Humbled by love

I cannot describe the humbling that has been happening this past weekend here in Nepal and on my team. I have been praying for unity in our team and this weekend was our first meeting including our host family and the walls that have been torn down in a matter of hours is amazing! We debriefed again (the 7 team members) and thoughts were revealed and more barriers broken. Thank you for your prayers and and great thanks to the one God who is teaching us and myself his grace.

In other news, my team went to church on Saturday and it was in English so it was a lot easier to follow (my Nepalese is pretty good just not good enough). After church we went to a Hindu temple which is known as the monkey temple which was very interesting to experience an intimate place of another religion. Sunday was great to go shopping in Timel (the tourist place of Nepal). Most of the team members and I finished shopping for friends and relatives. I loved experiencing the weather, we go into one store while it was sunny and come out five minutes later into pouring rain, go in the next door and come out sunny again. Bishwa and Romila (our host family) say it is monsoon season in Nepal so that explains it I suppose.

School with the 8th graders is going wonderfully! I have the oldest group so they know a lot of English but have trouble putting sentences together. My approach is to try to teach the story telling so they understand how dialogue works so when they are speaking they think back to the dialogues they have put together. Today, however, I forgot my lesson plan notebook at the house so I had up with something quick! While I was with the 7th graders and Madi was teaching I decided to go over sounds of the alphabet and the unique ones, especially the sounds I hear the Nepali people struggle with like 'th' and 'z'. The lesson went wonderfully! I noticed the most struggle with 's' vs. 'sh' but other than that I felt the individuals who were pronouncing it incorrectly found the error and did their best to correct it. I will review and finish the rest of the sounds tomorrow then return to story telling plan, if I remember my notebook. There is a Hindu festival this week so no school Thursday and Friday thus I will need to work with the shortened week. This festival has to do with people remembering their lost family members of the past year and taking "holy" cows while wearing masks down the street similar to a parade, we'll see.

Your prayers are still much appreciated. Thank you.

Nepal Week 2

My team and I have now taken the reigns of the previous English teachers (missionaries like ourselves who are awesome and really helped my transition to Nepal). Madi and I are now teaching the 7th and 8th graders, and everyone else is teaching either 5th or 6th grade. I have gotten to know the boys here, Vishwas is the younger and is about 8 years old. The older is about 11 years old and his name is Vishal. I am learning how to be an older brother and oldest son. I am bonding with my family here is Nepal and we are learning plenty from each other. Food is delightful and a little spicy but still good. I am teaching the 8th graders how to write English in a hope that they will learn form their writing how to better speak this foreign language. I am staying on the couch and loving it because it is softer than the beds. We are playing a lot of games and learning life to be not so urgent. I shared my testimony with 6 women (my team), it was hard and I am very vulnerable but we are growing. I am excited for what is to come but I ask is that you pray for unity in our group so that we can better serve the students of Nepal with God's joy and love.

Journey to Nepal

After two and a half days of travel I am restless and anxious for the coming adventure! On the first flight I had a window seat which I was excited about until 5 hours into the 10 hour flight! I was trapped and was too kind of a person to wake up my neighbors. The second flight was 8 hours and I was in the middle seat so not as bad but the Indian gentleman next to me was clueless of my personal boundary. Next, we had a 5 hour layover in the second safest airport in the world. It went by pretty fast especially because I took a nice nap. My team's last flight was only an hour and a half and we were fed! The first two flights had great food, well good food, so the expectations were not very high but the food filled me up wonderfully!

We arrive in Nepal at approximately 8:30am (Nepal time, which is 12 hours and 47 min ahead of California time). After getting out of the terminal we are hoarded by local taxi drivers. After 10 minutes of waiting we decide to go back inside to wait for ride. Turns out he got a flat tire on his way to the airport. All went well and we saw the training school then went to our host family's home. It is beautiful!!! I am currently sleeping on the couch only till Monday but I like it because the beds here are pretty stiff! Day 1 in Nepal has been restful. My body is adjusting to the time, 2 o'clock here my eyes got super duper heavy! So tomorrow (Friday) my team and I will be introduced to the kids we will be teaching. The plan is to teach a total of 4 classes Monday through Friday and 1 class at the bible college Monday through Friday between the seven of us. Then if we are able we can do a bible study for the local churches, there is one every night, so we will see! Until next time! love, Ricky