Progress

Ok we're in... We moved in last Saturday and have made tiny steps of progress each day. Although sometimes it feels like it is 1 step forward and 2 back!

This is our house...

I'm not sure if you can see it in the picture but we are very close to our neighbours, like I mean very close - last night George and I were sitting in our living room and I'm sure I heard the guy next door fart! No joke.

This is our living room...

Yes pistachio and chocolate seems to be standard fare in Nepali interior design, all our walls are lime green, and all the floors and skirting boards are choclote brown. Yummy! All our rooms were bare when we moved in but slowly by slowly we are getting somewhere with furniture. We now have a cane sofa, table and chairs in the living room and will hopefully have some curtains by the end of today!

This is the view from the roof... It's great, we've got 3 balconies - 1 from the living room looking out front, 1 on the second floor with space for an outside table etc and then we have the top floor which looks out over the hills (these are just hills, the mountains are way higher!).

Anyway it's great but living here takes a little getting used to...

Just as an example, we moved last Saturday, had a play date with another UMN family and then returned to our house for our first night and guess what? There was a power cut - all round Kathmandu there is electricity 'load shedding' because they don't have the infrastructure to meet electricity demmand so right now we're on 2.5hour power cuts 3 times a week. (It's rises to 50+ hour cuts per week in the winter!) So we arrived in the dark, spent the next 15 mins looking for our torches, in rucksacks, day bags and barrels, bathed the kids by torch light and then had to peg up some curtains in their rooms to prevent them waking at 5.00 in the morning! Nightmare.

Since then things have gotten a little better - but it takes ages to make progress.

Sunday morning I tried to connect our cooker and tripped all the electrics in the house...

Monday we had our first cup of coffee, but were struggling with the water here - it's a long story

Tuesday we discovered the German bakery round the corner and managed coffee and croisants for brakfast!

Wednesday we got our sofa delivered and managed to get broadband installed - but not in that order, for a while we literally had wi-fi internet but no furniture!

And today we're getting curtains!

Who knows what dizzy heights of progress we will scale tomorrow!

The Eagle has landed!

Well, I've just read the last post and sooooo much has happened since then.....

Unfortunately the last thing I did before leaving home was to fiddle with my camera memory card (unsuccessfully) so I've been out of photos for the last week. Sorry. I fixed it last night though and managed to get some shots today so next post there'll be some pics. Honest.

Well, I tell you, leaving home was hard.

But our time in the Cotswolds was a God send, we totally chilled and then were able to think about arriving in Nepal without the distraction of saying good bye.

The flight was great. Manchester and then Doha (Qatar) to Kathmandu. The kids loved the plane, I don't think Toby could believe it, unlimited video and computer games, plus food and drink all night!!! Everyone did well and then when we arrived in Doha we literally walked off our flight, through transfers and then straight onto the Kathmandu leg. Total winner, although if we'd known it was going to be so tight George would have freaked! Her train fever had us arriving for check in 45 mins before they opened!!!

Arriving has been great, we have softened the trauma by checking into a lovely hotel (3 Star just in case you think we're taking the micky!) near to our new house.

Our first outing was to check out the new house. It is fab (photos to follow), way bigger than we thought and in a great spot between shops and restaurants (Nepali style though in case your thinking of Richmond or the lisburn Road!) The house is bare. I mean totally bare, anything that wasn't nailed down has been lifted... actually now I come to think of it, even stuff that has been nailed was taken to so we've been left with walls (freshly painted) and doors plus 2 kitchen cupboards and a couple of school carpets in a few rooms.

Anyway the hotel has been great coz we can come and go to the house and slowly get it habitable. Tonight is our last night of luxury before we move in tomorrow... watch this space

No going back!

Hi guys,

Well the time has come... tomorrow we leave Northern Ireland and embark on our epic edventure to Nepal... mmm... how do we feel?... we're wetting our pants!

This last week has been a blur of packing, stacking and removing stuff from our house and we have finally cleared everywhere and squeezed everything we can possibly get away with into our blue barrels!

After the panic of figuring out what out of our 680kg freight we could possibly do without, we have now shrunk our belongings to about 450kg... over 60 of which is books and about 60 is a big table football table. Ok not the typical item for missionaries to take away, but I reckoned it would make a great Christmas pressie for the kids and (stupidly) we decided that our primary criteria for chossing one had to be weight... that's right we deliberately decided to opt for the heaviest we could find - well the way I figured it was that the light ones take such a beating and the rods come off etc so we'd better play it safe and go for a mega one. Anyway, it is heavy but will be worth it!

The coffee machine is out (well it actually never got in as the barrel opening was too narrow!), the KitchenAid mixer is out, the computer speakers are out, the sewing machine is out, the hair clippers are out, the doll's house is out, the kids bikes and scooters are out... you see? It's been a real sacrifice!

So our barrels are packed... they've been taking up space in our garage but today they were collected and are now enroute to Kathmandu.

See you all in a week!

Our house is bare and we're ready to go. It's been difficult enough trying to leave and we have been so focued on leaving that we haven't had a chance to focus on arriving - if you know what I mean. Sunday I started blubbing in church as it's hard to say goodbye to folk when we don't know exactly how long we'll be away for and it feels like we're going for a long time...

Family good byes have been hard but we know that God has put this in front of us and we've been reminded of the words of Joshua...

'Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.'

How cool is that? That's why God rocks, not only is He the creator of everything but He careas about each of us enough to be bothered about the minutia of our lives, packing up, leaving, saying goodbye to family, He's been there and He wants us to know it's going to be OK.

So there you have it... we're hanging on to His word and holding on tight to His promises.

Meanwhile, UMN have been fantastic in all of this, they have been emailing us about airport arrivals, visas and updates on our house. It's great to know we've got a place where we're going and that people are waiting to greet us when we arrive. Thanks.

OK - we're in England until Monday - I'll probably post something before we go. Hope so.

Ollie

Hi,

I thought I'd send a special post for Ollie today as he has just had his 5th brithday...

Ollie is our number 2 son - he's great fun, loads of energy and a keen sense of humour. He's a little unsure of going to Nepal. He can't remember our time in Kenya very well so is all a bit unsure of what he's in for.

Check out below for a little snap shot of what Ollie. He's brilliant.



So yesterday Ollie had his birthday and he was loaded with pressies... a rockin guitar & keyboard, Cars cars (if you know what I mean), a bug safari kit - which I'm sure will get lots of use in Nepal, a cool helet that turns your voice into a robot's and a cool make it yourself dino bot kit from the Science museum... all in all a good haul!

He's not sure about Nepal - but got a birthday card from UMN - very nice - and is going to miss Stormont - not the hot bed of NI political activity - more the big adventure play ground with cool slides!

Anyway apart from Ollie's birthday this week has seen us - pack, weigh, unpack and repack our blue barrels, pack our living room, sort our finances while we're away, sort out our tax status, pack our kitchen, sort our utilities and then I'm best man for 'Big Dave' tomorrow so I've been writing my best man speech!!! All a bit hectic, but then what else can you expect?

So keep blogging and let me know if there is stuff you want / don't want to see.

I know it's strap line is exploits of a young family in Nepal and we haven't even got there yet but I thought it would be worthwhile starting before we go...

Take it easy,

Grenville