Greetings to everyone from Kathmandu!
Well, Spring has sprung here in Kathmandu and we’re all enjoying a bit of beautiful weather before monsoon season sets in soon. I hope this letter finds you all well and enjoying the change of seasons. Speaking of change… hopefully each of you received our community prayer letter that was sent out last month in lieu of each of us writing our own personal prayer letters. Highlighted in it were a lot of the major changes that our community is currently facing. With 3 bright, shiny, new staff members, and my roommate back on the field after a 10-month leave of absence we are a full house once again. It’s been great spending time connecting together these last few weeks, and spending time building new vision and planning for the future.
Currently we are all trying to focus in on some of the “community support roles” that WMF international has set up in order to help each one of the specific fields within WMF to function well. My personal role is that of the Advocacy Coordinator for our field. Joining me in the Advocacy department will be new staff member Andrew Ulasich who is a recent graduate of Taylor University in Upland, IN. We’re excited to start working on some big advocacy projects which include: videos, a website highlighting what is going on in our various ministries (www.wmfnepal.blogspot.com), starting networking among other missionaries within the Kathmandu Valley, and more.
Hopefully you will all be able to see the fruits of our labor in that area soon. If you haven’t checked out the new website yet I’d recommend it! I’ve also begun to post our field’s specific monthly prayer requests on the site, so if you are interested in those you can find them there as well.
I want to thank so many of you who prayed for me throughout last year and while I was home last summer as I was suffering from various illnesses including lots of respiratory problems, and stress fractures in my feet. Several of you have asked about my physical health recently so I thought I’d let you all know that I’m feeling great, and haven’t had any respiratory problems or pain in my feet for a very long time. Thank you SO much for lifting those needs up in prayer!
One update that I’ve been putting off for a while, but feel is necessary is that of our little baby Mukti from Karuna Ghar. I have written several updates and prayer letters about sweet little Mukti, but now find myself full of questions regarding God’s plan for her tiny little life.
In March our community was hit with a hard reality. Legally, when Mukti was brought into our home, Karuna Ghar, we were unable to fill out legal papers properly in order to protect her from any sort of confrontation that may come with her birth parents. The father was in prison at the time, and it was hard living with the unknown possibility that they could one day come back and demand the rights to take their baby back. Well in early March this possibility became a reality when one day, Mukti’s birth mother came back to Karuna Ghar and told Gautam and Rekha that she had decided to take her baby back and raise it on her own.
We were all of course shocked and devastated. After spending so much time nursing Mukti back to health when she was so ill; we had spent nearly 2 months in the hospital with her when she was initially brought to our home suffering from Tuberculosis as a 3-week old baby. And then 4 more months of seeing her thriving and growing up with the Karuna Ghar family. This was a difficult reality to face to say the least.
The situation that her birth parents were in was not a good one either. They were both continuing the use of IV drugs and were living with the father’s parents, however just 4 days after they came to take Mukti they moved back to where they had formerly been living on the street. I especially was having a very difficult time with this. I had known Mukti’s parents long before Mukti was born, and although it was not an easy relationship to be involved in, I had grown to have a deep love for them in my heart. Now this situation made it even more difficult to know what to do.
However, the maturity of our staff and community here shone brightly in the follow days and weeks. Gautam told each of the other girls in the home not to pray that Mukti would come back home, but to pray that God’s will would be done. His heart as a father had been broken, but He knew that his own Heavenly Father was in control. I continue to run into Mukti and her birth parents quite frequently on the street and feel that God has begun the process of healing in my own heart, but I would ask for your continued prayers for us all through this situation. Our deepest desire is that God would be glorified, and we are thankful to know that we were blessed with 6 full months of time with Mukti in our presence. Pray for her safety and our wisdom as we move forward.
“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.” Psalm 61:1-3
Thanks also to everyone who prayed for Mukti during this past fall. We know that her life was spared for a purpose and now that God’s plan continues to be one of prosperity and not harm for her.
More next month… again, I would encourage each of you to keep updated in detail through our new website!!
Love – Brook Birch