Lora writing. One of our major tasks of the summer was sharing about the work of UMN. Mitch and I both love our work and think the work of the organisation as a whole is pretty amazing too. So, this task was not difficult. I preached 10 Sunday morning sermons and spoke to three high school classes. On Sunday morning, Auggie often led children’s time and talked about his experience in Nepal. Mitch and I spoke to bible study groups and Sunday school classes, at regional meetings of the Atlantic Mission Society, and to small groups who were interested in hearing more about Nepal. We shared meals and casual conversation, and it was a gift to share about our work, and wonderful to hear about the work of local congregations and communities as well. You do not have to go overseas to join the work of the Holy Spirit!
I was one of the guest speakers at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and if you are interested, you can watch a video of that presentation .
Close to the end of the summer, one of the last things that Mitch and I did together was a webinar. If you want to see that, you can watch it here .
The pictures below show just some images from the churches, meetings, and lunches where we spoke.
One of the gifts of the speaking tour was that we travelled from Coast to Coast in Canada. We were hosted by some of the most gracious people we have ever met, taken hiking to the easternmost point on the North American Continent (Cape Spear), out to eat seafood (so much fish and chips!) and to museums and on cultural tours; we even got to see my cousin and visit Green Gables!
Funny story- prior to coming on this home tour, I asked my Neplai colleagues for a Nepali song that would be easy to teach westerners and was not just a translation of a known western hymn -my colleague came back and introduced me to this song, Gaau Hallelujah (Sing Hallelujah). So while we were still in Nepal, Mitch and I asked our Nepali colleagues to teach us the song so that we would be ready to teach it in N. America. Then, when I was at the General Conference for the PCC, on “Camp Day”, where 12 Presbyterian camps were introduced to the Assembly, they shared one of their favourite camp songs, “Clapping our hands”– Low and behold, it was the same song, not an indigenous Nepali Christian song after all!
We’ve been back in Nepal now for exactly a week and a day. Funny that it’s taken about this long for the jet lag to wear off. Even this morning we got up an hour and a half earlier than we usually do, after going to bed much earlier than usual. But coming back to Kathmandu felt like coming home. We started work, welcomed new staff and the monsoon rains are coming every day. The mountains have been out three days to welcome us.
