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We have had more “office work” to do this week. Part of what we do as humanitarian missionaries is to take the proposals we receive from NGO’s and submit them for approval. We need to make sure that all the needed information is included and accurate. The proposals go to the Asia Team in Hong Kong where they are evaluated for approval. Then the legal team writes an agreement that the NGO signs and we follow-up on the financial obligations and monitoring of the project.

Although we have been busy this week with the process of developing projects, we have had time to have some fun. Our morning walks and badminton are always entertaining. It is really hard to portray the nuances of life here in Nepal. It seems like there is something new around every corner. A bull, a beautification project, dogs, a puppy, and a bug!

There are many things we see that we miss photographing or that we don’t feel are appropriate to capture. This morning while walking we crossed paths on a narrow neighborhood road with a man in a wheelchair being pushed by a holy man dressed in colorful orange robes with his forehead painted. They were playing recorded music and the man was holding a collection jar. It seems like a rather forward way to beg but the holy man will pronounce a blessing on those who contribute. It wasn’t as aggressive as the woman on our street the other day that was acting like she was unable to speak, but could make grunting noises, who followed us shaking a bowl and was quite “in your face” about it. We later learned from our landlord that he has seen her talking with friends on a nearby street corner.

Some other sights include a procession of finely dressed people carrying their offerings and chanting as they headed to a temple to worship, the surreptitious looks we get as we walk along that turn into big smiles when we greet them with a “namaste”, the interesting print and color combinations people choose to wear and the list goes on. I just wish words and pictures could capture all the feelings and sensory overload of the experiences we are having.

We went to visit the Kevin Rohan Memorial Eco Foundation again this week. There was a new group on expedition and we wanted to see the progress being made. We had another downpour while there and the young people took full advantage of the rain and mud.

We had the pleasure of attending a birthday party for a three-year-old girl from church. We thought we were going to the family’s home but it turned out the party was at Self Help Nepal where the father works. It is a home/school for underprivileged and orphaned children. They have 205 residents! Since it was also a celebration for all the children with June birthdays it was much more grand than we were anticipating. Things are rarely what we expect them to be here in Nepal.

 

Traditional Nepali Dance

Our adventures at Bhandarkhal Jungle Park included monkeys going wild. Well, they were actually just outside of the park and were running across a corrugated metal roof creating quite the ruckus. Then after they tired of that game they slid down a green hose like they were on a zipline! Another was seeing a tiny baby monkey jump off of the foot high wall at the edge of the walkway. I thought it was cute because he was a little wobbly and just developing coordination. We turned to walk on that path and there were a few monkeys on the walls and one jumped down and across the path. Another tiny baby wanted to jump down but the mother grabbed him by the tail and kept him close. It was laugh out loud funny but my laughter scared the mama and made her grab her baby tight to her chest. Then I felt a little bad but it was still funny.

We marvel at the various humans exercising in the “jungle park” with their laughing yoga, primal yells, aerobic dancing, clapping, chest pounding and one of my favorites is the chunky man dressed in what looks like a bedsheet around his waist wearing large beaded necklaces enthusiastically doing his yoga and other exercises. He is a wonderful man who radiates the glory of all that we have and are in this life. This morning he reminded us that, “Life is a glorious blessing from God!”

And last but not least, monkey figures reminding us to live moral lives and “see no evil, speak no evil, and hear no evil”.

Actually, tomorrow (the 26^th) is our mission halfway mark! 274 days down, 274 to go. If we don’t extend, that is. If we fall so much in love with this work and the Nepali people that we will want to stay here yet a little while longer — time will tell how it will all play out!

We are fully engaged now — and not just with humanitarian work!

To explain, let me first quote Raffi, whose sentiments I love:

All I really need is a song in my heart
Food in my belly and love in my family
All I really need is a song in my heart
Love in my family

And I need the rain to fall
And I need the sun to shine
To give life to the seeds we sow
To give the food we need to grow

All I really need is a song in my heart
Love in my family

And I need some clean water for drinking
And I need some clean air for breathing
So that I can grow up strong
Take my place where I belong

All I really need is a song in my heart
Food in my belly and love in my family
All I really need is a song in my heart
Love in my family

The parts about love, of course, permeate everything we do. What it says about needing some clean water for drinking and “to give life to the seeds we sow, to give the food we need to grow” speak to our two projects currently in process. One is to supply by piping it from mountain springs, clean drinking water to 450 families in a remote village. The other is to give 257 families in another rural area the increased farming know-how and resources they need to provide food for themselves and sell the excess to the market, thus assisting them to be more self-reliant.

These two projects are in partnership with CHOICE Humanitarian, who we’ve mentioned before, the NGO that LDS Charities Nepal has been working with for years. Kiran is the CHOICE Program Director. In addition to his friendship (see below) he has energetically and eagerly supplied us with the detailed proposals we need to engage this process of lifting and blessing lives. We look forward to working closely with him and other members of the CHOICE team, as well as with other NGOs (e.g., Days for Girls, also see below). Harmonious working relationships remind me so much of the musical experiences I’ve so enjoyed throughout my life.

Continuing, from a song I learned on my (first) mission, lyrics by Sammy Davis Jr.:

The world is made of music,
Never ending symphonies of sound surround us,
Miracles of melodies are found around us too.
It’s a musical world, such a beautiful world!

Ding, dong, sing a song of spring and summer,
Spring song, summer song and all brand new.
I love music and I know that you do too.
It’s a musical world, such a beautiful world!

Why the musings on music? Because a handful of Kathmandu branch members have expressed interest in learning what we have to teach them about music. Conducting, piano, choir, etc. Next Saturday begins the adventure in learning for all of us. Wish us luck!

Speaking of halfway marks, in my personal study I’m a little over halfway through the Book of Mormon, in Alma 32. I love Alma! I love all the prophets in this great book, actually, but Alma’s blend of mind and heart, of logic and feeling, really speaks to me.

The closing paragraph of Hugh Nibley’s minimal statement on the Book of Mormon says:

“The Book of Mormon is the history of a polarized world in which two irreconcilable ideologies confronted each other and is addressed explicitly to our own age, faced by the same predicament and the same impending threat of destruction. It is a call to faith and repentance couched in the language of history and prophecy, but above all it is a witness to God’s concern for all His children and to the intimate proximity of Jesus Christ to all who will receive Him.”

To quote C.S. Lewis, with whom I’m in perfect agreement:

“I believe in Christ like I believe in the rising sun. Not because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

Of course, I still see imperfectly. I falter and stumble and mess up. But I’m trying to be like Jesus. I love Hugh Nibley’s word-pair — “intimate proximity” — I love that this is claimable through meditation and prayer and repentance and living His commandments as I strive to receive Him and come unto Him. May we all so strive!

 

 

At our neighbor’s birthday celebration. She and her husband run an international pre-school.

 

 

 

The praiseworthy mission of Days for Girls is to increase access to menstrual care and education by […] mobilizing volunteers and innovating sustainable solutions that shatter stigma and limitations for women and girls.

It was an incredible week. We were able to go visit two expedition work sites. “Expedition” is a name given to trips designed to foster cultural and humanitarian experiences.

The first was a group of 20 young people ages 16-19 with a few parents thrown in the mix. They came from all over the United States and met for the first time in the JFK airport. The first few days of their adventure were spent in Chitwan where there is a National Park that has wild elephants, tigers and rhinos. (We’ll go when it is a little cooler.) This gives them a chance to get to know each other and adjust to Nepal before the work begins. They came with HumanitarianXP out of Utah and worked on building a small medical clinic for The Kevin Rohan Memorial Eco Foundation in Kathmandu. They were amazing teens with a desire to serve, develop character and build spiritual strength. There will be groups here throughout the summer to continue the building project. I hope the monsoon rains don’t dampen their spirits!

 

How to build a clinic: Carry a load of sand up to the cement mixer–Fill the pan with cement–Lift and carry–Build the clinic wall

The founder of KRMEF, Krishna Gurung, invited us for a tour and lunch. He and his wife created this foundation in memory of their son who passed away at age seven. It has helped to ease their pain as well as lift others. They are doing fantastic and innovative things here with environmentally friendly building practices, biodynamic farming and providing needed services to their community with educational and medical aid. The vegetarian lunch was delicious and made using the produce they grow.

The second group came with Choice Humanitarian, the NGO we have several current projects with, and included more families or parent and child units. They were also amazing people. The project we visited is a water project where the group, along with villagers, were digging a trench to lay pipe and bring water from the source so that each home can have a spigot and convenient water for home use as well as irrigation.

It was a two hour drive into the hills on rough winding roads. We have submitted a project plan for this area (not just this village) to enhance their agricultural practices so it was especially fun to see and also meet the people including the municipality mayor and the chief officer of the ward. The villagers were very friendly and excited to have us there.

The group was staying in a couple of unused rooms in the village school. Classes were in session but we did get to interact with the kids a bit. Dal bhat tarkari (basically the same as last week’s food picture) was served for lunch and we ate on the rooftop of the school. After lunch the Choice team worked with the expedition youth to teach the school children about hygiene and gave each of them a kit containing toothpaste, toothbrushes, combs, soap, etc. They seemed pretty excited and liked the playful presentation and animated practice time but mostly liked the bubble maker “gun”.

On the return trip work was being done on the road to repair the damage from a rock slide. They were filling cages with rock and creating a stable base for the road on the downhill side and a wall on the uphill side. What was most impressive was the level of comfort they showed while working on a steep hillside. They accomplish amazing work with hand tools. There was a big backhoe that was moving the large rocks.

We also met this week with the accountant for Latter-day Saint Charities here in Nepal and got pertinent information to help us negotiate our financial responsibilities. He provided us with a very tasty lunch of katti rolls. They are kind of like mu shu, a wrap, or a soft taco only with traditional Nepali flavors and ingredients.

Over this past week we have experienced some impressive rain storms. The monsoon season has begun. We had a downpour on Monday while we were at KRMEF. We were not prepared so got wet. On Tuesday we took our umbrellas because it looked like rain only to find what we really needed was our sunscreen. Fortunately we were able to borrow some. I’m going to need to take a bigger bag with me so that we can be ready for anything.

I’m not planning to haul around loads like those we have seen here. What they haul and how they haul it fascinates me. I have shared some pictures in earlier posts but here are a few from this week.

We each carry our own load or burden. Often these are not seen and we don’t realize how heavy they have become. We can ease these burdens by yoking ourselves to the Savior. His love allows us to repent and as we cast off the burden of sin we lighten our loads. We can all enjoy the blessings of lighter loads as we turn to our Savior. Through loving service we lift the burdens of others. We don’t have to join an expedition to help. As Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, “Lift where you stand”.

 

 

 

Missions are like life in miniature. The glorious experience of youthful missionaries, compressed into a few short months, resembles a lifetime of ups and downs, falling down and getting up again, blessings and challenges, joys and sorrows. And so it is with senior couple missions, though we have the benefit of a greater perspective on life and experience — with more behind us than ahead of us. Unlike our dear young Elders and Sisters, fellow laborers in the vineyard, we are not sharing the gospel message openly. Even so, I like this quote by Elder William R. Bradford:

When a missionary is placed in a mission environment of order and discipline where all that is done is in harmony with the Spirit the missionary experiences a great transformation. The heavens open. Powers are showered out. Mysteries are revealed. Habits are improved. Sanctification begins. Through this process the missionary becomes a vessel of light that can shine forth the gospel of Jesus Christ in a world in darkness.

The heavens did indeed open for us this week.

A highlight was the bookend treat of our outing to attend the closing ceremony for the vocational training whose opening ceremony we attended two weeks ago at Charikot in the Dolakha district.

Sister Wolfgramm was feeling a little unwell, so she did not come with the rest of us. Sugam, Elder Wolfgramm, Taunya and I rode in one vehicle, and Sunila and her two kids, Rajshree (daughter, 17) and Chirag (son, 16) rode in a second one. Sunita had traveled there earlier to make everything ready.

Leaving around 7:30 Wednesday morning, we all made the rough, twisty, bumpy drive in just under 5 hours. The ceremony was at 2:00, so we had time before going there to freshen up a bit at our hotel (the same one, and even the same room as before)!

When we arrived at the ceremony venue, there was no line to greet us this time. The trainee-graduates were already in their seats, eager to get on with it. (We still got the traditional welcome scarves after being seated!) It was a happy, energetic occasion, and we were treated by Rajshree and Chirag to translation services for the several speeches that were made (except the one by Elder Wolgramm — and no, neither Taunya nor I was asked to speak!).

The dignitaries gave the graduates certificates, their ticket to a better future, and for blessings, the Tika — integral part of Nepali culture — a red dot applied on their foreheads. I was one of the dignitaries that got to do this!

 

 

Afterwards we were fed lunch, and then did inspection of the graduates’ work, and took pictures with them before heading back to the hotel. It was a great experience, not to be surpassed by an adventure to come the next day!

 

 

The adventure began Thursday morning when we started off from Charikot. The side road we turned onto off the main road had about a 30-degree grade at first, and much of the 17-km mountain road was that steep. Definitely 4-wheel drive territory, although parts of the road were paved, much of it was rocky and dippy. It was supposed to take about an hour, but we had a hitch. The driver suddenly stopped the vehicle and told us he had lost his brakes! The brake line hitting a rock and rupturing was the diagnosis. We were certainly glad this happened on the uphill and not the downhill stretch!

 

A fine pickle!

The other driver, who was more experienced than ours, was still good to go, so we all piled in his vehicle for the rest of the ride. It would have taken us an hour to walk from there!

So we arrived at Kalinchowk, our destination. It is a rural municipality that is also a hill station and tourist hotspot, situated at an altitude of 3749 meters (12300 feet). That’s at the peak, which to reach we took a cable car ride and a short hike. There we got to see the famous Kalinchowk Bhagwati Shrine, a Hindu temple where many devotees (not just tourists) come to worship and petition for divine favors. Sunila and Chirag (not Rajshree, she had homework to finish and didn’t come with us), Sunita and Sugam participated in the prayers and also the bell ringing, whose purpose is to notify the Hindu deity that there are petitions ready and waiting to be granted!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, we ate a nice Nepali lunch at an eatery at the hill station, then we all rode back in the one good vehicle (the other was repaired sufficiently to get it back to town for real repairs for the return trip).

Before heading home, we met in the office of the Chief District Officer, one of the dignitaries who spoke at the ceremony. We exchanged business cards, and expect to keep in touch with the hope that future humanitarian projects might come to pass there.

Speaking of which, another great blessing for our humanitarian work came this week as It Finally Happened! We’ve been waiting on pins and needles for the opportunity to get a new General Agreement signed, and it came at last after the government official who needed to sign it came back from his travels out of country. He is the Member Secretary of the Social Welfare Council of Nepal, and we met in his office for the signing. The signature on our side came from the branch president, who was granted limited power of attorney to do just that one thing — sign the agreement on behalf of LDS Charities.

Why not Elder Wolfgramm, current Country Director of LDS Charities, Nepal? Because his work visa had very recently expired, thus making him ineligible to sign. I will be taking over as Country Director when the Wolgramms depart in seven weeks, but will not have the experience of signing the next agreement — because this one is good for five years! This is what allows Utah-based LDS Charities to work with local NGOs with the goal of lifting the poor through collaborative projects that the NGOs will manage and that LDS Charities will fund.

This is a Big DEAL!! An agreement like this is what we would like to have (and need to have) with the Indian government, who, for whatever reasons, seems much more wary of foreign aid. We are grateful beyond measure that this came to fruition!

I love the thoughts expressed by Elder Neal A. Maxwell in a conference talk years ago. They really resonate with me, as I contemplate where I am in the sanctification process Elder Bradford talked about through which we may become “vessel[s] of light that can shine forth the gospel of Jesus Christ”.

The title of his talk was taken from the hymn: Jesus of Nazareth, Savior and King:

I testify that, though he never needed it, he gave to us what we desperately needed—that program of progress—repentance, which beckons us to betterness. I thank him for helping me, even forgiving me, when I fall short, when I testify of things known but which are beyond the border of my behavior, and for helping me to advance that border, bit by bit. His relentless redemptiveness exceeds my recurring wrongs.

[…]

I testify that just as he has helped to carefully construct this second estate for all mankind, he also has helped to carefully construct each of our little universes of experience. I thank him for blessing me therein with a wife, children, parents, leaders, and friends to help me. I thank him now for the tender times, the jarring times, the perplexing times, and even for the times when my learning is so painfully public—lest in such moments to come I am too taxed to testify or too anguished to appreciate.

As we enjoy our “little universes of experiences” here in Nepal, we want to thank you all for your love and prayers. We really appreciate the support we feel from you!

It sure does seem to take more time to settle into a new place than I think it should. We have been here 2 1/2 weeks now and are still adjusting. This week we received some training from our leaders in Hong Kong as well as the Wolfgramms. We continue to try to figure out how it will all work here in Nepal. Once we realized that our fiscal year starts in January and the main NGO that we work with (Choice) has a July to July year some confusing pieces fell into place. We were able to meet with Choice Humanitarian this week and had a nice orientation and lunch. We are excited to follow up on and visit some of the collaborative projects that are in the implementation stage over the next few weeks.

Another interesting event was meeting Bishnu Adhikari who some of you may remember from the Meet the Mormons movie in the Nepal segment. He is very knowledgable about life, humanitarian work, politics, history and the church here in Nepal and it was enlightening to talk with him over a pizza lunch. It will help as we go forward.

Lui (Elder Wolfgramm) showed us a nice park, Bhandarkhal Jungle, that has good walking paths, vegetation, space to play badminton and monkeys! It’s great to have our exercise routine settling in. Exercise keeps me sane. I think monkey pictures in Nepal may take over for cow pictures in India.

There are a lot of things about Nepal that are similar to India and so feel familiar. The roads are narrow with homes and businesses close to the edge. There are all kinds of little shops one right next to the other and often stuck between dwellings. They drive a little crazy here but not like India and they don’t honk constantly. A more constant noise here are roosters! They eat a lot of Indian food in Nepal although it is often a little different. Momo’s are a favorite food. They are much like potstickers and very tasty. We still need to thoroughly wash our produce but I am able to find some things that were unavailable in Vizag, like green chiles. Maybe they are just in season right now. I am roasting and freezing some because buying them in a can is impossible. It is mango season and they are delicious. We had a mango lassi (basically a yogurt smoothie) last evening. Yum!

Women here wear kurtas and saris like in India but there are a lot more women that wear more western style clothes. Men, usually older, wear Dhaka topi hats and there are quite a few dressed in traditional Indian and Buddhist clothing. As with the women there are plenty dressed in western styles.

Nepal is cleaner than India. Part of it is that Kathmandu has a new mayor that has done a lot to clean things up. There is still trash at the side of the roads though. Since there aren’t many cows wandering around, the streets are automatically cleaner! As in India the waterways smell bad.

One crazy sight found all over are rat’s nests of wires. We thought it was out of control in India but it is unbelievable here. These are not generally power lines, just cable. Apparently no one ever removes a cable line when it is no longer in use.

We are enjoying the cooler weather although it is still plenty warm, daytime temperatures are mid to upper 80’s. It does cool off at night which is helpful. The air quality is questionable at times but not like in New Delhi. There is a temple complex nearby where they do cremations and ceremonially dump the ashes into the river which doesn’t help, especially if they use the traditional method with an outdoor pyre and lots of wood.

We were able to go to Swayambhunath Temple, nicknamed the “Monkey Temple” for the abundance of monkeys found there. It is a Buddhist temple and Unesco Heritage site. It is a chaotic blend of Buddhist and Hindu iconography. It has one main temple and other smaller ones, hundreds of prayer wheels throughout the area and many statues.

The main temple, or stupa, is surrounded by prayer wheels that devotees spin as they walk clockwise around the structure. There are also prayer flags fastened to the spire.

This is all located on a hill in Kathmandu which is believed to have risen spontaneously out of the lake that is now the Kathmandu Valley. The name, swayambhu, means self-arisen.

Offering butter candles to God is considered to be the most powerful offering. It means one has chosen to drive away the darkness within and attain clear wisdom.

Our townhouse apartment building is very nice. I am especially thankful for filtered water that is clean enough to cook with and I don’t have to use bottles of filtered water to wash my hair. Because the water in India and Nepal is impure and has a lot of metals in it, it can cause hair loss or make your hair very brittle. We have joined the ranks of rooftop clothes drying. I feel like a native now. (We had a dryer in India.)

A few photos from walking around town…

There are many beliefs in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions that are fascinating. Our landlord (he’s Hindu) was talking with us and sharing his thoughts that we all want to get to the same place in the end and that all pure religions have the common ground of loving others, loving God and living moral lives. I thought that was rather profound and if I can drive darkness away (as with butter candles) by loving God, loving my fellow man, keeping the commandments and striving to do good, hopefully I can settle in and have the inspiration needed to successfully serve the people of Nepal.

Our only sure reliance is to trust in the Lord and His love for His children.
— President Dallin H. Oaks, October 2019 Conference

It just keeps coming back to our mission scripture, Proverbs 3:5-6. We do acknowledge Him in all our ways, and marvel at His goodness, His love, His grace.

We got to see more of Nepal this week than we could have hoped for, and in the process participate in more humanitarian work lifting and blessing lives. Nothing was our doing, we are trusting in our dear friends and mentors, the Wolfgramms, to carry us along in the wake of their previous work. And they are sure evidence that trusting in the Lord is paramount, their example of not leaning to their own understanding reaffirms to us the vital importance of following suit.

What work? Kicking off a vocational training program in rural Nepal (the Bhimeshwor municipality near the city of Charikot, in the Dolakha district in the Bagmati province of north-eastern Nepal, to be exact), co-sponsored by LDS Charities and a local NGO. The people who went besides us and the Wolfgramms were a spunky woman, Sunila, representing the NGO; a friendly consultant, Sukum; and a young woman, Sunita, also employed by the NGO — actually, she met us there and then came back with us the next day.

Hotel Ambrosia was Wednesday’s, our first day’s destination, a 6-hour drive from Kathmandu. The road is paved, we were told, but our driver had to negotiate many stretches of severely damaged and bumpy pavement on even more narrow, twisty mountain roads than we encountered en route to Darjeeling! Happily, his expertise and 4-wheel-drive vehicle saw us there safely.

 

The accommodations were very nice, although it’s still weird to have a shower just stick out of the wall next to the toilet, no separating wall, no stall, no curtain, nothing! (Just like in our hotel in Birtamod.) Our rooms did not have numbers, just names of sacred Himalayan peaks: ours was Gaurishankar, the Wolfgramm’s, right across from us, was Kanchenjunga (the one we saw from Darjeeling).

 

 

A nice dinner, sleep, and the next day’s breakfast and a bit of sight-seeing later, we went to the training venue.

 

 

 

 

 

The opening ceremony followed a bit of celebration of the dignitaries (us!), including the mayor of the municipality whose meeting hall was donated for the ceremony and the training. 35 young trainees were there, including 19 women, some to learn bricklaying, the others plumbing. They were all happy to be there and celebrate the occasion.

Sunita was the Master of Ceremonies. She introduced all the dignitaries and then the speakers, which included the mayor and the Wolfgramms! So they are not only dignitaries, they are celebrities too! Maybe for the closing ceremony we will get to attend in a couple of weeks they’ll ask Taunya and me to speak!

 

Ceremonial bricklaying — the man crouching is the mayor, who started it off.

 

On the way back we stopped at a restaurant where the favorite dish of the Nepali folk was fish soup. We were non-fans, so just watched them eat and enjoy — Elder Wolfgramm was a fan so he partook.

 

Other Attention Getters

 

 

 

What really got our attention this week? Food from home! Real maple syrup! Heavenly bacon bits! Not pictured, a 20-oz bottle of A&W Root Beer!!

We have branch members, the Jeff and Amy Howe family, to thank for this wonderful gift of food they thought we would like and that they can easily get once back home. Jeff works at the US Embassy here, but he is retiring and they are moving back to the States next month.

We made it to Nepal!!!

It has been a very busy week with many new experiences and a few challenging moments.

We spent Monday getting ready to leave. That meant cleaning, laundry, packing, throwing out some food and such. Finally at 5:12 pm Rick got his exit permit!  At 5:18 I got this message, “Your request for Registration Certificate for Foreigners against application id AP1200028123 has been deleted.” What? None of our people helping us knew what that meant. They originally denied my request for an exit permit because my permission to stay was in process. That was part of the reason for cancelling my visa last week. I was thinking maybe it was deleting my permission to stay. Anyway, the Foreigners Registration Office closes somewhere between 5:30 and 6:00 so we had hopes of my approval coming as well. Then at 5:53 there was a request for payment. We were so confused but the office made the payment. My exit permit didn’t come. There was still a possibility that it would come through on Tuesday morning. We were in a bit of a catch 22 situation because the FRO wanted our flight booking, but we couldn’t get it until we knew our permissions would come through. Our office in Hong Kong couldn’t book a flight that might not be used so changed the dates on our previous itinerary and we used that. We really needed to leave on Tuesday in order to attend the Helping Babies Breath training. If we couldn’t then there was no rush. Hong Kong couldn’t book a flight same day and Rick decided we should book our own flights and exercise faith that my approval would come through in time. I thought that was not a good idea but left it up to him. I was resigned to miss the training. We were ready to leave if it worked out.

Tuesday morning was spent finishing up last minute things in order to leave the apartment for our mission president and his family to use when they come to Visakhapatnam toward the end of the month. We knew we wouldn’t hear anything before 9:30 so I tried to be patient but kept checking my emails. I asked Rick to check the portal to see if there was any progress. He did and it showed that approval was granted. He immediately burst into tears and I felt an emotional surge as well, but since I  hadn’t invested the same amount of faith I wasn’t quite as vested as he was. At 9:52 the certificate came to my email and we could leave! Our ride to the airport arrived at 10:20 and we handed off the keys to the apartment manager and loaded up the car to head to the airport making a stop to print out our exit permits.

The process of getting our boarding passes and checking our luggage was not too bad except for the $400 excess baggage fees. Money isn’t worth anything if you don’t spend it, right? We were beyond caring. We just wanted to be on our way.

At the Delhi airport we had to go through immigration and that is where we needed to show our exit permits. The process for Rick went just fine. When it was my turn everything seemed to be going fine until the immigration officer looked up my permit on his computer system. It showed that my permit was “in process”, not “granted”. –Wait a minute, I have my permit right here. Here is the information on the FRO portal showing it is granted. Here is the email with the permit attached. Your  system has not been updated. Oh yes there are signs telling me not to argue with the immigration officer. What do we do now?–He talked with another officer, twice, and after 20 minutes of deliberation he reluctantly stamped my boarding pass and let us through. Whew!

We had an uneventful flight to Kathmandu and “enjoyed” a repeat of our Indian airplane lunch menu for dinner. We were actually grateful for the food since we had not had time to get anything at the airport. Our driver was waiting for us upon arrival and greeted us with the traditional scarf to place around our necks. We arrived at our apartment at about 10 pm and had fun carrying all that excess baggage up to the 5th floor. It took teamwork.

Our apartment is a very nice one bedroom, one bath area with kitchen, dining room, living room and a pool table on the top floor in the home of the family that owns the building. It is interesting how the three ground floor (with upstairs) apartments and the home intertwine. It is a little uncomfortable going through the home to get to our space but it will be fine for 2 1/2 months and then we will move down into the apartment the other senior missionary couple are living in when they head home. Yes, another move is in our future.

We left for the airport at 7:30 the next morning to catch a short flight to Bhadrapur in the eastern part of Nepal. Our hotel (in Birtamod) was quite nice with conference rooms for the training and a very good restaurant. The chef even made some food with less spice for us wimpy Americans.

 

There were 50 participants, 8 trainers from Nepal, 2 doctors and a nurse from the US. Everyone was engaged and happy to learn. They will return to their facilities throughout the district of Jhapa and train others. The program is extremely successful here in Nepal and has the full support of the government. I can’t tell you the numbers, but they have had a significant drop in the number of infant and mother deaths over the last ten years.

Besides the training we also visited four hospitals to evaluate their needs and see how they are implementing the program with things like resuscitation kits, postpartum hemorrhage kits and a practice corner. It is amazing what they can do with so much less than what we have in the US. There was a lot of difference between the government hospitals and the private one we saw.

I’m so very glad we were able to be here for this and see how everything works so that in the Fall we will know what we are doing for the next training.

Here in Nepal Saturday is our Sabbath. That is going to take some getting used to. Our chapel is in a very large rented home. That makes it quite unique but functional.

   

After church we went to Bhaktapur, an old cultural city (now part of Kathmandu) to tour the temples and old structures there. Because it was Saturday (day off) we missed the pottery and wood carving demonstrations but saw some of the finished products. The traditions and culture are fascinating.

   

It has been an exhausting and rewarding week. We are getting settled in and gearing up for the coming week. We’re grateful for all of the prayers in our behalf and to finally be here doing work that matters and helping the people of Nepal.

Or nearly so!

We hope and pray that after another week of waiting, in mind-numbing frustration, our long-awaited Exit Permits will be granted. Presumably there is some official in Hyderabad who tomorrow morning need only do a final review of our applications and push the “approve” button, thus triggering an email with an attachment that will be our official permission to leave India!

It was a couple of small miracles that got us to that point.

Nothing happened on Monday or Tuesday. No progress still on Wednesday, except for a message that nothing would happen again on Thursday, they would be far too busy because the Chief Minister (like a state governor) was visiting Vizag! I guess it’s a big deal when VIPs come to town, so we Very UNimportant People would just have to wait another day.

On Friday we went to the Foreigners Registration Office (we thought) for the last time. Babu, a member of the Church, came with us to help us communicate. The officer helping us (I’ll call him Raj) had us both sign and date a statement, supposedly the last step on each of our parts.

Then Raj said that the Chief of Police who needed to sign off on our files wasn’t there, sorry, there was nothing he could do about that. We left, disheartened, and then while waiting for an Uber, saw Raj walking down the street and around the corner, carrying a bunch of papers. A few minutes later he came back and beckoned to us to come back inside. This was after Babu had left and our Uber driver still hadn’t arrived. Small miracle number 1, that he delayed so long that we were there when Raj came back, so we cancelled our Uber and went back to the office. Raj said he found out he could cancel Taunya’s visa, which would make it so she could just get an Exit Permit and not need the Chief’s signature! So he did, both on her physical visa, and in the system. A little scary, having an invalid visa (cancelled without prejudice, it said, so it was all good). He then said we could leave, he would wrap up our files within an hour and send them to Hyderabad. We asked if they would finish processing them today, but he said no, probably not — Monday at the earliest.

Disappointed, we went back home, and just two hours later, Raj called Babu who gave us the message that he needed Taunya to come back one more time for another signature. Small miracle number 2 then happened. I had a little prompting to take my passport/visa with me, which I wasn’t thinking I should need to, since they said this was about Taunya. So I heeded the prompting — and it was good that I did, because despite what we were told, Raj really just needed me! He cancelled my visa too so we would both just need Exit Permits and the remaining process did not require the Chief’s signature! A few more documents and fee payments later, all handled by our mission office assistant and district president, our files were sent to Hyderabad for final processing and approval. It was too late in the day by then, and the Hyderabad office was closed until Monday.

So we couldn’t leave yesterday, which would have allowed us to attend the inauguration of the Help Babies Breath project that started today and goes until next Friday.

But a compensatory blessing that brightened our week was being able to attend District Conference, the adult evening session last night, and the general session this morning. In both sessions we were able to sing with the missionary choir two songs: Hope of Israel (that Sister Baird arranged back in January and the missionaries in the New Delhi learned and recorded for a Mission Leaders’ Conference) and If You Could Hie to Kolob.

The conference was presided over by Robert K. William, our mission president, who spoke in both sessions. The Spirit was strong, and very uplifting messages were given. The theme of the conference was creating a stake in Vizag. There was strong emphasis on the spiritual strength and commitment that every member would need to develop to reach this goal by the end of next year. Doing the small and simple things: daily personal and family prayer, scripture study, full tithe paying, generous fast offerings, loving and dedicated ministering, and whole-hearted love-share-invite member-missionary outreach. And then the icing on the cake was this afternoon, a family of four was baptized and joined the third branch. We stayed for that joyous occasion, and while waiting we were surprised to be invited to enjoy some more traditional Indian food, which nicely supplemented the peanut-butter sandwiches and cabbage salad we had brought for lunch!

Oh, one more minor but noteworthy happening: we got a new badminton record this week — 130 consecutive hits back and forth!

Hugely much more consequential in its implications, coming back to If You Could Hie to Kolob, we sang a different ending to the third verse — and this is a good place to end on:

The works of God continue, and worlds and lives abound.

Improvement and progression have one eternal round.

(Already a thrilling thought! But then…)

Because of our dear Savior’s atoning sacrifice,

We can feel His grace and mercy and have eternal life.

 

 

 

Monday and Tuesday were very busy this week as we said our goodbyes to church friends and our badminton friends at the walking park and made preparations to leave Vizag. We took careful inventory of our food, discarding things we wouldn’t be using and nobody else wanted. We did a great job of planning which included ordering lunch from Pizza Hut! We thoroughly cleaned our flat, did laundry, packed and filled out online forms for our tourist visa to Nepal. We were ready to go…

But alas, our “exit certificates” did not get processed in time for our Wednesday flight. (You have to have your flight before they will do the paperwork!) I guess since that has come and gone and our papers are in process we will book a flight when we know we can leave. It has been a daily “wait and see” week and I keep wondering what we need to be learning or doing here before we are allowed to depart. Limbo may be cool, it may be fine, but my back is sore!

Since our food was figured to the day, I ended up creating a couple meals from bits of this and that. Chicken onion soup is pretty tasty. We ordered meals delivered two more times and managed for three days, but we ended up going to the store knowing we would not be leaving before Tuesday. I really don’t want to need to buy more groceries.

As we have been expecting to leave any day we haven’t been going anywhere except to the grocery store and the Foreigners Registration Office. We have had many exchanges with church employees here in India who are trying their best to get this taken care of. Because Vizag is a “small” city (only 2.4 million) they don’t actually have an FRO here. It is just done through the police and then goes through the office in Hyderabad. It seems like it should be simple but is a rather complicated process. We have been to the police barracks four or five times now. Not something I expected to do as a missionary.

To quote another song, which we actually heard in the Uber on the way to the police barracks a couple of weeks ago, “You can check out anytime but you can never leave.” Unfortunately I do feel a little like we have “checked out” as we hang out in our flat and wish we had more snacks to eat. We have found some constructive things to do though. Rick is proofreading a book for a friend and I have been working on family history.

Because we have needed to stay close to home to handle this business we discovered that we have a rooftop garden! There is even enough room up there to play a little badminton. Plus a helipad, which we knew was up there. I guess that since our apartment building is still being finished I didn’t expect the garden to be completed. The fitness room and swimming pool don’t exist yet. And no, I don’t know why we have a helipad.

.

Great 360 degree views.

Pretty plants and flowers.

And the helipad.

We are fervently praying that at this time next week we will be settled into our new apartment in Nepal and ready to head out on a project called Helping Babies Breath. It is training that teaches essential neonatal resuscitation and newborn care skills to support babies that do not breathe on their own after birth to reduce infant mortality rates. The couple currently serving in Nepal will handle it, along with the skilled instructors, but we want to share in the experience. We are so very absolutely and completely ready to be working as welfare services missionaries!!!

 

A New Beginning!

Overshadowing all other thoughts and concerns this week — we are really going to Nepal!

We fly on Wednesday, May 3rd, arriving in Kathmandu around 8:30 in the evening. The next day, after adjusting to the 15 minute (!) time change, we’ll be rarin’ to go on our new assignment!

But more on that next week when we’re there in the flesh instead of just in spirit!

This week we’ve seen and done a few things that we did not want to miss.

On Thursday, we played badminton in the morning with a real net, in the smaller walking park just a half mile away.

On Friday we went to Vizag’s “Central Park” — it didn’t open for real until 9:00am, so we just walked around the jogging track on the outside a couple of times. Maybe we’ll get to see the inside, maybe not.

Yesterday we went to Bheemili, a scenic beach about 25 km from here that attracts many tourists. Of course there were groups, large and small, who noticed us and wanted to take pictures with us.

Yesterday we were also privileged to attend the baptism of a young sister in the first branch. She’s the younger sister of the wife of our doctor friend who we met on our first day in Vizag. It was Friday that we were blessed to visit those two in their home and see their new baby!

From this morning’s walk at Sivaji park:

 

Random sights that caught my attention:

Per the sign, shopping at the CMR Mall (biggest in the city) is The joy of life — for the ardently materialistic!

(SIN is a brand name, derived from their slogan “sinfully stylish clothes for men”.)

There’s some apropos gospel-related response to this floating around in my head waiting to be captured and written, but the hour is late, and I’m going to bed instead!