The kids finished their semester exams and had a week holiday.  We took them outside the valley to Pharping, a rural town with several Buddhist pilgrimage sites, clean air and mountain views.  4 boxes of Christmas presents also arrived!  My mom Heidi gathered 20 shoeboxes full of gifts for the kids.  At first the kiddos didn’t know what to do with the boxes but once they realized the cool stuff inside was really for them they were elated!  That night they couldn’t sleep and several snuck out of their beds to check on their new markers, crayons, hairclips etc.  On Saturday they decided to write thank you cards and draw pictures to show their  gratitude.  3 hours later they were still coloring, cutting, writing and designing their Masterpieces of Thanks.        

Across the valley the nuns of Ngoedrub Charbeb Ling nunnery are preparing for a trip to Bodhgaya, India to participate in the Nyingma Monlam, an annual prayer festival where thousands of monks, nuns and Ngakpas pray and meditate 8-12 hours a day together for two weeks straight while seated around a tree marking the place where Shakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment.  The nuns are excited for their teacher to return in a few weeks and are hoping for more support to start coming for the monastery.

Tags: buddhism, christmas, nepal, orphan, orphans, tibetan nun project

This entry was posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 2:34 pm by luke and is filed under making a difference in nepal, ocayhn home, padma updates, the nun project. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.