It’s been quite some time. Six months, actually. I blame work. Remember the whole “slowing-down” thing we were expecting? Well, it never happened and here we are. 6 months later. I know some people still check the blog, and there are some days that we have a large number of visitors, so I at least wanted them to find a new update this time.

Here’s what’s happening these days (when we have time to get things done…):

- Some of the children’s profiles are completed and we’ve had our first 2 children sponsored! Two very sweet girls, Esther and Angela are now receiving $25 a month in sponsorship thanks to the giving hearts of 2 very dear friends. This is a great start. If you are interested in sponsoring a child, you can email us at Info@incorruptibleminitries.org. We’ll get you some more information and let you chose the child you would like to sponsor.

- Jewelry sales have been AWESOME! It does help that the jewelry is beautiful and has a great story behind it. To date, we’ve sold almost $500 in jewelry! And all of this money goes directly to the New Creation Home in an effort to buy a van to help with transportation. If you are interested in viewing or buying some of the jewelry, you can check back to the blog and look under the “Jewelry” tab (which I hope to have updated soon…) or you can email info@incorruptibleministries.org.

- Planning our next trip! It’s still in the talking stages and nothing concrete has been decided, but we’re working towards another trip this summer! More information will be coming about this.

As always, thank you for your continued support and prayer. These children are precious and we want to help them in the best way possible, and we couldn’t do it without all of you!

Make Yourself Known! Leave a comment!

So…we had intended to send out newsletters early this month. Then life happened. those of you who know is know that Karen and I are both teachers. This means that we have a long time off during the summer. This also means that once summer is over, work returns with all that goes with it. Needless to say, we’ve gotten a little busy with the start of school. Things are beginning to slow now that we’re getting back into our routines. So we will soon resume our promise to get newsletters out. Hopefully this weekend. I might even post the newsletter here on it’s own page. It will have a hedding at the top if I do…

For those of you who missed the first request, we are trying to get as many email addresses as we can to send out an e-Newsletter and save a stamp or two. We’ve got a pretty good list, but if you still would like to receive an e-Newsletter instead of  a hard copy, you can send an email to info@incorruptibleministries.org with your Name and Email Address. Thanks to all of you who did respond!

Hey Guys!

We will be sending out our newsletter this next week. In an effort to save a little money, we are looking to email several of these newsletter instead of the traditional snail-mail. If it is your desire to receive an email newsletter instead of print, please send an email request to info@incorruptibleministries.org. In the request, please include your name and email address where you want the email sent. We will eventually go to an all-email format to save stamps. This is just the first step in the process. Please pass this along to others who would be interested. We want to get the word out to as many people as we can!

Bryan and Karen

Since returning to the US, we’ve been working on a few things for the ministry. One of them obviously hasn’t been blogging, since this is the first post since our return…oh well. But here are a few things that have been getting our attention for the past month:

1. We’re writing our letter to send out to everyone detailing our experiences while in Nepal. This letter should go out before the first of August, so be sure to check your mailboxes!

2. I’ve also been working on a video of some of our trip. When and if I can ever get it done, I’ll post it here for all to see.

3. I’ve (Bryan) been working on a website, but haven’t had a whole lot of luck getting it to be what I want it to be. We have the domain space, (www.incorruptibleministries.org) but it currently forwards you to the blog. Once I have it up and running, we will make sure everyone knows.

4. We’ve started a Facebook group. Any self-respecting organization has to be on Facebook. So look us up and join. It’s open to anyone, so you can forward it to all your friends (which we’d love to happen!). It will eventually be where we post pictures of hand-made Nepali jewelry we brought home from the orphanage to sell for them. The children make it and sell it in the market areas to help raise money to bring in more children. By the way, these kids are absolutely amazing.

5. We are working on profiles of all the children in preparation of finding sponsors for them. In doing so, we are finding out even more about these amazing children.

6. We are beginning to think about our next trip next summer…crazy. We are planning to take a few people with us and are praying that God would touch their hearts to want to ‘Go into the nations.’

We will continue to keep you posted on any new information. Thank you all for sharing in our journey this summer. We’re eager to share about it with anyone and everyone who will listen.

We are in the Chicago airport for the last leg of our trip. The trip home has not been too bad. The longest part was the 13 hour layover in Delhi where their hospitality includes PAYING to wait in their airport for your flight. We are very glad to be back. As we process the trip more blogs will come. The Lord moved in our hearts and gave so much vision it was just a whirlwind of a trip and I feel like i’m just beginning to process all He did in my heart. Keep checking for updates on how you can continue to pray and be involved with the New Creation Home. We appreciate your support and have felt every single prayer. Thank you all so very much.

Grace and Peace

There are things that just don’t make sense to me. Currently there is only power to our hotel through a generator only for our lights no outlets work. Kathmandu has daily power outages usually for two hours at a time in the AM and PM (not to mention the random short outages for no reason at all). However, the wireless internet still works. If I am going to pick between AC and wireless internet…AC please.  Anyway…our last day

In typical Nepali fashion we waited all morning to hear from Rinzi. Finally they arrived and Karuna took me to get a corta set (nepali dress). Then as if we hadn’t waited around the hotel long enough she suggested we take a rest and come to the orphanage at 2. Well we decided to go to a temple instead. Swayumbuh is a buddhist stupa on top of one of the foothills here in the valley. You can see the entire Kathmandu Valley from it. Its quite a beautiful view. To guide you on your journey are some monkeys (this temple is also known as the monkey temple). Again today I was burdened with sadness over how devout these people are to these idols who do nothing for them…who are simply gold statues…they worship the king of darkness who is the king of thieves. We spent some time prayer walking and I look forward to bringing teams in the future to fight the dark spiritual battle at war on the grounds of that temple. One day I hope when people look up to that hill they will see a cross among the remnants of a crumbled temple.

Our time at the orphanage was bittersweet. The children have gotten into our hearts and to say goodbye to them knowing we won’t see them for a year was very hard. They are so so precious and full of so much joy. Nani Beti and Karuna are taking us to the airport tomorrow so we will say goodbye to them then. This evening we got to grab dinner at one of my favorite restaraunts in Nepal…Fire and Ice. Its an italian restaraunt with great brick oven baked pizza and the best ice cream. Yes I realize its not Nepali food in anyway but…I’ve had my share of Nepali food these last 10 days. We had dinner with my former field supervisor from my previous trip. It was great to catch up and know how to pray for her. It was a great…bittersweet last day.

We leave in the morning at 930 beginning our long 33 hours of travel. Please keep us in your prayers. Grace and Peace

Yesterday ended up being a day of rest for us. Both of our stomachs were giving us a bit of trouble, so we thought it best to stay close to the hotel with a “western” toilet. We were able to get a lot done on the profiles of the children and get some much needed rest. Bryan had a neat opportunity to talk to the owner of the hotel for about 30 minutes (nothing spiritual but a building block). It worked out good too because the Llama’s were very busy yesterday and Cara was not feeling well either. Today will be pretty full. We will spend most of the day at the orphanage and then tonight grab dinner with my field director from my previous trip. We’ve got to pack and get ready to leave at 7 in the morning.  My emotions are very mixed of course as I am very sad to leavel, however, i miss everyone dearly. Its been such a blessed time here and we’ve been given so much vision and I feel as though planted some seeds. The work here is not quick, so I have to be patient. Thank you so much for all your prayers,we have felt every bit of it. Please begin praying for our safety as we begin our travels tomorrow. Specifically pray for good, clear weather flying out of Kathmandu (its the beginning of monsoon season). We’ll keep you updated as much as we can during our travels. I will probably post one more time tonight about our last day too.

Grace and Peace

I was reminded yesterday of the deep darkness here in Nepal. Bryan and I went down to Patan Durbar Square nearby our hotel to do some prayer walking. Everywhere you turn there are temples. I realize when you worship 1300 gods you need a lot of temples, its just an overwhelming site at times. Conversion is a hard, long process in Nepal. Prayer is needed so desperately to soften the soil before the seeds are planted. The Nepali people are very weary of Christianity because we say there is only one true God. Many of them will be rejected by their families if they convert to Christianity or for the women, by their husbands. One of the little boys at the orphanage is there because his mother converted to Christianity and the father rejected them. The mother could not care for him so she brought him to the Llama’s. It is a very dark place with many spiritual strongholds that can only be defeated through much prayer. Today we are going to the “monkey temple”. It is a buddhist stupa that overlooks the entire city. It will be a good place to pray over the city. The Lord has been so faithful to give us much vision for bringing teams in the future. Not only are we excited about all he is doing through the Llama family but also about the visions he has placed in our heart for evangelism.

Thank you all so much for all of your prayers! Bryan has not had one migraine or headache and I have had no stomach problems! Thank you also for prayers of protection, I have sensed the hedge of protection around us the entire time. We greatly appreciate you coming alongside us in prayer. We are beginning to feel the exhaustion so pray for us these last two days that we will have supernatural strength to  make the best use of each moment we have left.

Yesterday we went to church at the Llama’s. (Rinzi is the pastor of the Nazarene Nepali Church). Although it was long (they run on Nepali time) it was  such a blessing to experience them worshiping.  There is nothing greater than sensing the presence of the Holy Spirit as they sing and pray and know that even though you don’t fully understand the words you are in one accord.

They are so hungry for the Word. They come and pack out a tiny room each week just hear God’s word and to praise Him and give thanks to Him. Their stage has no lights or “setting” and the hymns would not be “contemporary” to us. Yet they sit on the floor for three hours or more just for the opportunity to fellowship together and learn God’s word. It is simplicity in knowing God…they just want more of Him. They know how much He has done for them and they just want more of Him.

It was an experience that I pray has changed my heart forever in the way I will view my fellowship time.

Our afternoon was very spiritual too (at least for Bryan and Cara). Having been such a trooper, eating Nepali food for the last 2-3 weeks while staying with the Llama’s we decided to take Cara out for the afternoon. We took her to Thamel (touristy area) where I knew we could find french fries and do some shopping. Bryan and Cara were very elated with their french fries and club sandwich and hamburger (made from buffalo meat). We then did a little shopping and although I was able to jump back into my bargaining mode, I still feel like I got ripped off.

We went back to the orphanage for dinner…fried chicken thank you Nani Beti…and spent the evening with the kids. It was a great day!

The whole crew

We have returned from the village of Dhading where we met with the people who run another orphanage. We were connected to them by the Llama family because they are currently helping this family get their orphanage started. They have 8 children right now, ranging from about age 4 to 12. You can meet some of them on the Photos page. They were all so very precious. It was well worth the very long and uncomfortable journey to be able to meet them. Please pray for this family as they care for these children. They were a little shocked to see us. as we were the fisrt white people they had ever seen. We hope to continue to build this relationship in order to help them in the future as well.

We are taking it easy for the rest of today, since we had such a long 32 hours. Let’s just say a 4 hour ride in a 15 passenger van carrying as many as 32 people through the mountains of Nepal is a little tiring.