Those arrested recently in Western Nepal have finally been released by the authorities. Earlier it was reported that the US woman was deported and had pledged to return. I’m not sure if she’d be allowed. As I mentioned earlier the attacks of Sri Lanka (a new article with more understanding) and how it has affected many in the region by empowering some to rise against Christians and causing others to be wary. Here’s a good article to catch you up on all the recent ramifications. It additionally tells of the release of all involved in those arrests after a week. It seems to report that she was not deported after all. It is hard to get proper details at times, even in the media. I try my best to document what I report, but my sources are not failproof. Nepali press is reporting that the consulate/embassy actually intervened. I find that quite doubtful. Apparently, though, she is still in Nepal regardless. It would seem as this article reports that locals demonstrated and paved the way for a better outcome. It would also seem the earlier reports were not entirely accurate.

Muslims in Nepal

Someone asked me about Muslims in Nepal, so I’ve posted the above video on Hindu Nationalism. Here’s a more recent article on Muslims in Nepal. Hopefully, this article and a few of the earlier ones can help anyone interested to see what it is like to be in the minority here. You can see how Muslims are affected and how it compares with the treatment of Christians. Religious freedom in Nepal is tricky at best.

Bird Flu

Also, here is an update on the bird flu situation. People have now died. We are still avoiding chicken. If everything tastes like chicken, I suppose one just should eat everything else until the flu flies because the chickens can’t fly all too high. Go figure!

Cat 4 Storm

Additionally, this morning, a category 4 storm hit India named Cyclone Fani and has sent more rain our way. Nearly 100 million appear to be affected in India. Many of those had to be evacuated. They have been doing well at these pre-storm maneuvers recently as I recall. We sure didn’t need any more rain and certainly are in no danger as compared to those in India.

They have not been hit by such a storm for almost two decades. In the wakes of severe persecution and the death of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons, a similar storm belted the same area back then. Here are two updated article revisiting those events two decades ago, and this one. While visiting the region myself during the 2008 persecutions, I was told by an Indian pastor that a member of parliament while in session begged for Jesus’ forgiveness for the persecution seeing the storm as some form of Biblical judgment. I could not find anything to document that claim.

How Young Believers in the East are Affected by those Older in the Faith in the West

As you can begin to see, what affects neighbors in the region here has a significant impact on Nepal. What happens to Christians in the world affects Christians here to a much stronger degree than per se those in the West. Even what happens to Western Christians significantly impact those in the East here. Conversely, what other groups do to Christians also affect what others end up doing to believers here. It is quite a relationship and sets a strong measure of responsibility on those “older in the family of the faith” to act wisely as those “younger” are watching and deeply affected.

Christians here look with “honor” upon others in the family all across the globe. They also connect to any “shame” and share it more than Westerners can imagine. I can only point to David deSilva’s book on this topic to advise one on how to better understand such connections that are still very much alive here that go all the way back to antiquity. It is crucial to understand the world here and also the worldview and culture of the Bible as a whole.

There is a certain amount of this idea of momentum, whether up or down that affects people in general over here. It is to a much larger extent here than I realized when I lived in the West. It seems to me to be much more inherent here. People here are well communal.

It carries even beyond Asia. I cannot discern if I’ve changed personally by living here. Or, perhaps my studies of authors like DeSilva has made me aware that it’s the same in the West. Maybe people here are just that much closer to the Biblical worldview and the West is more removed. It was reported in India that 19 students committed suicide over their exam results. I cannot fathom if the shootings in the West are somehow similar in some sense that people keep doing this because they feel connected to those who did such violence in the past. Many see suicide as their only option to tell the world here that it needs to change. Apparently, they feel that they have no other way in which to express the need for that change to come. Let’s hope their deaths matter in bringing some sort of change.

This incident here shows the communal nature of Asians in their thinking. This is only a recent example. Each felt the need to end their own life because the pressure they would face ended any chance of a proper life. Stereotypes had already made them out to be failures before the truth could be known. They also now have made them as a statistic.

As I stated in a previous update, it is akin to what one sees in a game where things seem to work for or against a particular team, and it carries or drags on the rest of the members. Sort of an ebb and flow type atmosphere that seemingly is ingrained in thinking in those religious over here that drives them positively or negatively into their actions. They are in “communion or fellowship” with all those of like faith across the planet. In the West, we tend to stereotype. Here in the East, they join in any group whom they feel indebted because of the kind of patronage DeSilva describes in that same volume. They also very much stereotype others based upon any group that others share in.