It was 7 years ago today

7 years ago

Wednesday 9 January 2008. We arrived in the dark, just as the scheduled load shedding (power cut) was kicking in. Our friends who had picked us up at the airport helped us carry our bags up to the 2^nd floor flat. The floors were cold and it lacked hot water. There was no internet and no way to let our family know we had arrived safe and sound. The next morning we awoke and looked out of our window, surprised by the number of white faces we saw passing our little temporary flat and not knowing that the tall wall opposite was the wall of the tiger enclosure at the zoo.

Seven years later and these first few memories are still strong, but so much water and so many people have passed by. We stayed in that first flat for just a few weeks and our second flat for just over a year. We have spent 21 months of the 7 years back in the UK, what with studying and children – oh yes we’ve had two children too! We have started our own family and created our first family home.

We’ve made great friendships and said goodbye to many of those friends as they’ve returned to countries around the world, but we now have friends all over the globe. We’ve even been able to welcome some of those friends back to Nepal after years away. We’ve learnt to adapt to all the oddities of life that occur when living in a country and culture that are not your own, so much so that we don’t notice that they are oddities anymore and much of UK culture appears strange.

We’ve faced fantastic challenges and much change in our work, as well as increased responsibility in parenting and, for Dan, at KISC. Students who were in Primary school when we arrived are preparing to complete high school and go to University this summer. We have outlived nearly every single foreigner on staff at KISC.

More recent additions to the family

It has been a great seven years and God-willing we have plenty more to come here. Through it all we have known God’s faithfulness and we have enjoyed the journey with Him. We have felt the reassurance of his presence with us on the journey and the confirmation in so many ways that he has known all these things would be part of our seven years. We have seen him hold KISC in his hands and provide for both us personally and for the school. And we have known his comfort through the hard days. We thank God for these seven great years.