Please pray for our Marriage Seminar

Well, it is 9:00 p.m. Sunday night here and all but two of the families have arrived for the three-day seminar which starts tomorrow. We should have 20 couples in the seminar, 8 grade-school kids that will be cared for by Bill and Mark, and 5 babies and toddlers who will be cared for by two Nepali women.
It is obvious that this group getting together is for them, coming together as family. They are so pleased to see each other and spend time together. Many of them came long distances. Two couples arrived this morning after a 19-hour bus ride (complete with goats, I hear!) from Western Nepal. Uttar and his wife, Manu, (at left in photo) took a 14-hour motorcycle ride over two days to get here. Mark and Bill were teasing me, saying, "Tom, this marriage seminar better be good!"
I feel so blessed to get to spend these next three days with these folks. We will all be learning together, I hope.
Today the four of us walked up to Mount Olive to meet with Basu (second from left, next to Memory), the principal of the high school. He is full of ideas for improving the education for his students and for partnering with Americans. We discussed his plans for creating a computer lab at his school. Mohan has shared with us how important it is to him for FMC to be supporting improvements in the community as part of their mission to the community.
Just down the hill is the FMC Training Center and Mohan gave us a tour and shared about their ministry there. It is incredible how much they've done on so little. They have built the Training Center for only $17,000 and it includes a classroom, kitchen, seven bedrooms, a dorm room, bathrooms, and storage rooms. Several of the FMC staff live at the Center and they use it many times each year for trainings for the FMC staff.
When we arrived back in Pokhara from Mount Olive we saw these two women who greeted us. I thought that I recognized the older woman from yesterday when Bill and I worked on the road with the villagers. But these women greeted Memory as if she were a long-lost sister, and I'm sure that neither of them had met her before. They hugged her and smiled and they and Memory spoke back and forth, none of them understanding hardly anything that was being spoken. This country seems to be filled with warm, friendly people. And you mix that with Memory Lamfers and you have yourself quite a love fest!
Yesterday Memory finished up the three-day Teacher Training Conference and it was a resounding success. So many of the teachers raved about how helpful it had been to them. Mohan asked Bill and I if we would head up to Mount Olive (about a 50-minute walk from here) and pitch in with the villagers on their project of improving the gravel road to their village. Mohan has been a catalyst for helping the people of Mount Olive to come together and improve the road which gets washed out during the monsoon. It was such a joy to see that community working together on that project. The work yesterday should have completed enough of the improvements to get the daily bus going again between Mount Olive and Pokhara. Here is Bill carrying a rock that was HUGE.
As I write this, now at about 10:00 p.m here in Nepal, it is 10:15 a.m. in Arvada and I can picture you at Trinity visiting between services. I am so glad to be here as your representative. May God's rich blessings be yours this week.
Jaymasi, (the Nepali Christian greeting: "To Jesus be the Victory")
Tom