Award for Vorelands
21 Sep 09
Asbjorn and Mia: congratulations!
Asbjorn and Mia: congratulations!

Former INF Director Asbjorn Voreland and his wife Mia are to be presented with a special honour by the King of Norway for their long and illustrious missionary service in Nepal.

'Three couples who have been close friends of ours for many years organised a meal for 80 or so guests to celebrate our initial overland journey to Nepal 45 years ago,' says Asbjorn. 'However, when we got to the meal we were surprised to find that the mayor of our town in Norway was there, and on behalf of the King he awarded us with a medal for our work in Nepal.

'Our children and close friends had known about the honour for some time, but nobody had told us,' he adds. 'We have an invitation to meet the King and Queen at their palace in Oslo, but the date is not certain yet.'

Asbjorn and Mia Voreland arrived in Nepal from Norway in 1964. They worked as teachers in a remote location at Amp Pipal in western Nepal's Gorkha District, Asbjorn was responsible for ten mission-supported schools while Mia worked in formal and non-formal education with local girls and women.

In 1973 they moved to the Kathmandu headquarters of the United Mission to Nepal [UMN], where they worked as administrators and pastoral counsellors until 1979, when their sending mission appointed Asbjorn to serve as its director in Norway,

In 1988 they returned to Nepal, Mia worked as supervisor of UMN's language and orientation programme and later as its church-mission liaison officer.

Asbjorn and Mia have three children. Their daughter Marianne is disabled and they helped to build a network to assist and rehabilitate Nepali children with disabilities and learning difficulties. The resulting day care centres are now supervised by the Nepali organisation Human Development Community Services [HDCS].

In 1997 Asbjorn was elected to serve as the international director of INF, based in Pokhara. After returning to Norway in 2002, Asbjorn served as the director of Open Doors until he retired in 2005.

INF friends and former colleagues would like to congratulate Asbjorn and Mia on their special award.

Join our news feed E-mail this to a friend Printable version