11th Hour Praise

4/18/12

Dear friends and family,

God has come through in the 11th hour once again! Praise Him with me!

We finally broke ground on the new paraplegic building early Monday morning. I was fast losing hope, because for one reason or another, the previous 4 days the dozer had not materialized... mostly for pouring rain which made excavation on a hillside dangerous and nonproductive. It was torrential rain... making some days just not worth going out in! One evening... we had hail the size of golf balls pelting the whole city and valley around Dadeldhura for half an hour straight. Water rushed down the mountainsides in little rivers simultaneously. The rain came in at such a slant that the water poured in the back wall of the bakery and ran down it in multiple streams and then across the floor of 2 rooms to the door! We could not hear ourselves think... literally (the tin roof didn't help!) and when it was all over we had a massive mopping party! The next night we had an amazing thunder and lightning show. It blew the coil in my hot water geyser to bits so for the last 5 days I have had no hot water! It knocked all the new little fruits off all the trees around our house.

The next day the villagers were all crying. It was the 6th day of rain... each day a different part of the community was hit hard destroying crops. This is harvest season... they are/were about to cut the winter wheat. After this hail storm there is nothing to cut. The harvest is totally ruined! There will be famine in all these villages this summer. These people are too poor to afford to bring in staples from India.

So I sure didn't think it appropriate to complain that my dozer work was delayed when thousands are lamenting their crops demise. But finally on Monday (4 more wet day’s after the hail storm), the day dawned bright and clear and at 0545 the dozer and tipper truck (dump truck) rolled in. I heard it and ran down to the site to find them clawing at the dirt already. I yelled at them to stop! I asked them if they had read the plans or knew how much dirt to remove??? NO they hadn't ...so I made them abort operations till someone who knew the plans gave them directions. Meanwhile I took them down to the hospital and had them pull apart a pile of debris in front of the hospital (a sorry ugly site for over 2 years... of concrete/ rebar pillars and rusted iron signs) and create a space in the center to dump at least the first 10 truckloads of excavated dirt from our site. That done and closely supervised by M... we returned to the para facility site (2 blocks away) and M… R... my "chief in charge" was there by then and we officially broke ground and began excavation by the plan... not just a haphazard scooping! All day we had to watch the guys cause apparently they had been hired by the construction site next door to also lift dirt from that property onto the roof of the adjoining construction so 4 men could then wheel barrow and shovel that dirt onto the opposite side of that building and fill in where poor dozer work has resulted in a sever slippage of the mountainside next to my landlords house! The guy causing the slide is responsible for filling it in prior to the monsoons so T… D…. house does not fall down!

It was an absolute gong show trying to watch and time the dozer activity for which was my work vs. which was the neighbor's work! Oh and then deduct for tea breaks.... and lunch breaks! Oh and as there are NO OSHA standards we got to keep 7 or 8 little kids from getting under the dozer wheels! It took way longer to do this dozing than we anticipated! 2 full days from 6 AM till 7 and 8 pm ... My bill today came to 84,212 NRS! (2500NRS/hr! and 5000/ day for the tipper)... just over $1052.00 but we have begun!

Yesterday R….. returned as well... he has been gone for over 2 weeks... left without saying he was leaving while the Bideshi Doctors were gone at conference and was impossible to reach till the day he showed up... yesterday! Today M… (My main man), Pastor P… and I had a meeting with him and he promises to have a budget for me by Sunday! I leave to return to the US on Monday!

This is Nepal... I still have no budget for cost on this! I do not know yet how much concrete I need for this planned SQ footage! nor rebar, nor sand nor aggregate! Patience Dawn Didi... It all happens at the 11th hour remember!

Oh... did I mention that the last 3 hours of dozer work on our site was mere scraping the solid rock with the bucket? Yah... we hit solid rock and could not advance the excavation the last 5 feet! So we now have to hire a manual labor team to come in and use crowbars to manually dig those last 5 feet into the rock! M…is looking for a team from a local village that may want work... it will be cheaper than hiring city blokes! We also had the dozer dig the septic so we have a huge hole 22x10x10 feet in the front. We have hired a construction crew of laborers ready to build foundation and pillars at our next command. Today our order of rock and sand arrived so we are on our way!

By the way, the last few hours of our dozer time we used for the hospital (they will help with the cost) to place each and every old concrete pillar end to end to encircle a mountain of dirt to form a seating area. We erected one pillar upright in the center with its rebar upward and will splay it in multiple directions and cover each spoke with a colorful bottle.( I'm looking for cobalt blue... does it exist in Nepal? if so I will find it!) I will landscape the whole garden and install a tire swing from one of the big trees and thereby create, if not a little park, at least an improved first impression for the hospital grounds! (Pix to come... power just bugged out as I was attempting to upload it!)

On a disappointing note... the Engineer and overseer we had hoped to hire to take responsibility for this project finally came to me on Saturday (after being away out of town for 10 days) and were honest with me and told me they could not accept the project as they are both too busy with their full time jobs to do it justice. Sorry! They are willing to look in several times a week and give technical advice but cannot watch it carefully and be here all the time to manage it and therefore cannot accept responsibility for the outcome.

While I was about to cry with this news, D…, medical director of HDCS Hospital came to my kitchen and offered me a long term visa through the hospital and a (volunteer position) job offer to manage the existing hospital guest house (and boy does it need help!), the new hospital training facility and oversee buildings and grounds... and maybe do some health and nutrition training as well (You know I love to teach!). I am already doing a lot of the interior designing and decorating on the new training center as Doug doesn't have time. I ordered all the furniture today and am taking the fabric to the tailor tomorrow for drapes!

We are tweaking the job description. Pray with me if this is what the Lord would have me do??? Another family here also wants me to home school their preschooler and first grader and have offered to find me a visa. Either option would require me finding someone to rent my home in Port Orchard, WA and raising full support of about $2000/ month ( less if I can find a good renter) . These are huge decisions for me.

Can I raise an additional $10,000 for the project and raise personal support? How soon can this be accomplished? Is this the Lord opening a door for me? I have dreamed of this for sooooooo long!

I welcome the opportunity to live here in Dadeldhura for longer periods of time and it would allow me to keep close tabs on the project as well as serve a useful role in the community and at the hospital.

I put it all in HIS able hands and for tonight will just sleep... after 3 really early mornings followed by as many late nights... I just ask you to lift me up before the Throne of Grace... and thank you for being my partner in these huge kingdom advancing details/ decisions as I continue to build relationships here and speak up for HIM!

Praises and prayers!
Till all have heard!

Didi