More Updates

Well, Ken, Karina, Alana & Sheri left this morning with the rest of the youth group and Pastor Shem for Gatlang (a mountain village north of here) where they will spend the next several days doing outreach. You could pray that the bus they took didn't go careening off the mountain cliff (we haven't heard if they've arrived). They are due to return either Thursday or Friday so pray that they return safely as well. I'm sure they will have lots to share when they get back. Maybe there will be a fight to all get on the computer. But at least Vanessa & I don't have to share our time on the Internet with 4 others this week.

Mind you, we lost electricity in one-half of the church compound and had to get the electrician in to fix it. That included the fridge in our apartment and we had quite a few eggs in there which we would hate to see go bad! But that's Nepal - you may have power scheduled to come on but that doesn't mean something else won't interrupt it (like lightening storm or fuse!)

The water truck also came today - hooray! We have continuous running water from the tap for the first time in almost 3 weeks! What a luxury! Yesterday some of the boys managed to procure some nice cold, clean water from the neighbours (not sure where they got it). I am strongly suspecting (I don't know this for sure) that, if you pay enough rupees, somehow the water truck manages to get through the fuel line and water line more quickly. I learned that some of the women in the compound get up around 4:00 some mornings to get access to water, as there seems to be some coming then. They fill up whatever jugs or pails they have for when it gets turned off (or whatever the reason is that it comes only early in the mornings). And I also learned how little water I actually need to wet down during a shower - just a trickle. Even the cold showers are quite tolerable now with the warm weather, as the middle of February when we arrived was not quite so.

We're still not sure how the Maoist win will affect our lives here. We did find out that, before the election, a group of them tried to overnight at the church compound during a rally here in the City. Most were from surrounding villages. The church finally managed to take a collection, along with all of their neighbours, to lend them tents and pay for them to stay at a nearby basketball field. Reminds me of early Mao Tse-Tung days in China. Keep praying.

Thank-you all for upholding us. And it's exciting to know that, while He's changing us here, He is also making you more acutely aware and appreciative of the blessings of being Canadian. I know we certainly will when we get back!