Earthquake in Nepal

We have not updated this Blog in some time.  The internet is so slow in Nepal that it take hours.  That is no excuse for now.  Even though we knew this mission would be an adventure, it has turned out to be more than we had ever imagined.  The Lord knows all and in someway we were put in Nepal doing humanitarian work when the largest earthquake in the last 80 years decided to unleash.  There were so many miracles that happened that day and the following days that we cannot list them.  We definitely were protected and the members of our Branch were protected.

We will not tell our story in this post but we wanted to share some pictures.  I did not take a lot of pictures.  For one, the camera was only working half the time.  I have now purchased my third camera of our mission - one we lost the first day in Kathmandu, one that quit working for a multitude o reason, and the new one we bought in Thailand.  For a little background, we were not together when the earthquake hit.  Chris was on the 7th floor of our apartment doing the final preparations for a dinner with the youth.  The Branch meets on Saturdays, another blessing, and I was watching delayed conference.  We were watching the Saturday afternoon session when the earthquake hit.  Chris ran down the 7 flights of stairs, essentially unharmed.  We met in the road that runs by the apartment.  It was a joyous reunion.

Here are some pictures and captions.

The members and neighbors gathered on the road near the chapel.

We had to sit much of the time as the aftershocks kept coming and we could not stand up.

The youth started to sing hymns and all of us took comfort while singing.

Cell phones were used to locate members and family.

After a while we gathered back in the courtyard to put together a plan.

This is the chapel.  Not heavily damaged but of poor construction.  Many buildings similar to this came down.  This chapel damaged enough to be unsafe to continue to use for meetings.

We waited and waited!  The water cooler became our earthquake indicator.  About every 15 minutes we would watch and feel the tremors.  After everyone went to their homes, we slept outside under the tree you see in this picture.

Another picture in the chapel showing some of the damage.  There is crack from the drapes to the electrical conduit.  We were blessed it did not come down.

About half of the back wall came down.

Here is where we slept in the American Embassy for two nights.

This was the day of the quake when we were walking to the Shangrala. It is near the Teaching Hospital.  There were shops under this building.  

People gathered where ever they could outside.  The rains continued to come down and the earth continued to shake.

Here is our apartment.  Fortunately still standing but we will not live there.

Some of the cracks.

This is a corner support.

Here is the entry to our apartment.  Almost everything was on the floor.

More apartment.

Here is a wall on a fifth floor apartment.  Yes, that is daylight.

Here is our apartment and the field next to it.  Rukmina and her family stayed here for some time.  We were flown out to Bangkok on the 28th.

On our revisit we visited Bhaktapur.  Here is a section of highway that fell 4 feet.

This is Maya.  She and her aunt lost their home.

Here is the front of Maya's home.  Doesn't look too bad from this photo.  Look at the next.

Here is Maya's home from the back.  They would not even let us go back there as the buildings all around are crumbling.

I liked this picture of a dog watching the people from a window.

Here is Elder Funk talking to the Branch.  He brought great comfort.  We stopped in Kathmandu on our way from Thailand to Hong Kong.  We spent 3 days in Nepal.

The members took great comfort in being together.

Here is our new apartment.  Not a crack in it.  In fact it is the only building I saw in Nepal that did not show a crack.