Cynthia told me that she had just been at the hospital with her sister, who had cancer. Now, was that her sister in her family or her sister in her congregation? In this case she was referring to a fellow church member. In Hong Kong those who share your faith are called your brothers and sisters. In some cases young people have been disowned by their families when they become Christians. They become very close with their brothers and sisters in Christ.

That is what I thought of last week, as I prepared an English lesson based on the Gospel of Mark for Christians in Nepal.

It was the end of the Dashain Festival. According to an article in the Nepal Traveller magazine: “Like Christmas, it is the holiday when families unite to exchange blessings and gifts, to spread goodwill and to forget feuds and quarrels. Everyone wears new clothes, feasts are spread, and businesses and government functions come to a pleasant halt as one and all make festive visits to their relatives’ homes.” Yet ten Christian leaders spent the festival with three Americans and their fellow Nepalese Christians at the Scripture Learning Center, planning and working for their church.

During the mornings they worked with Dr. Allen Sorum from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary to plan the next step in their ministry – a Bible Institute. The afternoons were divided between translation work and English lessons.  Three teams looked at drafts that had already been translated and made improvements. Others entered the corrections in the Nepali manuscript. Nepali word processing is much more complicated than English. On a bulletin board is a list of 18 special characters and how to make them, that’s besides the characters that the letters on the keyboard stand for. Pastor Paul Hartman, coordinator for Multi-Language Publications, and I divided the group into two classes for lessons in Biblical English, which will help them with future training and translation work.

Jesus “looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, `here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’” (Mark 3:34) Yes, we have many brothers and sisters in Asia.

Carol Hartman