Helping Nepal
The Call to Nepal 2015
by Dr W Blythe Robinson
Prior to the recent infamous earthquake of Nepal, God was creating circumstances that would call me there once again. In 2007 while I was living in Colorado at 9241 feet, I made my first trip to Nepal. After testing myself at Pike's Peak top elevation of 14,000 ft. and finding that I could handle the altitude, I started my mission trip to Nepal from Pokhara at around 9000 ft. I was able to carry a 50 lb pack and make it to 14,000 ft. while preaching the Gospel to this nation of idols eight years ago. My Nepal connections faded away until just before this recent horrific earthquake. Unexpectedly a prior contact from Nepal wrote to me discussing the possibility of a joint trip north to China. From this came my suggestion that I would like to establish a Bible Institute in Nepal, but needed a translator who was skilled in understanding written English. He was excited about this and offered to assist. Currently I'm trying to do this in various other countries. On this trip I wore the traditional cap pronounced "toe-P." Its tall peak represents Mt. Everest.
Suddenly the Nepal earthquake occurred and everything began to change rapidly. My contact was giving me first hand reports from areas of Nepal unmentioned in the news and previously unknown to me. These were remote areas of Nepal high in the mountains, extremely difficult to reach and potentially quite dangerous. My questions about whether or not I could handle all the demands of such a trip ended on 4-25-15 when my contact wrote these words: "Please Please ...come to Nepal. More and more Nepali people are killing for the food, water and living place and More Christian also include in them." This level of urgency led me to immediately begin trip preparation, which became a major issue. With lives at stake, I couldn't wait for funds to come in. I pulled from reserved funds for future trips and trusted that the money would come after publishing this Nepal trip report.
My first step was going to the Health Department for the required shots and the other required medications for things such as malaria. There I received a "Medical Passport." I also took with me a prescription pain killer. A bank visit was necessary to obtain new unmarked $100.00 bills that I would be carrying.
Packing was tedious and time consuming. I had to anticipate and prepare for a multitude of scenarios while limiting myself to two 50 lb. bags. I had to pack a two-man tent for us to sleep in outside for fear of after-shocks, which were rampant throughout the nation. This included water-proof ground cover, sleeping pads and bags, and a separate one-man tent for my living inside homes with all of the insects that carry diseases. I had to also bring all of my own food and a special hand pumped water purifier with special chemicals for treatment, two of which were donated by a backpacking company known as REI. This required a round trip to Asheville, NC.
Balancing space and weight required packing and repacking multiple times. Just before leaving Becky found that if I took a connecting flight to Pokhara, then my weight restrictions increased and I had to repack everything and carry on my back what I couldn't put in the two bags. Through email I arranged to be met at the airport and to save money we decided to drive to Pokhara to start our work. This is about 125 miles northwest of Kathmandu, the capital city.
Upon arrival at Kathmandu I had to apply for a visa. There was mass confusion everywhere and procedures were unclear. It was congested, noisy, and nasty and my contact was not there to meet me as planned. Recovering my bags took hours and as time progressed, I became increasingly concerned about how we could meet up and what I would do if we couldn't. I did a lot of worrying and praying. While waiting, I was able to start a conversation with a local man. When he learned of my situation, God stepped in and the man called my friend. When I got the bags we met and started driving through Kathmandu. I visited some of the sickening sights of the earthquake. However I was unprepared to see a couple of dead bodies simply wrapped in cloth, lying beside the road. I thought what a lonely end to life.
The drive to Pokhara, on a road designed like a snake, proved stressful. It was a narrow winding road that had distressed me in the past with its drop offs of over a thousand feet, with hardly a foot between the road and death. I had seen the remains of my concerns lying at the bottom of the mountain. Finally faith overcame fear because I truly believed that God had called me there.
When I reached Pokhara jet lag was my first problem because day and night were reversed. I took caffeine pills to keep going. I slept inside my tent in a small crowded room. When I got up in the middle of the night for a bathroom visit, I was greeted by the largest swarm of cockroaches that I had ever seen running at unbelievable speeds in all directions. I couldn't attempt to kill them without waking everyone. Once inside I had no choice but to kill those near the "Squat Hole."
The next day a problem began that only grew larger over time. My contact knew only enough spoken English to keep confusion a constant source of frustration and stress. We would make plans and all seemed clear until time for implementation then everything had to be re-discussed several times before it could be completed.
A surprise ministry opportunity occurred when I learned that my contact's wife was a nurse at a local hospital. He needed to see her at work and invited me to go along. When we got there I started meeting people and greeting them briefly in their language. They seemed to appreciate this, so then I started distributing Tootsie Rolls that I had forgotten I was carrying. They all began focusing on me as a strange looking person because of the color of my skin. I was introduced to a small group of lepers as an American and every one took notice. I offered to answer questions and soon I had the floor as Dr. Robinson. Other doctors and administrators came, joined by ambulatory patients. It turned out to be a Christian related hospital so I asked and received permission to preach Christ freely and told them truths previously unknown about Christianity. I eventually visited every patient. They were impressed with Christ's love for them as they saw Him in me. I was to discover later that his wife and I both take the same medication for excessive acid in the stomach. Later I learned that she was also taking pain killing injections for her stomach. This told me that something else very serious was wrong. I asked about cancer and she said they found a few cells. Finally the whole story came out; they were not even trying to fight the cancer, instead they were just going to give her pain killers and let her die. At my urging she finally had the courage to confront her doctor and ask for chemotherapy treatments. Pray that they will heed her plea and that she will live. As a nurse, a wage earner, a minister's wife, and a mother of three boys, her life can bless a multitude. Her death will cripple his ministry.
We left the next day for distant towns with names almost impossible to pronounce. It took most of the day to reach our main outpost. Again it was a treacherous drive through some of the wildest and most majestic mountains that I had ever seen. The bus we road was constantly throwing us from side to side and bouncing up and down at the same time. My fears of an accident were realized when we passed a bus lying on its side in the road. As we emerged from the mountains into a flat jungle area, the dust was so thick that the leaves of trees were bent down by the weight of the dust on them, which I could taste as I breathed. Suddenly I understood why so many had worn face masks. Thankfully home base was a three story home surrounded by the greenest rice fields imaginable.
We had preplanned for 50 lb. food bags that would feed an entire family for almost a week. It was basically rice with oil and additives for taste and everyone ate with their hands.
The second greatest demand was for what we call "tarps" which they called "Tents." The locals had already been terrified by storms that had come through recently in which roofs were ripped off homes. This proved to be more common than I realized as I saw so many homes with roofs laden with huge stones. We sat up late one night as one headed toward us. My previous experiences with violent storms indicated that this one would pass us, and by God's grace it did. However people were so terrified by after-shocks that they often slept outside at night or wanted tents put up so that they could run for them in the middle of the night. I was to experience this later by two after-shocks.
One night I was sleeping on the third floor with all of my windows open hoping for cool air. Sometime between 10:00 and 12 P.M., I heard the explosive sound of one of the steel doors slam with violent force. Suddenly the guard dog started barking wildly and children's voices could be heard screaming while people ran panic-stricken out of the house. Before I could un-zip my tent and get dressed to run outside, it stopped. Following this the people foolishly put up a tent in the drive way to the house, right under where it would fall if a big one hit. Thankfully this never occurred while I was there. The second after-shock occurred in town days later while making purchases. I was in the car, they were in the store, and all of the people were confused about where to run. Thankfully no harm came to anyone.
The greater dangers came a few days later. We had secured a Jeep truck, loaded it with enough bags of food to feed 45 families and "tents" for all and headed for the deepest, most remote mountains around. On these mountain roads the driver was reckless, and drove wildly around blind curves over loose stones and gravel. To make sharp turns he would slide the back end of the vehicle around the curve and then try to regain control before we went over a cliff. At other times he would race down a portion of the road that ended with a sharp right angel turn then, with loud screeching brakes, try to slow down enough to keep from plunging backwards over the drop off. I had to finally insist that he slow down. This worked for a while but he soon returned to desperate driving procedures while driving with an unsafe tire as shown.
When, by God's grace, we reached this remote site with a church house, we found a multitude of more people waiting, more than we could possible feed. I tried to get them organized. This seemed to be an uncommon practice for these people who were basically uneducated. The local minister had identified the 45 families most affected. After I preached we called forth the people on the list and separated them from the larger crowd. Several outsiders tried to slip in among them and had to be restrained from doing so. We had just about finished the process when someone shouted something like "get it now." Suddenly everyone started screaming wildly and running toward the truck with the food bags. I was caught in the middle and struggled to restrain them, but I couldn't. Quickly others joined me in the efforts and eventually we restored order. This time when names were called I suggested that an X be placed by the names of those not present. If this resulted in bags being left over, we would give them to others on a selection system that I quickly devised. This proved to be very useful. This event was typical of most of our trips into the mountains. The 45 bag distribution was later followed by a 50 bag distribution at another location on a different day. A third 70 bag trip was to follow. It would prove to be the most difficult one of all. All food and tarps were given in Jesus' name.
Before the feeding program began I had learned that Nepal's calendar had been altered to change the days of the week so that Saturday - not Sunday - was the first day of the week. Christian leaders had accepted this because they didn't understand that the first day of the week was the day of worship because it celebrates the day of the Resurrection. It is an historical documentation of this event as the Passover was for the Jews a witness of God's deliverance from Egyptian bondage. Apparently they never knew of or understood I Cor. 5:7. God's providence brought me in contact with a Pentecostal minister. The subject of the day of worship occurred and I presented so many scriptures regarding it that he accepted it as a biblical truth. However he feared how the people would react to changing the day of worship to a work day which would require an evening service. When I pointed out from Acts 20:7 that the early church did likewise he was almost convinced to introduce their practice. It was necessary to call attention to the exact wording of the verse which was: "On the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread." It does not say: "On the first day of the week when the disciples came together to hear Paul preach they broke bread.” Here the Greek text says: "break the bread" as in Acts 2:42. There Luke, Paul's traveling companion, wrote in Greek: "the breaking of the bread." He was satisfied and was willing to pass this on to other ministers. Later this event resulted in a small private meeting of leading church ministers where I taught on this and many other things entirely new to them. All seemed satisfied that everything that I taught had the support of specific verses.
The next event was to be the last trip to deliver 70 bags in an area said to be cut off by a land slide. After another treacherous trip with a young, inexperienced, reckless driver we reached the last town and discovered that we had been misinformed. It was not a landslide problem but a river crossing problem that blocked us. As the truck full of food sat openly in the street, people began to slowly gather around it.
I feared a mob would rush and raid the truck and we would be unable to stop them. There was chaos and confusion about what to do and voices got so loud that I couldn't hear myself speak. They were ready to quit when God opened a door. As I looked at the river, I saw special vehicles using large tractors to pull loads across the deep river. We were to find that a few drivers knew where it was or wasn't safe to forge the river. I persuaded them to get it done and I would pay the extra cost later. This was our most physically demanding trip.
Only the photos can begin to tell the story. At the end of many miles of terrible boulders and river crossings we reached what was supposed to be the last mountain which had to be climbed. We had to get to the top to document the damage and to inform the people that food was waiting below. I was relieved to learn that the snakes of the area were non-poisonous. The mountain path was difficult and dangerously complicated by demanding twists and turns over rock, roots and washed out faded paths. At first I could keep up, but gradually the guides got further and further ahead as the altitude got greater and the air got thinner and thinner. I was sweating profusely and loosing water as I exhaled. My heart rate was dangerously high and my energy was fading fast. I was at about 12,000 ft. and the top seemed so close, but I knew that I had reached my limit and the wisest thing was for them to go on and let me save enough energy to get back down. One man stayed with me as I started back. Before I was half way down the mountain the main group returned. I encouraged them to go on and start the distribution without me. I wobbled off the mountain and once down enjoyed seeing the people receive the food that they so desperately needed. This completed the life-saving distributions to 165 families for which helicopters were unavailable.
This lack of a helicopter resulted in a desperate medical emergency. A young man's house on top of the mountain collapsed on him, leaving him with a broken wrist, arm and leg. He couldn't be brought down and I couldn't get up. When I learned that there was no bleeding, I assumed that there were no compound fractures. Therefore all I could do was teach them how to fix bone splints for him and hope that they could successful strap him securely to a door and carry him down for help. We left with a deep sense of disappointment. Thankfully the harsh trip back was more tolerable having successfully crossed so many rivers safely; however the prescription medication was required for my body pains.
As we were coming off the mountain in the old Jeep, someone wanted to make a detour that I hadn't fully understood. We took a rarely used side road over the side of the mountain and came down to a nice, beautiful church building where I was told I could preach. This proved to be only partly correct. The preaching trip was instead back up another nearby mountain on foot to a different church. I knew I hadn't much energy left in me and was inclined to decline until I was told that 50 people had been up there for hours waiting for me to preach. I was beginning to feel the effects of dehydration and asked for water. The men who carried it had gone on ahead and I was told that they would have the water waiting for me at the top. I was feeling my heart racing and tried to take some rest breaks. Things only got worse the further I went. Finally I faced the humiliation of needing assistance getting up portions of the mountain. By reflecting upon Christ's humiliation on the cross, it helped me accept my fate. When I reached the top, grasping for breath and desperate for water, I found that the men who carried the water had forgotten to drop it off for me. This was demoralizing partly because my translator had gone with them.
So I sat among the people for a long time trying to do something useful while I waited. I entertained the children with hand games but eventually just sat and prayed. Finally only my translator came, however the men with water went on to be with their people. I preached a full sermon only by the grace of God. After prayer we started down the mountain again. This time it started getting easier as I got further and further down. Eventually I reached the truck and found water. Nothing could ever taste so good again.
We returned to our base and that night I got in my little tent for some desperately needed rest. All went well until about the middle of the night when I thought something was crawling on me. My tent was bug proof so I thought I must be dreaming. This happened two other times. Finally I got out and turned on the lights and found that a cockroach had been crawling on me. After its demise I discovered my mistake. I had taken a pillow into the tent from the bed and unknowingly the cockroach was hidden inside. The resulting loss of sleep definitely had an adverse impact on the major decision to be made the next day.
After feeding the 70 people, tents were no longer available to purchase, and prices were being raised on food to take advantage of foreign aid workers. I was almost out of money and exhausted. Realistically circumstances suggested that I should return. This was difficult to do when I remembered all of those that I could not help. These pictures represent so many who still need our prayers.
The return home proved difficult and complicated because by leaving early I had to change my ticket and pay a penalty for doing so. I contacted Becky but she could do nothing because it was Saturday where I was but she had to wait two days for her Monday to contact my travel agent. So I took time on Sunday to meet with a major area minister who might be able to help me find the person that I knew from my last trip who had mastered English well. The visit to him led me to discover that he had a brother in Kathmandu who helped me by contacting Qatar Airlines on which I came to Nepal. From him I learned that aide workers like me, who needed to return early, would be given new tickets without penalty. On Sunday my contact and I rushed to the bus station and purchased tickets for the next morning. I had him call ahead and give the exact information needed for the contact in Kathmandu. He was to meet me at the bus stop and then rush me to get the tickets issued and then get me to the airport in time to make my connecting flight on Monday. Timing would be close but workable.
The problem was that there was no "Bus Station" in Kathmandu, only a series of four stops in that town. When I got off no one met me and I had no way to make contact. This was a very stressful situation. I stood in the hot sun for what seemed a long time with my two bags hoping to be seen. I needed help that would never have come in time except for another divine intervention. An Australian woman had gotten off the bus with me. She too had to wait. We talked. She had a phone. I had the contact’s number. She called him. He came. We rushed to the ticket office. I literally ran and got the tickets. We rushed to the airport.
All was confusion. An official looked at my ticket and rushed me to the area for my gate. A crowd surrounded the gate keeper so that I couldn't reach her for gate confirmation. Just as people started to board an opening came and I showed her my ticket. She put me at the front of the line. As I boarded, I was redirected to business class because it was the only seat left on the plane to Doha.
After Doha I had 13 more hours of flying before I reached American soil where I praised God for His divine intervention. Thankfully I arrived home that night and slept like a baby in a home that would seem to be a mansion to those in Nepal.
The call to Nepal is the call to us all to preach the Gospel to all people everywhere. With your help I was honored to serve our Lord in the midst of doom and gloom in which Jesus needed to be known as man’s only hope to transcend death by the resurrection to eternal life. Join me in my hope that sufficient money to cover the Nepal trip will arrive soon.
Simply a servant, Dr. W. Blythe Robinson
by Dr W Blythe Robinson
Prior to the recent infamous earthquake of Nepal, God was creating circumstances that would call me there once again. In 2007 while I was living in Colorado at 9241 feet, I made my first trip to Nepal. After testing myself at Pike's Peak top elevation of 14,000 ft. and finding that I could handle the altitude, I started my mission trip to Nepal from Pokhara at around 9000 ft. I was able to carry a 50 lb pack and make it to 14,000 ft. while preaching the Gospel to this nation of idols eight years ago. My Nepal connections faded away until just before this recent horrific earthquake. Unexpectedly a prior contact from Nepal wrote to me discussing the possibility of a joint trip north to China. From this came my suggestion that I would like to establish a Bible Institute in Nepal, but needed a translator who was skilled in understanding written English. He was excited about this and offered to assist. Currently I'm trying to do this in various other countries. On this trip I wore the traditional cap pronounced "toe-P." Its tall peak represents Mt. Everest.
Suddenly the Nepal earthquake occurred and everything began to change rapidly. My contact was giving me first hand reports from areas of Nepal unmentioned in the news and previously unknown to me. These were remote areas of Nepal high in the mountains, extremely difficult to reach and potentially quite dangerous. My questions about whether or not I could handle all the demands of such a trip ended on 4-25-15 when my contact wrote these words: "Please Please ...come to Nepal. More and more Nepali people are killing for the food, water and living place and More Christian also include in them." This level of urgency led me to immediately begin trip preparation, which became a major issue. With lives at stake, I couldn't wait for funds to come in. I pulled from reserved funds for future trips and trusted that the money would come after publishing this Nepal trip report.
My first step was going to the Health Department for the required shots and the other required medications for things such as malaria. There I received a "Medical Passport." I also took with me a prescription pain killer. A bank visit was necessary to obtain new unmarked $100.00 bills that I would be carrying.
Packing was tedious and time consuming. I had to anticipate and prepare for a multitude of scenarios while limiting myself to two 50 lb. bags. I had to pack a two-man tent for us to sleep in outside for fear of after-shocks, which were rampant throughout the nation. This included water-proof ground cover, sleeping pads and bags, and a separate one-man tent for my living inside homes with all of the insects that carry diseases. I had to also bring all of my own food and a special hand pumped water purifier with special chemicals for treatment, two of which were donated by a backpacking company known as REI. This required a round trip to Asheville, NC.
Balancing space and weight required packing and repacking multiple times. Just before leaving Becky found that if I took a connecting flight to Pokhara, then my weight restrictions increased and I had to repack everything and carry on my back what I couldn't put in the two bags. Through email I arranged to be met at the airport and to save money we decided to drive to Pokhara to start our work. This is about 125 miles northwest of Kathmandu, the capital city.
Upon arrival at Kathmandu I had to apply for a visa. There was mass confusion everywhere and procedures were unclear. It was congested, noisy, and nasty and my contact was not there to meet me as planned. Recovering my bags took hours and as time progressed, I became increasingly concerned about how we could meet up and what I would do if we couldn't. I did a lot of worrying and praying. While waiting, I was able to start a conversation with a local man. When he learned of my situation, God stepped in and the man called my friend. When I got the bags we met and started driving through Kathmandu. I visited some of the sickening sights of the earthquake. However I was unprepared to see a couple of dead bodies simply wrapped in cloth, lying beside the road. I thought what a lonely end to life.
The drive to Pokhara, on a road designed like a snake, proved stressful. It was a narrow winding road that had distressed me in the past with its drop offs of over a thousand feet, with hardly a foot between the road and death. I had seen the remains of my concerns lying at the bottom of the mountain. Finally faith overcame fear because I truly believed that God had called me there.
When I reached Pokhara jet lag was my first problem because day and night were reversed. I took caffeine pills to keep going. I slept inside my tent in a small crowded room. When I got up in the middle of the night for a bathroom visit, I was greeted by the largest swarm of cockroaches that I had ever seen running at unbelievable speeds in all directions. I couldn't attempt to kill them without waking everyone. Once inside I had no choice but to kill those near the "Squat Hole."
The next day a problem began that only grew larger over time. My contact knew only enough spoken English to keep confusion a constant source of frustration and stress. We would make plans and all seemed clear until time for implementation then everything had to be re-discussed several times before it could be completed.
A surprise ministry opportunity occurred when I learned that my contact's wife was a nurse at a local hospital. He needed to see her at work and invited me to go along. When we got there I started meeting people and greeting them briefly in their language. They seemed to appreciate this, so then I started distributing Tootsie Rolls that I had forgotten I was carrying. They all began focusing on me as a strange looking person because of the color of my skin. I was introduced to a small group of lepers as an American and every one took notice. I offered to answer questions and soon I had the floor as Dr. Robinson. Other doctors and administrators came, joined by ambulatory patients. It turned out to be a Christian related hospital so I asked and received permission to preach Christ freely and told them truths previously unknown about Christianity. I eventually visited every patient. They were impressed with Christ's love for them as they saw Him in me. I was to discover later that his wife and I both take the same medication for excessive acid in the stomach. Later I learned that she was also taking pain killing injections for her stomach. This told me that something else very serious was wrong. I asked about cancer and she said they found a few cells. Finally the whole story came out; they were not even trying to fight the cancer, instead they were just going to give her pain killers and let her die. At my urging she finally had the courage to confront her doctor and ask for chemotherapy treatments. Pray that they will heed her plea and that she will live. As a nurse, a wage earner, a minister's wife, and a mother of three boys, her life can bless a multitude. Her death will cripple his ministry.
We left the next day for distant towns with names almost impossible to pronounce. It took most of the day to reach our main outpost. Again it was a treacherous drive through some of the wildest and most majestic mountains that I had ever seen. The bus we road was constantly throwing us from side to side and bouncing up and down at the same time. My fears of an accident were realized when we passed a bus lying on its side in the road. As we emerged from the mountains into a flat jungle area, the dust was so thick that the leaves of trees were bent down by the weight of the dust on them, which I could taste as I breathed. Suddenly I understood why so many had worn face masks. Thankfully home base was a three story home surrounded by the greenest rice fields imaginable.
We had preplanned for 50 lb. food bags that would feed an entire family for almost a week. It was basically rice with oil and additives for taste and everyone ate with their hands.
The second greatest demand was for what we call "tarps" which they called "Tents." The locals had already been terrified by storms that had come through recently in which roofs were ripped off homes. This proved to be more common than I realized as I saw so many homes with roofs laden with huge stones. We sat up late one night as one headed toward us. My previous experiences with violent storms indicated that this one would pass us, and by God's grace it did. However people were so terrified by after-shocks that they often slept outside at night or wanted tents put up so that they could run for them in the middle of the night. I was to experience this later by two after-shocks.
One night I was sleeping on the third floor with all of my windows open hoping for cool air. Sometime between 10:00 and 12 P.M., I heard the explosive sound of one of the steel doors slam with violent force. Suddenly the guard dog started barking wildly and children's voices could be heard screaming while people ran panic-stricken out of the house. Before I could un-zip my tent and get dressed to run outside, it stopped. Following this the people foolishly put up a tent in the drive way to the house, right under where it would fall if a big one hit. Thankfully this never occurred while I was there. The second after-shock occurred in town days later while making purchases. I was in the car, they were in the store, and all of the people were confused about where to run. Thankfully no harm came to anyone.
The greater dangers came a few days later. We had secured a Jeep truck, loaded it with enough bags of food to feed 45 families and "tents" for all and headed for the deepest, most remote mountains around. On these mountain roads the driver was reckless, and drove wildly around blind curves over loose stones and gravel. To make sharp turns he would slide the back end of the vehicle around the curve and then try to regain control before we went over a cliff. At other times he would race down a portion of the road that ended with a sharp right angel turn then, with loud screeching brakes, try to slow down enough to keep from plunging backwards over the drop off. I had to finally insist that he slow down. This worked for a while but he soon returned to desperate driving procedures while driving with an unsafe tire as shown.
When, by God's grace, we reached this remote site with a church house, we found a multitude of more people waiting, more than we could possible feed. I tried to get them organized. This seemed to be an uncommon practice for these people who were basically uneducated. The local minister had identified the 45 families most affected. After I preached we called forth the people on the list and separated them from the larger crowd. Several outsiders tried to slip in among them and had to be restrained from doing so. We had just about finished the process when someone shouted something like "get it now." Suddenly everyone started screaming wildly and running toward the truck with the food bags. I was caught in the middle and struggled to restrain them, but I couldn't. Quickly others joined me in the efforts and eventually we restored order. This time when names were called I suggested that an X be placed by the names of those not present. If this resulted in bags being left over, we would give them to others on a selection system that I quickly devised. This proved to be very useful. This event was typical of most of our trips into the mountains. The 45 bag distribution was later followed by a 50 bag distribution at another location on a different day. A third 70 bag trip was to follow. It would prove to be the most difficult one of all. All food and tarps were given in Jesus' name.
Before the feeding program began I had learned that Nepal's calendar had been altered to change the days of the week so that Saturday - not Sunday - was the first day of the week. Christian leaders had accepted this because they didn't understand that the first day of the week was the day of worship because it celebrates the day of the Resurrection. It is an historical documentation of this event as the Passover was for the Jews a witness of God's deliverance from Egyptian bondage. Apparently they never knew of or understood I Cor. 5:7. God's providence brought me in contact with a Pentecostal minister. The subject of the day of worship occurred and I presented so many scriptures regarding it that he accepted it as a biblical truth. However he feared how the people would react to changing the day of worship to a work day which would require an evening service. When I pointed out from Acts 20:7 that the early church did likewise he was almost convinced to introduce their practice. It was necessary to call attention to the exact wording of the verse which was: "On the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread." It does not say: "On the first day of the week when the disciples came together to hear Paul preach they broke bread.” Here the Greek text says: "break the bread" as in Acts 2:42. There Luke, Paul's traveling companion, wrote in Greek: "the breaking of the bread." He was satisfied and was willing to pass this on to other ministers. Later this event resulted in a small private meeting of leading church ministers where I taught on this and many other things entirely new to them. All seemed satisfied that everything that I taught had the support of specific verses.
The next event was to be the last trip to deliver 70 bags in an area said to be cut off by a land slide. After another treacherous trip with a young, inexperienced, reckless driver we reached the last town and discovered that we had been misinformed. It was not a landslide problem but a river crossing problem that blocked us. As the truck full of food sat openly in the street, people began to slowly gather around it.
I feared a mob would rush and raid the truck and we would be unable to stop them. There was chaos and confusion about what to do and voices got so loud that I couldn't hear myself speak. They were ready to quit when God opened a door. As I looked at the river, I saw special vehicles using large tractors to pull loads across the deep river. We were to find that a few drivers knew where it was or wasn't safe to forge the river. I persuaded them to get it done and I would pay the extra cost later. This was our most physically demanding trip.
Only the photos can begin to tell the story. At the end of many miles of terrible boulders and river crossings we reached what was supposed to be the last mountain which had to be climbed. We had to get to the top to document the damage and to inform the people that food was waiting below. I was relieved to learn that the snakes of the area were non-poisonous. The mountain path was difficult and dangerously complicated by demanding twists and turns over rock, roots and washed out faded paths. At first I could keep up, but gradually the guides got further and further ahead as the altitude got greater and the air got thinner and thinner. I was sweating profusely and loosing water as I exhaled. My heart rate was dangerously high and my energy was fading fast. I was at about 12,000 ft. and the top seemed so close, but I knew that I had reached my limit and the wisest thing was for them to go on and let me save enough energy to get back down. One man stayed with me as I started back. Before I was half way down the mountain the main group returned. I encouraged them to go on and start the distribution without me. I wobbled off the mountain and once down enjoyed seeing the people receive the food that they so desperately needed. This completed the life-saving distributions to 165 families for which helicopters were unavailable.
This lack of a helicopter resulted in a desperate medical emergency. A young man's house on top of the mountain collapsed on him, leaving him with a broken wrist, arm and leg. He couldn't be brought down and I couldn't get up. When I learned that there was no bleeding, I assumed that there were no compound fractures. Therefore all I could do was teach them how to fix bone splints for him and hope that they could successful strap him securely to a door and carry him down for help. We left with a deep sense of disappointment. Thankfully the harsh trip back was more tolerable having successfully crossed so many rivers safely; however the prescription medication was required for my body pains.
As we were coming off the mountain in the old Jeep, someone wanted to make a detour that I hadn't fully understood. We took a rarely used side road over the side of the mountain and came down to a nice, beautiful church building where I was told I could preach. This proved to be only partly correct. The preaching trip was instead back up another nearby mountain on foot to a different church. I knew I hadn't much energy left in me and was inclined to decline until I was told that 50 people had been up there for hours waiting for me to preach. I was beginning to feel the effects of dehydration and asked for water. The men who carried it had gone on ahead and I was told that they would have the water waiting for me at the top. I was feeling my heart racing and tried to take some rest breaks. Things only got worse the further I went. Finally I faced the humiliation of needing assistance getting up portions of the mountain. By reflecting upon Christ's humiliation on the cross, it helped me accept my fate. When I reached the top, grasping for breath and desperate for water, I found that the men who carried the water had forgotten to drop it off for me. This was demoralizing partly because my translator had gone with them.
So I sat among the people for a long time trying to do something useful while I waited. I entertained the children with hand games but eventually just sat and prayed. Finally only my translator came, however the men with water went on to be with their people. I preached a full sermon only by the grace of God. After prayer we started down the mountain again. This time it started getting easier as I got further and further down. Eventually I reached the truck and found water. Nothing could ever taste so good again.
We returned to our base and that night I got in my little tent for some desperately needed rest. All went well until about the middle of the night when I thought something was crawling on me. My tent was bug proof so I thought I must be dreaming. This happened two other times. Finally I got out and turned on the lights and found that a cockroach had been crawling on me. After its demise I discovered my mistake. I had taken a pillow into the tent from the bed and unknowingly the cockroach was hidden inside. The resulting loss of sleep definitely had an adverse impact on the major decision to be made the next day.
After feeding the 70 people, tents were no longer available to purchase, and prices were being raised on food to take advantage of foreign aid workers. I was almost out of money and exhausted. Realistically circumstances suggested that I should return. This was difficult to do when I remembered all of those that I could not help. These pictures represent so many who still need our prayers.
The return home proved difficult and complicated because by leaving early I had to change my ticket and pay a penalty for doing so. I contacted Becky but she could do nothing because it was Saturday where I was but she had to wait two days for her Monday to contact my travel agent. So I took time on Sunday to meet with a major area minister who might be able to help me find the person that I knew from my last trip who had mastered English well. The visit to him led me to discover that he had a brother in Kathmandu who helped me by contacting Qatar Airlines on which I came to Nepal. From him I learned that aide workers like me, who needed to return early, would be given new tickets without penalty. On Sunday my contact and I rushed to the bus station and purchased tickets for the next morning. I had him call ahead and give the exact information needed for the contact in Kathmandu. He was to meet me at the bus stop and then rush me to get the tickets issued and then get me to the airport in time to make my connecting flight on Monday. Timing would be close but workable.
The problem was that there was no "Bus Station" in Kathmandu, only a series of four stops in that town. When I got off no one met me and I had no way to make contact. This was a very stressful situation. I stood in the hot sun for what seemed a long time with my two bags hoping to be seen. I needed help that would never have come in time except for another divine intervention. An Australian woman had gotten off the bus with me. She too had to wait. We talked. She had a phone. I had the contact’s number. She called him. He came. We rushed to the ticket office. I literally ran and got the tickets. We rushed to the airport.
All was confusion. An official looked at my ticket and rushed me to the area for my gate. A crowd surrounded the gate keeper so that I couldn't reach her for gate confirmation. Just as people started to board an opening came and I showed her my ticket. She put me at the front of the line. As I boarded, I was redirected to business class because it was the only seat left on the plane to Doha.
After Doha I had 13 more hours of flying before I reached American soil where I praised God for His divine intervention. Thankfully I arrived home that night and slept like a baby in a home that would seem to be a mansion to those in Nepal.
The call to Nepal is the call to us all to preach the Gospel to all people everywhere. With your help I was honored to serve our Lord in the midst of doom and gloom in which Jesus needed to be known as man’s only hope to transcend death by the resurrection to eternal life. Join me in my hope that sufficient money to cover the Nepal trip will arrive soon.
Simply a servant, Dr. W. Blythe Robinson
