From our Church Conference

Here's the body of an email we sent out to our daily/weekly yarp people to get some sense for how the conference went.

"The conference went well and we felt Jesus guiding us as we navigated new (and some unexpected) territory. The feedback from the leaders was positive, and a number of them commented that they had learned new things themselves. We had lots of people come up for prayer but it is hard to know what it all meant for people there. We pray that there is good follow-up by the leaders.

When we arrived at the conference, we realized that the crowd was much younger this year. “Youth” in India means anything from 14 to young couples without children. Last year it seemed like the conference was more on the young adult end but this year it seemed like the average age was high school. I (Paul) quickly started to think about how I could adjust my talks to be more the youth side of youth appropriate. I still had work to do on the last two talks, so I thought I could tailor them a bit. Taking time in prayer and preparation over the next few days I felt Jesus leading me to points and ideas that helped things come together. Getting 400+ people into small groups was a bit chaotic, but it worked. The pastors and some other church leaders served as small group leaders and most of the groups were deeply engaged in discussions.

We did experience some of the difficulties of translation. There were some things I said that didn’t seem to be coming across exactly the way I wanted (the phrase, “You can make a difference” turns out to be very difficult to translate!). But overall, it seems that the message got across and people were blessed.

Rebecca also had a great time teaching a session on discerning God’s will. She ended up rewriting her talk once she realized who her audience was. But, we were grateful to Jesus for answering our prayers for energy at night so that she could work on her message after taking care of Elijah during the day. One of the points about God’s will was that we learn to be wise and live as wise people. She used the children’s book, There was an old lady who swallowed a fly to make her point and the whole crowd was mesmerized and engaged as she used it show how one foolish decision can ultimately lead to a chain reaction which leads to bigger foolishness and ends in death. We are praying that God would raise us youth who live as wise Children of Light. (Ephesians 5:8)"

Here are some photos:

Lost in Translation

As we preach and teach with the help of a translator, we realize how much things can get lost in translation. There are common expressions in English, which are not really translatable in Nepali. Well, at least not in one sentence. You have to spend some time kind of explaining that expression in a local form so that people understand. Good translators pick up on that and do that for us. Not so good ones literally translate what you say into the local language and because it has no meaning, the impact can be lost.

For the most part, I can understand fairly well what is being said in Nepali. Hence, I can usually understand the translation and have a fairly good gauge as to whether the translation was accurate or whether it was completely off. It was interesting to realize that the expressions, "You can make a difference," and "Don't play it safe. Take a risk," are not really translatable into Nepali. Last night, P during his teaching session used these two expressions and the translator had a difficult time knowing how to translate them. For the word, "risk," the translator used the word "danger," but it has a very different meaning to tell a group of youth, "Don't play it safe. Be dangerous!" As soon as I heard the translation, I thought, "Oh no! That is not what P meant!" P realized it too and went further to explain it so that people got the picture of what he was trying to say. Or the expression, "You can make a difference," there is just no way to express it in Nepali in direct translation. So, the way that it was further explained was that "you can be world changers." They understood it.

Today, I gave my teaching on discerning the will of God. Before I began my teaching, I did the introduction in Nepali. It felt really good to be able to speak to them in their heart language and wished I could do the whole teaching in their language.... One day.... The youth were so sweet. After I did my introduction in Nepali, they all broke out in a cheer and applauded my effort. It is good to teach because each time I do it, I am reminded how much I would like to do it in Nepali. For that to happen though, it is going to take a lot more effort and a few more years.

Ten Years!

Today, we got to celebrate our ten years of our marriage (a day late due to no babysitter yesterday) with a romantic dinner at Domino's Pizza, with a special order of a large pepperoni pizza and a coke. If you ladies think, "WHAT?!" Don't scream. It was my idea. I wanted something that had home flavor and it was the only thing available in our town. We were planning to go bowling afterwards (we heard that there is a bowling alley in the new mall), but we were too tired from all the fun celebrating a Korean festival with the Koreans today. I have to admit that this is something that I do enjoy about our marriage. We can chill together and find Domino's Pizza suitable for a ten year celebration. I guess it suits a girl who would ask in the middle of her fiancee's proposal for marriage if we can stop at a Subway so that she could get something to eat.... my appetite had returned that day after not eating for a few days due to sickness. All this is to say that the last ten years have been full of fun and challenging adventures. I'm so glad and thankful that I got to do it with Paul and will get to do it for another ten plus years, God willing. I couldn't have asked for a better person for me. You're DA BOMB, Pablo!