A group of ministers and elders are travelling to Nepal today to meet people they have helped rehouse after a devastating earthquake.
The 18-strong delegation Church of Scotland were visiting the Dhading region of the South Asia country which was devastated nearly three years ago after raising £310,000 to help victims.
The earthquake had a magnitude of 7.8 and about 9,000 people died, 22,000 were injured and around 800,000 buildings were flattened, leaving millions of people homeless and livelihoods ruined.
READ MORE: Lack of organists see churches rely on "hymn karaoke" machines
Kirk members across the country have thrown their support behind the World Mission Council’s “Let us Build a House” fundraising campaign.
Presbyteries and Congregations were initially set the challenge of raising £25,000 to help rebuild communities - houses, schools, bridges, paths and water and electricity supplies - under the banner of £500 can raise a simple village house.
But the campaign captured the imagination of cots and thanks to a wide variety of fundraiser events and donations, the total raised has exceeded £310,000 and growing.
READ MORE: Lack of organists see churches rely on "hymn karaoke" machines
The money has been given to the Church’s partner organisation, United Mission to Nepal (UMN), which is coordinating re-building efforts in the Dhading region.
Douglas Willis, an elder at Fortrose and Rosemarkie Church on the Black Isle, will trek to north Dhading to experience the remoteness of some of the people with whom UMN works and see the difficulties in reconstruction in areas where there are no roads.
READ MORE: Lack of organists see churches rely on "hymn karaoke" machines
The retired teacher, who has visited Nepal before, said “As a geographer, and no doubt because I've lived in the Highlands for so long, I've always been interested in the communities who live and work in mountain areas.
“I'm very keen to see how the resilience of people of faith has enabled communities to respond to such a massive shock situation and to share my experience with church congregations at home.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here