wfn.org | Worker returning to Nepal

[Beth Hawn]

Microsoft Mail v3.0 (MAPI 1.0 Transport) IPM.Microsoft Mail.Note
To:  'Worldwide Faith News'
Date: 1998-08-26 15:03
Priority: 3
Message ID: B4B4541AE23CD211AAB0006008075ABF
Conversation ID: Worker returning to Nepal

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August 26, 1998
Mennonite Board of Missions
Beth Hawn
219-294-7523
<NEWS@MBM.org>

Veteran worker returning to Nepal

ELKHART, Ind. (GCMC/MBM) - When asked about a typical day in her life in   
Nepal,
MBM worker Miriam Krantz answered, "I don't have a typical day."

She doesn't. Whether sleeping in the rain under a plastic sheet, hiking   
for
hours to a clinic high in the mountains or mixing up a batch of her   
"super flour"
porridge, Krantz's days are anything but typical.

This October will mark 35 years of days like that - Krantz has been   
serving with
MBM in Nepal since 1963. To add to her unpredictable schedule, medical
problems in February forced her to return to her home in Pennsylvania for   

treatment and rest.

Krantz, however, doesn't like to sit still. As a post-surgery   
cardiovascular
exercise, she went ice skating. While "shooting the duck," an ice-skating   

maneuver she's been practicing since childhood, Krantz fell and broke her   

wrist.

Although the cast on her arm may make riding her motorcycle just a little   
more
complicated, Krantz is in a hurry to get back home to Nepal. She is "more   
East
than West," she said, and hopes to return in late August. As to what   
she'll be
doing, "it's all up in the air," she said.

Krantz has worked in Nepal as a nutritionist with United Mission to   
Nepal, an
interdenominational, international group dedicated to "serving the people   

of  Nepal in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ." Her work has included
nutrition education and aid to the Nepali people, many of whom are
malnourished. She gained international renown when she developed a
 "super flour" - made up of roasted corn, beans and wheat - to bring
nourishment to many adults and children.

Krantz also is involved in nutrition consultation training to health-care   

workers, a job which often takes her to remote areas. While in these
remote towns she teaches the workers and tries to solve any medical
problems that the people in the area may have. She lectures in the city   
to
graduate and doctoral nutrition students, and she organized a nutrition
program that has since been handed over to Nepali nutritionists.

In recent years, however, Krantz has been working three days a week on   
writing
a book on nutrition in South Asia. Funded by the United Nations   
Children's
Fund, the book covers the nutritional situation in some 17 South Asian
countries. Krantz was asked to co-author the book because of her vast
experience with the nutritional situation in Asia.

In addition to her life's work in Nepal, Krantz has also completed   
several
short-term assignments in other Asian countries, giving her a good
background for such a book. "I'm like a vacuum cleaner," she said. "I   
pick
up information and tuck it away for later."

Plans for the book project are now being discussed.

Depending on the decision regarding the book's completion, Krantz may
return  to full-time nutrition and church work. She attends a Nepali
Christian church that has grown dramatically in the years since the 1990
revolution - several new churches have sprung from the first one, and the   

church in Nepal now has more than 2,000 members. Although Christianity is   

not popular in Hindu Nepal, it is now tolerated.

Churches now meet officially in relative safety and are allowed to have   
large
meetings in public places. "We can have mass meetings since democracy   
came,"
Krantz said. "Well, we have them anyway."

When visiting 97-year-old Janaki, a woman from the church, Krantz sat   
with
her legs in the rain. "She has a very small house - about the size of two   
single
beds," Krantz said. "There is no door to the outside, only a curtain. . .   
I sat
with my head inside the curtain and my legs out in the rain while we   
talked."

That's just another typical day in the life of Miriam Krantz.

* * *
Rachel Lewis