September 2007

Our dear Praying Friends,

Floods in Nepal

Nepal’s worst floods in recent years, have not only rendered hundreds of people homeless, it has also damaged thousands of hectares (100 acres) in standing crops, hundreds of houses, roads, bridges, embankments, and many schools. The widespread damage caused by the floods has led the United Nations to label it one of the worst floods in recent living memory. It may take years for the victims to recover from the damage and misery inflicted by the floods and the government faces a big challenge to rebuild and repair the damage. Thousands of children in the flood affected districts are unlikely to attend school for months. About 2,500 schools have been damaged by the floods as per the government's initial assessment. Official sources said that exact number of damaged schools will be available only after many weeks. Hundreds of educational institutions including schools, colleges, across Nepal’s ‘tarai’ (plains) have been temporarily closed. Classes in most government schools and colleges have been disrupted for the last several weeks. Thousands of farmers have also been hard hit by floods as their standing crops were either washed away or damaged. Crops in nearly two lakh hectares worth many millions have been destroyed in floods, according to the government's initial figures presented in a memorandum for financial assistance. The villagers living on embankments along the main roads in Bardiya, Mahottari, Sarlahi, and many other districts are worried. They are sure that there will be no grain this year in their fields as standing crops have been completely destroyed in the floods and the silt, dragged down from the bare mountains, bereft of trees, now covers their field and will prevent them from cultivating crops for the next few years.

At least 25,000 houses have been damaged. Half of them have either been washed away or collapsed. There were thousands of families either living under open sky or on embankments, roads, bridges, or any higher places when I visited. The flood havoc paints a gloomy picture for the state. Nepal ranks as one of the slowest growing countries in the region. The ‘tarai’ (plains), being primarily a rural economy and having no industry worth the name, a majority of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihood.

In some of these severely affected districts (Mahottari, Janakpur, Bardiya, and Sarlahi) we have Evangelical Friends churches that have been affected but our people are safe as they reached safe places early. In Mahottari alone according to government‘s official statements 90% of the land area was underwater during the first couple of week’s rains in July and August.

Please pray for the leaders as they struggle for existence and plan for the future, which though looks bleak, but because they have a great hope in the Lord, they move ahead with their eyes fixed on Jesus! Many of our Friends leaders are busy doing relief work working alongside other agencies and NGO’s. Even as I write this report more rains are lashing the western parts of Nepal and last week as I traveled back to Kathmandu from Nepalgunj, I was lucky to be on the last plane back, as floods had forced the airport to be closed for four days again.

Back in Chitwan the CHE program continues smoothly despite the heavy rains that keep lashing the hillsides where the Chepangs live. Our first batch of 25 trainees from three churches in the adult non-formal education program “graduated” and were awarded certificates and each one was given a goat to help with the family’s finances. Now more churches are asking for help in this area and we will be conducting a training of trainers in September for trainers from 15 more groups/villages. Participants from Friends churches in Bardiya, Gorkha and Chitwan districts are expected and will begin adult education programs in their churches after being trained.

The CHE volunteers at Dhamile are continuing to learn and function well, and are now able to report back quite accurately every month about their activities which include home visits, health/hygiene education, and praying for and with the families in their area of work. Sunday school for the little children of Dhamile has started and Dinesh, Bikram, and Jagat are their teachers, supervised by Gokarna and Sanjeev. About 35-40 kids attend regularly.

15 kids from Dhamile are regularly attending school in nearby Gadauli for “higher education” as the school at Dhamile has classes only up till fourth grade. We help in their education by providing a nutritious mid-day meal and stationary.

The CHE committee of Dhamile in their meeting decided that they needed a health post/centre in their village to provide basic health facilities, and immunization. At present the villagers have to walk several hours to reach the nearest government health post. Kali Maya is leading this move as she has some basic training as a village health worker and can clean and suture wounds, besides delivering babies using sterile kits. We will provide these kits and also some medicines for the proposed centre to run efficiently. The running cost including the honorarium for the health worker will be met from the fee collected from patients. Nearby villages too will benefit from this venture. Land for this project will be donated by the people of the village and most people of the village will help in the construction of this centre by taking turns in working without wages to build the structure. The forest committee of the village has donated wood available in plenty in their jungle for the structure.

A couple of weeks ago during Saturday worship, Hari Lal, an elder in the Dhamile church who is also a CHE volunteer, stood up and testified as to how he himself was blessed in doing the CHE work among the people of Dhamile. As he worked among his people and prayed with them, he felt he was blessed more and was encouraged to see the results of God’s faithfulness in their lives. Dhamile church now has about 19 new believers waiting to be baptised. Please pray for the leaders Sun Bahadur Praja, Mangal Singh and their families, that they may be encouraged to serve Jesus faithfully and to be led by the Holy Spirit in all their decisions.

In October and also in November, we have ToTs to prepare more CHE trainers for our churches and also to reach out to new areas. The need for CHE work among our existing Friends churches is increasing and some of these friends also want to go to unreached areas within Nepal to serve being equipped with CHE knowledge. Please pray that our leaders will be adequately trained and will have a vision to serve the people and win them for Christ through these CHE trainings.

It has been a busy six months and the work has involved a lot of traveling around in Nepal. The gift of a new vehicle has been very helpful in our work, and we are able to move about freely in the country wherever our presence was required for trainings, meetings, medical clinics/camps and relief work. Please pray that the Lord will continue to sustain us and give us good health and safety as we move around.

Priscilla has successfully completed her first year in her Masters course in Nursing and will be back in Nepal after another seven to eight months. We are praying for Prateek’s admission into a Christian school in Kathmandu after he returns early in 2008, for the session beginning August 2008. Please continue to uphold our family in your prayers regularly. We appreciate your help and prayers for this ministry and thank and praise God for giving us such concerned and understanding supporters for our CHE ministry in Nepal.

Joyfully in Him,
Priscilla & Samson Retnaraj
Kathmandu, Nepal