NEWS!

We're going to East Nepal!! Praise God! Steve just called (8:30am Sunday here) to say the strikes have been called off. Pray that no new strikes begin while we are there and that God continues to open the way!!

Friday, March 13th

Blog for Friday, March 13^th

I forgot to mention that there are only 50 participants in the LISS. The other 50 were coming from the Terai where the road blocks are so they never made it to the seminar. Pastor Devi and Steve Thorson are waiting until Tuesday to make a decision about East Nepal as there are differing stories in the news regarding the strike settlement. With a road strike here you CANNOT get through the roads. There is talk it may settle soon but then there is also talk of a Central Nepal road strike which would mean we couldn’t make it BACK to Kathmandu for our flight home.

The alternative to East Nepal is doing the Lord Teach Us to Pray in Bhaktapur, just east of Kathmandu. It is an ancient city with ancient temples (I’ll try to find a photo) but there is a United Methodist church there, too. Apparently, people here will come even if it’s scheduled at the last minute! It makes me cry for hunger like that at home – for us in the US to be DESPARATE for more of him and not just comfortable with where we are – not just content to “schedule it in” when it’s convenient to us but so DESPARATE we would drop EVERYTHING to sit and learn more, be touched by Him more and just to worship Him together. Oh, Lord – give us that deep a hunger for you!

Also, to clarify the church set-up; we take off our shoes upon entering the building and women sit on one side while men are on the other. Our lunch was served on the fourth floor (no elevator) which is where the Western toilets were, too (so it was worth the walk for some of us!) The bathroom was labeled “For Guest Use Only”

We continued the seminar today with two additional translators. Pastor Devi translated some, our guitarist translated and a young man we had yesterday. He had studied at seminary in India and was an excellent translator!! He even gave extra “teaching” where needed for the Nepalis to understand what we were trying to communicate.

Peg started off with Spirit of Adoption (yes, she got her talks printed!). It was to be followed with a playing of The Father’s Love Letter in Hindi but no battery operated CD player and no electricity. Fortunately, before we left the US, the Lord told me (Peg) to take some printed copies in Hindi and the translator read it to them. Becky said that was probably better because he was able to read the Hindi with a Nepali accent and emphasis.

Sue followed with Spirit of Love and had Pam hand out stones following her talk to remind them they are living stones for the Lord. Then Sue had the translator translate “Oh How He Loves You and Me” and she and Pam sang while Pam signed it for them.

Parker led them in a prayer of deliverance following his talk on the Spirit of Power and all participated in that. There was a powerful time of praying for the pastors and anointing them with oil. Our men went up and Pam led them in anointing the pastors heads, ears, eyes, mouth and hands. The Nepali men stood behind with their hands extended. They didn’t touch the pastors but we’re not sure if they didn’t understand the direction or if that’s not acceptable in church.

Kim followed on Spirit of Prayer. She had a meaningful time when trying to explain her prayer language to them (which of course can’t be translated!). She asked a young woman to come up and she prayed for her in her prayer language. The young woman was very touched and drawn to tears from the experience.

Rich gave the Spirit of Unity, emphasizing how important that is in the church and emphasized the importance of reconciliation.

Pam followed with Spirit of Guidance using a compass and walking stick as object lessons – it was very effective for them. She even demonstrated how she would fall if she didn’t have a walking stick or staff to guide her.

Frank followed with Spirit of Authority. He included an illustration from a former trip to Nepal involving a water buffalo and the authority a little old lady took in moving it out of our way! Following his presentation we prayed for God to come and take control of out of control situations in their lives.

Following Parker’s talk on The Promise of the Father an opportunity was offered for those who wanted to receive the Holy Spirit to stand. Immediately 3 women stood in the back and within a few seconds all were standing. A powerful time of prayer followed with much weeping, shaking and touches from the Lord. It is hard to describe in words the power felt in those moments.

Pastor Devi missed that opportunity but later in the day, Kim had some words of prophecy for him. We arranged a time during worship for her to give them to him personally. He appeared to receive them very well and that was confirmed today in worship (Saturday) when he shared them with the congregation and thanked her publically for sharing that with him.

Photos 1

I will try to post photos to this blog post when time allows without any journal entries (to save time).

Where we ate dinner Wednesday night.

Those sitting behind Frank were Tibetan monks.

Assorted Kathmandu photos:

Bagmati (sp??) River Electrical System

Video - From Rich

Here's some video from the tour Steve gave of the hospital where he worked.

Thursday, March 12th

This is the Goshen Guest House where we are staying

First day of LISS completed! All went well except I (Peggi) forgot (or can't find) my talks so my Spirit of Adoption sharing was put off until tomorrow. Electricity will go off in 28 minutes so must rush!! The participants in the seminar are great worshipers with hands raised, amens, hallelujahs, clapping, etc! Very responsive. They fed us a typical Nepali dinner with potatoes and cabbage, eggplant and something else (a little spicey), rice and lentil sauce and one red very spicy dish!!

Pam Lipka handmade worship streamers to give away so following Ted's sharing of the seven Hebrew praise words she gave several to 7 of the pastors attending. They ENTHUSIASTICALLY waved them following her brief instruction. It was marvelous!

I forgot to mention yesterday that Frank opened a bag of animal crackers, ate a few and took a nap. When he woke up he decided to finish the bag, took some bites then dumped out the crumbs to eat and saw ants!! So, a little protein with his cookies!!

It is taking extremely long to upload photos or videos here so we will hopefully post more of that following the seminars when we have time to go to a coffee shop with wireless!!!

WEDNESDAY March 11th - FIRST FULL DAY!

We've had difficulty uploading photos so hopefully we can post LOTS (and video) tomorrow!

Wednesday we began with breakfast, worship, prayer and devotions - fed physically and spiritually! We only have 8 hours of electricity with 4 hours from 4am to 8 am and 4pm to 8pm. At least that's the schedule today!

Then we sent the men to the bank to exchange money while the women went to shop! We, of course, had to wait for the men to bring us money! Well, the bank took MUCH longer than expected so the women got to shop longer for Nepali clothing.

Steve and Becky took us to Patan Hospital for a tour of the facility including a wonderful new wing for maternity and nursery areas.

(PLEASE NOTE: If any of this is not making sense it's because I am VERY TIRED at the time of typing but you take the electricity when you get it!!)

Following the hospital tour we met up with Pastor Devi Bhujel (the equivalent to a District Superintendent) for lunch at a Christian run restaurant named Sing Ma. Most of us ordered several dishes to share and had a wonderful time of fellowship and sharing over table.

Then - more shopping! We took taxis (an adventure since most of us had no idea where we were going!!) to Thamel, a popular tourist shopping district. Thamel makes you feel like you've gone back to the 1960's or early 70's with many Hippy-types and certain smells wafting in the air! We shopped for souvenirs, were followed by various vendors to whom we said "Chyne Dye Nah" (not sure of spelling) which means "I don't want it!". We visited a new coffee shop - very yuppy like with good coffee then headed off to do more shopping! We ended the day in Thamel at "Fire and Ice", a pizzeria and ice cream shop that we (Frank & Peggi) visited in 1996 and 1999.

Following dinner we loaded up in 4 taxis for the ride back to the guest house. Rich & Sue Fetzer (and myself) were in one taxi together. Our driver was very pleasant and pointed out various sites on the way. When he pointed out a Hindu temple I asked him what religion he was. He said "You guess - Hindu, Buddhist or Christian". To which I replied I believe you are Christian. He said "Yes, how you know?" My reply "It's obvious - I see Jesus on your face". He had gone to Malaysia for four years and just one year ago became a Christian there. He said "I'm young and need to learn a lot" He had been Buddhist and changed his name from a Buddhist (Dephendra, I think??) to Jack. Pray for Jack - he definitely has the joy of the Lord. He said "Christians are joyful, never angry!" I pray so!!

Our Life in the Spirit begins tomorrow. Please pray for this event. We begin at 1pm and go to 5pm. Then Friday 9-5 and Saturday 9-5. Pray for flexibility on our part and that we would all die to ourselves (and our agenda) and how only His love, grace and mercy to these brothers and sisters in the Lord. May our words be His, our arms His, our words His - ALL for Him!

We've arrived!! TUESDAY MARCH 10th

Photos (& hopefully video will follow later this week-having technical difficulty today!!)

We had a jaunt (11 hours) from LA to Tokyo in a 747 with 10 seats across (3 - 4 - 3). In Tokyo we saw only the airport (and bathrooms!!) as we had to disembark from the plane while they cleaned and moved it to another gate. We re-boarded and flew from Tokyo to Singapore (7 hours). We arrived in Singapore at approximately 1:30 am and got "day use" rooms where we were able to sleep for a few hours and shower. Then we walked through the Singapore airport which is really a HUGE shopping mall and boarded our plane (Airbus 330) with the typical 4 seats across (2 - 2) to Kathmandu (4 1/2 hours).

Sailed through customs (actually didn't even go through it and no one told us to!!). Outside there were numerous people covered with red dye (and other assorted colors) but no one was throwing it there, praise God! At first we didn't see Steve and Becky as we had landed early but they found us and we loaded 10 people (in addition to the two of them and a driver) AND our luggage (LOTS of luggage) onto a 12 passenger van. It was a site!!

Arrived (with ALL luggage) at the Goshen House where there are 14 guests with two bathrooms - should be fun! We relaxed, got settled and then went out to dinner with Steve and Becky Thorson (missionaries to Nepal) and all ate mo mos. We have steamed buff mo mos and fried chicken mo mos between all of us and then ice cream!!

Back to the guest house to crash!