Salsa Sister in Nepal

I am staying at the Church Guest house top floor with a great roof top, which is being used for dance classes from 12noon-2pm. Yep, these young people keep coming and no one is turned away. Strangely, there are more lads than girls in each class - it must be the Nepali water!

Nepali service on Saturday at Patan Church was amazing and although I cannot speak the lingo, I felt so much at home. Such a contrast to the English speaking service on Sunday. I have been asking why can't (or won't?) people immerse themselves with the Nepali culture? During the service, I got a chance to speak about cricket and CMS. A teacher from the Indian International School was very interested and is going to speak to the Head Teacher. Steve may be able to enlighten me about this school.

We started coaching cricket on Sunday to 48 girls from Nirmali School, right opposite the mega, posh St Mary's School. We get there for 3pm for a 3.30-5pm session, but the Headteacher would like it extended to 6pm as of today! These girls come from a very deprived area with parents working until 8 or 9pm. So many of the girls stay on after our session to do homework. The Headteacher is a Christian and has asked me to teach them some salsa for a national schools dance competition!

KTM Sports Team
Labish is the chap who came to SACYN last year. He is employed by the Christian Sports Fellowship of Nepal to develop a sports ministry and John is his manager. He is also a student at Uni (doing his exams this week before joining us at school!) + works in his parents wee shop. On my first morning at KTM, he came over at 7am and took me around the backstreets of Lalitpur and we ended up at his parents shop for breakfast in their tiny kitchen. I thought this was very special, as I begin to build a rapport with him again after last year's SACYN. It is this sort of thing that is very difficult to do with an Encounter team but it got me thinking that perhaps a pair can go with a local person for an early morning stroll/prayer/cultural experience.

I understand this is the first time that SCF has offered cricket (football and basketball their focus). John and Labish have invited me to Thursday evening SCF meeting. There are three other volunteers Rashok, Nevin and Santos. Rashok's sister Romi is in Cape Town on a three month sports leadership training. Dharma's wife is expecting their second child in Oct, so working with the lads is a good learning curve for me (in fact, I am loving it!). I have encouraged them to speak English when I am around, as I it makes feel excluded when they talk in Nepalese. Most of them understand English but are not so confident in speaking it. I have also built in briefing and debriefing, but they are new concepts for them. We also engage in the psychological aspect to fitness and sports and the mega issue is healthy eating, which can be very expensive in Nepal. Anyway, I have encouraged them to eat more fruit and veg instead of all the carbs!!!

Plans changed yesterday (no surprise there!) and it looks like I will be going to Pokhara on Sunday for a week. Nandaram, the co-ordinator of the PKR team says that the schools will have a break the following week for exam revision, so John and I will adjust our KTM programme to fit in with PKR. I would value prayer for Thursday, as John is going to ask CSF if Labish could come with me to PKR. There are volunteer girls but if I get large numbers like KTM, I would need some help with the coaching and Labish would be ideal. It would give him some experience too of coaching in another location. I initially wondered whether someone going from KTM would be threat to the work in PKR, but according to John, the two teams have a great relationship and often share resources.

John is also negotiating my extended stay at the Church Guest House when I return from KTM. Going with the flow is just my cuppa!

Dharma's Church
I visited Dharma's Church in Sinmangal on Saturday. After the 3 hour service, the Pastor invited me for a drink and ended up meeting with his church leadership team (all men, of course!). We ended up talking about TAFTEE, Asia CMS, women's ministry and creative worship! They wondered if CMS was only interested in working with Patan Church! They are part of the NCFN with a growing children and youth ministry. There is an invitation for CMS to explore leadership training, co-mp/mp in a very poor area.


I must dash as John is taking me to meet the head of NCFN this morning.

I hope this gives you a flavour of what I am up to!


with love and prayers 'SALSA SISTER'