Our Corner of the Vineyard "...and he doth sound these glad tidings among all his people, yea, even to them that are scattered abroad upon the face of the earth; wherefore they have come unto us. And they are made known unto us in plain terms, that we may understand, that we cannot err; and this because of our, being wanders in a strange land; therefore, we are thus highly favored, for we have these glad tidings declared unto us in all parts of our vineyard." Alma 13: 22,23

Back in Kathmandu and members to visit.  Janet and I went to visit a young women named Sarada, she is a member of the church in Kathmandu.  Her husband works out of the country, he is a painter and makes good money working in Saudi Arabia.  He has been gone about two years and will be home this month, she hopes.

This the house that she lives in with her daughter Ruth.  Janet is with her visiting teaching companion, Rukmina, in the picture on the right.  Rukmina is also our Didi, she took us to meet Sarada.  Sarada lives a little out of town.  They, Kathmanduers, consider anyone that lives outside of the ring road out of town.  The Kathmandu valley is about as large as the  SL valley but has more ups and down because it is a hilly area.  The divisions of the valley are like the Salt Lake Valley, with West Valley City, Sandy,  So. Jordan, Herriman, etc., being separate but within the valley.  So we live in Bansbari, a subdivision, outside the ring road.  Bansbari if you are interested is named because of the bamboo growing in the area.  " Bans = Bamboo, Bari = bush".

Back to visiting the Members.

 I told you that Sarada had a daughter, her name is Ruth.  Ruth is a charmer!  We were visiting for a while when Ruth came home from school.  We took some pictures and then Ruth wanted to be the photographer.  What fun she had!  The picture above of us is her work.
 We had some food with Sarada.  She was very insistent that we eat with her.  Adam, Aaron, Josh and Caleb will relate to that.  She lives in a one room apartment with very little based on our standards, yet she just had to feed us!

  Amazing when you see how much she gave us.  I asked if she would eat with us and she said no.  I asked if she was waiting to eat with her daughter and she said she was, OK.  Rukmina, with the plate is our Didi, Ruth is the little one with the smile, Janet is to her right, and Sarada is in the back.  They are sitting on Sarada's bed.  Look closely in the back and you can see the burner that she used to cook the baht (rice) on.  On the wall behind them you can see a picture of the family, husband is on the left side of the picture.  Sarada was taught the gospel by her husband and she joined the church.  They live so far from the Branch house that she doesn't come regularly.  So Janet's visits will be very important to her staying active in the church.

When we were going up to Sarada's apartment we saw these children in this room sewing sequins on this red silk which will be used for making Sari's.  It kind of looked like what I would imagine a sweat shop.  I went in to talk to the adults and children inside and ask if I could take a picture.

 While I was in the room I saw this little one working so hard and so serious.  I took her picture for you to see.  Look closely at the intricate work in sewing the bling onto this material.  You can see all of the jewels and sequins on the material near her arm.  She was so serious that even when I asked her to smile she wouldn't.

This young woman (girl) is one of my home teaching families, her name is Swikriri.  She is 16 years old, and the only member of the church in her family.  Her family are Hindu and so it makes it hard for her to be active in the church.  Church is on Saturday and often her mother has her watch her siblings and then she can't come to the meetings.
An interesting note about school, Swikriri is working on her bachelors degree.  They complete school when they are about 15 and then can go on to higher school.  The nurses we work with are 19 or twenty and the doctors are mid twenty's. They start high school, they call it college, working on their college degrees, then move into their area of study and take none of the General Education classes because that is done in their high school.  Swikriri is studying Business, she is taking accounting classes right now.

This week we had a young man leave from the branch to go on a mission, to India.  His name is Krishna Nepali.  He is from a small village outside of Kathmandu.  He has never been further from his home than the Kathmandu valley and was very nervous about leaving, especially on an airplane.  I mentioned that being christian is difficult  especially when you are the only one in your family.  Now here is the story of the influence of our Father in Heaven on his children.  The man next to Elder Nepali is his father who traveled from his village to send his son off.  When I was speaking to Dad he told me that He was proud of his son and God would be with him as he brought good things to the people he would meet, and that God would be with him and protect him.

Remember this man is not a member of the church.  He also brought with him 20,000 rupees and gave it to Pres. Bishnu to help support his son on the mission.  20,00 rupees is about $ 230.00.  When you realize that the average wage is maybe $80.00 a month, it is amazing.  The other part of this is that they are farmers and survive by the things they grow and have very little cash.  This was an amazing sacrifice for his family.
The picture to the left is of me,  Elder Nepali, his father, Janet and our Branch President, Bishnu Adhikari.  Everyone goes by their first names.  I haven't figured out if it is because we missionaries can't pronounce their full names or it is just a Nepali thing to do.

There are other members we are visiting they just don't know it yet.  First is my buddy Hussian, he is a resident of the READ Nepal Leprosy clinic.  Each visit is the same, a bear hug with all his might, then showing us all of the things is is doing to help at the clinic.  If people want to stay at the clinic they have chores to do daily to assist with the care and maintenance of the facility.





I took this picture without him knowing so you could see the gentleness in his face.  In Nepal those who have leprosy are outcasts because, according to Hindu thinking, they have committed grievous sins in their life before, so they are shunned.  Mostly, they are beggars on the street and have no medical care which, if they could get, would  stop the progression of the disease.  Read Nepal is run to help assist the lepers get medical help.  It is run by a man, Raj Kumar Shah, who was shunned and cast out of his village when he was diagnosed as having leprosy.  He determined to make life better for those suffering as he did.  This is a link to his web site, it gives a lot of information, http://www.readnepal.info .
Raj has a very interesting story of prejudice and moving on in spite of the barriers he faced, he wants to create a clinic in the village that cast him out.

In this last picture of Hussian he is getting his wounds cleaned and bandaged.  He specifically called me in the the surgery room and wanted his picture taken of the cleaning and bandaging.  If you haven't guessed by now he is a very lonely man and thrives on the missionaries visiting with him.

This is Kanchi possibly one of my favorite people, look at the beautiful smile on her face, she epitomizes Alma 5:14, and she hasn't even read the book.  Let me tell you a little of her story, as you can see she is old, duh!  She was cast out of her house because she was to old to contribute, she moves very slowly and has a very large hump on her back.  Yes, literally put to the streets because of her age related slowcomotion, my word, and her deformity.  Raj found her one day on the porch of his church and took her in.  She has lived at the clinic since then and does her share of chores around the place.  She does not have leprosy, she is just an outcast.  Did I mention to look  at her face, she is so very resilient and loving, most of the time...

When I took this picture I wanted to be seen with the humble and meek, so I asked if I could have my picture taken with her, she grumbled because she was getting water.  When I put my arm around her she started getting a little feisty and began complaining, then she told me to hurry because, she would probably die before the picture was taken.  She has a personality!

You have got to love  her!!

This is Raj with his son Abhishek.  Raj being the President of Read Nepal.  As you can clearly see there is much to do, and none of it is what I expected to be doing.  Sometimes the Lord give us hurdles he knows we can cross, we just need to make the effort.  Maybe that is what President Kimbal meant when he said "Just Do It!".

There will much more to say at a latter date.

The next chapter will focus on our visit to Chitwan, the  people and places.