New Life Church in Kathmandu
Aldham Parish Church, along with St. Andrew's Church, Marks Tey have supported the New Life Church in Kathmandu since 2003 when it established the Grace Children's Home. Initially, the Pastor and his wife took 3 orphans into their home. In 2005 we helped with some funding for the orphans' building project but it was not enough for what was needed. So they invested in land and later they sold it and purchased the house for orphans which cost £44,000. Later on they extended with the another flat on top of this building at a cost of £13,000. Compared to UK property prices this seems quite cheap, but in Kathmandu it is not. Although we did manage to send a little help with this project they still had to take out a bank loan. There are other churches in the UK that help to support the New Life Church in Kathmandu.
Before they were able to buy this house, the children used to live with the Pastor in his house. The Children's Home is now registered with the Nepalese Government as a charity. Since then, we have helped with orphanage running costs and other building expenses for the ever expanding New Life Church.
A recent letter from the Pastor told us that two young adults who had 'graduated' from Grace Home were going on to further study; one in management, another in science, and was hoping to become a doctor.
In the last 5 or 6 years the New Life Church in Kathmandu has planted two churches in ‘neighbouring’
villages. In Nepal, ‘neighbouring’ means up to 3 days on foot or by all-terrain vehicles. The ‘worshippers’ at these churches walk up to 2 miles to get to church. This village church plant, a 13-hour bus ride from Kathmandu, was dedicated on 29 September 2010. Fortunately, building costs in the villages are not as high as in Kathmandu.
Here is a newsletter from the Pastor, Chitra Karki, written in April 2014:
Then the earthquake struck on 25 April 2015. What happened is best told in the pastor's newsletters:
Since September 2015, a conflict between India and Nepal has all but cut Nepal off from the rest of the world, preventing fuel, gas and medicines from getting through. This is how it affected the New Life Church.
The latest newsletters from Chitra were in April & December 2018, August 2019, December 2020, March 2021 and November 2022.
New Church Building and dedication. November 2022