Before we head off to the mountains...

This will be our last blog post from Kathmandu. We're all currently sitting in the lounge area of our hotel fully packed for a trek up into the mountains. The past few days have been packed full and we've had very little time to update this. We're all doing well in terms of health and well being so hopefully that's a good start to the trekking part of our trip. Today we will be going to Rani Pawa (drive) and trek to Matra Gaun for a couple of hours. A 'loosener' trek according to Graydon. We'll be joined by some Nepali translators, a great cook and a few others. It'll be a fairly large group.

The view from Tim's hotel room

 

A Buddha statue at Swayambhu Stupa

All them stairs... 400+

Just monkeying around

Keeping watch over the city

Gold everywhere

The view from the top of Monkey Temple, prayer flags fluttering in the wind

Baby monkey - so many wrinkles

This 'monkey temple' (Swayambhu Stupa) is best known for its monkeys and the 400+ steps it takes to get up. The view from the top was breathtaking however. Amazing! 

We were fortunate to meet a lady who was selling paintings in her store next to the temple - she had some paintings with bible verses on them which caught our attention. She was a christian and it was incredible to see her witness so close to a Buddhist temple. 

Playing with our technology

At GRN playing the Good News in Nepali. Graydon is keen.

 We were privileged enough to join in the devotions at GRN Nepal. They have them everyday with some singing and they each take turns to teach something from God's Word. We then played around with the Saber players and the picture books to familiarise ourselves with them and the process of using them.

Puppet show at Teach. They develop teaching materials for Sunday schools in Nepal

Early Childhood Education Centre. 

The ECEC was an amazing organisation that worked with young pre school aged kids. They are trying to reform the Nepali education system which is based on rote learning to a system that encourages children to think critically and analyse concepts and grow in their self confidence. Colin and Kimjeng really enjoyed this organisation.

The view from Operation Mobilisation's office in Nepal - who wants to go on short term mission here?

OM is a large world wide organisation (best known for the ships such as Doulos) that have a base in Nepal. They run training courses for local Nepalis and do village evangelism and also some sustainability projects in the area.

The view from the other side of OM - did this seal the deal?

That white capped mountain that you can see in the middle (slightly to the right), we'll be climbing up that close (ish) to the top. It just looks so FAR away!

We're not in Kansas anymore

We're all safe and sound in Kathmandu at the moment and are getting immersed in Nepali culture, food and church. It's been a great start but also a bit of a shock getting used to the traffic, noise, smog and dust. We've been able to go for long walks around Thamel (where our hotel is), go to church, do some orientation and visit one of the biggest Buddhist temples in Nepal.

Our view from the plane, we don't get those in Australia!

The 'foothills' of the Himalayas 

The view from our hotel...and Bruce

A Buddhist shrine on the street in Thamel surrounded by prayer flags

One of the churches in Kathmandu! Men and women sit on different sides of the church. During prayer, everyone prays out loud all together.

Graydon introducing the team to the church, his words were translated by Barney, a Nepali colleague who will be trekking with us.

Nim Gongabu church

Orientation on the roof of our hotel. Nothing like learning with a view.

One of the biggest Buddhist temples in Nepal. There are some Hindu gods around in this temple too. 

Those eyes follow you around...

The devotees go around to reach of the gods, touch them and offer them offerings. This lady touched all of them and offered each some rice.

This is a giant prayer wheel. Each wheel has a prayer on it and when the devotees spin it, prayers are offered up to Buddha.

Another large stupa on the side of road.

We'll be going to the 'monkey temple' this afternoon. I'll be uploading pictures when I can.

Thanks for your prayers and thoughts, pray especially for Tim who is feeling a bit unwell. It's been a great few days learning about the Nepali people and their beliefs. It turns out also that unfortunately the distribution conference was cancelled so everyone will be climbing to 16 000 feet! Please pray for that.

It's the Final Countdown

The trip is coming up soon and I've still got a tonne of things to tick off my to do list. This blog post being one of them!

The team from St James Anglican Minto had a send off dinner on the last Saturday of November. We all forgot to take any photos of the night so I apologise for all the words in this blog post without any pictures.

We were so overwhelmed by the number of people who came from our church family, our families and friends to support us.

Thanks guys, you're all wonderful!

 It was a great night and our team learnt a LOT more from Graydon's presentation about what we'll be doing, coupled with fun photos of rickety bridges, heavy packs and primitive toilets which are not-so-user friendly holes in the ground. I'm a little terrified of misstepping in the middle of a freezing cold night half asleep. That would be a rude awakening. Ignorance is bliss sometimes, I think. We were also serenaded by the gorgeous sounds of Hannah and Rachel.

You can't tell from this photo, but the music was glorious

The team leaves Sydney on Boxing Day for Singapore, then from Singapore via Kuala Lumpur to Kathmandu. That's where the fun begins!
We'll be spending a few days in Kathmandu visiting churches and some shrines, meeting the other members of the team and trying to adjust to the climate, altitude and food. We'll also spend a day frantically shopping to fill in the gaps for clothing needs which are much cheaper than in Australia. Let's hone those haggling skills!

Just before New Year's Day the team will be travelling up north towards the LangTang mountains. The team will be working around an area called Dunche and visiting villages, distributing some materials and talking to the villagers about Jesus. We'll end up being about 2000m above sea level so hopefully no one gets symptoms of altitude sickness. It's shaping up to be the tamest New Year's Eve celebration ever, however dependent on what happens over there, it could end up being the most dramatic, terrifying and exciting one ever! We don't know much more about what we'll be doing during this time so it'll be fun finding out once we're in Nepal.

As a team we are developing a drama of a bible story (Old Testament) for re-enactment for some churches and villages. We threw around some ideas and practiced acting out the confrontation between Elijah and the priests of Baal. If you've never heard the story, read 1 Kings 18:17-40 (and see it played out in Lego). It's pretty full on and it highlights the power of God which drew His people back to Him. Just as a side note, we don't act out verse 40. It was a weird process to hear the story narrated in English then having to wait for the translator to translate before acting. There's a lot of standing around trying to 'stay in character'. We're pretty hopeless, but hopefully it gets the point across!

Towards the end of the trip the team will be splitting up, half going up the LangTang mountains towards the Tibetan border and the other half going down south for a distribution conference for organisations who use GRN materials. They'll also be going on an elephant safari. The first group will (hopefully but doubtful) be climbing to about 16 000 feet and will have amazing views if there isn't any fog. The other group will get to hear great stories about people coming to know Jesus through GRN's materials and go on an elephant safari in Chitwan National Park. There's great wildlife in the Nepalese plains and hopefully they'll be able to see a rhino or two.

Too good for Instagram

From now to Boxing Day, we as a team with be doing last minute purchases and preparation, while also getting ready for Christmas. Continue to pray for us that we don't forget to pray and maintain our spiritual well being in the midst of such a busy time.