I have spent the last two days wading through all of my photos and trying to come to grips with all that we saw in Nepal.  It was really an amazing experience that I wish I could effectively share with everyone.

I travelled to Nepal with three others from the Singapore Service Centre.  Serene is the leader of the Women’s ministries for this region and Mel and Jack who are Media Resource Group staff.  Once there we met up with Simon, the Ministry Leader and three of their staff, Mohan, Desra and Shanty.  We were also very blessed to have an amazing driver, called “Guru” in Nepali. He is a very professional Brahmin man who not only skillfully manged the challenges of the road system, or lack of, but he also knew his country and was constantly looking after our every need.

Map provided by ReliefWeb <http://www.reliefweb.int/>

We drove west from Katmandu for about 6.5 hours to cover the 180 kms to Butwal.  From there we headed about 450 kms west almost to the western border, to the town of Dhangarhi.  We made many detours along to way to visit listeners in small villages and rural areas.  On Wednesday we returned to Butwal, did some local trips and then spent a night in Tansen, very high up in the mountains.  Attended church in Butwal on Saturday and then spent a night in the Chitwan area prior to returning to Katmandu for our flight home.

The goals we had for the trip were to get to know theTWR Nepal staff and see their ministries first hand so we could get a sense of the effectiveness and challenges of their ministry, research needs and resources for future programs and projects, visit volunteers and listeners to hear their stories and encourage them and to distribute radios.  Along the way we were monitoring reception and signal strength of current broadcasts.

I will never forget the people we met, the stories that we heard and the places that we were welcomed , often to share a cup of hot, sweet milk tea.  As this blog functions as something of a journal of our time in Asia, I will share some of those memories with you over  the next few days.