rangi-changi!

at the top of the hillside village of Bagnas

"Rangi-changi" is one of those phrases in the Nepali language that seems to perfectly describe its meaning through the way it sounds as it rolls off your tongue. In English, it means "colorful." Aside from becoming one of our favorite things to say ("bango-tingo" describing a winding/curvy road, is a close second), we felt the term would be fitting to sum up the miscellaneous nature of this blog post.

As I'm sure you can all imagine from the photos and posts thus far, God has been growing us, stretching us, and teaching us countless lessons in our time here. One of which, and perhaps the most valuable, has come from our time in the hospital. Because we are both in the medical field, we are professionally trained to quantify information, obtain objective measures, and document tangible results. When a patient comes in, we obtain information, create a problem list, consider all possible causes of said problems, determine the most likely candidate for the problems, discern the course of treatment to resolve said problems, and finally, re-assess to see if what you did actually helped resolve the problems. 

In the mission field, we're finding how tempting it is to approach ministry in much the same way we approach our professions. The danger there is we identify "the problems" (i.e. what are the needs), think of all the ways we can help fill the need, attempt to implement the necessary changes, and then in the end, want to quantify "the results." Where in all of those steps did we recognize that only God is sovereign, and only God can provide the result He has already planned for? And where do we leave room to trust in His results and His timing, and be okay with the knowledge that we may not see "the end result" of His works?

Probably one of the biggest blessings of combining our professional skills with ministry work is that we see "our work" in a much different light. Instead of being focused on productivity and patient outcomes, we realize that every patient and family we interact with is purely an opportunity to love people the way God loved us first. As Christians, we find our strength and desire to love people because God first loved us. He loved us so much that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer His wrath and judgement for all of our sins in our place. Then, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are given all the grace and mercy of a relationship with the Father through the Son so that we may live new lives with eternal promise. In light of the Gospel and such a sacrificial love on our behalf, we clearly see now that the very least we can do is in fact the very best we can do for these patients and their families. And that is to demonstrate God's love through the way we love them. 

"that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith -- that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God."

~ Ephesians 3:16-19 ~

We praise God for revealing His truth in such a powerful and tangible way. And it is our prayer to continue to seek the good of others through the way we love them wherever God has us in this great world of His. We thank you all for loving us and demonstrating the blessing of being loved by others. Through your white board messages, your emails, your blog comments, your Facebook comments/messages, your care packages, and your prayers, God truly is using each of you in a unique way to sustain and encourage us so we may be the part of the Body of Christ that serves the patient population of Tansen Mission Hospital with love. Your love and prayers may feel like the least you can do, but we've seen and experienced quite clearly that it truly is the best you can do on behalf of others!

And now for some more photos! Warning: towards the end of the photos, there are a few "creepy crawly critters" we've encountered thus far, so if you're squeamish, please disregard the last few photos. Enjoy! 

The Physio Department (back row, left to right): Niraj, Rajendra, Simon Wetzig (Dr. Graham's son from Australia visited for two weeks for vacation/volunteering); (front row, left to right): Paras, Pratima, Kim

this was the little guy both of us had the blessing to know for a couple of weeks; Tom worked with the family to put on some weight (he is in fact 11 months old), and Kim worked with the family to get him caught up on his gross motor skills; after a lot of prayer and care, he left the hospital a little bit heavier and a lot more active!

he is such a cute little peanut and a joy to play with

with a lot of prayer and support from Dr. Joan (Jame Shu's sister), Tom now feels quite comfortable in pediatrics

what else would you do on a Saturday afternoon?

take the goats out for a walk of course!

the big hill on the right is Shrinagar Hill, and hospital compound where we live and work is just where the trees end on the left side of the hill

a rare blessing to see the HIMALAYAS this time of year! this is Annapurna viewed from Shrinagar Hill... don't worry, once we get all of Tom's photos uploaded, there will be more magnificent views of these majestic mountains to share

part of the Himalayan range we can see from Shrinagar: Annapurna I is the big peak on the left, then the sharply pointed one just to the right of center is Machhapuchre (from another angle, it's split in two and looks like a fish-tail), and finally to the far right is Annapurna II

okay, here's the warm and fuzzy "buffer" photo before we get into the creepy crawly stuff... proceed with caution!

the tarantula who visited our bathroom at Annex 4; fearing it would make a huge mess if he squashed it, Tom was able to use a fly swatter and his newly honed salu (court hockey) skills to usher the hairy thing out the front door

Abishek learned there are definite disadvantages to being a resident in a Nepalese hospital. One of the missionary docs took this photo one night in the Emergency Department when a patient came in with a snake bite injury AND the snake that did it! 

fortunately, this snake did not match any of the venomous  reference specimens in the ED, and the patient went home with no further issues

welcome to the new "home"

For those of you who were concerned about how we would be living out here in Nepal, here is some visual evidence of a clear answer to your prayers! In spite of the challenges we may face, we are continually amazed by God's faithfulness, and how He provides in such great abundance. This home was the very first one built on the hospital compound back in the 1960's, and we are blessed to have the privilege of occupying it for the remainder of our time here. Perhaps these photos will entice some of you to come visit or even to serve in Tansen!

the front of the house: the window on the left is on the 3rd floor, and the open window up top is the 4th floor master bedroom window

the side yard

one of the kitchen windows and the front door

1st floor: the kitchen

looking up to the second floor

2nd floor: sitting and dining room

a peaceful view out to the side yard

3rd floor: the flushing toilet room!

3rd floor: the study

4th floor: room for three of you to come visit!

4th floor: master bedroom (not pictured: a mosquito net recently installed over the bed!)

view from the 3rd floor window: the day after we took this picture, these beautiful passion fruits and the vines were cut down due to their encroachment on the home's electrical wires (see first photo) and their hiding of a rather large hornets' nest; thankfully, the main passion fruit vine is still alive and well on the side of the house!

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

~1 Timothy 6:17-19

We pray to be joyful stewards of all His blessings so that those around us may see Him in all that we say and all that we do wherever He has us.

How Great is Our God!

O Lord, how manifold are your works!

In wisdom have you made them all;

the earth is full of your creatures.

~Psalm 104:24

Tom caught this little guy "looking guilty" with his stolen goods at Swayambunath (Monkey Temple) in Kathmandu.

kid's play

a mother's concern

at one point, she had all four of her chicks on her back!

the rice fields are all ready for the monsoon to come

"You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth" ~Psalm 104:14

walking home from school on a sunny day

enjoying a day off from school

at the end of a long day at school

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this scenario: first the boys would line up for their photo, then they would run over to see what it looked liked, then another boy would jump into the photo line up, and then they would run over to see the result. I watched this swarm of boys run back and forth for about 5 photos. I think we had just as much fun as they did!

a typical farm house in the area (the grass roof lasts about 1-2 years with need for patch repairs every now and again; the beauty of the grass roof, as opposed to a tin roof, is that the home is nice and quiet during a rainstorm)

I couldn't help it, he looked like a National Geographic photographer!

Ranighat, Nepal's famed "Taj Mahal." It is a mansion built over 100 years ago by a king who wanted to remember the place where his son was born.

While Tom was taking his sibling's photo, I caught this boy patiently waiting his turn to have his picture taken.

We just wanted to share a few photos that remind us of how great is our God, and His majesty revealed in all of the earth. As you can imagine, just a simple walk to and from the market around here lends to tons of photo opportunities. Partly it's because there are so many differences here in Nepal as compared to home, but mostly it's because God is transforming how we view His creation. Once you look for Him in every person, animal, or vast view, it's quite the experience of marveling at our amazing God through His creation.

around the hospital compound...

We woke up on our first morning and stepped out of our room to be greeted by these flowers... Praise God for just the right encouragement for our first full day in Tansen!

Tom's "commute" to and from work takes about 3 minutes by foot... with the gas prices the way they are back home, we are most grateful for such an "eco-friendly" and short commute to work!

One of the main hallways in the hospital. To the left is the orthopedic ward, and to the right is the hospital laundry facilities.

As the hospital is not yet equipped with oxygen lines in the rooms, these guys have to pick up empty O2 tanks and deliver new ones almost weekly! This is the back of the hospital where most of the deliveries (including precious mail from home carried on the "Buck") are made.

A quiet day in the Emergency Department... just the way we like it!

Visual reference in the ED. If bitten by a snake, the key is to remember what it looked like. This way you can point it out to the ED staff and they can determine if it is a venomous snake and if so, which antivenom to administer. There are actually about 7 of these "specimens" available for reference. (P.S. we did see our first snake on one of the local trails the other evening... from the panicked glance I gave it, it did not look like any of the venomous snakes pictured here!)

This young "biraami" (patient) enjoys sitting outside in the afternoon, so one day we asked if we could take a picture of him and his custom fit bamboo crutches. The hospital shop makes these crutches on-site using the bamboo on the compound. Now every time we walk by him to say "Namaste," he proudly shows off his crutches.

Tom caught this precious little one peering out over his Mom during ward rounds one morning.

Jesus looked at them and said, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God." ~Mark 10:27