Our Christmas Trip to Nepal has become a regularly scheduled event on the calendar now. I guess we will do it every year. It is the time that we begin work on the annual updates on each child in the program-- both for our own records and for the sponsors. Beginning with Nepal, we travel to each country, taking the new photos, filling in the reports, distributing and receiving letters between the children and the sponsors. It is very time consuming and must be done very carefully. The names of the children are often very similar and if they are new to the program, I might not recognize them by face. So, step one is to identify the correct child. Step 2 is to get the proper identification on each item-- photo, report, letter. Step 3 is to make sure we have all the materials as we leave each place. The, there are so many more little steps as we update our data space, scan reports into folders, label and file the photos. I am so grateful for the people who help with all of these necessary things. I went to Nepal with a team of 4 women ( including me). We packed Christmas bags for more than 500 children. We traveled to or from another area in Nepal almost every day. When we returned to our guest house each night, it was time to pack bags for the next day. But the reward was seeing the children get their bags. These were poor children who would receive very little, if anything for Christmas. Their bags contained a Bible and song book, a Christmas craft, toothbrush, hand knitted hat, letters from their sponsor, T-shirt, school supplies, candy. They also heard the Christmas story from Scripture. If the child was new to our program, s/he might have been hearing the story for the very first time. What a privilege to be the one to share it with them.
