Paroikos

After a few weeks back home, I’m stopping in Africa for a little over three weeks before returning to India.

Harvey

Week One – Funeral

Pastor E E Essien, who served for many years as the president of the NCLC, was recently taken home. His funeral is on the 14th of August and most of my first week in Africa will probably be occupied with preparation for his memorial service.

Week Two – NCLC

After E E Essien’s service, I’ll spend a week visiting the pastors of the NCLC with the new president Pastor Patrick Udo

Week Three – Ghana/ Togo

A quick stop in Ghana to pick up pastor Gideon and say hello to the members there, then on to Togo where we are planning on having daily pastoral classes for about a week, with those men training for the ministry under pastor Kossi Blewu.

Monday, June 14th

I  use to tease Aaron that whitesnake was his theme song, but now I’m the one wandering on my own.

T minus one hour till we head out for the airport. The major plane ride from India to Chicago is one straight flight of fifteen hours. But first I have to get to Delhi, which involves a couple hours in the Kathmandu airport a couple hour flight and then about six hours sitting around the Delhi airport waiting for my plane.

It’s always a great time to come to Nepal and its sad to leave but exciting to be so close to being home. The Bhitrakoti’s send their warmest greetings, jaimasihi, to everyone and especially to the  Pastor Ohlmann’s family.  Lord’s blessings to everyone and I will see you soon.

Tuesday, June 8^th

After the Seminar in Dhading we spend the night again in our mud hut. The next morning we arise nice and early, five am, drank our tea, apparently an hourly ritual, and head out for the hike back up the mountain where we once again catch our truck for the ride down. This time there is no sand but half way down we load a motorcycle in the back.

Once down the mountain we are waiting on the main road for a bus to take us to chitwan, however a large semi type truck stops first, so we hope up in front. There is plenty of room up here and  the seats are comfortable so that I think this is actually the most comfortable ride that we have so far had. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday June 7, 2010

Yesterday was a day for traveling. We began by finding a small van to take us from Kathmandu to a small town in the dhading district. The van was much thinner than an normal US van but probably of about the same length, yet somehow we ended up with 25 people packed in.

Arriving at the village we sat and ate at a small restaurant that reminded me of nothing so much as one of the wooden shack bars in an old western, with the buzzing flies, the barely clean tables and the harassed looking waitress, who would apparently just as soon prefer there weren’t any patrons. While we ate pastor attempted to find us a way up the mountain to his village. This it seems is quite difficult because the way is rough and rocky and normal cars and busses won’t go up there. Finally he finds us a truck hauling sand and tin roofing up the mountain so we climb in the back with some 20 other people and hold on to whatever we can grab while we are tossed and jostle for the next two hours. Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Tuesday was all about the scenic climb.  We rode the bus about two hours into the mountains. Then we disembarked and pretty much climb straight up for two and half. Raju keeps reminding me that it was a “hill” not a mountain. But I think anything that you can climb for two and half hours without reaching the top has to be a mountain.

We reached the church there around noon, ate some rice and chicken. Apparently they were trying to catch one of the roosters for us, but they couldn’t find it so we ate the hen. Meanwhile I gave up on the whole water issue and decided that this high up in the mountains there was a pretty good chance the water was safe. I’m still not sick. We got back down and back to Chitwan around 7:00pm, a little tired and sore. Pastor JB and Raju were telling me how they first time they came out to area they carried a generator and LCD projector all around that “hill” to show the Jesus film. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday, May 31, 2010

Not having church on Sunday really messes up ones sense of the week.

Since we traveled out of the Kathmandu valley into the southern and much lower parts of Nepal yesterday, the temperature would normally be quite a bit higher. However it rained quite heavily during the last part of journey and last night so that it is still quite pleasant out. It is however early in the day ( 6:15am ) and it might yet get warmer.

Last night we met with the pastor whose Church we are headed out to visit today. He wanted to know if I liked pork. Apparently his tribe is big on pork. I think I will spend the rest of my time here in Nepal at his village.

Later the same day . . . Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday, May 30, 2010

I left India early on Saturday morning, and arrived in Nepal without incident early afternoon the same day.

I purposely set up my trip to arrive in Nepal on Saturday so that I would be here for service on Sunday, completely forgetting that Nepali worship on Saturday not Sunday.

The weather is absolutely gorgeous as it is always in Nepal. It is only 80 and sunny. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night Dave, Mary, and I attended the wedding of Kanakram. Kanakram is the younger brother of Rajamani one of our district chairmen. I thought some of you in the US might like to see what  an India wedding looks like. As far as I could tell the basic liturgy of the wedding wasn’t too much different.

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