End of Term 1

Hello everyone,

I've now made it to the end of Term 1 - officially the strangest term I have ever done in my life. Four weeks online from the UK living and working on Nepal time, then flying to Nepal over a weekend, one week teaching in quarantine in the city, two weeks teaching from school but with no students on site and three weeks teaching on site with students in front of me. It's been a very eventful ten weeks!

It's been such a blessing to be able to teach again with the students live, I'm grateful for Zoom and the ability that it has given me to carry on teaching over lockdown, but it doesn't compare to the joy of being able to be with the students and interact with them face to face. Seeing the students flourish in an "in person" setting has just been amazing. I love getting to do a devotional with them and pray with them every morning, read a class novel live to them and watch the wonder on their faces, ask them tricky maths questions and watch them ponder and then suddenly go "Ohhh!" This is what I love about teaching 🙂

It has also been really fun living back at The Guesthouse, where there are currently 5 of us staying, with hopefully another two joining in the coming weeks. It's only 5 minutes walk from the school which is ideal and more and more of the KISC community are moving up from the city to this area, which is about 20 minutes up a really bumpy road from the Kathmandu ring road. We are at a slightly higher altitude here so the air is a bit cleaner, everything is a bit greener but the "roads" are REALLY muddy during monsoon. Technically monsoon should be over by now... but it's not quite over yet it seems!

And it's just been so good having lots of quality hangout time with my friends and colleagues 😊

Here are the 5 of us who are currently living in the Guesthouse:

This one is from a recent girls' night

Now we get a two week break so there is a whole group of us heading to Pokhara on Tuesday for a week which will be delightful.

I have also really loved being back in church and getting to connect with friends there and worship God with this amazing community. See the photo below for the view from church. Isn't this incredible!

Prayer requests:

- Please keep praying for the Covid situation in Nepal over Dashain which is the biggest festival in the Nepali calendar and many people will be travelling and mixing over that time.

- We have a few staff members and KISC families who are either arriving new or returning to Kathmandu in the coming days and weeks so please pray for them too.

- Please pray for KISC, that we can continue to have students on site after the Dashain break and that we'll be able to function increasingly "normally" as time goes on.

- For safety as we travel to Pokhara and for rest and recuperation time there - I feel very tired to be honest so am looking forward to getting away for a little while.

Thank you for continuing to stand with me in prayer and for your encouragement.

Here is a video that Primary KISC staff put together at the beginning of lockdown, 18 months ago. It is interesting to rewatch it now, bearing in mind that we had NO idea at this point how long everything was going to go on for. Enjoy watching it. Have a blessed day.