The countdown is on! - 2 weeks to go...

It's finally sinking in that I am actually going to Nepal. In two weeks' time.

Raewyn and I are going tramping this weekend as our final preparation for the trip. We're heading up to Tongariro National Park to do part or all of the Tongariro Northern Circuit - it'll depend on the weather, how much snow is there, how much progress we're able to make etc.

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that GFA is not able to host us in Nepal nor in India and that we were looking into other mission organisations. We contacted about half a dozen, and got half a dozen 'thanks for your enquiry but...' replies. We decided that if we didn't get anything sorted by the end of September we'd change our flights to come back straight after the trek. It would be disappointing, since the GFA/missions part of it was the whole reason for going, but we could try to rest in the knowledge that we tried our best.
While I was in London I was struck by the verse, 'You have not, because you ask not' (James 4:2). So I prayed about it, saying sorry to God for not having prayed more about the situation and just committing it all to Him (again). Then when I turned my computer on, there was an email from the Calvary Chapel Bible College in Kathmandu saying they'd be happy to have us minister with them. We now have to raise some more money to cover our costs, but we've received a little bit from people at church. It's great that people support what we're doing.

In the meantime I'm trying to knock a few things off my to-do list at work. When I get back from Nepal, I have about a week before heading to Melbourne for the Australian Synchrotron User Meeting, followed by beamtime! But I promise, after that I won't be going away anywhere for a while. At least until after Christmas.


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It was good to get home from Europe. I enjoyed being in Berlin again - not so much London (but that was mostly to do with my accommodation - it was really noisy). It was good to catch up with Mary, my supervisor at Imperial College when I did my post-doc there. And it was really good to catch up with the folks from Calvary Chapel London, who somehow still remembered me after all this time!

Catching up with Pastor Alwyn Wall