Today we had a challenge day with our squad, our mission was to go out into Kathmandu without any food, money, phones, cameras, all of it. We just left everything behind to see how God would move through us when we have “nothing”. I’ll be the first to admit that I was not excited for the day, that is not my ideal day of ministry and honestly I didn’t expect much to happen.
So here’s the story, we had a translator with us for the day, his name is Bipin, we went out to the street and just began walking and praying to see where the Lord would lead us and we walked for a while up this mountain talking with different people but nothing really stood out to us until we reached these five women sitting on the side of the road. We asked if we could sit and talk with them and that led to them inviting us into their house for food. Uh answered prayer right there, us Americans were starving! Little did we know what we were in for though. We walked into their house and up to their living room (we sat on their roof) next to the kitchen. Bipin was translating everything because none of them really spoke any English and he said they wanted to treat us to a traditional Nepalese meal. After a little while our host walked in with huge plates of food, I can’t even explain how enormous these plates were and how piled up it was. We sat and ate, talked for hours about each other we tried talking about Jesus, they were Hindu and scared of what other people would think if they ever converted but said we could pray for them in our hearts. So we just continued a friendship with them and then came tea, we walked in the kitchen and stood speechless. They had prepared for us all the food they had in their home, and when I say all, I mean there wasn’t a scrap of food to be seen. Our team was hit hard with humbleness and just pure astonishment. These people make hardly any money, and prepared more than enough food that could be eaten in one sitting. If that weren’t enough we were barefoot in the outdoor kitchen and she took her pillows and placed them under our feet. Our eyes all swelled up with tears in awe of these strangers who welcomed us in knowing we had nothing to offer them but our company. So we just began to pour out everything we had to them, loving on them, encouraging them to seek out the Lord and telling them how much they are loved by a God who they don’t even know but wants them so badly. We tried to explain how God led us right to them and there was a purpose in our meeting them, nothing really happened but our hearts are forever changed and our prayer is that we were a taste of Jesus to those beautiful women searching for their identity and hope but instead being drained by all these other gods and fear of their religion.
More than anything the Lord keeps showing me how much he doesn’t need us to change the world, he can and already does do that without us but chose us. He is using this as an opportunity to draw us closer and shape the way we will continue to live in obedience with him for the rest of our lives. OH ALSO another thing, we were gifted a free bus ride back to our house!! GOD ALWAYS shows up when his children ask, it just doesn’t continually look like we want it to. In this case it was better!!!
