February 19, 2008

Dear Friends,

The 200-year-old building across the street from Bev Booth's place of work burned down recently.

It has been an interesting week at the office. We had a fire across the “street” from our offices. I use the term “street” loosely, because you may imagine that since I live in the capital city of Nepal that our office would be far from the burning building. In fact, the “street” is about the width of a typical driveway in the United States. The burning building was a 200-year-old ex-hospital that now is a warren of one- and two-room family dwellings.

The families cook with small kerosene stoves. One of the stoves had exploded and started the fire. When I first saw the fire, flames were pouring out of two windows, and smoke was billowing out over the roof from the other side of the building, so the fire was quite large at that time. Our staff helped people come out through the windows, and one of our staff members went into the building and brought out two young children. Along with neighbors and gawkers, we formed an assembly line to move gas cylinders out of a nearby shop. If they had exploded, the impact would have been devastating. And then we watched and waited.

We waited for the fire brigade. In all of the Kathmandu area, there are three fire trucks.  While we waited for them to come, we moved our own diesel and gasoline supplies and our vehicles away from the building. (There is a very severe shortage of diesel and gasoline, so one must have his or her own stores. I have my own store of gasoline.) But mostly we stood and watched the building burn.

You might ask why we didn’t throw water on the fire. There were problems with this solution: little water and no buckets or hoses. We did form a line to pass the gas cylinders back out of danger. But we had no vessels to put water in. It was very frustrating. Forty-five minutes later the first fire engine came, with four firemen. You could tell they were firemen because they wore typical firemen hats, rubber rain coats, and boots. They took their ladder off the top of the truck and ran the hose. The water lasted for just a few minutes before the truck’s tank ran dry. There are no hydrants. They then ran around to different nearby houses using their tanks. And after some time, some water tankers came.

Luckily, the building was made of thick stone-and-dirt walls, so the fire, though difficult to stop as it went from room to room inside, did not threaten other buildings. It was all like a slow motion process.  In fact, the fire was still going three hours later when I left for home, inactive but still smoking. It seems to me that the response to this fire is similar to what is happening in Nepal in general: too little too late. The fire is contained, but continues to destroy the country slowly from within.

There is a small mission hospital in western Nepal, which was the only functioning hospital in the area. The international mission agency had planned to hand over the hospital to a Nepali organization, in accordance with new government regulations stating that international organizations cannot run or implement work in Nepal, but must partner with or work through Nepali organizations. The government had earlier approved this decision. In fact, it was a cabinet-level decision last April. However, due to political pressures, the decision was never implemented: the Health Ministry insisted that it would run the hospital. The hospital is now closed. (You can read about this online in the Nepali Times, issue 387, in the article called “In God’s Hands,” or search for Dadeldhura.)

In the last four years, the United Mission to Nepal (UMN) has managed to transition almost all of the work it was actually running (such as nursing schools, hospitals, community health projects, etc. and now UMN only works by strengthening the capacity of Nepali organizations. We facilitated the creation of about 15 new organizations that spun off from UMN and are now run by ex-UMN staff. We went from a staff of about one thousand to our current level of 150.

As you can imagine, the staff were reluctant to make the leap. But with encouragement, and a real commitment to building their capacity to do well on their own, they did it. And now the majority of them are flourishing. It is very exciting to see them doing so well. And to see them go from an attitude of “Please don’t make us leave!” to “Look, we can do it ourselves.”

They are growing, getting independent funding, going into new areas of work and different geographical areas—all evidence that they’re thriving. We are still left with two of our hospitals, Tansen and Okhaldhunga. These hospitals were affected by the same cabinet-level decision mentioned above. The only difference between that hospital and Tansen and Okhaldhunga is that the other hospital was under a different mission organization. We do not want our hospitals to close, so last week the leadership of UMN decided to seek other ways for the hospitals to become independent. It will be a bumpy road, so please do pray for discernment, wisdom and guidance.

The front page of the Kathmandu Post the other day had two headlines that made me chuckle: “NOC [Nepal Oil Corporation] gives up on supply” and “Prime Minister says he will solve all problems.” It is a bit like Rome burns while Nero fiddles. The Prime Minister is in his late 80s, and is on oxygen much of the time. The Maoists have joined the government, and elections are scheduled for April 10, and so there is a chance for progress. But the minority groups are literally up in arms over lack of representation, and are not being dealt with appropriately, as the political parties are so busy fighting amongst themselves that they can’t deal with affairs of state. The resulting unrest makes it unlikely that the elections will be held. And the unrest is spreading, as the lack of goods—fuel and gasoline and cooking fuel, as well as basic commodities such as rice and salt—makes people edgy and precipitates violent demonstrations daily.

Two years ago, when the people peacefully removed the king from his illegal hold of executive power, there was a lot of hope, especially among young people. Now there is primarily frustration, apathy, or flight. The educated youth are leaving in droves for the Gulf countries, as are the laborers. Industries are shutting down because power is cut daily for eight hours and is going up to eleven hours a day by mid-March. So there are few jobs. Yesterday I went to the German Bakery , the best bakery on this side of town, and the owner looked at me sadly. It was the first morning in 40 years that he did not have fresh bread, because he did not have the fuel for the ovens.

Please pray for Nepal. The next few months are likely to be difficult, whether there are elections or not. Pray for new, young political leaders who have a heart for peace, justice, and equality. Pray for the people, particularly those in the remote areas, who have long-suffered, who are cold, and who don’t have enough to eat. And pray for UMN, for the safety of its staff, particularly as they travel, and that each staff member may put a little water on the fires that burn in Nepal.

Thanks,

Beverley

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 90