God's Grace in Fractures

About 3 weeks ago, Asher fell from the sliding frame in the school's playground and fractured his upper arm near the elbow. That was the beginning of a nightmare for us as parents as the normal routine around the house now seemed to focus on the arm in the sling and the boy wearing it. Greater than this is the anxiety that continually plagues us when Asher plays, jumps, runs and climbs as if his arm is healthy as normal...until he falls now and then on his plastered arm and our hearts jump out of our ribcage. All our warnings and threats seem to turn into deaf ears and our best intentions are ignored. When I think I cannot handle this mental torture anymore, I think about God and affirm myself of His grace. Call it helplessness, butI certainly must admit that short of tying Asher down to a chair, I know I can not do anything to prevent what may happen if it should happen. But I know God and trusted in His grace. Compared to my initial reaction to this episode of Asher's fractured elbow, I no longer pray for instant healing and doubt if my faith is enough for it to take place, I thank God for the healing taking place slowly but surely in Asher's arm; I no longer worry myself to destruction with things I canot control but I trusted God that His grace will lead us through even if He allows the worst to happen to Asher. To be able to trust God's grace brings much rest in my heart. I feel that I need not fight for what I want to see in the outcome but simply allow God to do what I cannot control. I think it takes more faith to trust God unconditionally, regardless of the outcome of circumstances than to trust in His instant healing.

Asher's fractured arm has allowed me to experience again God's grace enveloped in His love and taken me on through another journey of learning about the way God works and my faith in Him.

When Asher broke his arm, the first doctor we consulted suggested an operation with pins inserted to stabilised the fracture; the second doctor suggested a plaster and allow healing to take place. We opted for the latter and thank God that the fracture is healing well despite a minimal displacement which will be corrected by itself with time.

About Sindhu Students' Hostel

After we were married in 2000, our first "baby" - the Sindhu Students Hostel was born. The Hostel serves to provide accommodation, food and education to students from the rural regions of Nepal. The name 'Sindhu' came about from our vision to increase the low literacy rate amongst the Tamang ethnic community in the Sindhupulchowk district, north-east of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Statistics reflected a scary low literacy rate of 20% amongst the Tamangs (1998). This may have changed through the years but the goal to make education accessible to all children and youth in the Tamang community living in the mountainuous terrain of Nepal remains a challenge.

The Hostel provides education opportunity for students from age ranging from 12 to 18. Most of the students had completed their elementary education but were unable to further their studies because high school could be more than an hour's walk away from their village. In many cases, the students would drop off from school; the boys would become extra help to their parents in the fields, whilst the girls would be arranged to be married off by their parents in their teenage years. Since most villages are subsistence farmers, they are unable to send their children for boarding schools in towns and cities. Though the students do not pay for staying the hostel, their

parents contribute in kind the crops that are produced in their fields, such as rice, potatoes or dried vegetables. The Goat-Rearing Programme was started in 2004 to provide another means for parents to be involved in the Hostel (Read about the Goat-rearing Programme in another post).

My First Post

That was us in SingMa Foodcourt - a Singaporean-Malaysian restaurant in Kathmandu, capital of Nepal. Asher, our eldest boy is with us enjoying familiar home food in a foreign land, where we have lived for the lat 10 years. Pasang (left) and I have been married since 2000 and we have been living and working in Nepal in the field of education. The Sindhu Students Hostel was started to support students from the remote parts of Nepal to continue their secondary school education where schools are not accessible in the mountainous regions of Nepal. Most of these students are from poor villages and most of them drop off from school.