homes from a spring that was below them in elevation. It is now pumped from the source below into a storage tank above them. They never thought that would happen! It took a lot of wrangling to get the electricity for the pump, but CHOICE and the villagers prevailed upon the local government and now it’s a reality.

Thursday afternoon we got to visit a school and had another ceremony where in addition to Kiran and other school and community officials, Taunya and I both spoke, extemporaneously!

 

This is a school that CHOICE supplied with water and some furniture. Kiran told us later that they took a survey asking the students what they valued the most. Overwhelmingly they answered “water” — because its availability at their homes meant they could actually go to school — their mothers could be home to fix them breakfast instead of needing to make the 3-4 hour journey to fetch water each morning!

We met this sweet, frail old woman at her home and took a picture. She wanted us to stay for a while but we didn’t have time. Kiran told us about her and her husband (who wasn’t there at the time — he was at the community gathering waiting for us to arrive). They are in their late eighties or early nineties. Starting as a young girl, she spent 60+ years fetching water from that downhill source, which meant carrying the full containers uphill. CHOICE also built them a new, modest home that they are so grateful to have.

 

 

 

The water from their tap-stands also allows residents to irrigate and grow gardens, and thus have some healthy vegetables to eat, and the surplus to sell. Many of them grow rice too. We saw some of them working their plateaued rice fields, others threshing the harvested rice, and still others milling it to remove the husks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw some of their improved cow sheds and “poly houses” that were also funded by Latter-day Saint Charities and built by CHOICE.

 

 

 

 

On Friday, just after we got home, we went upstairs for a little get-together with the VanDenBerghes, who were invited to lunch by our (and their former) landlord, Krishna, who also invited us to come.

The VanDenBerghes were the humanitarian missionary couple who were here from 2018-2020. They had to leave when COVID shut things down in March 2020, 5 months before their mission was over. Hmm, that’s about the amount of time we have left. I wonder how we would handle a 24-hour notice to drop everything and leave! They were able to tie up some loose ends remotely, and I supect we could too.

It was great to see and visit with them a little. They actually came back to see the members they grew to love and were sad not to be able to say a proper goodbye to.

They planned a “Linger Longer” that we all enjoyed after church yesterday. After that we went with them to watch a program put on by the students (and some of the teachers/staff) at “The Organization” — Self Help Nepal — that was founded by a sweet German sister (Ellen Dietrich — “Ellen Auntie” as all the children at the orphanage/school affectionately call her) who just got back from spending several months at her home in Germany. The program was celebrating Tihar, the Nepali “Festival of Lights”. It was long — almost 3 hours! But they were enthusiastic performers and fun to watch and listen to (even though the volume was way too high). They have a teacher who teaches them singing and dancing several hours a week, and it was obvious they enjoy it!

 

 

 

Speaking of new friends, another highlight of our week was meeting (over Zoom) the new couple who were just called to replace us when we leave Nepal! They’re the Nuffers from Richmond, Virginia, whose background and experience are ideal for serving as Country Directors of LDS Charities Nepal. We know they will do great things during their 23 months here, not only in the humanitarian work but also in serving the members. We were super excited to learn that she plays the piano and has taught private piano lessons! The members we’re struggling to teach will be even more excited!

Isaiah 58:11 is my favorite verse this week:

And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought,
and make fat thy bones:
and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water,
whose waters fail not.

 

More entries for the “Some New Thing” file:

Earlier this week, at Taunya’s suggestion we took a detour on our morning walk around the perimeter of the park. That was a first. We didn’t see amazing new things on the outside of the park’s tall fence, but at least we satisfied our curiosity.

This was a curiosity and a first from a couple of days ago in the park.

This morning we called it good with 124 back-and-forth hits in badminton. Not a record, but just a reminder that we can keep a good thing going when we put our minds to it!

Yesterday we hit a new record — the number of dogs we saw on our walk — 46!

Today we saw:

• a live white rabbit on the dashboard of a taxi.
• a monkey doing three cartwheels in a row (Taunya saw it, I missed it.)
• a funny monkey-see-monkey-do we both saw: a monkey came near and started pulling and chewing on the badminton net rope that was hanging down near the ground. Not to be left out, another monkey and then a third came and did the same thing. It turned out not to be a tasty treat, so the enticement was short-lived.

There was another monkey first from earlier this month that happened again today! It was while we were playing, and gave us each a good belly laugh at the monkey’s antics: climbing up the tree and then onto the net tied to it; trying it out, finding it a bit more precarious than tree branches for hanging out on.

Our humanitarian work is coming along. We saw some small progress in getting our wheelchair project going, as well as in other ongoing and still-in-proposal-stage projects. We again took advantage of our project-work downtime to go out and see what Nepal (Kathmandu at least) has to offer.

We planned to visit the Royal Palace, but when we got there Thursday morning we learned that it was closed for Dashain — to open again the next day. Not wanting to wait for our dose of royalty, we went instead to Patan Durbar Square in Lalitpur where there were also royal residences — and Buddhist and Hindu temples. We hired a guide for the demand-spiked-price of $22 (!) for an hour’s tour. (Manoj managed to find a parking space, so he came with us.) We learned a lot more about Nepal’s history, as well as how intertwined Buddhism is with Hinduism here. And with Hinduism’s 363 million (!) deities (according to our guide) we won’t run out of things to learn about the dominant religion and culture! And the history of Nepal with its succession of kings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Royal is as royal does — but oh, the extravagances of royal privilege that were on display. Private spring water, a swimming-pool-sized “bathtub”, ornate thrones and clothes and the list goes on. (Royal subjects’ envy and resentment come as no surprise.) We saw some of this excess last week at Pokhara — where the royal family used to go on vacation — in the forest that was reserved for the king and his party to go hunting. Don’t even think about trespassing!

 

 

 

But royalty-nostalgia is alive and well in Nepal. According to Manoj, there are many (maybe most) people who wish the King would come back, preferring a monarchy to the corrupt stab-at-democracy they live under now. It makes me think about King Mosiah’s “if it were possible that you could have just men to be your kings, […] then it would be expedient that ye should always have kings to rule over you.” Rarely has that possibility been realized!

Peter’s “ye are a […] royal priesthood” rings true and states a reality worthy of pondering more often.

“Be Loyal to the Royal in you” floats around in my head, source unknown. But a piece of paper with the following thought on it was left in one of my classrooms years ago, and I latched onto it and hung it by my desk where I could see it and remember:

I am a child of royal birth;
My Father is King of Heaven and Earth.

Have a Royally Wonderful Week!

Swimming upstream, or running (jogging really) uphill like we did today on our way back from the park. (Gotta get the old heart rate up!)

But as the thought came Wednesday morning, it was “going against the flow”. We were playing badminton when (as often happens) a young man comes up with a hopeful look. We offer to let him play, so Taunya usually gives up her racket first, then after a while playing with me (quite energetically — which gives me a run for my money), another one comes up, and I offer him my racket. They go at it with their youthful vigor, and after watching the show for a few minutes, I follow Taunya’s lead and go walking around the park (after all, we came to exercise, not to watch others exercise). She had a head start and I didn’t know which of the many paths she took, so I just trusted that we would meet up eventually, and so we did. Then we started walking together and noticed that going counterclockwise we were against the flow of foot traffic. Everyone else was walking clockwise around the outer path. It was noteworthy because we had just been talking about traditions, and how they can be good or bad.

We humans have a lot of inertia and subconscious (and conscious) resistance to change, especially when the change challenges tradition. “My Way” or “The Traditional Way” is THE way things ought to be, but sometimes that way turns out to be problematic.

The tradition here is to have the Sabbath on Saturday, the day most people have off. We have been in Nepal for 5 months and it still feels strange, and we still mistakenly say Sunday when we mean Saturday. It is so engrained!

A different example: On Wednesday we ate lunch at Le Sherpa, a very nice Kathmandu restaurant we’ve eaten at once before. How was this bucking tradition? New on their menu was braised beef steak, which I just couldn’t resist, so I ordered it! Tender like a pot roast, it was delicious! (Oh, how I miss a good burger!)

 

 

The Hindu tradition of not eating beef was what I was thinking about. I don’t feel at all bound by it, because I was raised eating beef and it was not frowned on (except in excess)! So while this is not my tradition I can appreciate the fact that many others accept the bondage of it. With Tevye, we believe that good traditions keep our lives steady, and we are shaky without them. Religious and cultural traditions, like the holidays we celebrate (today marks the start of Dashain (pronounced “duh say” or “duh sigh”, depending on who you ask), the two-week-long celebration of the triumph of good over evil in the Hindu tradition, about which there will be more to relate), are the most binding and stabilizing, but stability can be rigidity and rigidity can ossify, in which case growth and development cease.

Cultural appreciation outing of the week:

We visited the World Heritage Site in Kathmandu called Hanuman-Dhoka Durbar Square (or just Durbar Square). Home to dozens of Hindu temples and shrines to Lord Shiva and other Hindu deities, we only spent about 90 minutes there but could easily have spent 5 or 6 hours (maybe just in the Museum alone)!

 

Heritage conservation work is ongoing, and is being funded by the Chinese, which I find interesting.

Another fascinating fact:

There is a tradition here of a living goddess (“Kumari”) who is considered to be an incarnation of the goddess Taleju. The brochure says her residence (the Kumari Ghar) “is a three storied quadrangle lavishly decorated with fine woodcarving. It is the third story of the building that is especially attractive with its five bay windows, in which the Kumari appears from time to time in the company of her guardian priestess to see and be seen by her admirers.” We got there at one of those times to see a chosen-when-three-now-nine-year-old girl (no photography allowed) who neither looked happy to see nor be seen by us curious spectators.

(BTW, it was not just the two of us on this outing to Durbar Square. There’s a story behind who accompanied us but I’ll leave that for Taunya to tell.)

The most tradition-bucking example this week is finalizing the proposal for the Kevin Rohan Memorial Eco Foundation’s new training facility. Traditionally, enthusiasm by our supervisory decision-makers for new building projects is rarely generated. We are definitely swimming upstream by pushing for it to be approved!

I’ll close with the best example of going against the flow of our fallen world and its Telestial ways. With our Prophet leading the way, we will Think Celestial, and act accordingly. Pressing forward and upward “in the path of [our] duty” we enjoy the liberating and enlivening flow of living waters, drawn to, bound to, and stabilized by our dear Savior. May it increasingly be so for us all!

As it’s doing as I write this, though it’s not pouring. A soft rain, as the song goes (one of my favorites):

Rain falls, soft rain at my window.
Every butterfly has hurried away,
All the honey bees have called it a day,
And the columbine are bending their heads in the rain.

Rain falls, soft rain making puddles.
For the children’s feet the puddles are sweet,
And the skeeter bug fleet finds the small pools a treat,
And the columbine are bending their heads in the rain.

[Chorus]
While the rain is falling there’s a quiet hush about the world.
While the thunder is calling there’s a quietness about the world.
A time to remember the beautiful things,
To look for tomorrow and your fondest dreams.

As Taunya wrote in a recent post, we like to look for rainbows whenever there is rain. There is a silver lining in the clouds. A bright side that keeps our hopes up, looking for the good and beautiful things we keep finding each day we are here.

After a relatively quiet week, this week things started getting busy again. Pouring, even, you might say!

On Monday we went to see Krishna and Santosh, our friends at the Kevin Rohan Memorial Eco Foundation. We had a frank discussion about their hopes and dreams as they relate to financial support from LDS Charities. They have some very ambitious goals, but their heart is as large as their vision. We hope to be able to help them realize their dream of building a facility where people can come to receive hands-on training on biodynamic and organic farming — a much better way than prevalent practice. Their organization is very well suited to provide this training, but a new building is a pricey proposition, so getting approval will be a challenge!

 

 

On Tuesday we walked to an architectural delight, Dwarika’s Hotel, which we have walked by many times on our morning walks. We had lunch at one of the many restaurants there, splurging on pan-seared salmon for me and a delicious quinoa salad for Taunya. The occasion? Celebrating our mission one-year anniversary! It’s hard to believe how fast time has flown, and that a mere six months remain!

 

 

 

 

Wednesday saw us travel to the same school and on the same bad road we took in July to visit the school that LDS Charities funded the rebuilding of after the 2015 earthquake. We did not get stuck this time, thank goodness!

The occasion was the handover ceremony and ribbon cutting for the new computer lab (15 desktop computers) and a small playground set for the schoolchildren. These items were purchased using a small amount of leftover funds from the building project. It was quite the ceremony, with guests ranging from the founder of the school to the (possible) future prime minister of Nepal! (Even yours truly got to speak!)

 

 

On Thursday, while Taunya attended a Primary activity, I went grocery shopping with just Manoj. Although I missed my expert shopping companion (Manoj is an excellent driver, but has nothing to opine about our food preferences — which are radically different from his) I think I did pretty well with the list Taunya gave me!

On Friday, the idea occurred to me to create a Keyboarding Progress Assessment Sign-up Sheet and run it by the branch president — all of whose kids are learning piano — who gave it the thumbs up. This was an experiment to see if we could more easily meet one-on-one with our students remotely to see how they did with their assignment from last week. Well, yesterday afternoon we only met with two students (the younger two of the branch president’s bunch), and needless to say there were technical difficulties. Zoom with a shaky internet connection, not so fun. The video and audio were not in sync. The one holding the phone pointing the camera at the other’s hands on the keyboard could not hold it still. Jittery video and lagging audio are a bad combination. But it was an experiment, and now we know that remote piano lessons are way less than ideal. We suspected as much, but there’s no substitute for experience!

Why didn’t we just continue as we were doing? As in last week, while Taunya was teaching a group lesson, we had the students individually come one-at-a-time to have me watch them play their assignment, and assess their mastery of it. The reason is the need to start practicing to have some choir music ready by Christmas! Instead of regular music lessons we’ll have choir practice right after church, but since we don’t want to lose momentum with the lessons we’ve been giving, it will just be every other week, until it is needful to practice every week!

So yesterday we had choir practice. It became very obvious that there will be no choral singing (with parts) from this group of budding but experienced-singing-melody-only singers! We may do some small ensembles using our American embassy people who do have experience singing a harmony part, some solos, and instrumental numbers. A Christmas program with heart, if not joyous harmonious tonal texture!

Speaking of musical delights, I have a wonderfully fond memory from my college days in the 70s of singing in a double-mixed quartet the song I started this post with. I remember one time while performing it having a moving spiritual experience, as we slowly (reverently even) sang the last verse:

Rain falls, soft rain at my window.
I will go outside where the sleepy rain blows,
Feel the wet on my face, feel the wet on my clothes;
And like the columbine I want to bow my head in the rain.

Barring extreme weather events, may the “rain on [our] face” (among many other good things) always make us “glad that [we] live in this beautiful world Heavenly Father created for [us]!”

Not much happened this week on the humanitarian front. We have a tentative itinerary of our trip next week to Rautahat to visit a project that supplied schools with furniture. It will be Wednesday traveling there, stay the night, tour/site-visit on Thursday, stay again that night, and come home on Friday.

On Tuesday, our branch president asked us to give talks in Church, which we did yesterday. Taunya’s assigned topic was hope, mine was the Millennium. They went well. We both had prepared adequately and had practiced singing There is Peace in Christ (2018 Youth theme song) to pre-recorded accompaniment. This song is a perfect introduction to Hope, so we sang it at the beginning of Taunya’s talk.

As part of my talk I asked the following question: What essential work will there be to do during the Millennium?

My answer was temple work — not a novel idea, by any means! Right now the relatively small number of saints who go to the temple are not able to keep up with the demand. But will that be true during the Millennium?

Let’s see. The current population of the earth is approximately 8 billion. The world population since the beginning of human history is estimated to be between 69 billion and 110 billion people.

Let’s simplify and say 100 billion more people will be needing temple ordinances performed on their behalf. If we further say we have 1000 temples, and 100 million saints working for 1000 years, the math is easy. (Let’s assume also that during the Millennium, with unimaginably powerful technology (i.e., the gifts and power of God), family history research will be so fruitful that the human family tree will be fully filled out in plenty of time.)

100 billion people needing ordinances would only require each saint being proxy for one person per year! And you could serve as proxy for those 1000 persons, each one in a different temple! (Actually, we don’t know how many spirits still need to come to earth, gain bodies and receive gospel ordinances, so these numbers could be way off.)

Due to lack of time I omitted an analysis of all the logistics from my talk, but the question occurred to Taunya (and others): How will all this temple work be scheduled — if it all needs to happen during the Millennium, which though a long time, is still “just” 10 centuries?

To restate the envisioned division of labor and how it relies on several simplifying assumptions:

• 1000 temples (assuming they get built fast and early on);
• 1000 years (could be more or less by a few);
• 100 million saints (recommended and ready to serve as patrons — this number will certainly fluctuate and presumably steadily increase over time); and
• 100 billion persons needing individual ordinances (family sealings are another matter).

So, 100 thousand saints per temple per year means each temple must accommodate 100 thousand ordinance-sets in a year’s time. Assuming a 50-week year and a 5-day week, that’s 100,000 / (50*5) = 400 ordinance-sets per day. Assume 2 hours per ordinance-set-performing-session and a 20-hour day (!), that’s 10 session blocks per day. Each session would need to accommodate 400/10 = 40 patrons. That is doable even by today’s standards.

Resurrected bodies won’t get tired so the work can proceed steadily without need for breaks. This labor of love will be unimpeded by any earthly (or any kind of) opposition, for it is the very work and glory of God, and Christ who will reign supreme over all the earth. Simply glorious to contemplate so great a cause!

Photo credits to Taunya, our fearless photojournalist!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hindu women in Nepal observe an annual public holiday to celebrate the festival of Hartalika Teej, in commemoration of the “marriage of the god Shiva to the Hindu goddess Hartalika”. The “Teej” part of the name is from a word referring to the red teej bug, which is why wearing and display of the color red is customary on this day.

Another week of novel and fun experiences.

For fun, we ordered pizza from our favorite pizza place for the first time since we’ve been here. It’s nice to know that in Kathmandu it works to do online ordering/delivery! We also ordered a Caesar salad — our first real lettuce in Nepal — it’s not readily available, and if we find it, it’s hard to know how thoroughly we would need to wash (decontaminate) it!

Because we have lots of downtime when there’s no pressing project or record-keeping work, we often get to play tourist. On Monday we went on an outing to see the nearby 143-foot-high statue of Lord Shiva. Quite impressive! Taller by 35 feet than the Anjaneya statue in Vizag. Liz Christensen from the branch came with us on the spur of the moment — at Taunya’s invitation. She was very grateful for the invite and had a great time.

Tuesday night, to thank Manoj for all his help getting our visas, we took him and his wife Rachana out to dinner at a nice restaurant, and had a wonderful time enjoying the company and the great Indian and Nepali food they served there.

On Wednesday Kiran called to ask if we wanted to go see where they were making the benches and desks for our school furniture project. We did! It was fascinating to see the furniture maker in his shop and the end result (minus legs — they will be welded on after delivery to the schools — less effort and more efficient to transport them unassembled).

We learned on our way to go shopping on Friday (September First) that it was Manoj’s birthday. He is 41. (Also, Happy Birthday, Dad! He would have been 97.) That evening, Manoj brought us momos Rachana had made for his birthday celebration. She gave him a very cool present that their son Rimul helped make (earlier this week he surreptitiously asked for and we gave him a picture of us) — a framed collage with pictures of the last ten couples he has served, with a shot of the two of them in the middle. “I am so lucky to have you” was her sentiment, and it goes both ways!

 

 

We spent Friday evening preparing flash cards and keyboard images for this week’s music lessons. Our after-church sessions went fairly well. Taunya ran them through notes recognition and playing exercises, I taught more conducting techniques. Albeit slowly, most students are getting better. One boy really wants to learn how to conduct. One mom (of three of our students) really wants to learn to play the piano. Afterwards she expressed to me how grateful she is that God blessed their branch with a couple with musical talents who were willing to share and work with them. That makes me want to work harder at providing more value to them!

While discussing with Krishna (our landlord) some computer issues we’ve been having, it seemed like such a minor thing compared to another problem we’re facing, this one involving people. We must deal with life’s little irritations as best we can, knowing that they can prepare us to deal with life’s bigger challenges if we’ll let them. Especially if we seek the Spirit’s guidance. Like for example, how to add more value to music lessons!

We also discussed with Krishna our people problem, and he had a great insight. The interesting part of his offered solution was that he prefaced it with “I have an idea,” then added offhandedly, “God gave it to me” — and why not? He’s a Hindu, believes in God, and God’s Spirit can inspire those who believe, even if their belief is not the same as ours! We who frequently don’t know what we’re doing are so grateful for those nudges, those “sudden strokes of ideas” — indeed, when we feel “pure intelligence flowing into us” — it is such a great blessing to seekers of inspiration everywhere, and a wonderful, tender mercy from a loving Father and Savior!

Another full and sometimes frustrating, but mostly instructive and fruitful week!

On Monday we got a letter from the Ministry of Home Affairs, another step in the visa application process. Except it had an error — it had my birthday a day off from what it is. Manoj did his phone magic and got that fixed, then that letter allowed our getting yet another letter from the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens, recommending us to the Department of Labor. More on which below.

On Wednesday we met two gentlemen from the Young Star Club of Solukumbu District in the Koshi Province of Eastern Nepal. We discovered that they as an NGO who has been doing social improvement projects for nearly 4.5 decades are a worthy partner to LDS Charities, and so we will try to work together. They agreed to email us their project concept and we will take it from there. Solukumbu is noteworthy for being the district Mount Everest is in!

 

On Thursday we paid a visit to SERC (Special Education and Rehabilitation Centre) and met its founders, Anish and Kalpana. They have a school in a municipality about a 45-minute drive from Kathmandu, and a shop and physical therapy clinic in Kathmandu.

Anish and Kalpana are delightful people, full of desire and compassion to help kids with physical and mental disabilities. In their shop they repair wheelchairs (among other things) and also custom-design and build some. One of their “kids”, now an adult and a wheelchair user himself, does the bulk of the work in this shop.

The clinic serves about 30 pre-school-aged kids who need physical therapy, and the school serves about 90. The schoolchildren have various mental and physical handicaps, from autism to cerebral palsy. They do a great work helping these kids learn life skills and gain basic knowledge to manage in a world that’s often unsympathetic to their plight. Some of the school’s former students teach there, which is especially gratifying to see. Knowledge! Gained mainly through education — teaching — knowledge is the gift that keeps on giving, when you teach someone something who then teaches others, and then those still others, growing and expanding to enormous reach!

 

So tomorrow we have to pay 20,000 Rupees (about $150) as a fee for the work permit. But we have to go to a bank to pay it and get a receipt/voucher and then go back and hand this voucher to someone at the Department of Labor so that Monday we can come back yet again to get the actual work permit!

The work permit is the last document we need (there are five others that we have in hand) for applying for the working visa that is required to act as the Country Director of LDS Charities Nepal. These six documents have to be uploaded to the website of the Immigration Department, and if what it says on this website is accurate, the visa itself will be “gratis” — no fee! (This has not been the case in the recent past, so it remains to be seen.)

This whole process has been an education that we can package and give to the senior couple who will replace us so that their learning curve will be much easier to negotiate. And the gift will keep on giving for future couples’ benefit as well. We feel strongly that a big part of why we’re here is to significantly smooth the way for our successors. Unfortunately, we will not be around to see the completion of the projects that we have had a hand in starting (except for maybe two or three), given the lengthy duration of these efforts. But we can still keep abreast of their progress and learn of their (hopefully wildly successful) completion after we leave. That is our fond wish!

Friends in High Places

Another entry for the “Connections with People in High Places” file:

This was a meeting arranged by Sugam and Sunila (leftmost in the photo) that we had early Monday the 31^st with the Minister, and after he had to leave, with his wife. Sadly, his need for a sudden departure left no time for a picture with him. But we were pleased to take this one with his wife, after spending a delightful few minutes talking with her.

Ministers are at the level in the government of Nepal that would be the equivalent in the United States of Cabinet Secretaries. You never know when we might need some help from friends in high places, so being able to make these connections is quite a blessing!

Later Monday morning we said goodbye to the Wolfgramms, who have finished their mission course. They will be missed! From the “Forgot to Include Last Week” file:

We love this amazing couple! They have done so much for us. We so appreciate all the love, kindness, friendship, and mentorship they gave to us, and the inspiring example they have shown us of wholehearted love of people.

This next video clip was taken at the Community Vocational Training Opening Ceremony. It will give you more of an idea of their personality and magnetism.

Right after their departure we moved (shifted, in Nepal-English-speak) apartments, carrying all our stuff down the 66 steps from the fifth floor. After several days of decluttering, cleaning, organizing, personalizing, etc., we can call this very nice space our own for the next few months!

The commitment we made to SWC to provide them with an action plan for implementation of their recommendations, including reasonable deadlines, was fulfilled in just under the 15 days they gave us. We hand-delivered the document to the SWC employee who requested it, but we could have just as easily just emailed it. Except they require wet-ink signatures and stamps on each page! But per Kiran’s advice, we remain unbound by any deadlines in the document — there aren’t any! Why? Because Kiran wrote in generalities, not specifics, when addressing the recommendations that involve CHOICE Humanitarian. As for SWC’s recommendation that LDS Charities set up a “proper office”, this is what I wrote in response:

LDS Charities has already set up a proper office and put in place reporting and documentation best practices.

This is a true statement — so we have fulfilled our post-project-evaluation commitments!

But are we done now? No! Per the following picture there is yet still another thing to do.

I say unnecessary because they already have both of these documents. It just looked like make-work, and I almost broke down and resigned myself to taking the difficult-to-remove binding off the hardcopy report so I could run all 67 pages through our scanner, to give them the scan copy they want. Fortunately, I remembered that this operation had already been done by the print shop Manoj took the report to so they could make 7 copies of it. He called the shop and YES! — they still had the electronic scan copy and were able and willing to quickly send it to us.

The visa application saga continues in high gear. The latest struggle took Manoj several hours and frustrating phone calls back and forth to the Ministry of Women, Children, and Senior Citizens (MoWCSC) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA). MoHA said we need this document, MoWCSC said no, you don’t. MoHA said we do, and it must be sent to us from the applicant. MoWCSC said go pound sand (or words to that effect)! Finally, Manoj got the two employees from each Ministry to talk to each other, and the more forceful personality prevailed. They finally agreed that MoHA has everything they need from us and from MoWCSC to proceed, and so the wheels are turning again and the process is progressing to its final stages. Whew!

From the “It’s a Small World” file:

The one on Taunya’s left has finished his degree in Computer Information Technology, and his wife is a current Computer Science student! We met them last Friday at lunch with a BYUI professor and his wife who came to Nepal to help NGOs here give aid to survivors of human trafficking. We learned that the professor and his wife are our neighbors, but we didn’t know it, since they live in another universe on Star View Drive in the Hidden Valley Ward!

Friends, neighbors, acquaintances. Good people everywhere, people who want to help those in need. What a Friend we all have in Jesus, who sits in the Highest of High Places, and gives us the succor we need to “ride upon the high places” of connection with Him and His Father!

On Taunya’s last-week theme of daily new experiences, just today we saw this man giving some snake gourd to a bull — a first time sight in Nepal!

The work is progressing. We have two approved projects awaiting legal agreements to be drawn up. Another project we expect will be approved this coming week. We’re still working on the proposal for a fourth one, and then for an encore—we are determined to get a wheelchair project rolling (no pun intended)! That one is going to be tricky, as the players involved, both old (from previous wheelchair projects done by LDS Charities in Nepal) and new (the Rotary Club) are not in a great position at this point to form a team to do the implementation. We not only get to write the check and serve as in-country coordinators but are also trying to be pros at public relations and interpersonal dynamics. The technicalities are one thing, and no small thing at that. But technical is the easy part! I find it ironic that our “great” people skills are going to be put to their severest test yet in a monumental effort to possibly smooth ruffled feathers as well as coordinate different parties to help identify, fit, train, and assess the benefit to the truly needy beneficiaries of mobility devices that will dramatically improve their lives.

Music lessons yesterday after Church went better than we expected. There is something very unsettling about this undertaking to teach piano and other musical skills to 14 individuals with widely varying knowledge and skill levels. We must be insane! It helped that 3 adults and two children (one of them the youngest one) were not there — but still, 9 students is a lot! They are energetic and enthusiastic and yes, some are somewhat undisciplined. But they responded well to our instruction, which pleased and encouraged us. To help us, we are hoping for some more musically talented brothers and sisters to miraculously materialize when new US Embassy personnel arrive in Nepal next month!

On another looming-large topic, the Social Welfare Council (SWC) is the government agency we work with, and with whom we signed the 5-year general agreement. They approve, monitor and evaluate all projects implemented by us INGOs (International Non-government Organizations) in partnership with local NGOs. The SWC bureaucracy is something to behold. Yes, they have their “process” (which they pride themselves on) — but to my mind it’s a tremendously time-consuming process that involves a labyrinth of offices and people and multiple redundant copies of documents.

Their final evaluation report of the 2nd year of a 3-year project we’re doing numbers 67 pages. In the report the evaluators made some observations about and recommendations for LDS Charities. SWC requires in response a “Commitment for Implementing Recommendations” (action plan) document. The official who had me sign two copies, one for him and one for me, said: Bring back your action plan within 15 days along with 8 (count ’em, 8) copies of the final report! Why in the world they would need 8 copies, and would require us to make them, is a mystery I am far from understanding.

The irony of them telling us that LDS Charities “lacks a proper office and critical personnel to offer the NGO partners technical and other help” — when I compare ours to their office and personnel, wow! The prideful man in me says I could tell them a thing or twelve about efficiency! We have a little more technical savvy and computer skills than our predecessors, so there will be no criticisms come next evaluation that “reporting and documentation were deemed to be extremely lacking”!

Another little irony occurred to me this week in connection with an incident involving a car. The car came out of nowhere as we were crossing the road that we have crossed without a problem many, many times. It was on the wrong side of the road and traveling very fast too! (Unusual for this intersection.) The left side of the car brushed against my right forearm as it sped by, and a split-second later the left-rear tire ran over the most protruding part of me — my left big toe. I remember being surprised that it didn’t hurt. At all. Granted, the car was small, and most of its weight was in the front. Taunya suggested some guardian angel was also there to “push” the side of the car so it would be even lighter at the exact moment of tire-toe encounter!

Where’s the irony? A few days later when I least expected trouble, I stubbed my right toes on the 2-inch lip from bathroom floor to shower floor! That. Hurt. No guardian angel this time!

Notwithstanding the little slings and arrows (and cars and lips) life throws at us, we know we are blessed by Heavenly help, and prayers and love from family and friends who support us. With our best efforts thus magnified, this work will continue to roll forth, because it is the work of the Lord.

To quote Moroni,

“For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on, until all his promises shall be fulfilled.” (Mormon 8:22)

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A delightful bonus from the Daily New Experience file:

Wait for it…!

If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.
— Doctrine and Covenants 38:30

This has been another incredible, amazing week here in Nepal. We are learning so much that has and will prepare us for the responsibilities of our callings.

For the most exciting news, we got our first project approved!

It’s a project in food security and nutrition, helping poor Nepali families in rural villages improve their food production and farming skills. LDS Charities is funding the project and a local NGO (CHOICE Humanitarian) will implement it. It’s super exciting to have had a small part in getting this off the ground and to the stage now of crafting the cooperation agreement — with the help of our legal team in Hong Kong.

This evening we met with the Rotary Club of Kathmandu. An illustrious group of about 15 businesspeople, including many CEOs of corporations, in their early days they were known as the Wheelchair Club because they were involved in many wheelchair projects. We were able to give our pitch and they are excited about getting into a new project partnering with LDS Charities.

We spent a good chunk of time preparing and gathering documents (there are 17 (!) that are required) to support our application for working visas, so we can have permission to stay here and keep working after our tourist visas expire next month. One of the documents is a report from the local police that we have no criminal record during our stay. It was a tedious online application process, and the Police Clearance Certificate is still “in progress” — but there’s a good chance that when it comes we’ll be pronounced squeaky clean!

We wanted to start music lessons this week, but circumstances dictated that we wait another week. We prepared our materials, and practiced and felt ready, but reality has yet to demonstrate to us just how insane it is to attempt to teach conducting, basic piano, and singing skills to 14 branch members of widely differing ages and abilities!

Other highlights of our week:

Learning to enter payment requests in the church’s finance system.

Celebrating Independence Day with Krishna (our landlord) and his family (and legend Betty, a 90-year-old expat who has lived in Kathmandu for 47 years). Not exactly parade-brunch-and-more at the Neffs, and we surely miss those great times, but this is our social circle now!

We paid a visit to a rural elementary school that LDS Charities paid to rebuild after it was destroyed in the 2015 earthquake. Getting there was pretty harrowing — it’s been raining and the already rough road was muddy as well. Only prayers and extra-skillful driving got us through one spot where we were stuck spinning our wheels for a few minutes!

At the school, we wished we had had the camera ready, as coming up the stairs we met coming down the most adorable pair of 3-year olds, who, really, only our granddaughter could be cuter than! Some of the older kids spend 1.5 hours each way walking to school. The younger kids are accompanied by their parents, who go back and forth twice each school day, for a total of 6 hours a day!

All classes should be Child Friendly!

 

 

 

We enjoyed dinner with Sunila and her family, a 6:30 to 10:00 evening affair. Nepalis eat late in general, but starting with appetizers at 6:30, then more eating and talking practically non-stop, getting to the main courses at 9:00 — it was all delicious but a little hard on our digestive systems that really only wanted to shut down for the night!

All told, whatever this mission is going to throw at us, we say bring it on — we are ready!