New Year in Nepal

Happy New Year. Although the official Nepali year starts in mid-April the alternative or “Western” New Year is well known here.

It seems that most of Nepals people groups have their own calendar and the mid-April one is generally considered to be the Hindu calendar, so churches like to relate to the Western or Christian one.

This was a useful starting point for me on Wednesday when I found myself giving the “message” at church with around 10 seconds prior warning.

It wasn’t totally unexpected because our Pastor was away on a short break with relatives in Pokhara, to recover from Christmas!

Wednesday has a regular attendance of around 50; it is the “prayer meeting” after all. On Christmas Day there were around 600 people, and at church last Saturday we were 250.

The difference was noted with suggestions that it might be good to see some of the extras again.

Church is on “winter starting time” now because its cold, so attendance is down and lots of people are late.  Something I understand completely as the morning temperature in our flat is around 7 degrees.

Katrina and I were late for church too, which meant I sat at the front. It was interesting to be facing everyone; I do that on Wednesdays but usually keep a lower profile on Saturday. So I took a quick photo.

Martin Butterworth

PS: Next week Katrina is away. She’s visiting lots of different remote hospitals around Nepal, part of assessing their suitability for student placements. Sounds like fun!

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