Maoists give Nepal 5-day reprieve

The tensions between the Maoist faction and the interim government has been increasing as the November elections approach. The last few weeks have seen the Maoists withdraw from the interim government, the King stirring up controversy when he participated in a ceremony where he receives a blessing from a child goddess, and now the Maoists are threatening to shutdown government based organizations within 5 days if the interim government does not make a final decision on what to do with the King and the royal family.

In the midst of all this, widows break their backs as they create concrete for future government buildings that could be shutdown by more Maoist protests. Children are abandoned and left to fend for themselves in the streets of Kathmandu, becoming addicts to "sniffing glue." Families struggle to just send their children to government schools, some have their children work as domestic servants just to make ends meet.

When will the bickering, blackmail tactics, and actual rebuilding process truly continue?

It's been a long time in coming, but our Nepal Project group will finally be presenting to our church, Mosaic Boston on Oct. 7, 2007. It's planned to be an entire service dedicated to Nepal. We will be presenting our findings and stories and more importantly, the Nepal Project team members speaking on behalf of the Nepali people.

It will be an exploration of Nepali culture, the problems that they face, and the potential solutions and work that can be done within that nation. It will also be a time for us to share with the congregation on what we believe God is saying to us and His heart for this nation.

You're invited to come and listen in on what God is doing in Nepal, so please join us at Mosaic Boston at Oct. 7th.

Mosaic Boston meets at the YMCA, next to Northeastern University on Huntington Ave.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR. ©2007 Michael Chu

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR. ©2007 Michael Chu

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR. ©2007 Michael Chu

Today marks one entire month since I've been back from Nepal. It's hard
to believe that 31 days have passed since I set my foot back on Boston
soil as a lot of changes had occurred within a short time span. The
team overall still has fond memories of our time spent there, and it's
very cool to see how the experience has drawn the 7 of us together. In
addition, it's been helpful that we've been keeping semi-up-to-date on
the current status of Nepal.

For those who remember, the
protests that closed that schools in Nepal had ended peacefully, but as
the November elections draw closer, expect there to be more turmoil and
problems cropping up. This past week itself has seen terrorist bombings
in Kathmandu, in which at least two kids were killed from the blasts.
It's news like these that makes you wonder how the U.S. would deal with
those of problems...

This month also marked the approximate
anniversary of when Sofia and I committed ourselves to attend Mosaic
Boston. Thank you to those friends from BCEC who supported our
decision! I still miss you guys, which explains the once-in-a-while
drop bys! At the same time, it has been awesome to see the fruit that
has been developing in this urban church plant called Mosaic Boston.
The potential we saw here and our chance to be involved with something
fresh, new, and hopefully relevant and applicable is starting to take
root. The population is starting to become more diverse within the
church which has been an answer to some prayers. As new comers drop by,
community groups starting up, and other church activities go on, I'm
hoping to see Mosaic grow not just in number, but in character and
strength. It's an exciting time.

Several
other significant things also have occurred just at the beginning of
the month. First, got to see my friends Glen & Jane finally after
the birth of their fraternal twins over a month ago. It was the first
time everyone in Mosaic got to see, touch, and hold the babies finally.
It was also the first time that we've had to talk, and hear from Glen
and Jane personally as they shared about how their first month has been
as new parents. It was particularly applicable for me as my own wedding
and eventual family one day will be coming.

Speaking of which...yes...Sofia and I are working on the wedding details. We're trying REALLY hard to not let it go out of control, but as one friend said to me, it's inevitable. WE SHALL SEE!!! (Hey, I gotta try at least!) Either case, further details later.

In
other news, Sofia is now living with my sister at Watertown. Yay! Now,
we gotta figure out what stuff can be sold on ebay to help pay for
said-wedding... I don't know if my sore limbs can do this again next year!

Finally,
if anyone is up for some Nepali food, please let me know and we'll see
if we can arrange it. Had the chance & the gutso to eat some Nepali
food again with a good friend. Really appreciated it and it was awesome
to just had the the opportunity to share more about Nepal in an excellent environment.

With
that, time to get some lunch. Completed uploading another set of
pictures of Nepal to flickr. Will be finishing up album 5 soon, but if
you're interested in seeing 4, please feel free to head over here.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
All photos are ©2007 Michael Chu

So I encountered an interesting question while looking at a person's facebook page. The question asked if you had $5000 and 12 days to go anywhere and use that cash, where would you go? In addition, this would be your last trip in the next 10 years. How would you answer?

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On a side note, completed album 3 of my time at Nepal. Feel free to take a look or just let the slideshow finish its course.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
All photos are © 2007 Michael Chu

Yesterday morning as I was checking my email before heading to church, I received an email from Mike that highlighted a current problem going on in Nepal. The entire school system, at least the government based schools, has been shut down by Maoist students in protest to the arrest of almost 40 of their comrades a couple of days ago. These students and generally the Maoist party is demanding that these 40 students, who participated in an attack on a coalition of government-loyal students be released!

You most likely won't find this issued highlighted on the bigger news websites, but a simple news search of google news will yield several results. One such article is this one.

This was very disturbing and sad for me as I read up on this yesterday. Our Nepal team taught at a local government school for a week. We taught students of various grade levels English, Health, and Music. The quality of teaching and resources are severely lacking, but it is at least something! It's at least giving these students some basic skills that they can use later in life when they grow up, but now this indefinite school strike is adding insult to an already weakened system! What's worst is that this strike is coming at a time when the students are preparing to take their exit-school exams.

While we were in Kathmandu, we were preparing to go out and do some business, but the family told us to stay inside because a group of Maoists had come, apparently to ask for donations. Prakash and Sunil went outside to talk with them while we stayed inside, wondering what the heck was going to happen. Later they came back and told us that the Maoists were actually there to conduct opinion surveys of local residents in Kathmandu.

One of the questions they asked Prakash revolved around why does he think the general public seem to have a negative opinion about their party / what can the Maoists do to improve the situation in Nepal. He simply told them that they need to "stop doing bad things!" Maybe one of the reasons why they have a bad PR image is because every time they're reported in the news, it's always revolves around them doing something questionable legal or just plain BAD!

I can not imagine how shutting down the school system is going to improve their reputation, nor do I think they honestly care! The peace in Nepal may be in effect on a military standpoint, but this incident and others similar to this just highlight the fact that their civil war hasn't truly ended. Instead of fighting with guns and knives, now it's coming down to battles on the political, educational, and social fronts. The victims in the end are the common civilians who are always the ones caught up in this messy crossfire.

During the first few days in Kathmandu, I was infected with what is typically called "Traveler's diarrhea" or simply TD for short. Though I was extra careful to not eat raw fruits, meat, and to drink only bottled or pre-treated water, I still contracted it. It could have happen from any outside restaurant food that I ate that wasn't properly cooked or simply holding one of the orphans' hands and then unconsciously touching any part of my face. Westerners just don't have the immune defenses to prevent these germs from multiplying rapidly. Though I was one of the first ones to have the serious symptoms in the group, eventually TD made itself around to everyone in the team, only varying in severity and duration.

Since I was sick, I had to stay home with the host family and asked Mike to take over my English class for that day. It was during that time, while everyone else in the team were away at the government school, that I had a chance to talk one of the family members, Prakash. He was also sick and was resting at home. It was a good initial conversation and though I was sick, it helped me start feeling more confident in talking with the family members. I think the fact that he and I were the only ones sick in the home at the time helped me relate to how he was feeling.

One of the cool moments that happened during that conversation was when his older sister, Sarita, came into the room and asked if I would like to eat some of the rice congee that he was eating. Since I hadn't really eaten much the night before and the TD basically had been draining me of energy, I said yes. A little later, Sarita comes back with a bowl of hot rice congee. It totally reminded me of how my mom made it whenever I got sick as a kid! Though Prakash admitted that he didn't like eating it because it tasted so bland to his taste buds, I was hungry and that has always been the best seasoning.

So that night and the next day, whenever we ate with the family, Prakash and I received our bowls of congee while everyone else ate the real food. I didn't complain because I was really grateful to the family for how they went out of their way to take care of us. They weren't annoyed, but were genuinely caring as other members began to show the same symptoms. Though we were aliens, strangers to their nation, they cared and loved us, and that was a blessing from God.

It's moments like this that remind me of a Scripture I encountered last year on another trip:

It's an interesting thing about mission trips. When one goes, sometimes the ideas of being a catalyst, an agent of change, or being the hands of Christ, can lead His followers to develop bloated pride. It's not to say that we shouldn't go to the nations with a desire to be used by His Spirit, but we need to be grounded in our finiteness, and remember that we are indeed just instruments, HIS instruments. It's Him who takes care of both His & our business. He provides us the food and clothing we need and He's the agenda setter, not us.

In our case, we were the aliens in Nepal. He took care of us through the hands and feet of our host family. Without them we couldn't have done half of all that we did during our 2-4 weeks there. There would have been no interviews, no caring for orphans, no teaching school children, no contact with other aid relief workers. They cooked for us, welcomed us into their homes, and accomodated for our health needs. We would have been just plain tourists who did not know much of anything about Nepal besides whatever the tourist books told us.

Being sick wasn't fun, but it was God's gift to me and our team on so many levels. At the very least, it reminded me that He is the One who is in control. Everything, including sickness, can always be used to reveal His Glory, it always will be about that. Whether I can accept that and seek out how can blessing and curse be turn into praise of Him is up to me.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
All photos are ©2007 Michael Chu

Yesterday night was the first time for those of us who came back to Boston to gather together and debrief with each other.  This get together was the first chance for our team to share, open up to each other, and communicate to each other our feelings, lessons, and insights from being in Nepal all that time.  I know personally I desperately needed that time to just share with people who were there with me, who could help each other process all that we've seen, felt, and heard in Nepal.

It's been an interesting experience after coming back from this trip.  When we showed up at Mosaic the day after we came back, naturally people wanted to know how was our trip to Nepal, that's totally expected.  The only problem is how do you sum up an experience like Nepal, in which one has gone from great heights of joy and laughter to sorrow, loneliness, and pain?  How does one capsulate that in a 5 second blurb and still honor it?  Saying catch phrases like "It was amazing!" or "Beyond words!" really feel so small, so inadequate.

What usually ended up happening was all of us, including myself, were sharing the stories and pictures that brought a lot of joy during our time there.  We brought up things about Nepal that made us laugh deep inside and made us smile every time we thought about them.  We brought up how we really missed the children there, the host family that took care of us.  It is good for us to remember these things.  We need to remember those memories.

It is simply a sign, though,  that all of us are still processing and chewing over the harder stories to bring up.  These stories will cause our hearts to fill with sadness, but they ultimately will lead us to seeking God's wisdom.  They'll lead us in the search in becoming part of the God's work in Nepal and what is required of us to see His justice, His mercy, His glory be enacted in that nation.

I deeply appreciated the fact that each and every person in the room that night clearly had a love for this nation.  Even though we're just beginning to count and categorize the problems that this nation faces; the challenge that the Church must arise to, I see hope.  It is said that faith is the evidence of things unseen.  As long as we honor Him by honoring the people of Nepal, I'm confident that His Spirit will continue to prepare the way.  One day we will see the evidence of His work in Nepal, no matter how long it may take, we will see it. 

Well, it's been one week since our team came back from Kathmandu and I'm still readjusting back to life in Boston. It's been odd to notice the subtle things that I had picked up during my time in Nepal.

• It felt really liberating to cross my legs...any style!
• Feeling horrible when I accidentally waved goodbye to some friends last Sunday using my left hand.
• Eating more breakfast this past week...like scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns, omelets...
• Coke in America is a ripoff in terms of flavor! I almost don't want to drink it here again...almost.
• Inching for some good chai...mo:mos...nepali chow mein...
• For some reason, I've been falling asleep early, waking up early... like 5am early...

One thing I do miss about Nepal has to be the orphan kids we worked with during our time there. I also missed the local government school that we worked in. I wish we had more time to had help them work out a system for their library of unused books. There's so much improvement that could be done there to give those students a better education in Kathmandu. I guess that's to be left for the coming years that Mosaic Boston will be focusing on.

Either case, for those of you who are interested in looking up some of my photos from the trip, feel free to browse to my flickr website for them. I'm in the process of slowly uploading new pictures every day, and breaking down the size to a management collection of albums.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
All photos are ©2007 Michael Chu.

Past couple of days I've been pondering on what Nepal would look like if God were to break the floodgates so to speak and we find ourselves witnessing 30% of the population turning to Christ. If you think that's impossible, consider South Korea. Its population of Christians was very low back in the early 1900's compared to the present time, which by some estimates state that the population is made up of 40-50 percent Christian. Though we can't guarantee that most of those are genuine followers of Christ, we can say at the very least many South Koreans have been exposed to the moral and biblical teachings that came from the local churches in the nation.

However, when that day does come, the Church needs to be careful in its discipleship of the new followers. We don't want to make the same mistakes that were made when workers started to see progress in India many years ago. Those mistakes had large ramifications for the local church in India and its been a stain in the progress made within that nation.

Christianity's spread in India can be said to be somewhat successful, but the major achilles' heel that the Church never addressed was the culturally-based caste system found in India. The caste system, which was not just a religious aspect, but a cultural norm amongst India's population, was never dealt with properly when the Church began to see people come to faith in Christ. Many of those who converted to Christianity did not forsake that system, but rather brought it into their newfound faith. Caste-based discrimination still occurred, just now it existed in a different religion and with different levels.

The problem isn't just mere information not being relayed. It's a heart issue. One is presented with a cultural & moral value that had been transmitted to the people for generations. It is so deeply interwoven in the mental & social interactions of the people, that unless it is confronted directly and aggressively, it will continue to slip by the active consciousness of the followers. Truth has to not just be spoken, but it has to be worked out so clearly that it would run against the norms of the society in a way that it exposes the evil nature of the almost subconscious behavior.

To put it simply, what happened with Christianity in India in regards to the caste system is that a cultural value was deemed to be equivalent to biblical authority. The sad thing is, as outrageous as this particular example is, it isn't unique amongst us followers. Day to day, you and I still are running by standards that may or may not be biblically based. Many times, those values, if not examined or brought to mind, are assumed to be normal, even something to strive for. No one is immune to this factor.

I've mentioned her before in other entries, but the words of Lisa Espineli Chinn from Urbana'03 still haunts my thoughts every so often in regards to this. She simply stated that while embracing one's own personal cultural heritage is good and important, it is also time for us to allow Scripture to shape how we look at our culture's values. Whatever cultural values we possess that run in direct opposition to biblical teaching must be thrown out and replaced with His standard.

How this works out in the mission field will no doubt be extremely challenging. One has to work to protect the beauty that is found in a people's cultural heritage and determine the aspects that truly run against the Scriptures. This also can't be just done at a practical level, but at the human heart level as well. What a daunting task it seems! Thank goodness He's ultimately the one who changes peoples' hearts, including ours.

Maybe that's where it's always begun, within one's heart first. Later the rest may follow too.

Oh a sidenote...yes there are 366 days left.

I got back to the States on Saturday afternoon, close to 2pm.  We didn't get out of the whole entry and customs area until close to 3pm.  Suffice it to say, it was a LONG 30 HOUR JOURNEY. 

Things didn't start off too well for the 5 of us who were journeying back to Boston.  Honestly, I'm still a little upset about what happened there as it triggered emotions that I hadn't felt since my senior high school days in regards to being Chinese American.  It's probably also indicative of how American I identify myself as oppose to my Chinese ethnicity, but that's another entry for another time. 

We waited in line for a good 30-40 minutes as we slowly made our way to the counter, obtained our boarding passes, and checked in luggage.  That itself was fine and expected as the Kathmandu airport is nothing in comparison to Logan.  Amusingly, we all had some leftover rupees that we desperately wanted to get rid off before we boarded the plane.  We bought snacks just so we can get rid of the soon-to-be unusable currency.  Too bad we didn't realize that we could have used that money to help Mike buy that bell he wanted, but it was nice to eat some Nepali snacks one last time. 

Then we hit the exit visa counters and the long lines.  So we waited for our turn at the counter, but just as we're one person away from the counter, a manager comes up to us and tells us to move to a newly opened counter.  We did so, not knowing why did the manager ask us to move to a new counter when we were so close to our current one.  Either case, we ended up 4 persons behind the new counter.

Naturally, we were a little upset and confused.  Dan tried to get the manager's attention several times, and though it was clear that man saw Dan, he ignored him for some reason.  Eventually, a thought dawned on me.  I raised my hands, snapped my fingers, and said in clear, American accented english, "Excuse me?"  At that moment, the manager saw me and rushed to our group.  We tried to ask why did he move us, but instead he tells us to cut ahead of two people to be next in line!  After that, the mentality became very clear to me.

The Nepali security thought that our group, except for one, was all Nepali, specifically Gurung(Mongolian).  It wasn't surprising as most of us were mistakenly thought to be either gurung or Japanese, but that hadn't really shown itself to be detrimental.  In some ways, it was cool to see people, especially in Pokhara that had facial characteristics that were similar to mine.  It was sorta comforting in an odd way, as though there was a potential connection to be made with some of them.  Yet, at this moment, it was clear that we didn't want to be mistaken to be Nepalese.

One of the many results of the recent civil war in Nepal is that many Nepali people have fled their country.  Whenever a person was finally granted a visa to leave, it was not unusually for that person to disappear once they left Nepal.  Thus the visa application process had become increasingly difficult, and those who did get one, usually experienced a lot of scrutiny from the officials.

Even when we did get to visa counter and later another carry-on baggage search area, we encountered more scrutiny from the security personnel just because we appeared to be Gurungs.  We laughed about it afterwards, but it definitely left a bitter taste in my mouth for the airport security as Kathmandu.  Mike said it best that the security was not about safety, rather it was more about annoyance.

Either case, we were just glad to get onto our plane and start the journey back home.  Surprisedly, the ticket agent in the airport had booked us seats in the business class section of the airplane!  It honestly made the security experience tolerable as all of us completely enjoyed our first experience in business class.  It must have been so clear to everyone else in that section that we had never flown in business class as we all degenerated to the equivalent of joyful little school kids that were locked inside a candy factory.  It was honestly a blessing and a remedy to all that we went through during those 2 hours. 

In the end, it took us approx. 30 hours to get back to Boston.  I don't remember much of the plane trips themselves, but the layovers were a nice break to talk and relax in the airports.  It also gave us some moments to debrief with each other on our experience in Nepal, something which we will be doing more and more in the coming weeks I'm sure.