News Letter from Nepal - 20th August 2009


It is unbelievable that almost 7 years have passed since we came to Nepal and now we are packing up our home, getting rid of most of the things we have lived with to other homes and next Monday we will travel to Kathmandu on the first leg of our journey back to the UK. We will remember our time here as mainly a time of joy. As you know there have been problems along the way but the people, the countryside and the love and joy that has been shown to us has been amazing.

On Monday 17th August the new church was blessed and officially opened with a full and colourful programme to go with it. In spite of raining most of the day 200 or so people came to take part and to gaze at the new church. It is not like any other church building in Butwal as most of those are flat roofed concrete so it was a bit of a curiosity! The main building is finished but there are still some finishing off jobs to do, mainly outside but they will be done in between the rain. In fact the new toilet doors were being installed as the service started and we were cutting the ribbon to open the church! Everyone is amazed that this could be built in 6 months, and be completed with a final cost below the estimate. Nepali buildings can take years but they don’t have a dedicated work force and Allan as building manager with a plan from Day 1 and they all stuck to it. The pictures below show the ribbon being cut by Allan, Andrea cutting the celebration cake and the inside of the church.



















The final stages of the construction were made more difficult by the weather, we have been having very heavy monsoon rain, which destroyed the road that leads up towards the church. This meant that everything, sand, gravel, cement, had to be carried on the backs of our workers up the hill. But our workforce just carried on cheerfully. I was also pleased to see that the church stood up to the heavy rain without any leakage.

There was a sad note to it all though; Tara, one of our faithful workers from the beginning, died last week. She was only 30 years old and worked very hard mixing cement (it’s all been done by hand), carrying sacks of sand, gravel and cement plus stones and soil, assisting the builders and doing any other work that was needed. Nobody knew, but she was seriously ill all the time. She had told her mother that she would work to build the church and then die. This incredible girl was living on painkillers for the last 4 months of her life so that she could see her dream completed. She had even ordered a new outfit from the tailors for the opening day. She had to go into hospital for a couple of days before she died and her liver and lungs had collapsed. We were all devastated and yet thanked God for this brave girl who was determined to work to complete His house, and she did it.

Two days later our friend Lila’s son Prakash, also died. He was 18 and had had cerebral palsy and epilepsy since babyhood but he was a cheerful and loving believer and had a winning smile. Everyone loved him and he was very much part of the church. His death was always expected but he will be missed nonetheless.

Our work with Butwal Technical Institute has gradually been tapered off, we did a little work to help in the selection of the new intake of apprentice students, but generally we have been just acting in a support role for the past few months.

We have been invited to several farewell “dos” and meals and will be sad to leave our friends here but we feel our work here is finished and we look forward to new challenges in the UK in future. We will of course keep our contacts here and will try to visit when we can. We will still support the work of the Hope Children’s Home which is doing such good work with the 14 children there. They have all done very well in their exams and are very enthusiastic about life in general. Their next project will be to make a big vegetable garden so they can be self sufficient in vegetables. They already have a small plot but money collected at my niece Philippa’s funeral will enable them to buy topsoil to convert a large part of their compound into a big vegetable plot for which they are very grateful.
So now we are clearing our house here in Butwal of furniture and other possessions, packing the few that we will be taking back to the UK, and distributing the rest amongst our friends here.
We fly out of Kathmandu next Friday (28 August) to Hong Kong where we will have a few days holiday before flying back to the UK and home to Briantspuddle.

Our new e-mail address from September will be allanandrea.smith@googlemail.com
We will be back home on September 3/4th and will no doubt be in touch with you all before too long.

• We give thanks for the privilege of being able to work here in Nepal, and give special thanks to the Methodist Church for making it possible.
• Please pray for our Nepali Christian friends at Jaitun Church, that they will use their new building well, and that it will be a true benefit to the community of believers.
• Pray for the country of Nepal, for good governance and a stable government, acting fairly for the benefit of all Nepalis.
• Pray for Madhev, Durga, Kul Bahadur and Lalmati and the children at Hope Children’s Home.
• Pray for ourselves, as we return to the UK and seek God’s purposes for the next stage in our life’s pilgrimage.

Allan and Andrea