Sprinkling and pouring

While Katrina is in the UK I’ve reduced my office hours. The idea is that I’ll have time to attend to whatever the girls need, and I’ll be able to put new whitewash on the walls of our flat – which is looking very grubby after two years of scuffing.

So this week I’ve only been at UMN on four days, and not always full days. Still rather more than I had in mind but it is the United Mission to Nepal General Assembly, a two-yearly meeting for supporting organisations. I also had to represent my team at the presentation of an evaluation report, enough of the technical stuff.

My unofficial plan was to spend some of the extra time with church in various ways. One ongoing project of particular interest is recording the church history.

Rather illogically the process we’ve agreed on is that they tell me about it in Nepali over cups of tea, I write it in English and later it will be translated into Nepali. I don’t think my skill at writing will ever rival Katrina’s but it’s a fascinating insight.

The story is far from ending. This Wednesday we had two more baptisms and a big crowd for the prayer meeting. We decided to use the “sprinkling” approach to baptism because there wasn’t any water in the pipes and the storage tank was nearly empty.

Then the programme had to be delayed because it poured with rain! The extra buckets in my photo are collecting rainwater off the roof, as somehow the almost daily rain storms don’t seem to reach the taps.

At home we depend completely on a well despite paying for three different water supply pipes to the building.

Martin Butterworth