The night before church we were told to be ready by 8am. Our ride didn’t pick us up until 9:30, which seems to be a trend around here. Anyways, we get into the pastors jeep and he drives down what seemed like every bumpy road in Kathmandu for 40 minutes to his home. Church was being held in the front room of his home where 75% of the people there were children. We were all kind of confused as to why church was being held in such a small room and we found out that the church they usually go to is under construction because they lost their home in the earthquake. We sang songs, gave a testimony and shared the word for a few hours.
Afterwards my whole team was in the mindset, “we are tired, time to go home” but the pastor said his plan was that we would have breakfast and tea then rest then leave. So I tried to put a smile on my face and have a joyful heart at the fact that we were going to be there for another hour or so. We had chai tea and white bread and we chatted with the pastors wife for a while asking her about her family and how her and her husband meet and what Nepali life was like. She is such a sweet woman!
1 o’clock rolls around and one of my teammates needs to be back at the house for a meeting by 2. The pastors wife goes and tells the pastor and he said the soonest he could get us home was 2:30 so she was going to have to miss her meeting. Little did we know, the Lord had a lot in store for us for the rest of the day.
In short, we got to see what the church is doing outside of the church. They are building an orphanage; they have shelters for the people in their village who lost their homes in the earthquake/land slide and they spread the love and truth of Jesus everywhere they go. We got to visit those places and pray over the people in it.
While we took our journey home we got stuck on the road twice (also we had a live chicken in the car the whole time, is was their dinner for that night.. ya know the usual).
The first time we were trying to do a little off-roading but got stuck on a big pile of dirt. The second time we got stuck, we were on a road trying to pass two massive trucks and there was a big rock that we ran over and it had gotten stuck under the truck so we couldn’t drive forward or backwards. It’s 4 o’clock at this time and we were all wondering “why did this happen again?” This man holding a cauliflower was walking down the street and stopped to help us get the rock out from under the car. We got back in the car excited to finally be back on the road to home again but we stopped again a minute down the road. We were told that we needed to pray over this man and his family. We were welcomed into this man’s home with open arms and so much hospitality. We meet the family and they made us tea, fresh popcorn and dinner (Maggi noodles Nepali style).
In America this would NEVER happen. To have a stranger invite us into their home after helping us with car troubles. In the states that story usually ends in some sort of kidnapping.
These people didn’t have much but they were so giving. Christ’s heart was so evident in this home. There are four people living in the house. The Cauliflower man had a wife and daughter, his daughter has a daughter and was 3 month pregnant. Her husband (baby daddy) had been in and out for 2 years because he told her if she believed in Jesus he would leave her and not take her back until she stopped believing. The daughter they had was 3 but as small as a one year old. She couldn’t walk or even eat anything really. We found out that she has a hole in her heart that’s why she hasn’t been developing fully. She needs to gain more weight for the surgery to fix it. We prayed over the family, blessings and healing, and for people who don’t believe in the home to come to know Jesus. We felt so loved by this family.
When we got back home, my team and I were filled with so much JOY from the day. With this ministry we only get one full off day a week so it’s been getting exhausting, but knowing that, a day like this is just as good as an off day. Our cups were overflowing and it was by far the best day of the race so far.
