First day in Nepal, 8 days after the earthquake

Sitting in the gate area of the Istanbul airport, waiting for my flight to Kathmandu airport, I looked around at the other passengers and wondered what their stories were, why they were on this flight 7 days after a major earthquake that has killed more than 6,000 people in Nepal.

Then the woman next to me asked me a question, and I found out why she was going.

She is from Spain, and is going as a volunteer with Doctors without Borders to assist in developing a psychological response to the trauma of April 25th's 7.8-magnitude earthquake. While she has done some counseling and trauma response in war zones, she had never worked in the wake of a natural disaster. She asked me if it was my first time in a disaster zone, and I nodded.

"How do you feel? Are you afraid?" she asked me.

"Afraid of what?" I asked.

"Aftershocks."

I admitted that I hadn't thought much about aftershocks, that my big fear was being required to ride a motorcycle in order to get outside Kathmandu or to more distant places for gathering stories. I don't like motorcycles.

Just three days ago I found out about this trip. I received the phone call at 11 p.m. my time in Manchester, UK, that the Church of the Nazarene needed a journalist to accompany a videographer to help connect the global church with the local church in Nepal, and to tell the stories of how the church is responding to the needs for shelter, food and water around the country. Just two days ago I agreed to come and Friday was the first I knew about the details. I was on a plane by Saturday morning.

I had a daytime flight from Manchester to Istanbul, then laid over for about 3 hours before catching my overnight flight to Kathmandu. I watched a couple movies, slept for a couple of hours. When I awoke and got restless, I slid open the window shade and realized that it was dawn. The sun would be up soon. Above the grey nothingness below poked the razor-sharp teeth of the Himalayas, chewing up the horizon. There was a molten orange glow along the edges of a few of the peaks. I grabbed my mobile phone and as I snapped a few pictures, suddenly the glow turned into a blinding blaze, and the sun triumphantly climbed above the edge into view. It was magnificent. I couldn't help but think about the metaphors.

We have more than 100 organized churches and more than as many church plants, attended by over 8,000 Nazarenes in Nepal. The country's district superintendent, Rev. Dilli, in collaboration with the Eurasia Region's compassionate ministries coordinator, Jörg Eich, and in partnership with other NGOs, is mobilizing the Nepali church to gather food such as rice and sugar and distribute it to the villages which have been hit hard by the earthquake. They are also developing a plan to ensure people have clean water and shelter.

I arrived on the same flight with Steve, an American videographer who also dropped everything to come and help capture the stories on video. We've had breakfast, grabbed a short nap, and after lunch our first order of business is to interview Rev. Dilli and Jörg on camera to talk about the situation as it stands right now. Then Rev. Dilli said he would take us to visit the Nazarene church where he was preaching when the earthquake struck, show us where the congregation fled outside and began praying as the ground rolled beneath them, and also to another Nazarene church which was gathered for worship and came through the earthquake undamaged.

I am sitting at an unused desk, eavesdropping on Dilli and Jörg in the next office talking about how many thousand bags of rice they need, how much sugar, oil and salt -- they're talking about tons of food staples. Dilli says they're going out to distribute food tomorrow about 70 km from Kathmandu and it sounds like we'll go with them to interview people and capture the stories in that location. I really hope there won't be motorcycles involved.

Having posted news about this sudden trip on social media, and seeing the amazingly swift and positive response of friends and colleagues around the world who are praying for Nepal, praying for the church here, and praying for me and Steve (and my husband Andrew who is supporting me from Manchester), I feel surrounded and lifted up in prayer.

Pray that I won't have to ride a motorcycle. :-)

Photos from the Middle East

 A view to Israel across the Dead Sea.

 A view of the Promised Land from Mt. Nebo, where Moses is said in the Bible to have gotten his view before dying and being buried somewhere here.

The conference of leaders from the Middle East, worshipping together.

Me at Mt Nebo, with the Promised Land behind me.

 A Nazarene church.

 Another Nazarene church.

Turkish tea served to us by hospitable hosts in their home.

 A Nazarene primary school.

 Nazarene school

 Nazarene church

 Nazarene man who designs Christian cross-stitch artwork and then hires refugees to stitch them.

Amman

 The place where Jesus was baptized.

 Baptisms in the Jordan River

 Jordan River

 Dead Sea, Jordan and Israel

 Roman ruins in Amman

 Wandering camels

Modern Bedouins.

Zarah filming

Travels and illness

We've had a challenging month and a half. It started with me (Gina) leaving for a week to a Middle Eastern country, and on the same day, after dropping me off at the airport, Andrew came down with the flu which, after a week, turned into a severe chest and sinus infection that lingered for the next three weeks. After about 2 weeks, a doctor gave him a round of antibiotics, which didn't work. So they tried a second type of antibiotics for another week. We're not sure if the medicine or time was the main healing factor, but after more than 4 weeks, he finally began to recover his strength and energy, and stopped coughing so much. After her trip to the Middle East, I returned for 2 weeks and was able to care for Andrew, but then left again for a week to Amsterdam to attend a Christian media training conference.

During this challenging time, the community we live among at Nazarene Theological College, here in Manchester, surrounded Andrew with love and support. One woman cooked him dinner every night for a week and supplied him with leftovers for his lunch. She also ordered groceries for him online since he didn't have the strength to walk into town to get groceries and carry them back by hand (we don't have a car). Others visited him, emailed him and checked on him to make sure he was doing OK, and spent time with him so he wouldn't feel isolated.

We are so grateful for everyone in the States who was praying for both of us, as well as the love and support in our immediate environment in the UK. We felt that we got to see and experience the Body of Christ at its best.

The training conference in the Netherlands was very interesting, as more than 400 Christians from different parachurch organizations and nonprofits gathered to share ideas and information, learn and talk about how to use technology and communication methods to share the gospel with people around the world, especially unreached people groups. I came away particularly inspired to start exploring podcasting as part of my future ministry.

It was particularly encouraging that so many of the people at the conference have had experience with the Church of the Nazarene -- either attending one of our churches at some point in the past or present, or having encountered us in the area where they live or as part of their work. Everyone without fail was impressed with our church and had very positive things to say about us. I felt very proud to represent our small denomination among so many people from around the world who surprisingly have encountered us and come away thinking positively of us.

A trip to the Middle East

Gina here. I recently had an amazing trip to the Middle East with our communications volunteer, Zarah. We went to one country for one week in order to collect written and video recorded stories of Nazarenes through whom God is working to bring hope and love to the people in their communities.

We spent 3 days at a conference for leaders of our church across the Middle East, as they participated in leadership training, and spent time with their new field strategy coordinator, a pastor from the Middle East, who shared his vision and upcoming plans for the field. They spent time over meals and during breaks building relationships with one another, toward a goal of greater unity during a time of unprecedented instability in their part of the world.

After the conference, Zarah and I spent another few days in a city where I interviewed more people about their personal stories and we recorded footage for three videos.

Before I left, I had requested prayer from many churches and friends because I had been sick in the week leading up to the trip. By the first day of the trip, I felt remarkably better and completely recovered by the second day. I was really grateful for this answer to prayer. Also, I had requested that God would lead us to the stories he wanted us to tell, and I believe he did that, since I managed to interview 8 or 9 people during a very busy week. Additionally, I had requested prayer during the trip because a microphone we were using in the video recording sessions suddenly developed a loud buzzing sound that could have prevented us from filming the other videos. But the next day, after you prayed, the microphone mysteriously worked again and we didn't have any other problems.

It was challenging to fit everything in during that short week, and we were working on videos up to 2 hours before we left for the airport at midnight on the 25th. But I want to give thanks to God for what I would consider a successful trip. Not only did we come back with lots of good stories to share, but we were able to meet people and exchange contact information that I hope will lead to additional updates and stories in the future.

Having been to the Middle East twice now, and having been in the homes of Syrian refugees who fled their countries with sometimes nothing but the clothes on their backs, and having spent time with the Nazarene churches who are sacrificing their money, time and personal belongings to share God's love with these refugees while caring for their physical needs, the Middle East has come to hold a very special place in my heart. The situation there is often on my mind.

That's why I was struck once again, in spending time with my fellow believers on this trip, at how deeply they care for these strangers among them, and how hard they are working -- as few in number as they are -- to meet a massive tidal wave of human need with the very few resources that they have.

The leaders I met with unanimously said to me that this is the time, now is the day, when the harvest is ready in their part of the world. People are losing hope in their own religion, as they begin to recognize it has caused mass death, violence, conflict and hatred. They are hungry for something else, for answers that involve love, forgiveness and reconciliation. And we can give them that, in Jesus Christ. People are ready. They want to hear about Jesus. They want to see people love one another.

Please pray with me for the millions in the Middle East who are ready to hear about Jesus, that they would indeed hear him or see him. Pray also for the churches, the entire Body of Christ, which is responding as best they can to the harvest. Pray for God to send more workers to the harvest. Pray for God's people to be unified, to put aside petty disagreements or disharmony and to come together as one, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to bring in the harvest before the time is past.

Sleeping Rough

In the UK, when you sleep in a sleeping bag, or outside, or I guess away from a bed, they call it "sleeping rough." It's a term they often apply to homeless people, as well as campers. That's what we did last weekend. And it was a very interesting experience.

Our local church is part of a network of churches that assist an organization with providing shelter and meals to asylum seekers in the UK. Many of them are homeless until their paperwork is approved and they are given legal status to be in the UK, to work and to set up a home.

A group of men from different countries are transported around to a different church each night where they sleep in sleeping bags in a room and are given a meal provided by members of the church, as well as the opportunity to shower in the building. At least three members of the church are required to stay with them each time. They asked Andrew and I to volunteer one time, so we agreed.

Another guy named Mark, who has done this numerous times, was the third person in our team, since he could show us how everything worked.

We busied ourselves with pulling all the sleeping bags and pillows out of a closet, arranging two tables and 15 chairs, and setting out a huge pot of chicken curry, a big bowl of rice, and packages of flat bread, and a coffee station. We also put out special pitchers so that the men would be able to wash their feet before doing their prayers.

At 8:45 the men arrived. They all spoke English very well. They each went around to us and shook our hands and introduced themselves. Then they sat down and began serving themselves from the curry and rice. They also made sure that we volunteers had plates of food, too.

After dinner, we cleared all their dishes and washed for them, while some of the guys took showers. Most went in the sanctuary to set up their sleeping bags and just play on their smart phones or read newspapers and relax. A few stayed in the eating room and talked to Mark while we sat and listened.

One young man seemed to relish telling funny stories of his experiences with the culture in Britain, as well as talk about the political and national situation of his people in the Middle East. He reminded us a lot of the young guys we became friends with in our German class. The other man was a very big, but seemingly very gentle, middle aged black man from Cameroon. He also enjoyed just sitting with a cup of tea and talking.

About 10 p.m. Andrew and I crashed on a couch in the foyer while the men settled into their sleeping bags in the sanctuary and turned out the lights.

Then at 5 a.m. either one of them started singing or they had an call to prayer as a cell phone alarm because there was very loud Arabic singing for a few seconds. And 5 a.m. is typically when many people from the Middle East do their first prayers of the day.

At 7:30 we joined the men for a breakfast of toast with jam and Nutella and cereal.

The Cameroonian man had asked the night before and then at breakfast if these foods were traditional British foods. We explained that the curry from the night before was probably Indian or Pakistani, so it was not traditional British food, but it was commonly eaten in Britain. I asked him if he had heard of fish and chips. He had not. So I explained about deep fried fish. Then I asked him if he knew what French fries were. He didn't. So I explained about sliced, fried potatoes. I told him about Shepherd's Pie, which he thought he would like, and also about meat pies. He said that at all the night shelters they keep serving them ethnic foods from the Middle East or India and he really wants to try British food to see what it is like.

"Some day, I'm going to go home to my children and tell them about my time in England and I want to tell them stories about the food and this and that," he said. I hope he gets to try some British food soon.

Then their ride came and it was time for us to go.

We both enjoyed spending time with these men and getting a tiny peek into their lives. I think Andrew plans to continue with this ministry maybe once a month.

Thankful

Forgive me for a week's lag in posting about our Thanksgiving.

We have so much to be thankful for this year and we are mindful of it all the time. Every day I feel like I am overflowing with gratitude for everything God has done for us, in us and through us. It would be impossible to list them all.

One thing I am thankful for is that we had such a nice American Thanksgiving last week. I was having a hard time this year being away from family for the fifth year in a row. But it was made a lot easier when new and old friends invited us to join them for dinner last Thursday. We watched the live broadcast of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while cooking and then we sat down to a traditional feast, complete with green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes and turkey, and more.

Here's what it looked like.

Someone found the crunchy onions for the green bean casserole, and a stuffing mix.

We were a bit too intimidated by a whole turkey, so they found these juicy large turkey breasts.

The British do stuffing in small round shapes so we tried that.

Rachael and Thijs, former students at EuNC when we were there in Germany, live here now and it was nice to be with familiar folk. Rachael is American and Thijs is Dutch. This is Rachael watching the parade.

Rachael attempts to make gravy while Graham, the PR coordinator for NTC and the host of our meal, worked on spiced apple juice. Graham is from Scotland.

Spiced apple juice

Andrew kicking back and relaxing while everyone else cooked. :-)

Shanley, an American, is Graham's girlfriend and did a large share of the cooking.

My contribution: pumpkin pies.

A rousing game of Dutch Blitz to conclude the evening.

Curry, bonfires and new friends

It's been two months since Andrew arrived in Manchester and one month since I followed him here. Things are going very well and we are happy to be here.

Because we Americans share a language, and to a great extent, a culture with Great Britain, we very quickly felt comfortable and at ease here. Yet we still stumble across differences at times. I learned quickly, accompanied by a lot of laughter, not to say I have "waterproof pants" which here means you have Depends adult diapers. We learned that "to vacuum" is "to Hoover" and that the burner on your stove is a "hob." We have also learned that "cheers" is a multi-purpose word to cover a variety of meanings, ranging from "thanks" to "no problem" to "have a good day" to "here you go."

In October we attended Nazarene Theological College's graduation ceremony, and enjoyed imagining the moment three years from now when it will be Andrew's turn to walk and receive his award for completing his PhD.

We have enjoyed several trips to explore the Curry Mile, which is a stretch of road crowded with Middle Eastern and South Asian restaurants, stores and businesses. It is a highly multicultural area where you will see women raising the flap on their burqa to fit food into their mouths, men wearing turbans, and women wearing Indian sarees and salawas. People are smoking shisha and eating deep-fried Indian samosas or syrupy sweets.

We have also visited Chinatown in downtown Manchester, where we bought some Chinese grocery ingredients.

And we observed a big Diwali celebration at the town hall. Diwali is a Hindu festival of lights. There was a live-storytelling presentation enacted by life-size, lighted puppets, pyrotechnics and fireworks and a colored light display on the town hall building.

Last night we visited a 400-year-old British tradition of lighting a large bonfire in a park and then setting off fireworks, to celebrate the averted assassination attempt on the life of King James I in the 1600s, by the now infamous Guy Fawkes. The crowd of thousands enjoyed fire dancers as well as carnival rides and carnival treats like soft serve ice cream and cotton candy.

It has been a real pleasure for us to be in a bigger city for a change with all of these opportunities to rub shoulders with people of different cultures and to experience a taste of their homelands in our daily lives.

I (Gina) am starting to feel out my new role as a one-day-per-week volunteer for Nazarene Theological College. I have written two articles for the college which you can find here: http://www.ncnnews.com/nphweb/html/ncn/article.jsp?sid=10000008&id=10014086
http://www.ncnnews.com/nphweb/html/ncn/article.jsp?sid=10000008&id=10014082

I am also quite swamped with stories for Engagemagazine.com, and continuing to publish stories for the Eurasia Region. Our November edition of our newsletter came out this week. You can find it here: http://www.eurasiaregion.org/where-worlds-meet-november-2014-2/

Andrew is happily busy with preparing to lecture twice in the coming weeks and months, studying Latin and Greek, reading for his first big paper due in his PhD process, helping a deaf student in note-taking for one of his classes and now serving as a representative on the Student Council.

There are times when we miss our friends and life in Germitzerland. There are times when we miss our friends and family in the U.S. For me, Thanksgiving is quite foremost on my mind this year. It is my favorite holiday all year and this will be our fifth year in a row to miss out on Thanksgiving with our families in Colorado. It is hitting me harder this year than it has in past years. It looks like we will spend the day with some new friends here, three of whom are American, so I am really looking forward to that. I also plan to cook some familiar favorites for Andrew and I so we can have leftovers throughout that weekend.

This will be our third year away from our families for Christmas. I am also sad about that. We are still trying to determine what we will do for the holiday.

However, we have a trip home to look forward to. We are in the midst of planning our home assignment speaking tour in the U.S. next year. The dates are a bit in flux due to an unforeseen complication with renewing my visa next October. For sure right now we will be in Colorado in August and we are open to other places in the month of September. If you are interested in having us to come and speak at your church, youth group, children's group, Sunday school class or small group, or even a home school group or another setting, email me at gpottenger (at) nazarene.org and we can look at getting out to where you are!

We love hearing from you and sharing our lives with you. Thank you so much for your prayers as we continue to settle in and make friends and especially this year as we are away from our families during the holidays.