Sisters

Sweet sisters

Aquarium

Sophia and her buddy Claire went to the Aquarium and learned all about fish.

Amusement park fun

We took Sophia to the amusement park here called Dream World. She had so much fun because they had lots of things for kids to do.

Zoo

Sophia likes to play with the frogs in the yard where we are staying.  But she liked the animals at the zoo even better!

Fun in Bangkok

While Isabelle is still in the hospital, we are trying to keep Sophia busy.  She loves riding the tuk tuks, however she is scared of the boats that go by on the canal.

Daddy's Girls

Sophia is enjoying her time in Bangkok.  She goes swimming at a hotel nearby and knows how to ask to for taxis.  When we take the Sky Train, she says hello and goodbye to all the choo-choos and gets excited when it's our turn to ride the choo-choo.  This trip is a planes, trains, and automobiles trip for her and she loves it.  She has gotten to go to Toys R Us and ride her first carousel.  

Isabelle update

Isabelle is doing better and better everyday.  She still has bile coming out of her body, but it is getting clearer every day.  This is a good sign that the surgery was a success.  Monday they will begin giving her electrolytes to see if she can digest those well.  If she can, then on Tuesday they will try breast milk to see how she handles that.  We can take her out of the case and hold her now, so that makes our visit with her much sweeter.  Although it's hard because Sophia is not allowed in the ICU so we have to take turns going inside to see Izzy.    

Baby Isabelle

This is Baby Isabelle, 6 lbs. and almost 3 oz.  She is still in ICU right now so we haven't gotten to hold her yet.  She was born on Sunday January 25 at 2:06pm.

FB Moss Bluff Volunteer team

We had a volunteer team come from FB Moss Bluff.  They did several medical camps around an area that has many ethnic Tibetans living there during the winter season because it is too cold to stay in the mountains during the winter.  The team also visited some orphanages and did other things to help out our ministry among the Tibetans in Nepal.  At one school for Mustangi children they did a hygiene clinic.  They washed the children's hair and treated their hair for lice.  

Getting ready for Thailand

We are getting ready to leave the cold and head to the warmth of Thailand.  We will be there almost two months to deliver our second baby, Isabelle Kate.  We are looking forward to eating the good food and having electricity 24 hours a day (right now the power is out 18 hours a day in Nepal.  What's the point in having electricity at all?)  

Christmas party with Tibetans

We held a Christmas party in our home for all our Tibetan friends around the neighborhood.  It was very successful because all the Tibetans that came, about 25, said that it was their first Christmas party to attend.  The gospel message was shared through Bo and a translator as he told the Christmas story.  We can only pray that what was heard will transform their hearts to want to know more.  

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a good time even though we were away from family.  We all pitched in to buy an imported turkey at $80!!  We smoked it, had lots of other goodies then played football.  I think the only thing we were missing was the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and college football games on TV.  

Baby it's cold outside!

It's getting cold in Kathmandu and with the cold comes an awesome view of the mountains.  This picture does not do it justice, but in the winter you can see the Himalayan mountains that surround the Kathmandu valley.  It is absolutely incredible to see.  

The picture of Sophia sleeping is of her new bed.  Now she has sheets and blankets that match, but in this picture she did not.  Not only is it hard for the Nepalis to understand why we wanted rails on the bed, but it was also hard to have the sheets made.  You can't buy sheets here and they do not have the concept of a fitted sheet, so it took about one month to get the bed and the bedding all correct.  The mattress actually barely fits in the bed but we just wanted to the bed to be ready so we are dealing with it.

We Love Receiving Goodies

Sophia's Grandpa Bruce and Granette sent us a huge package of goodies last month.  We can get most staple foods in Nepal but we love special treats that aren't available here (i.e. Betty Crocker cake mixes, muffin mixes, & Jiffy corn bread mixes).  As you can tell, Sophie has a blast opening packages.

The Lazy Gringo

Authentic Arizona-style Mexican food in the heart of Kathmandu.  This is a restaurant we opened in October 2007. The Lazy Gringo was started by a team of American families who live in Kathmandu and LOVE mexican food. We have trained an amazing staff of wonderful Nepali men and woman to cook authentic mexican food and to make your time at our restaurant a throughly wonderful experience. We hope you enjoy and continue to come back again and again!  For more info about The Lazy Gringo check out www.thelazygringo.blogspot.com

J-town For Jesus

At the end of July, I traveled with volunteers and a national SC to a remote mountain village in the Himalayas.  We were able to see fruit from our ministry in area where there has been no fruit for a very long time.  I met an ethnic Tibetan man, his wife and his daughter in a wheat field.  He is a lower caste Tibetan Buddhist man who works with his family in the fields outside of a village called J-town.  On a rainy afternoon, we stopped by their threshing floor where they were threshing wheat.  The daughter and her mother were plucking the heads from grains of wheat that did not get caught by the threshing device.  We asked if we could help and they allowed us to work alongside them.  This provided us with a great opportunity to begin sharing Christ with them.  The mother spoke broken Tibetan and the daughter spoke Nepali and a little English.  The women asked us to come to their home the following morning to share this message of hope with the man of the house.  The following morning, as we drank tea together in their home, we were able to share intimately through a translator the Creation-to-Christ story followed with a detailed Gospel presentation.  Although the mother was not there, the father and daughter decided they needed to turn from Tibetan Buddhism and follow Christ.  This same day, the only other two believers in this village were baptized.  They had been led to Christ 3 years before but had not publicly professed Christ as their Savior through the ordinance of baptism.  There is still no church or fellowship in this area yet, but we have two journeymen there right now doing follow-up and discipleship.

Repentance From Idolatry

I met with U.D. again this morning.  This was our 4th time to meet in the past month.  I first met U.D. early one morning along the korah path (where the Tibetan Buddhists walk circles around the stupa).  He passed me by and we began to have a conversation.  I asked him if he had taken his tea yet and he said no.  In Nepali and Tibetan cultures, to ask someone if they have taken their tea is really another way to ask how they are doing.  At the same time, it is also an indirect way of inviting the person to drink tea with you.  He asked me to come to his home for tea.  U.D. is a Tibetan refugee who moved to Nepal from Tibet 30+ years before and lives in a small 12’x14’ room in a refugee camp.  He speaks absolutely no English and does not have a job.  He has 3 sons who have all been shipped off to different homes and schools.  He is a friendly man who spends most of his time hanging out with people.  From our first meeting, he has been open to listening to the Gospel.  We have watched a Creation-to-Christ DVD together and have had several discussions pertaining to Christianity and Tibetan Buddhism.  I have shared my story with him and I have taken him to the home of a refugee Tibetan believer, who also shared his story with him.  U.D. has attended a small fellowship of Tibetan believers 3 x’s since our initial meeting.  He continues to exhibit an openness and receptivity to the Gospel, so much so, that I have began to take him through an evangelistic discipleship Bible study.  This study is a modified version of the initial 6 T4T lessons.  In the first lesson, we studied the character and nature of the God of the Bible (God is unique, personal, and eternal, infinite in holiness, justice and love) and contrasted it with what he has been worshiping in the past.  We examined the objects of worship in his room and then looked at Psalm 115:4-8.  This passage seemed to really hit home with U.D.  In our last meeting together, we studied salvation (the wages of our sin, the free gift of eternal life vs. works, how salvation was obtained through the death and resurrection of Christ and the adoption as sons for all who repent and believe).  Throughout the lesson, he refrained, “Oh, yes, this is the truth!”  As we finished the lesson, I shared with him how he could be saved if he would but believe and put his faith in Jesus alone.  He said that he has faith in Christ but he kept mentioning something about after 1 month.  I believe he has set a date for when he will cross the proverbial line of repentance from Tibetan Buddhism and what he calls, “100% faith in Christ alone.”  I was looking up in a dictionary how to say ‘repeat after me’ because I was so eager to lead him in a prayer of faith to Jesus.  However, I felt under immediate conviction when I turned to find the word ‘repeat’ in the dictionary and found the word ‘repent’ instead.  The Holy Spirit reminded me that his faith must be accompanied by repentance for a true conversion to take place.  At this, I still led him in a prayer to Christ but one of thanksgiving, and supplication for continued mercy in our efforts together to bring him to faith.  I anticipate anxiously our next meeting together. 

Neighbors Opening Doors

My neighbors are from Manang, an ethnic Tibetan village in the northern Himalayas.  Our team partners with a national SC whose work is primarily among the Manangi people.  Yesterday, this partner and I went to visit this Manangi family.  As we visited with them, my partner shared about his love for Manangi people and about his work in Manang.  This national believer is musically gifted.  As his entry strategy, he teaches the traditional Tibetan instrument called the “Drumyin” to people in Manang.  He has recorded gospel stories and praise music using the drumyin in the Manangi language.  After nearly 45 minutes of my partner and this family discussing people and locations they had in common in Manang, I asked the father of the household if I could share with him from my heart.  He granted my request.  I began to share with him my observations of the Tibetan Buddhist peoples, including the Manangis, worship at the temple near our home.  I told him how devout the worshipers seemed to be and how much I appreciated their zeal and earnestness in their daily rituals.  Then I turned the corner and began to share about how these actions don’t really bring them closer to God.  In fact, they practice traditions and rituals but they really don’t know God.  I shared with him my story about how I tried many things to make me happy and bring me peace in my life but how none of these things satisfied.  I told him of my salvation experience, how God has blessed me spiritually since then, and about my calling to bring hope and light to all ethnic Tibetan peoples of Nepal.  I sincerely explained to him that I wanted these people, his people, to have the opportunity to genuinely know God and not just worship from afar.  Then I told him of my plans to go into his home village next month to share this message with the Manangi people and to teach the few believers that have already turned to Christ there.  This led me to the purpose for our current visit in his home.  He is my neighbor and, firstly, I wanted him to know about the opportunity to repent and turn to the Most High God.  

The father did not express any opposition to my purpose for being in Nepal or to anything that I shared with him.  Instead, he began to tell how he has been watching a television program and listening to radio about Christianity.  He said that all religions were good and it is really all about “oneness.”  He did not express any desire to know more about what I had been saying but he did ask me to take some things to his relatives in his home village in Manang.  I graciously jumped at this opportunity to serve him and at the chance to meet his relatives in Manang.  This could be a fantastic entry strategy into the home of a man of peace.  I told that I would come by again before my trip to pick up the items he wants to send to his brother and I also told him to come to my home anytime if he has an interest in knowing more about the Most High God and how to know Him.  As we prepared to leave, we looked out over Kathmandu Valley from his roof and I asked him who made the mountains in which we were surrounded by.  He said god of course and then I offered him a gift.  I gave him a Creation-to-Christ DVD and told him that it was a movie that explained where creation came from and how God made it.  He received the DVD graciously. 

Idols in Repair

Yesterday I was out walking around the Stupa looking for a man of peace.  I was praying and looking for familiar faces of people that I might have met before.  I sat to take a rest near to a pack of monkeys and after getting caught between two monkeys in a squabble I decided it was time to move on.  Then I met an older ethnic Tibetan man who was taking a rest from worshiping and praying at the Stupa.  He was very friendly looking so we began to have a conversation.  After some small talk, we decided to go for tea together.  He looked poor, so I offered to buy him some tea and bread and he accepted.  I explained to him how God had provided this food for him and I prayed and asked the Lord to bless our time together.  He also said a lengthy mantra-like prayer before he began to eat.  We began to talk more and I asked him several questions about his prayers and worship.  I asked about who his God was and what he received from doing his worship everyday.  I asked if his worship was able to remove his sins.  I pointed out to him how the Dalai Lama, monks and rinboches are just men like us.  Then I was able to share my story with him.  He listened intently, but because he spoke no English and I speak broken Tibetan, I am not sure how much was communicated.  Many of his responses were typical Tibetan Buddhist responses that I have ran across in my evangelistic encounters (i.e. “Oh, yes, that is very nice!” and “ Oh, yes, it is the same way in Buddhism.”).  As we parted ways, he asked for me to pray for him.  Later in the evening, while I was waiting near the Stupa for the t.v. cable technician, I ran into this old man again.  He was doing his evening worship this time.  I asked him to come with me to a place nearby where there are three large, golden idols of Buddhas.  We sat before these three idols and I asked him to explain what each of them were.  Then I explained to him why I do not worship them.  I told him that these idols have eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear, mouths but do not speak, noses but do not smell, hands but do not feel, and feet but do not walk (Ps. 115:4-8).  I then told him about how much different the Most High God was compared to these idols.  He seemed to grasp this concept but it didn’t seem to phase his worship of them.  We agreed to meet again someday.  He asked for me to pray for him again.