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

Thank you note to a donor

4/2/12

Hello R…. B…,
Just wanted to thank you for all your help thus far and your generous donation of your time and expertise to this cause for the Dharamsala girls. I really appreciate you!

May I remind you to please forward the Naksha (drafts/ plans) to me as my board would like the opportunity to review what we have accomplished.

I have contacted Mr. P…. R… A…..by phone but he is in Dhangadi for a few days so we will talk at length when he returns. He is the overseer that is Bhaje (my mistake - not Bhanji) to T… D… Pant and my first choice (I think) as he is honest and has much experience with this. I am also waiting to catch up with Mr. R... K….. C……. to discuss with him and see what all he feels capable of re: labor for the project. No one seems to be working on the school site today and I missed him last evening.

I am visiting M…. R... (just returned from the madesh last night) and P…. (Dai) B…. today to see if they feel qualified to read the Naksha and identify if the post should go 4 inches to the right or left and make daily AM appearances to give directions or if they need me to put in an overseer to read the Naksha and manage all the contractor details!

Of course I will keep you posted of my findings. It is taking longer than I hoped to track them all down. Yo Nepal ho! Could you please call me when Mr. J…. J. receives the draft approval back from the municipal office and when we can meet again over budget proposals? Thank you!

Thank you so very much,
Sincerely,
Dawn Didi

Yo Nepal ho... Yo Naya Nepal ho!

3/28/12

Hello friends and family!

I finally have internet again after 15 days and 3 trips to the Nepal telecom office followed by a plea to D… to reassess my settings. Turns out the problem was in my system not the ADSL by the NTC... can it just wig out in cyber land with no-one touching it? Anyway, as long as I use my Ethernet cable I seem to have service... Will have to ask D… to check the wifi again as it still gives me grief!

Not much to report on the new paraplegic process... Yo Nepal ho! It seems to take forever.
R…. just stopped up to my apartment... asked for 6000 NRS to pay the "Map tax" His buddy, J….(not really an engineer but has lots of experience in drafting architectural plans) has drafted the plans and he had a guy with him who will take my money, the plans and the widow, S… (who donated the land) now and go get the city approval to move forward! So this is good news eh?  We have also given the 2 men who own the land on either side of the lot we will build on, "notice". They have 15 days (according to R….) to 35 days (according to 6 others in the community) to formally object to the project or contest the land stakes. So R….. the engineer foresees starting the dozer within the next 7-10 days! I hope he is right but yo Nepal ho... so you never know.

The 2 paraplegics are getting ancy... I have asked them to knit/crochet and save the equivalent of money for one big window each. I feel they need to have a vested contribution to the cause that costs them something - not just have it all as a hand out! So they are adjusting to that thought! Hummmm. One took it well and the other had a lot of objections! Yo Nepal ho! I told them both to just think it over and pray about it till I have an actual budget on all the projected cost.

A few of the fun things around town... J…., Dr. B….., and I got the chance to go up to Baitadi and visit the couple for whom I decorated their wedding with fir boughs from the jungle with 1.1/2 years ago. It took 4 hours up in a local jeep (3 pukers in the back wuk wuking over our shoulders and 2 people literally sat on my hip squishing us all the way up). Coming back down we had comfortable seating... till Korpe (26KMs from here) when the driver announced it was the end of the ride! We stood around for about 10 minutes as he led us to think he would help us arrange further transportation back to Dadeldhura and trotted off like he intended to do so?!? He never returned but a fellow traveler suggested there might be room in a local lorry (truck) just coming through from Bajhang. He chased after it... not hard to do, as it was cruising slowly though town at about 5 km's/hour. He beaconed to us that it did have room so we climbed aboard (no easy feat for this old lump!) and had an easy slow ride over all the bumps all the way to our choke (intersection) ... only took an hour to cover 26 Km's but we were "king of the road" in that big thing... and no one puked on us!

Another fun event... the hospital had its first ever TB awareness fun run! Not at all a Nepali concept... but everyone seemed to have fun. It has motivated a few of the staff to run at 6 am every morning now... interesting! (I am not one of them alas!) D…l came in first place for the men and a Maoiti lady running in fancy flip flops came in first for the ladies!

I really enjoyed having J…. here with me for 6 weeks and Dr. B…. her with both of us for 10 days. They have both left now... J…. for K-du and B…. for Dehli. It is very lonely and quiet here and I sure miss them. Pray for them and their futures as god leads them where HE wills.

Well time to head to the bakery for "soup of the day".

 
Keep lifting me up before the throne of grace with your prayers! I so need them!

Please keep praying for the additional funds that will be needed for this building ... I hope to have a better idea of the budget needed after tomorrows meet with R…... now that the plans seem close to "approval". I'll try to keep you posted... as cyber connections remain!
Yo Nepal ho... Yo Naya Nepal ho!

Blessings!

Funk Confession

3/12/12

It has been a rough week to 10 days or longer.

I confess I have been in a bit of a "Funk" and am trying not to let discouragement get me down. We have had long power outages on top of many obstacles so now that I have power tonight this could get lengthy... If you are a bottom line person just scroll down... to the bottom.... where I hope to recap the prayer concerns and you can skip the narrative! The rest of you have told me you actually like the narrative so let me fill you in!

A week ago Saturday I met with R…... the engineer and T…. D… to walk the property for the new facility and discuss in depth, what and how things might proceed. It has been determined that the best use of the steep hillside lot is to construct a "stair step" layout where each of our 3 levels would overlap and provide a small patio at the front of each level. Our lot is only 8 meters wide and maybe 45 meters deep.

R….. has been caught up this last week with a trip to India and other things pulling at his attention but thinks now that he is back, he might be able to find time to actually draw up the plans and hone a budget and have it by March 20th! Pray this really will pan out as there seem to be constant interruptions and delays.

The part that has me in a funk is the financial details! It appears that the 7 lak ($10,000) we have raised to date for this project, is way off target and they project double this for phase one! The cause of this is in part that we were looking at a projected budget from almost 2 years ago already, and costs locally have gone up at least 30%. Wood is almost impossible to find/buy even with a permit which is a lengthy process. Also with the proposed construction, certain things that might relate to phase 2 or 3 must be included now i.e. foundation, footings, septic for all and a retaining wall to hold things in place throughout construction! The good news is that phase 2 and 3 might come in less than projected but the bad news is much of this must be done now and increases our financial need for the immediate!

Here is what the $10,000 we have now will buy:
excavation
retaining wall 8 meters X 1 story
footings
plinth beams(cross beams on the floor)
columns
roof beams
and a roof slab

It will not buy a septic system, exterior walls (either brick or cement block) or a roof. It certainly does not buy insulation and interior walls, windows, doors, hardware, plumbing, electrical and finishing’s like a kitchen or bathroom or cabinets! T…. is dreaming big and feels they (the girls) "deserve heat pumps in their 2 main rooms as this is where their lives are spent and they should have even temperature control" for another $1000 each. Ummmmm and I am worried about how to get walls up and a roof over their heads!

I am also the kind who likes to have the funds in hand to begin a project, as too often I have seen projects start and then run out of money and the whole thing sits and wastes resources! I do not want to see that happen here, so am trying to balance that mindset with the sense of urgency to get crackalackin while we have an engineer who has offered his pro bono time and expertise, and before prices escalate further! Where does "faith equate into this?

SOOOOO... to proceed or not to proceed? How fast can we raise another 10 grand? I am reminded that this is God's project so I do not need to stress over this! I am really working on my attitude... how does He want me to respond? What does He want each of us to do here? Is He about to do another miracle? I am choosing to believe for that! So please search your hearts as to how He might want you to participate in this miracle and believe with me for its entirety and fulfillment! I am prayerfully waiting for God to say "Move forward". If He does by March 20th, a mere 8 days from now, we will have sketches/plans and an accurate budget by this next week, we will take them to the city for approval (takes 1-2 days?). R….. will find a foreman of his choice (one he trusts and has worked well for him in the past), he will organize the dozer to come and excavate ideally the same day as the dozer is already coming to back fill on some work at the hospital to cut costs! R….. will then buy all the building supplies and we will be underway!
Tomorrow my job is to find the surveyor to get out here and stake out the property accurately.

Also pray for a solution of:

a) Where to put the excavated dirt (we want a free, close solution!)

b) A safe place to put all the building supplies where they won’t be stolen before they can be implemented!

My funk is compounded today by the fact that I contracted some kind of stomach bug. I won't go into it... suffice it to say it has kept me virtually in bed the last 24 hours! Gratefully I am better now tonight and am over the worst of it!

We have also had a few amusing excerpts of Fakes and Phonies that might entertain you!

The Hospital here has had a case where a surgical patient from 7-8 months ago suddenly showed up claiming he had surgical forceps left in his abdomen due to neglect from our surgeon and therefore had to go to India and have a second surgery to have it removed. The media was all over this and as the hospital has had several instances of community disapproval over the way things have been handled it was hard to know what if any of these charges was authentic. When he showed up here again with his claims an x-ray was done but failed to identify the instrument so Dr ordered a repeat set of films but the guy up and left before the second set could be done. He (pt) couldn't produce the instrument, or any proof of any other x-rays/ultrasounds proving his plight but created enough of a PR challenge that our hospital gave him 50,000 NRS even before any real evidence was produced!

Now I'm not sure exactly how the hospital engineer, R….. was dispatched on the case but he and a few representatives of the community went to India last week then, to substantiate the story and try to clear our name!

Apparently it was nothing short of a gong show! The dates they had on their records of admission there in India, were the same as the ones when he was seen here! They had no x-rays or proof of this instrument. The Dr. there had no post op notes and pulled out a pen and started writing post op notes on the guy's chart then and there in front of our team (yah a month later!) and said " Let's see did I do an ultrasound on him or not/I guess I might have forgotten to do so". When asked to show proof of his blood type in the chart, responded “oh we don't do that... only if needed”. So needless to say they don't have much of a case nor a leg to stand on! Poor job of fakin' it but it cost a lot of anguish and stress as Satan seems to be stirring the pot trying to get Christians here to become discouraged and give up.

Another quirky fake: This week an old guy from T… D….'s village showed up for "elage" (treatment) Chief complaint... the eyes don't see, the ears don't hear and all my joints hurt! He arrived at dark on Friday evening led by the hand of a local teen to the bakery. He is reportedly 84. T… D…. remembers him as something like a Paul Bunyan type from his childhood memories! Now Saturday the hospital is closed and he fails to remember that last year he did the same thing... arrived on a Friday and spent the whole weekend camping out on T… D….'s good grace! C… (15) was dispatched to the bakery with a torch to bring him up to the house. Now Chet has a record of running down to the bakery and back up in less than 60 seconds. It takes me 3-4 minutes. When 30 minutes later he finally arrived leading this old man by the hand we were convinced he was either totally blind or Chet virtually carried him!

For 2 full days this old dude had everybody waiting on him hand and foot, leading him around, catering to his every whim because in gracious Nepali culture you do that... you honor the old. What a surprise to Julia and I to see him at noon on Sunday, come trotting, nay running down the hill by the bakery at a pace only a teenager could muster- on his way to the hospital for his "elage" where we were later told he once again put on his show of dire incapacitation! One of the other kids then reported how after breakfast he had jumped up and taken his plate to the tap and washed it, washed his face and gone on about his day! The old codger! fakin' his abilities and snowing the lot of us for nigh on 3 days! Once T… D… got wind of his lies he (ol'e burda) found himself on the next bus home!

Our third Phony! Was not Nepali but Canadian... He swooped in here, spent this weekend flashing around a lot of cash, distributing it to all his "friends" (apparently this is the 4th or 5th time he has done this!) holding "holy spirit revival meetings" where "many are cured" (I’ll be going next week to this same village to meet with any who actually were and verify it) and "saved out of their poverty"! Funny how he can show up and the Holy Spirit only shows up when he does! He seems to have undone in 40 hours what the rest of us have been trying to do over the last 40 years!
In Dare to Care we offer "not just a hand out but a hand up" and try to empower people to help themselves and not just depend on Bideshi's (foreigners) continually giving them what they want. 40 hours of him throwing his money around has created great animosity amongst those that didn't get and great confusion in the church. Pray the church can sort it all out and we can help them gently and graciously pick up the pieces in the aftermath! (I am told last time he was here he had "poor people" apply for his donations and they had to demonstrate on video they were "spirit filled to qualify for his money"... it was quite a show as these dotiyali women quickly figured out what kind of show they needed to present to "pray in tongues in dotiyali" and were laughing afterwards at the clever way they faked him out as he speaks no Nepali!)

Well enough on fakes and phonies...

Here are our prayer requests!

Pray for me to live a life of integrity and to be a safe place for others to bounce off confusing ideology. May I redirect them to God's word and morals. And may we all learn how to live in authenticity, harmony and love.

Pray for clear direction to proceed with building or not. I'm praying for rapid collection of the further needed $10,000 as an affirmation to continue in wise stewardship.

Pray R….. will indeed find the time to work on our issues as well as the many others he seems to have on his plate!

Pray for multiple details re: construction to converge and resolve this week- see above.
Pray for several of us in this household down with some version or other of this flu. Rapid recovery would be welcome!

Pray for J…., Dr B…, A……. and Dr. P…. for safe travel ...all are due up the hill tomorrow. J…. went down to Dhangadi today to spend a few days with a friend and hopes to connect with the other 3 and come up again tomorrow.

Pray my electrical problem can be righted tomorrow... it would be lovely to have hot water to bathe in again.... and more consistent internet! A cord to the main breaker has burnt and charred and the guy gently reconnected it to the meter this evening... hummm it looketh very fragile to me! Last night was spent turning on our main breaker multiple times with a big stick! We now have the Geyser (water heater) turned off and with his interesting reconnection it hasn't blown yet tonight!
Thanks for listening... reading, praying and responding to God's promptings!

Dawn Didi

PS it occurred to me that if everyone receiving this would mention the need of the Paraplegics for their new facility to 3 additional people each week our exposure would be exponentially outrageous! Feel free to pass this or any portion of it on! I am attaching a letter from N…. as well. She knows these gals well and works for TEAM. Donations can be either sent to TEAM or sent to:

Dare to Care, Inc.
435 N Alfred St.
Elgin, Ill. 60123
www.daretocareinc.com
Phone: (630) 803 5627  or (630) 272- 0512
No administrative costs are withheld when sent to Dare to Care.