Thursday 10 November 2011

Wonderful, wonderful Pokhara

Pokhara has to be one of the most wonderful places on earth - certainly it is on my experience.
Once again, I'm humbled by the faithfulness of God's people. Here, when they pray, they expect God to work. I've been at the Nepal Baptist Council meetings, yesterday and today. Very interesting - this is a young church here in Nepal & this is only the 7th annual gathering of Baptists. They're still forming the basis of who they are and what they stand for - as I write they're debating how they express their essential faith in trinitarian terms. In a land where Hinduisms many god's are very evident, this is appropriately taking time. Still, better debate this than a budget deficit!
I can't help compare this with our own institutionally boing Council meetings, which will take place next week, whilst I'm still away. Here there's no point talking about money, they need not bother because they have none. To a western mind this appears catastrophic - how can you do anything without it?! How different would we look if we asked 'what can we not afford to forget'? whereas we tend to ask 'what can we afford'? Too frequently this becomes 'we can't afford it, so we can't do it'. Nothing would have happened here on that basis!

Don't fret, it's not all meetings. This morning we had the most wonderful experience. Up at 4.30 am, we went to Sandarkat to watch the sunrise and put the spotlight on the Annapurna range - it was so clear; a fantastic experience. Bizarrely, I met Andy & Judy Caldwell from Bristol at the top - how weird is that! They're leading a vision trip for INF here at the moment, but to meet someone you know at sunrise, half-way round the world.

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