Eight Flies with One Swat--Tales from the Mountain Tops and Valleys Below--#2

Yes, truly, eight flies with one swat. We were soon to be surrounded by many different critters as you will see in the photos below. But first—let me acknowledge the sources for the materials in these blogs about our years in Nepal. Bill’s parents plus our good friends Martin and Deidre Bobgan, kept every letter we ever wrote them. So now we have those, in addition to my own personal journals. So you are getting “source” materials here and not just memories!

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Our first several months in Kathmandu were spent in intensive language study of Nepali. Hari was our daily tutor and we worked very hard to practice both the verbal and written language. Devangri, the written script, is not easy. I’ll paste the local greeting of “Namaste” here for your to see.

नमस्ते

We had been much looking forward to soon heading to our tribal assignment with the Tharu people of southern Nepal. But while we were in language study in Kathmandu, Jonathan became quite ill with pneumonia. He was admitted to the mission hospital twice. You can imagine how difficult this was. During this season we learned how powerful Satan comes on and how through prayer and fasting, Jesus puts him in his place.

Jonathan was almost a year old now and very verbal. His first word (besides the voiceless “cookie” at eight months) was not mama or dada, but “icture.” He loved pictures on the wall and went around pointing to them all. One letter said that “His massive vocabularly includes door (which he opens and closes), miste for 'Namaste,' the Nepali greeting, and da, which means everything else.”

To get ready for living in a Tharu village, we first had to make a trip down to the village location to find housing. Because there was much stuff to take, including a 300 watt generator (there was no electricity for miles around), Bill took a truck down the Raj Pat, possibly one of the windiest and most dangerous roads in southeast Asia. Jonathan and I followed by a small Cessna plane to Bharatpur, the nearest airstrip town. Wycliffe’s partner JAARS provided air transportation to local towns for all the Wycliffe teams--a great blessing.

Bharatpur was seven miles from where the Tharus live. During this first trip to explore the land, we were able to rent a room in a local village, Tarni Bazaar (also known as Ratnanagar). This was not part of the Tharu village we were going to, as a house there was not yet available and ready. The local room cost us the equivalent of $4 a month. It was large enough for us to all sleep in and cook in. Here's a photo of Jonathan outside our front door with two goats, a dog and a local girl who liked to hold him.

Our friend and house helper, Sita, came with us to help care for Jonathan and cook, and she lived with us in this rented room. One day a pan of boiling water fell off the burner and severely burned Sita’s left arm and stomach. We took her into Bharatpur where a Nepali doctor cleaned and dressed it and treated her with shots and medication. It was God’s grace that she lived. Without house help, I had to wash all Jonathan’s diapers by hand for the first time in my life. The photo here is our room from the outside, complete with diapers and baby clothes on the line.

Within the first week we also were robbed of all our cash by someone who had tried to pose as a friend. So we were learning to love and forgive from the very beginning. But one of the hardest things was the heat and humidity and flies, huge cockroaches, mice, and critters that shared our room. One day I actually killed eight flies with one swat. As monsoon season approached, it seemed to rain all the time, so outside was quite muddy too.Then Jonathan and I got quite sick with bronchitis. There were many new experiences that were challenges, but I wrote, “We have much for which to praise HIM. And do.”

The biggest miracle during this time was meeting Ram Kissan Rawat, who would be our Tharu language helper and eventually the first follower of Jesus among the Tharu people. Ram's parent had a “premonition” that someone important was coming that Ram would meet and work with. So when we asked if he could spend the monsoon season with us in Kathmandu, they were very supportive of him doing so. This picture is of Kissan's parents and one of his sisters. The cowdung house with tile roof was typical.

With his help, we returned to Kathmandu and began language study. This photo is of Kissan and Bill hard at work. How grateful to God we were and are that He brought Kissan into our lives.

Let me give you an overview of what it took to get to where we lived in the village.

1. First you fly from Kathmandu to Bharatpur in a small plane that landed on a bumpy dirt airstrip.
2. Then you, and all your luggage, walk trying to find a local bus that makes the seven mile trip to Tarni Bazaar, the town where we first stayed.
3. From there, you walk half a mile south down the road toward the Elephant Camp.
4. You arrive at our village, Devauli, our new home. Whew, it was never an easy thing, but each time Father provided all we needed.

There was one English speaking church in Kathmandu at the time we were there, named Rabi Bhawan. Every Sunday coffee and tea were served after the service. I think I can identify some of our co-workers and friends in the background--Jessie and Warren Glover, and Dick Hugoniot!

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Philippians 4:6-7: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

The song that rings in my heart for this season is "Great is Your Faithfulness, Oh, God my Father." Great is Thy Faithfulness music and words

"Great is Thy faithfulness,” O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

Chorus
“Great is Thy faithfulness!” “Great is Thy faithfulness!”
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—
“Great is Thy faithfulness,” Lord, unto me!

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above,
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

The Ends of the Earth and the Cold Cement Floors of Kathmandu, Nepal - Tales from the Mountain Tops and Valleys Below - #1

Mount Everest, Nepal

Missionaries are supposed to go to the ends of the world, right? And who gets to choose where those ends end? It was all in Father's plan book. We had asked for an assignment to Russia since Bill had studied Russian (which he had tried, unsuccessfully, to teach me on our honeymoon!). But Russia, as a country, was not open to linguists or Bible translators and the relationship between the US and Russia was not overly friendly. 

So Wycliffe assigned us to Nepal. It sounded like a great assignment with the Himalayas and Mt. Everest. But this country also had a challenging political climate, one that did not allow citizens to "change religions." Our job there was to be linguistic technicians. Our group planned to analyze the more than 30 unwritten languages in Nepal (not counting dialects) and to provide written works of "high moral value." We would get one of those 30 people groups to work among and come to love.

Before Bill and I met, and I was hoping to go to the ends of the earth, I told the Lord I would go anywhere.....but please don't send me to India. I'm not sure why, just seemed like a harder place to live. So the Lord, in His kindness, sent me to a country just north of India, a country that shared many cultural similarities and challenges.

After Bill finished his final linguistic courses in Norman, Oklahoma, we began to pack up all we thought we would need for the next five years in Nepal. Five years was a normal term  in those days before the team got time back home. Back then you didn't fly home every year. It was a lifetime commitment to go and stay where He sent you. 

We also needed to spend time on the road around the west coast sharing the work we would be doing with friends and family and then trust the Lord for financial provision. We found many friends who committed to pray for us and some who were able to give. We, as yet, didn't know how greatly we would need and depend on those prayers and the God who answered in many mysterious and wonderful way.

We had loving friends and family send us off at the LA Airport. You can see us all here. I’m not sure who took the picture, but I’m glad we have it. Jonathan was 8 months old when we left. He began walking at 7 months (he's always been precocious), and he entertained the stewardesses by walking up and down the aisle. The flight wasn't even half full so they had time to play with him and we had time to rest.

From the left moving towards the back: Bill and Jonathan, me, my sister Nancy, her husband Orv, our good friend Marilyn Pendleton, Bill's Dad, and John and Kathy Watters. In the front is my mother, Bill's mother, and another Wycliffe single lady named Becca travelling with us to Nepal (she later married a Nepali named Hari who was our first language teacher).

We flew from LA to Tokyo and stayed there a couple of days; the father of our travelling companion Becca wanted us to have a good time on the trip and sponsored the stay in Tokyo. Then on to Kathmandu through Calcutta. By the time we arrived we were exhausted. We also weren't prepared for the cold weather with cold cement floors and no central heating. There was only one kerosene heater for the whole small apartment. So many things were different. I wrote about the differences three days after arrival and then again three weeks later. At the end of this blog is what what I wrote, a bit dog-eared with age but still fresh. So read them if you want to learn more about Nepal over 40 years ago and the difference three weeks can make in perspective...at least in mine!

In our packing, we included a trunk of Gerber baby food. I’m not sure what we thought Nepalese babies lived on, but we wanted to be sure Jonathan had what he was used to while he transitioned to local food. As it turned out, he adjusted well to the Nepalese rice and lentils and dahi (yogurt) and didn't need all that Gerber baby food! Good thing since the trunk didn't arrive for several weeks. Lost in airspace.

Here are a couple photos from those first days.

Jonathan is "helping" us unpack (!) and Bill is cooking on the kerosene burners in our apartment kitchen. We were grateful someone loaned us a high chair.

And so our years of life in Nepal had begun. We were excited for this new adventure with Him, and full of hope and trust. Little did we know that He had brought us here to change us and our hearts more than just to work with the people we would come to love. We thought we were there to translate the Bible into an unwritten language and help these indigenous people come to love and trust Him. Well, that's what happened too, but it turned our lives upside down and inside out in the process, as you will read in the upcoming Tales from the Mountain Tops.