A Puppy, Haystacks and Two Good Months in the Village

After six weeks recovery, I was allowed to return to the village. During the recovery time in Kathmandu, Bill went to Dang Valley in eastern Nepal for nine days. He went there with the Benns, a new Wycliffe team, to help them settle into their new village home and setting. From my journal:

Yesterday we flew to the village--with 10 minutes of very turbulent weather--the plane was bouncing all over the sky and me a dizzy mess.....But God put such joy on actually arriving and knowing He is going to bless us. I've had a real joy and gladness to be here and feel this an answer to prayer. We couldn't drive our van because our tires from Singapore hadn't arrived yet.

The following entries span two months of our life in the village: March and April 1976.

The last few days have been lovely: lots of food gifts from people, even our landlady gave dozens of garlics! Then today Bill started translation work with Kissan and I started teaching Jon, and wham-o. Bill and I had a lengthy discussion-argument about lots of little things that was not governed by love. Jon's been a crank, though he did well in his lessons. There's lots of medical work and Bill had to take one injured man into Bharatpur for treatment, but he and Kissan keep working.

Yesterday there was a big wedding at Baghmara and we rode royally in a tractor. I've been deeply grateful to be completely healthy these last few weeks. Yet now Kunti is quite ill, Jon's got a hacking cough.

Then we got a puppy! The kids named him Frisky. Jon and Jenny loved him. On Friday some village kids stole him from the yard and threw him to some big dogs who attacked him. We've dressed his wounds and prayed and now he is getting better. These same kids tried to break and enter yesterday, but we caught them. The village elders told their parents to reprimand them. We're grateful for their intervention.

Yesterday we took a lovely family walk and climbed a 10 foot haystack at Kissan's. We had a ball frolicking and lying at the top of it and singing Alleluia to God.

A really refreshing wind blew through the 100 foot trees. God is good.

Our weekly mail flight came and brought lots of good letters. So much to be thankful for, even though there's a need for rain here. It's so dusty, with one huge dust storm that swept through our house, even with windows and doors closed.

Now it seems like the whole village is sick--so much disease. One baby died, after it seemed to be recovering. It was not able to urinate. Seems to be a big cause of death and sickness here. Wish we knew the cause. But we know love's the answer. Then I had my first penicillin reaction with Hongari's son--a very bad rash on his body.

Mid-April: Even with the little rain the other night, it's still so very hot. Tons of medical work and still no language helper for the summer. Jon's lessons are over and only one more week in the village for this spring. Our return flight up to Kathmandu on RNAC was very windy and bouncy. We all felt it. But we made it back with gratitude ... for cleanliness. We returned to Kathmandu briefly before heading to Pokhara for five days rest and different scenery.

It was a good two months, with much progress in every area. Relationships were being forged and built up, medical work flourished with village people being healed. I was working with the women on literacy skills, and we were beginning to feel at home in the village. We spent time visiting in other villages too. You can see the kids and Bill waiting for a meal here. You can see the water jug in Bill's hands. They always gave us this to wash our hands before eating. And they always gathered around to stare at the "angrazi" (Literally this means "English" but it refers to all western foreigners.) Note all of Jenny's blond curls too!

Also during these two months Bill was making good progress on Bible translation and Kissan was asking probing questions about Jesus. However, he discovered that the Tharu people had NO knowledge of God and his initial work with people, places and events. This meant that all the New Testament references to the Old Testament didn't make sense to Kissan....or any other Tharu for that matter. This was something of a crisis for Bill: Clearly he would have to provide the background, but why should he be describing the customs of a far-away, obscure people group from 5,000 years ago to a Nepalese farmer? It seemed meaningless.

From Bill's experience:

For about 3 days I stopped and thought about this. Then, suddenly, I realized for the first time that there is no doctrine or teaching in the Bible that isn't situated in a particular time and place. We have to understand the context in order to understand what God was saying and doing. Even Paul's letter to the Romans, sometimes described as the most concise statement of theology in the Bible, was written at a particular time by a particular person to a particular congregation, and as we understand their situation and issues and Paul's message, we understand what God was saying to them.  

Anyway, this released me to begin translating again. So I stopped working on Mark and started translating Genesis to give them the background of God's invasion into the life of Hebrew people for the amazing preparation for Jesus.

Then, it was time to return to Kathmandu.  It was so good to have a van to travel these mountainous roads back and forth between Kathmandu and the village. A normal trip in good weather took 7-8 hours....if the rivers weren't flooded! The rugged beauty is amazing, even through the Raj Path, a winding, always turning road. What a gift all this time in the village was, before the soon-to-come shock and heartbreak.