It's Been A While...

Hi all:

We have had several of you write asking how we are doing having lost our teacher, with the hope of adoptions, domestic violence happening to our house helper, etc. Well, life has been so hectic of late that we just haven’t had the time to update you all (or are too tired to do so when we finally have the time). Finally, a brief moment…

To be honest we have really struggled to adjust to life without a teacher these past two weeks. Daily living alone takes a great deal of time here in Nepal and add to that our jobs and now to that the need to take up extra responsibilities of teaching. As a result we have both had to scale way back with our various vocational involvements and with our language lessons (which are so important to our long-term work here) in order to keep the schooling going for the kids. This has been a difficult decision for us as we both feel like we came here for more than just living in Nepal and schooling our kids. We feel like we were called here to contribute to the wider Chepang ministry, Tansen Mission Hospital, Palpa Community Health Department, and the wider missionary community. And yet our kid’s education is also an imperative (which is why we felt it necessary to recruit a teacher to come with us). So, we have striven (not very successfully at times) over these past two weeks to do it all.

After learning our teacher would not be returning to Nepal a few days ago we got a message from some missionary friends that their oldest son might be willing to come to finish out the term with us. Although not a teacher by training, he is a recent college graduate, and the oldest of nine kids (so has lots of experience with “helping” younger kids), and the curriculum we are using does not require a trained teacher, just significant time. So, Ryan will be boarding a plane in less than ten hours to begin his four day journey to join us. Please pray for Ryan’s travels that will take him through Thailand and Kathmandu, which have both been experiencing political tensions as of late. And pray for us, that we will have the stamina to finish out the school week this week. And if anyone wants to help with Ryan's travel/living expenses (which were unexpected) please write us and we will let you know how to do that.

On the guardianship/adoption front we haven’t heard a peep. It would take a real miracle, however. As the days tick on it seems less and less likely that, even if it is possible (and it currently seems impossible for a foreigner to legally gain guardianship of this little girl), that we will actually have the time required to finalize all of the needed paperwork before our required departure date. And in the meantime she sits in the hospital, unadoptable even to Nepalis because she was abandoned without the necessary parental release paperwork. Barring a miracle it could take months or even years (in the absence of this signed parental release) for her case to make its way through the convoluted, bureaucratic Nepali legal system. And that must happen first in order to make her adoptable TO ANYONE!

In regards to the domestic violence suffered by our house help, we have been pleased to see the Nepali church come to her aid and to see her, through this difficult situation, returning to more regular Christian fellowship. It has been exciting to see her allowing the Nepali church be the body of Christ in ministering to her needs. The battle is not over, but pray for her and for her estranged and backslidden husband, and for their two adult children; that God would work in the lives of each person involved to draw them all to himself. Pray for true repentance and a return to the Lord for the backslidden husband, for a stronger relationship with her Lord for the wife who sometimes seems satisfied with nominal Christianity and for true relationship with the Lord for the children who don’t seem very mature in faith. And pray for the Nepali church as they strive to be the body of Christ to her and to meet her daily physical and emotional needs.

Okay, I have just been called to adminster a speling test :), so gotta go.

Now you know how to pray!

Dave (for all the abiding Beines)