From Carl Reim

Well I think it is either day 14 or 15 since we left home. Or somewhere in there, I'm not sure. Nepal so far has been pretty amazing. When we first arrived in Kathmandu, everyone was so impressed by all of the crazy driving, and the busy city life. After a couple days in the city though, I was happy to get out of the city in the the country, and travel around the Nepali countryside. When I first signed up for this trip, I have to say I was expecting to be traveling in the Himalayan foothills. However so far all of our experiences have been south of Kathmandu, which is roughly in the middle of the country. The views, however, are still nothing short of spectacular. I've spent most of my life living in Colorado, with views and frequent visits into the Rockies. The terrain that we have been traveling through reminds me very much of Colorado, only the locals insist that what we are traveling through are only hills. The first hike that I went on was stepper and much hotter than anything I've ever done before. It felt like hiking straight up a mountain, in a tropical forest. Water has become my new best friend here. Although the terrain is often steep, the Lord has kept us safe from serious injury. Yesterday the whole group hiking about 4 and a half hours up to a village, but the final half hour or so was downhill on narrow slippery paths. I thought I had been doing pretty well, but in that downhill section I ending up falling 4 times in about 5-10 minutes. Most of them were just slipping onto my backside, but the one involved me going face first down a terrace and ending up on my back in a cornfield, feet straight up in the air. No harm done but plenty of laughs.

The teaching here has also been such a wonderful experience. All of the children are so happy to see us. Most of the children learn English in school and know enough to ask us a few questions about ourselves. It is a wonderful feeling to hold up a picture of Christ, talk about it, and see all the kids so eager to listen to what we're saying. I can tell though, that even without us coming to teach to them, these children are in very good hands. The pastors are all so happy and grateful. Every church has a few Sunday school teachers, and they do such a wonderful job in teaching the kids. The teachers direct the kids in singing songs for us. Their music is so enthusiastic. Some of the more well off churches have electric guitars and drum sets that they use to play Christian songs.

After we left Kathmandu the first time, we spent about 10 days traveling and hiking. We just got back to Kathmandu a few hours ago. We were supposed to spend the night about 3 hours away but we rushed down from a hike so that we could get a van to take us to Kathmandu one day earlier. Tomorrow is a day of rest, then we travel north near Tibet. We'll be spending a couple days that way and then coming back to Kathmandu for the final time.

All in all I'm very thankful to be here. It isn't often that you can have these amazing experiences while helping to spread God's Kingdom to some of the most remote areas in the world.