The Journey Continues…

Well, this has certainly been one of the more interesting of our journeys.   Our four days in Bangkok were filled with wonderful fruit, good friends (we unexpectedly ran into some Tansen friends at the Bangkok guest house—what a pleasant surprise!), new cultural experiences for Ana, and simple play.  We resumed our journey toward Spokane at 11:30pm, on a night flight to Korea.  This allowed for four or five hours of sleep.  We arrived early in the morning in Seoul and since we had twelve hours to kill, we decided to take a city tour on a bus.  Dave had investigated the possibility on-line, weeks before our arrival.   It looked so simple: just purchase a ticket at the airport, for a city bus going to the tour bus starting point, get on the tour bus (which would take us around the city for two hours, if we didn’t get off), and then return to the airport on that same city bus.  The website said that all of the tickets could be purchased at one place in the airport.  Do you ever find that website claims do not always follow actual experience?

Well, this isn’t the first time that we have benefitted from Dave’s persistence, but after an hour of seeking answers, we found ourselves on a city bus, experiencing the heart of Seoul.  We tried so hard to stay awake, but the tour bus starting point was 90 minutes away, and I don’t think any of us made the entire trip without dozing off (and some of us saw less of Seoul than we had intended).  Anyway, we did successfully make the transfer to the tour bus, and then selected our first stopping point: the national museum.  The unfortunate detail of our one day in Seoul was the unusual downpour of rain.  The walk from the bus to the museum entrance was between 5 and 10 minutes, which was plenty of time for our clothes and our carry-on bags to become drenched.  We hoped that a few hours in the museum would give us adequate drying time.  The anthropology and history lovers among us really enjoyed the walk through history at this lovely Korean museum.  We were mostly dried (but our bags were not) as we braved the continued downpour several hours later when we had to return to our bus.  Our exhausted Joshua managed to do a “face plant” on the slick pavement before we made it to the bus stop (and he wasn’t the only one to slip in the rain today).  However, not a group to be easily daunted, we re-boarded the tour bus and continued another hour and a half, viewing Seoul, and hoping to get back to the part of the city where we had seen restaurants.  Now we were battling hypoglycemia; the last meal was coffee/hot chocolate and donuts/bagels at 7am; it was now nearing 3pm.  Ana’s instant protein shake (only needs to be mixed in water) was shared and helped stave off hunger pangs a little longer.  Thanks, Ana!

Just as we were nearing what we thought was the eating district, we discovered that it was also the political district.  Looking out our windows, we were seeing hundreds of police donning riot gear.  We asked the tour guide what was going on, and she non-chalantly replied that this is the season of political campaigns and the police were simply present to keep everyone safe.  So we disembarked the bus through a crowd of young police and soon found ourselves witnesses of one of the largest political demonstrations in many years.  The protest was against several things, including the trade agreement with the U.S. and university tuition increases.  The riot police had completely surrounded the crowd that was marching down the street and police barricades blocked one segment of the busy downtown streets.   Hunger was really setting in, and we greatly desired to quickly get away from the unhappy crowd of demonstrators.  After a long, circuitous route (Did I mention that it was still raining?  Thankfully, it was only a drizzle at this point.), we managed to purchase a couple of buckets of KFC chicken.  We didn’t have enough Korean wan to let everybody choose their own meal, but the chicken was consumed with gusto and thankfulness.  (We were surprised to find that the Korean wan is considerably devalued; 1050 wan to the dollar.  We were also surprised to discover how high the prices were in Seoul.) 

Now, our biggest concern was how to get back to the airport when traffic was considerably backed up by the demonstrators.  We weren’t even sure how to find the correct location for the airport bus pick-up, in all of the confusion at that particular place in the city.  We were so blessed by an English-speaking Korean man, who clearly identified our confusion and offered help.  LORD, please bless the man who walked us to the correct bus stop! 

We did make it back to the airport, one hour before our boarding time…but alas, with delays for unclear reasons, it turned out to be three hours before our boarding time.  And again, we were blessed: by free food vouchers for 10,000 wan each, in compensation for the extra wait.  We have certainly re-entered the developed world, and our bodies were thankful for the extra food and the warmth of the airport.  Now we are in the air, over the Pacific Ocean, re-living Wednesday June 29^th.  So far, it doesn’t seem as eventful the second time around.  See you soon (for those who follow from Spokane)!

Kimberly,
Reporter, on assignment with the Beine Bunch

P.S.  We’re still in Seattle.  Our flight schedule has been revised four times now.  We hope to make it home before dark tonight.  In Seattle, where we thought all connections would go smoothly, we have found our cell phones aren’t working (for unknown reason), our Skype connection keeps cutting out (thank you to the three lovely strangers who have let us borrow their phones as our plans have changed), we got charged $150 to change our domestic flight because our international flight was late, they requested payment for each checked bag (Thank you, LORD, for the nice lady who waived that fee!), and we’ve abandoned our plan for burgers and hot dogs upon arrival in Spokane.  Still, clam chowder at the airport is a welcome treat.  Even with all of the unexpected changes, we have found nice people all along the way to help us maneuver the situations.  We continue to hope to sleep soundly in our own beds tonight…and I hope we can find kindness for each other in our extreme exhaustion.   Thanks for praying!

In the Hands of Unseen Angels

Thank you for praying for our journey home.  We are in the air between Delhi, India and Bangkok, Thailand, and it has already been quite an adventure.  It started with our taxi driver arriving 20 minutes later than we had requested.  Okay, we’re talking Nepal; that isn’t really late.  We are so thankful that we actually follow the “three hours early” international flight rules; it gives time for the unexpected.  Just 50 yards into the journey, we hit our first “unexpected.”  The taxi got stuck in the mud at a corner and could not make the turn.  (This is monsoon season, even though the rains haven’t been that heavy yet.)  The side door of the taxi (van) was pressed up against the vegetation and rocks and could not be opened.  We all chose to exit the taxi by the front passenger door.  The four strongest among us (Dave, DW, Nick and the driver’s assistant) got in front of the taxi and started working to rock it out of the mud.  The rest of us stood up on a ledge above the taxi “just in case anything happens” (as moms can be known to say).  They successfully got the van out of the mud and turned onto the steeply inclined downhill path, but what happened next was completely unexpected and I’m not even entirely sure exactly how and why it happened.  I know that the van began to careen down the path and the men on the edges of the front quickly jumped out of its way.  However DW was right in the middle of the front of the van and I saw the van push him backward.  I remember screaming out loud, “LORD JESUS, PLEASE SAVE DW!”  And then I saw the 12-foot skid of the tires on the pathway.  With great relief, I also saw DW in the bushes on the side of the path, about eight feet down from where the van first began to push him down.  It took at least five minutes for everybody to get over the shock (Joshua burst into tears, out of concern for his “uncle DW”), particularly the driver, who apologized more than once.

When we got to the Kathmandu airport, we were told that the flight between Delhi (our next destination) and Bangkok had been oversold, so they weren’t sure that they could get us to Bangkok.  They asked us to sit down near the check-in counter and wait for 1 ½ hours at which time they would be able to re-book us directly to Bangkok, on another airline.  That sounded great to us.  We easily passed the time, waiting and hoping to get up to the next level where we could get something to eat.  After that 1 ½ hours, as the flight to Delhi was boarding, they called us up to check our bags to Delhi, because somehow the flight was no longer overbooked.  We rushed onto the aircraft, missing our opportunity to eat.  The strangest part of this was when they put us on a bus at the airport doorway, to drive us about 100 yards, so that we could board the plane that was about 50 yards from the doorway we had just exited.  Some things defy understanding in a different culture.

So, we made it to Delhi, where they rushed us to the front of the security line, because our flight to Bangkok was already boarding, and for some strange reason, we got stopped because of something in Jake’s bag that looked like a “file or a knife.”  They sent different items of his bag through the scanner at least a half dozen times and finally narrowed it down to his toiletries bag.  It wasn’t anything in the bag but something about the bag.  Just when I was convinced that they were going to slice the seams of the bag to see if something was stitched inside the fabric, they decided there was nothing there and let us go.  Then we had to get through another inspection of our passports.  Again Jake was stopped because his passport expires 12 days shy of 6 months from today, and we were told that he had to have at least six months left until his passport expiry date in order to stay in Thailand.  What?  In the end, the problem was resolved when we learned that this applies only to Indian citizens, not American citizens.  No time to try and understand that one; we went on a mad dash across the airport (I didn’t know Ana could move so quickly; we could barely keep up with her).

We got on the plane in time, and the only excitement so far is the puddle of urine in the lavatory that results from so many passengers unfamiliar with a western toilet.  Ah, the adventures one can have in this world.  I’ll write more before I post this, as the journey continues.  We really are thankful for those who lift us up before the throne of God.  There is a battle going on in the spiritual realm.  And yet I am absolutely convinced that nothing will come our way that isn’t filtered through our Father’s hand.  We are trusting in Him wholeheartedly.  If we were seeking safety and comfort, we would certainly have never left the salt-shaker.  But then again, what good is salt that stays in the shaker?  DW’s final words when we left him this morning were, “God is good.”  Amen!  And Nick cast a pearl my way when this flight started:  “You know we had some potential disasters/problems this morning, but in the end, nothing bad really happened.”  I praise the LORD for the maturity of our oldest son.  By the way, Spokane dwellers, Nick has just surpassed my height; I guess he is growing in all sorts of ways.

Until later…

The only other adventure we had was when the plane was just over the runway, about to touch down, and then it began to rise again into the air and circle the airport.  The pilot said this was due to “too much traffic on the runway.”  Unfortunately, all of that circling brought on Nathan’s motion sickness that he had managed to avert up until that point in the flight.  We are so blessed that he has the grit to face challenges with a “can-do” attitude.  We are all happily settled now in our favorite guest house in Bangkok.  We feasted on roasted chicken, sticky rice, real milk and ice cream for dinner.  We’ll have four days here and then finish our trip back to our other home.  We expect to be in Spokane on Wednesday evening.

Thank you for taking the adventure with us,
Kimberly, for the Beine Bunch

P.S.  The views of “mountains sitting on clouds,” as we left the Kathmandu valley, were incredible!

A Fun Weekend, by Nate Beine

Last Saturday we went to our Didi (a woman who cooks and cleans for foreigners or wealthy Nepalis) Jibu's house.  It probably takes about half an hour to walk there but my mom and dad kept stopping to take pictures so it took about an hour.  She has three sons named “Suedeep,” “Sondeep,” and “Beepin” (these are probably not the real spellings of their names, but simply how they sound).  They have come to our house before to play.  Suedeep had bought a Checkers and Backgammon board so he wanted us to teach them how to play, so we did.  

Teaching checkers

After that we went to see their animals while the adults talked in Nepali.  They had rabbits, goats, and the tamest water buffalo I've ever seen.  You see, water buffaloes are like big cows with horns and have a bad reputation for pushing people off high mountain paths. People use them for their milk and for plowing fields but they're quite dangerous.  I was standing two feet away from it, just out of range of harm, given the rope that secured it, trying to get in a picture with it, when Beepin jumped down from the rafters of the stable (which is where they keep the food for the animals) onto the water buffalo’s back!  After that we had a fun time riding it.  

Ride'em cowboy Nate!

 For lunch we had Daal Bhat (a meal of rice, lentils, and sometimes vegetables that most Nepalis have two or three times a day).  The rice and vegetables came from their own fields. They even had chicken that they'd killed that morning.  After lunch we played in the field, drank chiya (a common Nepali tea), and had a water fight while the adults talked.  We decided to go home because of a thunder cloud that we saw coming toward us and because we wanted to get home before dark.  This family is Hindu so please pray that we'll be able to tell them about God and Jesus and that they will listen. 

As some of you may or may not know, my brothers and I are doing Tae Kwon Do now.  Since yesterday was Republic day (the day that Nepal became a republic) all of the people doing Tae Kwon Do marched around the town in their suites with an ITF (International Tae Kwon Do Federation) banner.  They ended down at the big field called “Tulelikel.”  

Can you spot the four blond boys- well three blond boys and a nearly bald white boy- among the sea of dark haired kids?

At the field, some of the people did demonstrations; first, a black belt did some cool spinning moves with a long wooden pole.  After that,  nine people kneeled down on two legs and a yellow/green belt (which is only the fourth belt) did a flying kick over them and broke a board.  Then  a couple more people did  regular kicks to break boards, and then the real fun began.  First, two people knelt down and another one lay face up on top of them.  Someone placed two bricks on him to hold up the boards.  Then they stacked panes of glass on top of the bricks and in between each pane was a board soaked in kerosene.  They lit the boards on fire and another yellow/green belt chopped through them!  Once the boards and glass were smashed the three guys jumped up, and no one got hurt.  After that a second degree black belt (who sometimes teaches us) had a red belt get down on his knees, put a board with two bricks standing up on it on his head, and the black belt broke the bricks in half with one chop!  Next, two red/black belts kicked tube lights in half and two people held another tube light up as high as they could and a Black belt did a back flip and kicked it in half.  It was pretty fun, and Stephen (one of our friends), who is a red/black belt and helps teach us said that maybe the guy who broke the bricks could teach us how.  I'm glad that I do Tae Kwon Do.

By Nate

(P.S. The events contained in this message were not necessarily approved of by my mom.)

Just a few tidbits...

What do you do when water is in short supply?  Ana taught us that you wash your hair with the rainwater runoff from the roof.




What do you do when all the beds in the Surgical Ward are full?  Well, here they put the lady who just had a hysterectomy in the hallway on a mattress on the floor.  It's a little awkward to do the post-op exam with multiple male onlookers who are lingering in the hallway.



There are so many things that I gladly embrace here, "strange" new ways to which I become accustomed.  There is one that I still struggle with...yesterday, I had to use the squatty potty at the hospital for something more than urinating.  After I had relieved myself, I looked around and saw my only option: a bucket of water...and then the sink in that room was non-functional.  Toilet paper is a foreign product.  I'll let you fill in the blanks that I have left in this "tidbit."  Some things I have yet to embrace as normal.

Thanks for following us, in our adventures,
Kimberly, for the Beine Bunch

A Rare Blog Entry From Dave

It has been a while since I (Dave) have done a blog entry.  I want to do so this time mainly with pictures and limited commentary.  You will “hear” two stories through these pictures:  First, our family’s visit to the Chepang village of Odare on April 01-03, 2011 and second, my one-day HIV training trip to the western edge of Palpa District on May 03, 2011.    I hope this gives you a better idea of the kinds of things we are doing here in Nepal and provides you a better idea how to pray for us. 

Beine Family Adventure to Odare (A Chepang Village) April 01-03 (no fooling!)  (Chepang Trip photos courtesy of Anastasia Carlson)

The boys ride up top

The trip began with a winding 4 hour jeep ride to the town of Pokhara where we over-nighted. Then on the second day another one-hour drive east along the national highway followed by a final one-hour drive north (and to the top of the ridge) along a "jeep road" that now reaches the village.  The boys were able to ride on top once we got off the main road.  The "jeepable" road is a big change from our first visit to this village nearly ten years ago when you had to walk all the way from the highway.  They also now have electricity and water taps, another big development.

According to some sources upward of 1/2 of all Chepang are now Christians.  There were no reported Christians in the group when our New Zealander teammate Ross Caughley and his family first began to live among the Chepang in 1968.  Here is a door of a local house in Odare, announcing the occupants' Christian faith.  What a HUGE change for the Chepang over the past few decades!

 
We arrive at the church and begin meeting people

Inside the church.  Notice the Beines interspersed in the crowd.  Also notice Ross in the chair at the back right and the sick man in the bed at the back left.

 Ross preaching in Chepang.  Ross has been working as a linguist on the Chepang language for42 years.  He completed the New Testament in 1993 and Old Testament translation is ongoing.

 Dwarika introducing the Chepang literacy materials

The newly completed Chepang Song Book

Dave presents a set of literacy materials to the church

Ro

 Ross presents a copy of the Chepang New Testament (completed in 1993) along with a Chepang language dictionary "hot of the press."

The newly delivered literacy materials in use!

shy to have her photo taken

Beautiful Chepang Young Lady

Chepang Mother and her Children

Great Smile!

 Kimberly examines the leg of the man in the bed.

 Kimberly examines the Xray while Jake looks on.  Amazing where you end up doing medicine in Nepal!

 Prayer for the sick man

 another young man is prayed over

Kimberly examines another young man.

Josh discovers a "treasure" (goat teeth) nearby

    Ross does some after-church visiting

Lunchtime!

 Kimberly exiting "the facilities"

Saying our goodbyes

Until we meet again

One-Day HIV Training in Western Palpa District (May 03, 2011)

I currently serve as an advisor on a HIV and AIDS prevention project in rural Palpa District of Western Nepal.   Here are a few photos of our team’s recent field visit to do a one-day HIV training for a mother’s group at the western edge of the district.  The day began at 6AM with sunshine, a 3 hour drive followed by an hour-long hike to the village, and ended with a downpour. Based on this visit (and other such visits to other project areas) I am now meeting with the team to evaluate the materials and presentation.

Along the way (about 25 miles from Tansen) we stopped at a random hotel (an eating place) for breakfast and I noticed a Dwarf couple with baby running a hotel across the street.   I was told that the baby was 1 year old.   About a year ago I remembered Kimberly telling me of a pre-natal case she was caring for, a dwarf  lady (it is rare here for Dwarfs to have children).  I decided to cross the street and ask if she had delivered at the mission hospital. She had and Kimberly had been her doctor!  The baby is named Smirti (which means statue) and is healthy.  Amazing who you can meet in the strangest places!

Over the Ridi River…

Following the trail upstream for a way…

And then up to the ridge…

A simple village house is “borrowed,” emptied out and swept, and the women begin to arrive (two hours late!)…

And the teaching begins…

The village women listen intently…

Games are played to illustrate the impact of HIV upon the body.  Here candy wrappers (representing germs, virus, bacteria, etc.) are thrown at the victim while her hands are tied to represent the body’s compromised immune system.

Information about AIDS is shared in one corner of the room…

While a gun rests comfortably in the other corner (amongst all of our other training materials).

 

A little dancing is done in honor of our coming…

We are “encouraged” to “hurry it up” when the boys of the home return home from school and begin to play video games near the end of our presentation and so we pack up and depart...

We run the hour down the mountain as fast and as safely as our legs will carry us given the slippery and muddy conditions of the trail and arrive to the jeep drenched in the midst of a pitch-black thunderstorm.

Just for fun...Joshua antics

How about a glimpse of our funny little "monkey?"  From tree climbing to head shaving, Joshua entertains us regularly.

Opportunity to become stronger…and possibly more stinky.

Why have we come to Nepal?  We believe we’ve been called here.  Jesus tells his disciples, “Go and make disciples of all the nations…”(Matt. 28:19)  We are his disciples, and we have gone.  Yet, making disciples is a challenging endeavor.  It doesn’t happen overnight.  Is anybody out there making disciples among your children?  You might know what I mean about long-term investment.  One of our observations here is this: in the process of cultures coming together, and ideas mingling, rather than a convert being made a disciple, sometimes that person is corrupted (often by money).  So, now here we are encountering people with “problems” (as far as we can tell).  And we are tempted to offer solutions before we even know what resources and assets our “troubled” friends here have.  Our goal should be to empower our friends to solve problems, being careful not to create dependency by doing things for them.  So, making disciples is not that dissimilar from raising children: and doing that well is no simple task!

So, that brings me to our opportunities to grow.  Today, I worked on the Maternity Ward.  The obstetrician that I work with keeps telling me that he practices obstetrics because it is simple and he is confounded by generalists, like me, who keep track of so many different aspects of medicine.  Well, the truth is that I don’t find obstetrics that simple.  I feel overwhelmed sometimes by the pregnant women I see and I find the decision-making quite taxing when the obstetrician is away.  Thankfully, the nurses and midwives are amazingly talented here.  Still, I get the opportunity to grow when I am assigned as a maternity doctor.  So while I was feeling challenged at the hospital, David was finding opportunities to be strong at home.  Our tanks ran out of water today.  It has been raining almost daily lately and the water supply should be good, but for some reason our connection with the city water supply has been cut off.  Furthermore, our Nepali helper was having a very hard day today.  Although her husband abandoned her many years ago, she became very upset today upon learning that he has died.  I’m not sure that we understand all of the reasons for her pain and struggle (we have a few hypotheses) but it is a difficult time to clarify what is really going on.  Still, we hurt with her in her widowhood, and we seek a good response in this relationship.  What would true disciple-making look like?  Please pray with us as we seek this.

When I came home briefly for lunch to see how everybody was doing, I learned that two of the kids have headache and general malaise, while Ana is struggling with insomnia.  You know the concept that muscles only become strong by meeting resistance/challenge.  Today, I looked around at my little social circle and saw that we all have the opportunity to become stronger in our spirits as we continue to find ways to cope with our challenges here in Tansen, Nepal.  And the first step to becoming strong is trusting God in every circumstance that he allows to filter through his hands into our lives.  Speaking of life here, we recently heard an historian speak on the beginnings of missionary/medical service in Tansen (in the 1950s).  A few devoted disciples of Christ faced many very difficult challenges while establishing Tansen Mission Hospital.  We live and serve in relative comfort and ease, I see, as I consider the true pioneers here.  

So, how are your spiritual muscles being strengthened today?

Thank you for journeying with us.

With love from the dirty (not enough water for showering) Beines.