Project Update -- Humla House

The Humla House is a small children's home we started about five years ago for conflict displaced girls from Humla. Humla is the furthest northwest district of Nepal and is inaccessable by road. Only one percent of the land can be cultivated, causing regular food shortages. During the conflict many children were brought to Kathmandu, where they were often placed in overcrowded orphanages that could not even afford to feed all the children much less send them to school.

In 2005 we opened a home for eight of these girls. They attend school regularly and are making good progress. This year some of them were able to skip a grade as they are catching up quickly. Later on I will try to find some pictures from when the girls first came, so you can see the difference. In the beginning they were malnourished and suffered from health problems, but as you can see from the pictures below they've grown so much in the last five years and are much happier and more confident as well.

Two of the original eight girls went back to their families, so last year we took in two more underpriviledged girls from different districts.

Lily with the girls, their house mother, and her daughter

enjoying new story books

 

Pink Elephants, Coffee, and Positive Imaging

At the beginning of last week I heard from my parents that a friend from South Africa is here in Nepal attending a week long conference with Room to Read. (As a side note I invite you to check out their website and read the book Leaving Microsoft to Change the World. They’re doing some pretty great stuff, and John Wood’s book is enjoyable, easy reading with a lot of great principles for getting things done and making a difference.)

I tried my best to get in touch with Chris but between internet and email trouble, and missed phone connections wasn’t able to arrange a meeting. After a couple of days I figured it wasn’t going to work to meet up, and emailed my parents to tell them so.

I got this message in reply:

Ok great -- now is a perfect time to use our positive focussed thought power, our prayers, and the beautiful and powerful law of attraction!

Now you focus on what you DO want....you and Chris meeting, shaking hands, then having a big hug, exciting conversation....or whatever you want! Now make your little picture or movie you are seeing in your mind in brighter colour, more clear, bigger, give it some great sound, even some smells (maybe you'll have a coffee?), bring it closer!

Don't think one more minute about what is not working or what you don't want to happen -- otherwise you attract what you don't want! Ha!

(your mind doesn't process negatives! For example, if I tell you, "Anita, Don't think about a pink elephant!" tell me what you are thinking about?

What picture do you have in your mind??! In other words, then what are you focussing on? What you don't want to think about?? Ha ha! You get what you focus on!

I burst out laughing and spent the rest of the morning thinking about pink elephants talking on the phone, meeting, and drinking coffee. Sure, I was using positive imaging, but the pink elephants kept creeping in too. At least it made me smile. And sure enough later in the day I made the connection and we had a great meeting.

I’ve never been super big on the whole “ask the universe for what you want” deal. But I have to say that positive imaging when combined with prayer and God’s will is a pretty powerful force.
And don’t forget the pink elephants :)

God's in control

On July 11 while most of us were happily watching the World Cup final and enjoying ourselves whether at home or out, alone or with friends, the evening ended in a horrific tragedy for many fans in Uganda as terrorists used the opportunity to bomb two locations where many were gathered, resulting in 74 deaths and many more injuries, trauma, and psychological scars.

When I read the news the following day, I was immediately concerned as I know several people in Uganda who work on humanitarian projects. A few days later it was confirmed that one of them, 51 year old Marie Smith from Ireland was killed in one of the explosions. As I’m sure was the case in each of the deaths it came as a shock to everyone who knew Marie, and I know she’ll be greatly missed. She spent 21 years of her life working in Africa and was described as “an outstanding woman who gave her life to reach the African continent, crazy, fun, outgoing, and fiery”. That’s how I remember her from the brief occasion when I met her in South Africa.

When something like this happens there are always questions of why and how it could be God’s will. I don’t have an answer to that, but I was comforted by a post from my friend Tina where she writes that Marie had told her “that her dream was to go help kids in some dangerous place so she could go down fighting in Africa which she loved and made her home, and go be with Jesus to Heaven. She was battling with a lot of health issues and was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. She said the worst thing for her was to be useless and die slowly of old age and she really hoped when her time came that it would be with a bang and that it would be soon.”

Tina also related how many others had planned to be in that location but weren't because they didn't feel well or had been there but were tired and had gone home early (maybe that the fact that the game went on for so long without any goals being scored was a factor in saving lives, who knows). Reading her post helped me to realize that God’s hand was still there, even in such a tragic event. I know we will never understand all His reasons why, but can trust that He is in control, and pray for His mercy and comfort for each one affected by this tragedy.

Cleaning out the closets

A few random things I found while packing:

• Tea bags – a container of very, very old loose tea bags; I actually think some of these might have been around for more than three or four years.

• An ancient video camera – no, it doesn’t work properly anymore; also video cassettes belonging to the camera which have long since been converted to DVDs

• Micro cassette tapes – God only knows how long those have been around, long enough to get all mouldy and need to be thrown out

• A rat trap – yeah, that was really worth saving, and as an added plus it was packed in a box with other household items that either had to be seriously disinfected or just gotten rid of

• Mouldy costumes – this was probably the most unpleasant discovery of the day, not only did we still have a suitcase full of random costume wear that the kids used to dress up in years and years ago, but they had all moulded and stuck together, yuck

• Art supplies – a very old and very odd collection of paints and craft materials most of which will go to the girls in our children’s home

• Christmas cake – last but not least the delightful discovery that we still have about three quarters of a Christmas cake left, yum

This may not seem like a particularly amusing list, but finding some of these things made me laugh so hard that I cried, and made me so thankful that we getting rid of all this junk (and eating yummy cake).

I am blessed

This move has been going very well, mainly because I'm blessed to live with three great people who make it so much easier. I don't mind sorting, organizing, and cleaning, but I've got some kind of mental block when it comes to packing up boxes. My friend Lily is really good at that bit, and gets everything out of the way so quickly and efficiently. Then there are the two guys who do all the heavy lifting, loading, and unloading, and all I have to do is tell them what room to put the things in -- when I'm not busy scrubbing years worth of grime and mold out of the new kitchen, that is. With all of us working together, it's going much more smoothly than I thought it would -- and we got rid of a whole truck load of junk, hurray!

Thoughts on Change

Today I listened to one of my favourite devotional audios on the topic of change. It brings up lots of examples of how God has changed the rules throughout history. The most notable one being, of course, the coming of Jesus ushering in the era of grace and forgiveness when previously God had required adherence to a rigid set of laws and animal sacrifices for the atonement of sins.

Afterwards, as I thought about this, I realized that when I’m faced with a change in what I’m doing or the way I’ve been operating my first reaction is to think, “Oh no, if I have to change the way I’m doing things now doesn’t that mean that I got it all wrong and wasted a lot of time before?”

Not necessarily. It’s a relief to me to realize that as times change so do our jobs, our methods of operation, and God’s will for our lives. But just because something that was right before needs to be changed or updated it doesn’t negate the value of all the work we put into doing it that way previously. If nothing else, it was a good learning experience.

A project that I worked on for more than a month taught me how to use a new computer program – even though the entire thing ended up getting redone in a different format. A move to another country brought me a new set of friends and pushed me to learn new skills – even though it after a year and a half I realized it wasn’t the right place for me, and moved back here.

I may not be totally certain about what the next few years will bring about. I might decide to try very different things from what I’m currently doing. And they may not work out at all. But I don’t need to be afraid of that, because each new experience takes me another step forward in life, and each old one has taught me something valuable and contributed toward the place I’m at today.