Yeti Airlines...kinda

As I alluded to in my last post yesterday was a little crazy, and it got my off of my blogging routine. 

Yesterday started out at 04:30 waking up to go to the airport for our Mount Everest flight. We met our taxi, because Ram's car is small, think 80's Plymouth Horizon. The night before when we arranged for the taxi we were told it would be 500 rupees and your supposed to agree on the price before you get in the taxi. So as I'm about to get in I say "500 right?" "No 700" the taxi driver says. We go back and forth a couple times neither of us budging on the price and I finally say "really 500?" "Yes, night charge". Whatever it is a difference of about $2. 

So we get to the airport to meet up with Ram's family, Mike and I invited Ram's family to come with us, Ram has already done this and declined to come with. Turns out they have Mike and I on one flight and Ram's wife and kids on another flight. So we get changed all onto the same flight and go through go security, nothing like TSA security by the way. Our flight was supposed to depart at 06:45. I didn't think we would have any trouble getting out because the seemed clear in the predawn light. However, as he sun came up I saw that we were socked in with fog. No sense on going on a Mount Everest sight seeing flight if you can't see the mountain right.

Our flight was delayed an hour to see if the fog would lift, it was delayed another hour, and finally a third hour. Finally at 9:30 they canceled the mountain flights for the day. This is what it would have looked like though.

According to the brochure they gave us this is the actual view from the aircraft. So we didn't reschedule for the time that we are here. It is just incentive to come back in the future sometime. 

After the Everest flight got canceled and we got back to our hotel, Ram came to pick us up just for church, we would have missed it if the flight hadn't been canceled. Ram brought us to a church that his church, Patan Church, helped plant. It was really cool to hear that there is active church planting going on here in Nepal and it is the Nationals doing the planting not foreign ministries. It turns out that this church plant has several plants of its own.

We spoke to the largest group yet. After church one of the men came up to me and sincerely thanked me for my message on serving in the church when you aren't in full time ministry. He said that is a large hurdle to getting people, particularly men, to help in the church. They will say, "I will help when I get money to" so my message of being in ministry in my home, at church, and at work really hit home. 

We also had the opportunity to participate in communion. What an awesome feeling to be worshiping with these people and being presented with that opportunity. 

After church we had a few hours at the hotel and I ended up taking a nap for about an hour...it was hard getting up and ready to have dinner at Ram's house after that.

Ram and his family had us over and made us a very Nepali meal consisting of rice, chicken, and cauliflower. Ram tried getting me to eat a hot pepper, it has always been hard for me to turn down a dare. Turns out that this particular pepper is even very hot for them. Ram was eating it little bites at a time with lots of rice and chicken in his mouth already...I thought he wanted me to eat it all at once. It was VERY hot...

It was very nice to eat with Ram and experience a little bit more of the Nepali culture. 

Mike was taking this photo to submit it to World Magazine. Only his son is missing from the picture.

Thanks again for all the support you all have given me, through prayer and financially, it is greatly appreciated. This will be my last post until I am back in the states.

Tym

 

Strategic Planning

First off sorry I didn't get this posted yesterday...I'll get to that in the next post. 

Friday was the WILD Nepal strategic Planning meeting with those that chose to be a part of the core team. We had 7 people there as well as Ram the Regional Director. It is a good mix of people with different backgrounds and gifts. 

Mike spent about the first 45 minutes going over the history and vision of WILD Ministries. 

(If you have been reading this blog and have been curious what WILD is check out the website at www.wildleadership.org and have a look. WILD stands for Wise Intentional Leadership Development and the focus is training young people in biblically based leadership principles.)

After Mike went over the history and vison of WILD we went into the strategic planning portion of the meeting. Without getting to indepth about the process it is basically putting a ton of ideas about where the ministry could go, what you'd like to see the ministry do, or who the ministry is going to focus on. After you have a ton of ideas, we came up with 46, everyone gets 10 votes and you can't vote for one item more then 4 times, and NO "campaigning" for your favorite idea. 

Once the voting is completed the top 4 or 5 vote getters become the focus of the ministry for the next 3 to 5 years. 

One of the top vote getters was to establish a WILD Nepal National Coordinator. That person will be responsible for coordinating all of the goings on of WILD Nepal. A lot of the other focus items and strategies where administrative in nature as well but on item was ministry focused, and I thought it was a pretty good item. That was getting the WILD material into the local churches, colleges and universities. 

One more post before we get ready to head home. I hope that you have been finding these informative and fun to read. 

Thank you

TS

WILD Nepal Core Team

Some of the ideas we came up with. 

Leadership Training Day 2

Whew. We finished up day 2 of training and we are very happy with the results. Mike is very pleased with how everything has gone down, I had about 20 people aged 20 to 45. While Mike had 5 people go through the world view. 

Mike has been telling me how glad he is that I came with him. First off he is really happy about what I brought to the table in the technology department. He is excited about my blogging, it is something that he has never had before. Having the availability to send out "realtime" information for everyone that supports WILD Ministry, from a perspective other than his own. Putting together the video that I did is something else that he hasn't done before, search WILDMinistriesNepal on YouTube. Using that video to show supporters sights and sounds of Kathmandu. 

I think the most important reason for me to be here though was to help with the training. If Mike had come alone I don't think that this trip would have been even close to being as successful as it has been. The fact that I could come in and teach the leadership material while Mike could focus on a small group with the world view material is fantastic. I don't say that to puff up my own ego, but to explain WILD's mission. The leadership material is great and hopefully everyone that was there with me will turn around and teach it to someone else. 

Today we are meeting with the core group to discuss strategies for WILD Nepal. Where are we going, what are we going to do to get there, you know develop at vision for WILD Nepal and get laser like focus on that vision. The 5 people that Mike taught the world view material to have all decided to join the core group of 10 people to carry the WILD banner in Nepal. 

It is very exciting to be a part of this. They are already talking about doing a WILD Youth Conference next fall. If that is something that is going to be happening, I would love to be able to come back and be a part of the first Christian youth conference in Nepal. 

Please pray for our meeting today, that we would come together singularly with a vision to spread Gods love through Nepal. 

A common meal in Nepal. Rice with a sauce poured over it, I think the red stuff is a type of bean with some spices and pork. A whole new take on the spork for me as well. #mindblown

Leadership Training Day 1

Greetings,

Yesterday we started teaching the material we came to teach. It is amazing seeing God's hand on in everything we're doing here. This is my first time teaching the WILD Leadership Material, but I feel like I am doing a very good job. Several of the people in my class have come up and said that it has been very inspiring and good material. So the material is good and I am doing a good job presenting it, both good things. 

Mike started the World View Material and has got 5 students in his class. When deciding who to have in the World View class Mike had a couple of stipulations. First they should have gone through the Spiritual Leadership class, and they need to be able to turn around and teach the World View material. That is the real reason we are here, to train the Nepali people and equip them with the tools to diciple their own people. 

The more I am here with Mike the more I understand and can relate to the vision of WILD. We aren't coming here to set up a long term missionary, we aren't coming here to tell them how to be christians, we aren't coming here to tell them to conform to what a Western christian does. We are here to give them the tools to change a culture, tools to reach the young people of the country and minister to them, to teach the young people (and older people too, I guess here I fall in to the older people catagory) about what biblical leadership looks like.

When I teach courses at work I don't get nervous, I don't have a hard time standing in front of a crowd and talking. The material is cut and dry, technical, it is what it is. When I am preparing to teach here I get a twinge of nervous energy, I want to make sure that I know what I am talking about and that I teach the material true to the source. I believe the bible to be the inspired word of God. I want to make sure I am representing it correctly and not adding in something, unintentionally, that doesn't belong. It has been a great learning experience for me.

One of the best ways to learn something is to teach it. It is my prayer that everyone who is going through the Leadership course and the World View course would turn around and teach this material to someone else. 

It is like the addition vs multiplication dicsipleship models. What follows is straight from Chapter 4 of the Spiritual Leadership material.

If two people (Disciple A and Disciple B) begin to disciple two people for a year, after one year both original disciples have two disciples. Discipler A selects two new disciples for the second year, while Discipler B encourages his first two disciples from Year One to also disciple others with him.  

After the second year, Discipler A has 5 people in his group, including himself, while Discipler B has 9 (each of three disciples discipled two). Following this process, after three years Discipler A has 7 in his group, while Discipler B has 27. After four years, A has 9, B has 81; five years, A – 11, B – 243; six years, A – 13, B – 729.  

Now Discipler A has done all the work, while Discipler B has spread the work to all involved and is applying Ephesians 4:11-13.  This is a math formula, and some people will take less or longer time to be discipled so they get to the part of reproducing themselves spiritually, plus some will simply not be discipled or disciple others. 

The point is Discipler B is following the Biblical model that has been used throughout Scripture – Jethro and Moses, Moses and Joshua, Eli and Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, Jesus and the apostles, Barnabas with Saul and Mark, Paul with Silas, Timothy, Titus and Philemon.  

If we follow the Discipler B model, in one lifetime we could see the world won to Christ.  That is what it is all about.  (Judges 2:6-10)  In one generation they can forget what God has mightily done for them. 

Thank you for still checking in to read these, it is very cool to go to the stats page and see how many hits this is getting, and where they are coming from.

TS

Meeting before the meeting

Yesterday Mike met with Ram for about 4 hours to discuss the direction of WILD Nepal before the strategic planning meeting this Friday. They brought me along and it really opened my eyes to some of the behind the scenes aspects of international ministry work. 

It's hard for me to put into words everything that was talked about, and I'm not sure of what all really happened. But I do know this, there is a huge difference between the requirements of a non profit in the U.S. Versus Nepal. For example, to get tax exempt status (501c3) in the U.S. can take up to 18 months, in Nepal that takes a few weeks. However in Nepal annually there is about 3 inches worth of paperwork to submit to the government, in the U.S. it is a few pages. 

Those are just a couple differences, like I said a lot of the stuff that they talked about was way above my head, I just know that Mike was very happy after the meeting was done. 

Today training starts in ernest. We will be teaching pretty much all day today and tomorrow. Pray for us.

TS

Day of rest

Yesterday was a day of rest. 

One thing that I started struggling with when we first got here was that there seemed to be a lot of time during which nothing was scheduled. I spoke to Mike about this on the second day. I told him when I was writing my blog posts that it felt like I kept saying that we have a bunch of down time.

He told mew that is a very common feeling and he wasn't surprised that I was feeling that way. As Americans we want to fill our time with a schedule of events and a nailed down itinerary, especially when we are working. Since Mike and I are here working I felt like every day should be well planned out and that we would be accomplishing goals and objectives everyday. Even as I am typing this I am seeing my background in wildfire coming out, goals and objectives. 

Mike assured me that we were accomplishing what we came here to do. Life is much more relational here then at home. At home we judge success by what we did, here we judge success by the relationships we forge and the friendships we make. 

With that being said, on Saturday when we were at church I met an Aussie who has been in Nepal for 16 years. We got to talking about what I do and he pointed me in the direction of a firehouse not to far from the hotel we are staying at. So yesterday I set off on an adventure to find this firehouse on my own. I have an app that uses georeferenced PDF maps with the internal GPS. The Aussie gave me some good Intel while looking at the map of Kathmandu and I was able to find the firehouse right away. 

When I was packing I threw in some patches from the Chequamegon - Nicolet National Forest with the intention of being able to trade with some other firefighters. 

When I arrived at the firehouse I found that no one there spoke any English. I was able to get my message of wanting to trade patches across though and I now have a Nepali fire patch. 

I also got some pictures of their equipment. 

These last three pictures are of an old truck they no longer use.

Full on tourist mode!

Yesterday was a day full of tourism. Rather then try to describe it in words, this post will be mostly pictures. 

Fried MoMo

Part of the Krishna Temple Complex. Krishna is one of the Hindu Gods, Krishna apparently is a womanizer. 

Not sure on this one. We were just walking by. 

Cremation ceremony at the holiest site in the Hindu religion. Hindus come from all over the world to come to this temple. It is set up on the holiest rivers in the Hindu religion. It is the oldest sons responsibility to light the fire.

Big awkward items need to be moved somehow...

These two kids where moving this cart by themselves. 

If it fits it ships...so to speak. 

On our way up to the aptly named Monkey Temple. It is a Buddhist Temple. 

From the top of the hill at the Monkey Temple

From the top of the hill at the Monkey Temple

Monkey Temple

We skipped the long, long walk up the stairs.

This is just the last pitch of the stairs. 

I just like dogs, and this pup caught my eye. 

Himalayan Rock for Christ

Yesterday was a pretty busy day. First Ram Kuhmar, another Ram, and his brother picked Mike and I up for church on motorcycles. In the morning traffic wasn't so bad and we didn't have very far to go. 

The preperation worked wonders. Having an outline and a way to keep my thoughts together was so helpful when speaking through an interpreter. Only one time did I have to ask Ram Kuhmar what I had just said. Now I know all of you organized people out there are going to say "of course silly" but that was a big step for me. I spoke about my family, my church and my job and how it is important to lead spiritually in each of those areas. I finished up with a short little blurb about Moses from the material. I referenced Numbers 20:10-12 when Moses gets so fed up with Isreals complaining that in frustration he strikes the rock with his staff to bring forth water for the thirsty Israelites. The consequences of Moses losing his cool was never setting foot in the promised land. The consequences of me losing my cool in any of the areas I mentioned (family,church,work) would be a loss of credibility. 

After church traffic had picked up a bit. But nothing compared to what it was when we drove in to the city center. I used my GoPro to film the ride and when I get back I'll get that posted online. I can't really describe it, and if I try it won't really do the trip justice. 

After lunch, at KFC, we were brought back to the hotel where Ram Prasad Shrestha, original Ram from my posts, was waiting for us. Mike and I changed into jeans and we left. Ram's son is in a band called Himilayan Rock for Christ and they had a Album Release Event. I'm sure it wasn't just for Mike and I but they did some songs in English and some in Nepali. It was awesome to hear some of my favorite worship songs sung in Nepali while I sing along in English. It was an awesome night of worship and I was so happy to be able to attend that event. 

There was another band that a played there that called themselves Jesus Generation. They opened up with the verse where the got their name from, Psalm 24:6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. This also happens to be the verse that my bible study group of guys use, we call ourselves the 2-4-6 Crew. They also did a great Nepali/English cover of my absolute favorite worship song "Our God" by Chris Tomlin.

It was a great day, and my post is short. But it really makes me feel good to see bands like Himalayan Rock for Christ and Jesus Generation reaching the youth in Nepal. 

I was finally able to sleep in to a reasonable time. I didn't get up until 06:30 today! Yay!

Thank you for the comments and the notes of support.

TS

Worship band at church. 

Ram Kuhmar and his son. No matter where in the world you are kids always eat the middle of the Oreo and leave the cookie for the parents. 

Mike and Ram speaking at church. 

HRC event ticket. 

A lesson in preperation

First I will fill you in on my sleep patterns because they are interesting to me at least. I was able to stay up until 22:00 (10:00) last night, yay! but I still woke up at 04:00, boo! I'm sure by the time I am sleeping like normal it will be time to fly home. It is interesting here, traffic pretty much becomes non existent by 22:00. After two days of waking up way to early it doesn't really start picking up until 04:30 - 05:00. So tomorrow morning I'll now if I should really wake up or not based on the prevailing traffic patterns outside.

So yesterday we had the morning and most of the afternoon to ourselves. We were picked up by Ram at 17:30 and he brought us to the church he attends where on Friday nights they have a service that focuses on the youth of the congregation. Now I'm going to clarify something here, I keep saying youth but in reality the age group that is represented is 18 to 35...Seriously, there wasn't a person there over the age of 35 except for Mike and Ram. But when I say youth I am talking more of the youth culture, not what we would consider "youth" in america, you know like 13 to 20.

The service was all in Nepali and the worship bad was very good. They had guitars, bass and drums, very contemporary. It was neat because they were singing christmas songs in Nepali, the one that I knew I sang along with in english and the ones I didn't I just soaked it all in.

I was then brought up to speak and I was planning on speaking about working in ministry even though I am not a paid full time ministry worker. That was the plan anyway.

I have never been one to overly prepare, I have always been able to "wing it" pretty good. I remember in high school I had to debate as a team with my best friend Brandon. Part of the grade was to have talking points written out on index cards. Of course I didn't prepare so when it was our teams turn for debating I walked up there very confident in my knowledge of the topic and had with me 3 blank index cards. I don't remember what the exact grade was but I know that both Brandon and I did well.

So I walked up on the stage after Ram introduced me and he didn't leave. I looked at him and asked him if he was going to be translating for me, because I wasn't expecting that, and he said yes, of course. I was now officially off my game.

I stumbled through what I wanted to talk about, but without the preperation that I should have done I feel like I really floundered. Speaking through a translator was very tough for me because I would often loose my train of thought while he was translating what I had just said. 

So I awkwardly finished up and then Ram invited Mike to come up. All I can say is that Mike killed it! He was spot on, I could tell he was comfortable speaking through a translator, he knew what he wanted to say, he stayed on topic through the translations. I could tell he had done this at least 3 times...probably more like 300 times.

So today at church it will be the same format for Mike and I as last night, this time however I have prepared. I have an outline (gasp!) and I have notes (say what?) and I am mentally prepared for speaking through a translator.

Thank you for reading about what we are doing, please continue to pray for us, that our teaching would be heard and sink in. That the material the we are presenting to the Nepali "youth" would empower them to be spirtual leaders whether the are in full time ministry or not.

Thank you 

Tym

School children assembling.

Mike and I were up on the roof talking and he said something that really hit me. If you have ever really struggled with the David and Bathsheeba story and how he could have seen her...This is what Jerusalem was probably like, there are no yards so the roof of homes becomes a place to do laundry or maybe...take a bath.

Finley wearing a bowl on her head while we are on FaceTime.

First full day

Right now it is 05:15 and I have been up since 03:30. Yesterday Mike and I had the morning to get more aclimated to our new surroundings. I was good to go for most of the day, but when the sun went down and I stopped moving around I was bushed. I ended up going to sleep about 20:00 (8:00 PM for those non 24 hour time keepers)

So as I mentioned yesterday morning Mike and I had to ourselves. Mike was busy studying for school, he is going for his Masters right now, and I spent a good part of the morning preparing for what I was going to teach in the afternoon. 

In the afternoon we went to a local bible school and once there Mike and I split up to maximize our short time there. I met with the first year students to go over the Spiritual Leadership material and Mike went with the second and third year students to go over the World View material. I was very excited and quite nervous all at the same time. Mike has been telling me for about as long as I have known him that to change a culture you change the youth, after my years with HCY and spending time on the Board I tend to agree with Mike. So here I am at this bible school in Kathmandu and I am about to, hopefully, impart some wisdom on some of the youth of Kathmandu. 

It was a group ranging in age from 19 to 38 and I started out by saying that I would be teaching them some, but first I needed them to teach me something...how to say hello in Nepali. Namaste is the greeting. I asked if that was formal and they told me yes it was, but when I asked what the informal hello was they said there was none. After that I got started and we covered parts of a couple different areas since we only had a few hours with them. I covered what a Leader looks like and we went over Samual annointing David. We then went into a charcter study on Joseph followed by a short lesson about the character of a leader and covered Samual 12:1-5 where Samual asks Isreal if he has wronged any of them. Lastly we did another character study, this time on Moses.

I learned that students are the same in Nepal as they are in the US. Some are way into it, engaged and ask good questions and others are there physically. 

One of my favorite parts though was I asked them what their favorite thing was about Kathmandu. Everyone started speaking at once and I couldn't hear anything. It was so cool to see them so excited about their home. Once I got them to calm down and regain some semblance of order, the first thing that came out was MoMo...MoMo is kind of like a steamed dumpling and a little like a potsticker, it was also the first thing I ate once we got here...and it was delicious.

Speaking of eating, we have been eating at this really neat cafe. From what I understand it is a ministry of sorts, they hire deaf people as waiters. So all the ordering is done with sign language and pointing at the menu. It is cool because these men are otherwise unhireable in Nepal. The food is pretty good too.

Oh and I got my luggage!  However, if it hadn't been for our friend Ram (say it like rom in CD-ROM) I don't think I would have gotten it. I am finding that my Minnesota nice is far to polite outside of the midwest. It wasn't that Ram was being unkind or bossy, but it appears that you have to be somewhat direct with your intentions. I could tell from the body language that it was not how I would have handled it. Thank you Ram!

Thank you again for all of your support, please keep praying for us.

Tym

Home Depot you say?

All the wires are just bundled up at the poles.

Just a mom, dad and baby on a motorcycle...no big deal

I'll try to get a better picture of this machine...It reminds me of a roto-tiller front with a trailer.