Here are some photos from our recent trip. We are now attending Randy's class today and are getting ready for Tim's funeral seminar this weekend and a parenting talk to WOW, Women of Worth.

Seeing More of Nepal

We have taken a few days just to travel around the country here. We left on Wednesday and took a bus to Chitwan National Park. The bus itself was an experience. Our first restroom stop was by the side of the road. No problem for the men, but us women had to fend for ourselves! It is a good thing I have experience from my hiking in the forests of Oregon!

When we got to Chitwan we had a ride on an elephant into the park. It wasn't the smoothest ride I have ever had, but we saw some amazing wildlife: Rhinoceros and young, crocodile and young, monkeys, peacocks, 3 types of deer. We also were treated to a cultural program of the Tharu people.

Thursday we took a local bus to Pokhara, near the Annapurna range of the Himalayan Mountain Range. The bus ride was again very interesting, but very long. It is amazing to see the village people doing all their everyday chores manually. Women and bathing in the local water fountain and men plowing fields behind two cows. Produce in abundance were oranges, cauliflower, lentils and rice.

The views from Pokhara are awesome. The mountains rise up so sharply. We took a taxi to Sarangkot, a village on a local hill before sunrise. As the sun rose it shone brightly on the peaks of the Annapurna Range. Our next adventure was to go to the Bat Cave. It was like walking into the many caves we have in the States with thousands of bats on the ceiling. As we began our exit we climbed up on some rocky path and then the young guide points up and says, "This is the exit, very difficult." I looked up and saw we were going to have to rock climb out. I made it with the guide and Tim's help from below!

We also visited an amazing resort with views of the Annapurnas, and went to the International Mountaineering Museum. The museum had exhibits on the different mountain peoples and the 15 highest mountains in the world and the teams that were the first to summit.

We are back in Kathmandu and everyone is getting ready for the ordination of Vijay, the pastor that we are staying with. We are honored to be able to be here for it.

Visit to Ahsa Nepal

Before we left, Shirley Gleason encouraged us to visit a ministry to women who have been sold into sex trafficking in India. I was able to find the ministry partner in the United States who then put me in touch with Bimala here near Kathmandu.

Bimala started this ministry 12 years ago after her children were grown. She became involved with Teen Challenge in Mumbai and was introduced to some of these girls. She now has property with three houses. We (Randy, Tim and I) were able to visit them today.

There are eight women and fifteen children living there. One house is for the children, one for the older boys and one for the women. We heard two of the women’s stories today. They were both sold into prostitution by their family members after their husbands had left them. They both found Jesus Christ through Teen Challenge and were brought to Nepal by Bimala. Their stories are heartbreaking, but now full of love and hope through this ministry.

Love,

Tim and Kathy

Nepal

Hello everyone!

We have spent our first day in Nepal. My goodness what an adventure. We are in the middle of the largest city, yet it feels very primative. I have not downloaded todays pictures, yet, so I can't show you what I mean. I will try to get that done tomorrow. Meanwhile we are having a ball!

We don't always have electricity so at times the home we are staying in uses battery power to keep everything going. There is no heat in the house accept for a space heater, so it gets quite cold at night. Everyone sits around in the evening with coats on!

Our host is a wonderful cook! Both she and her husband are former students of Randy and are wonderful people.

One of the things that was on the back burner for this trip was helping the Christian Pastors learn funeral service skills. As it has turned out, this little idea has been moved to the front burner and turned on high! In this culture the pastors are finding a very large evangelical outreach when they help care for the deceased with respect and loving care. They are very excited to get further training in how to handle these delicate situations. We are planning the funeral service training seminar for the weekend just before we return. Very exciting.

Kathy's back is doing great! Although I don't let her lift anything!! Randall's head cold is very active, but a trip to the pharmacy today is making things feel better!

I am at the school right now where there is wireless internet access. I should probably head back to the house. I will get some pictures out tomorrow.

Our love to you all, Tim and Kathy

Arrival in Nepal

We arrived in Kathmandu yesterday. Flights went well and we are just getting settled in with the family of Vijay and Ching. Will post more later. It is cold here and they have intermintent electricity and no central heating. We took a walk with Randy this morning and it is amazing the amount of people and garbage along the streets. It is quite an experience.

Vijay is quite excited about the possibility of a Christian funeral home to serve the Christian community here. They have no one to care for the bodies of the dead and no place to bury. This could be a very interesting ministry for Tim here. He will probably talk to some of the pastors and elders on Feb. 5 about caring for the deceased. Vijay thinks it will be a great Christian witness to the Hindus as they care for the dead with love and respect.

Friday

I woke up this morning with my back feeling much better. A healing balm (like Ben Gay) was given to us yesterday and today one of the students from Randy's class gave me a Sri Lankan ointment that he said had worked wonders on his back after a fall. We are very well taken care of here.

Both Tim and I went to class this morning, the last day of the class. It is afternoon now and they are taking their final exam. Three of the girls want to keep in touch and we exchanged e-mail addresses. This is very encouraging to me; that I can have an impact on them in this short of time.

(Tim) It has been so great to observe the girls connect with Kathy. I really think it helped make the comfortable in class and helped in the learning process.

I enjoyed several more interviews today with the administrator, as well as the head of the publishing department. This school has a very effective ministry through out much of Sri Lanka.

It is so much fun to interview the students and hear of their great respect for the college and for Randy in particular. Following class today, they all stood and presented him with a gift along with great words of appreciation. Wow!

We took a group photo at the student's request. And several wanted pictures with Randy and a couple of the girls wanted a picture with Kathy.

Tomorrow we leave the college at 2:00 am to catch our flight from Colombo to Kathmandu. It will be a long day, but I am very thankful that Kathy's back is doing better!

Thank you all again for your prayers and support!!

Thursday

I, Kathy, began the day doing laundry and I bent over in a way that my back went out. I was rather upset about it! I spent the entire day laying low and taking my trusty back spasm pills. Randy prayed for me and then had the class pray for me. Two of the female students came over on their tea break to express their concern and pray for me. This really meant a lot to me. By evening, I was doing better and got through the day without a back spasm. Thank you to all at home who were praying. I am sure all the prayers were effective!

While Kathy rested in the evening I (Tim) joined Randy and the overseer of Lanka Bible College, Ben and his wife Angela for dinner. It was great to learn more about the history of the college as well as his vision for the future. He was very encouraging to Randy and spoke very highly of him.

Wednesday

Wednesday - Royal Botanical Gardens

We enjoyed a beautiful morning exploring the Royal Botanical Gardens located within walking distance of Lanka Bible College. Randy was kind enough to let us skip class! Wednes

day was a Sri Lanka National Holiday celebrating the new moon. This meant that we found many young children and families enjoying the gardens with us.

The gardens are beautifully landscaped with many varieties of plants which attracted a number of birds. However, we were often as much an attraction

as the gardens. There are not to many Americans here!

We returned to the college in time to have lunch with the students to continue getting to know them better. The rest of the day was class work with Randall and student interviews.

Monday Class at Lanka Bible College

We spent the day attending Randy's class on The Doctrine of the Church. The class consists of students in the Bachelor of Theology program. About half of them are pastors or church workers. One man is a former policeman who has planted a church in Kandy with several daughter churches. One young lady is 19 years old and her goal is to eventually obtain her PhD and teach at a Bible College. One gal was raised in a Buddhist family. Her father was in an accident and seriously injured. A pastor came to visit and shared about Christ. He eventually believed in Jesus and so did his wife and children.

It has been great to become acquainted with the students as Randy has encouraged the students to eat with us and be available to pray for them. We enjoyed visiting with them today at lunch. I shared pictures of our family with the girls and one of them wants to stay in touch and would also like me to find a young woman that she can pen-pal with in the United States.

We skipped Class this afternoon and took a Tuk Tuk to Kandy (the school is actually in the neighboring town of Peradeniya) to see the Temple of the Tooth. This is a very sacred Buddhist site that houses the tooth of the Buddha. The cities here are dirty and chaotic and not at all what we are used to, but we are having fun experiencing it all. It is hard to know what is safe or good to eat or even what will be to hot and spicy for us! The administrator of the college, Selvarajah, is taking very good care of us.

Sunday Church Services

Tim spoke at the 7:30 am Tamil church service. Most of the Tamil in Sri Lanka are Hindu. In fact the administrator of the college, Selvaraj, is Tamil and converted from Hindu to Christianity as a young man. Tim did a great job and worked well with the pastor as he translated into the Tamil language. We stayed for the English service and Randy gave the sermon at that one.

We ate lunch in the college cafeteria. We are eating a lot of rice! This was served with dried fish (very, very salty) and daal (looks like lentils). I commented that the daal was spicy, Selvaraj looked at me funny and said it was very mild!

From Tim:

It is such so great to experience the Asian culture. Everyone has been so gracious and kind. We could never have known the impact that Randy has had and is having on these people. They have such a huge respect for him and speak often of the ongoing effect of his previous teaching.

Thank you so much for continuing to pray for Randy, Kathy and I as we travel. As I came closer to Sunday when I was to preach, the less prepared and confident I became. Yet, at the same time, there was the most amazing calm in my heart! Once in the pulpit I felt very much at home and comfortable. Working with the translator felt very natural and worked great. I learned later that he was translating both to the Tamil and to the Singlese. I wondered why he was taking longer to say what I had just said! I, again, could not have done this without your prayers!! I speak next on Friday to the students here in Kandy.

Our love and greetings to you all!!

Saturday trip to Kandy

We traveled in a van to Kandy where Randy will be teaching at Lanka Bible College. We passed many small villages with shops along the road. An interesting experience was a lady on the side of the road with her pet porcupines! We gave her 100 rupees ($1) to take some photos. We took a side jaunt to see the Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage. It was a great experience to see them herded to the river for their baths. We especially enjoyed the wee baby and her mother. We finally arrived at the Bible College and are staying in a house that is used to house visiting professors.

Friday in Colombo

Friday after Randy finished teaching his class we all went to visit two of his students from Pakistan. The first was a young man, Nasir, and his wife and three young sons. His Brethren church was sponsoring him as he is working on his Master of Divinity.

The second family was Tariq, his wife Saba and their 5 month old son. Saba was very lively and we learned all about their courtship and marriage and enjoyed seeing the photos. They are a Baptist family. It was a delight to get to share in the lives of these families and they were both thrilled that their professor had come to visit them in their homes.

We arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka at 6pm last evening, January 13. Thankfully all our flights were on time. I began to snow in Newark, NJ after the aircrafts was loaded and ready for take-off. They just had to de-ice the plane and we were off on our 13 hour journey to Delhi. We got our first taste of the curried rice Indian style on our flight. Many Indians are vegetarians, sowe were offered either chicken or 'veg'. Our 16 hour layover at the airport was good. There are some nice lounge chairs we were able to have for a 4-5 hour snooze. This must be trekking season, because there were many groups in the airport traveling to and from Kathmandu, Nepal.

Randy met us at the airport and we had a long, crazy ride from northern

Colombo to Dehiwalla, just south of Colombo. Our driver was fantastic

as the traffic is crazy! Honking is part of driving here. We headed straight to bed as soon as we got to the hotel room.

We had breakfast with Randy at the hotel (which is just a 5 minute walk from the school) and he also helped us get across the 4 lane highway. All driving is on the left and we are not used to looking the opposite way for traffic. We spent the morning videoing an interview with the academic dean, Bernard Costa. What an amazing testimony! His father was killed when he was 10 years old and when he was 13, he considered suicide but went to a youth meeting and committed his life to Christ and his life was forever changed. He also shared the persecution that many Christian churches must endure from the fanatic Buddhists.

It is less that 24 hours until we begin our long travel to Colombo, Sri Lanka. I just looked up what the time difference will be between Oregon and Sri Lanka and Nepal. Sri Lanka is 13:30 ahead of Oregon and Nepal is 13:45 hours ahead.

Thank you to all who came over last evening to pray for us and our trip. You are all treasured friends. We appreciate you all so much. We are looking forward to the experiences that God brings our way.

Sri Lanka and Nepal

Tim and I are off on another adventure. On January 11 we leave for Sri Lanka and Nepal. We will meet up with Randy Gleason a faculty member of Lanka Bible College in Sri Lanka and Himalayan School of Theology in Nepal. Our flight leaves Medford at 6 am and we don't arrive in Colombo, Sri Lanka until January 13 at 4:40 pm. It is going to be a long 2 days of travel!

We will be supporting Randy and his ministry in any way we can. Tim will be taking photos and videos with the hope of putting together promotional material for both Randy and the schools. Tim will be doing a little speaking and we are scheduled to present a parenting seminar with translation. That will be interesting!

We are excited for this opportunity to learn about these different cultures from the students and the people we stay with. It will be amazing to be able to support our Christian brothers and sisters and share in their lives.

As we have internet access we will try to post our experiences frequently.