Today we went to church and it was a great experience. James came to pick us up about 10:15 and we were surprised to see him. The pastor had told us that he was going to send a car for us, but we thought James lived in Kalimpong. Anyway, we got there with lots of time because the service didn't start until 11, so we visited with Elder Mohinder Kumar, a very lovely older gentleman who was very welcoming and friendly. He is the father of 12 children and has lots of grandchildren, many of whom came into the church, bowed to him and received an affectionate bop on the head as blessing.
The littlest church members
The church is very well-attended and they even have to put chairs at the end of the pews to hold everyone who comes to church. The courtyard outside has a wall on the street and they're going to put a covering over the open space between the roof of the church and the top of the wall to handle the overflow crowd (plus put in a PA system so people can hear the service).
Today was Compassion Sunday and the first 3 rows were filled with children, most of whom, Elder Kumar told us, were non-Christian. They come for Sunday School and to participate in church activities. The beginning of the service consisted of a bunch of praise songs, led by the young people. There was a teenaged boy with a guitar who was leading the songs and singing into a microphone. He has a very good voice and seemed very confident. The children all sang with gusto, including a boy who looked like he was 6 or 7 and seemed to know all the words.
Elder Kumar conducted the service (not sure where the pastor was) and first welcomed us with the traditional Nepali white fabric stole. Then he called Jimmy up to give a short message. Elder Kumar translated and Jimmy gave a good message about Christian unity. We were pleased to see that there were female participants in the service as well as male. One young girl read the Scripture and an adult woman (who we later found out was a school principal) gave a long presentation on Compassion Sunday. Elder Kumar preached the sermon and while it was in Nepali, so we couldn't understand it, it seemed to be interesting and entertaining to the congregation. It seemed like he punctuated his message with stories or anecdotes, so he kept the congregation paying attention.
After the service, Elder Kumar had us stand outside the front door and we greeted everyone as they came out with “Jai Masih” – Long live the Messiah. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming. We had a cup of coffee and then James took us back to the hotel. We've been cherishing this down time so much that we were looking forward to the nice lunch at the hotel and being with each other.
We went shopping after lunch and all of us bought some things. We seem like we're close to finishing buying presents for everyone, so that's a good thing. Then it was back to the hotel where Grace and I had tea and met some of the new arrivals. After that I packed Grace (trying to get everything into her suitcase was a challenge). Then it was time for drinks in the bar and we had another nice conversation with Elizabeth Clark, our hostess. She says we're good public relations for the Presbyterian Church. Dinner was fabulous, as usual. We had comfort foods today – macaroni and cheese for lunch and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for dinner.
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