"World Changers! Let's go!" Our contact Ruben shook the sleep out of his eyes and shouted at us, his high pitched voice echoing off the concrete walls of the cold, desolate house we had been staying at all week.
We were all cleared out and ready to go, leaving behind a village called Urlabari and a half built orphanage we had been helping to construct. We stood on the dusty road in front of the house, our packs strapped on our backs, secured across our chests and hips, with all the gear we anticipated we would need for a week out in the Nepalese wilderness. Tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, work gloves and lots of layers of clothing. We aimed at packing light and left a good majority of our belongings behind. We were ready and eager for an adventure, not at all sure exactly what that entailed. 'Wherever the wind blows us,' is a standard response of mine whenever someone asks, 'where are we going?' Welp, God must have taken a deep, deep inhale and then some to get enough power behind the gust of wind he blew over us this past week.
After walking for about 20 or so minutes, the straps of my pack with it's nagging weight already making an indent in my shoulders, we hopped on a jam packed bus for about 40 minutes, standing elbow to elbow all the while, then skipped across the road and jumped into another sketchy looking covered jeep/bus/van.
The fellas had the pleasure of riding on top while the girls were packed inside like a can of sardines. About 20 minutes later we found ourselves at another village quite a ways off the beaten path to grab some grub before we started the hike.
Fried eggs and apples down the hatch and we were ready to go. Now, this is more of the extreme type stuff I pictured doing when I signed up for the Race. Climbing and hiking with our gear, blazing a trail through the wilderness to reach the unreachable people of the world. Away from the hustle and bustle of the city, no crowded streets, no honking horns and crazy traffic, no filthy smog clogging the air. We were headed for a remote village in the jungle slash mountains, with plans to help construct a school for the local children, as there is no reachable school within miles and miles of the village.
Following Ruben's lead, we geared up again and headed for the road less traveled. A dainty path leading to the middle of nowhere. And the first place it took us was knee deep in the middle of a river.
Our thrill seeking clan eagerly crossed the river…then crossed it again and again and again as it spiraled and curved through the hills and valleys that make up the foothills of the Himalayas.
Now, I consider myself to generally be an athletic person, but I'd be lying if I said that this journey wasn't physically challenging for me. As I wiped the beads of sweat trickling from my forehead and found myself trying to keep from toppling over in the middle of the rushing current, crotch high in the middle of this river, balancing in my bare feet thinking, 'Why the heck do I put myself through this kind of crazy stuff?" I was reminded of this verse in Isaiah 43:
"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned YOU by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you."
God spoke many times in the bible about His protection for those who followed Him and accepted His saving word. In this specific passage, God was promising to take care of those who returned to Him-the first group of which were those who needed to have faith to leave captivity in Babylon and make the arduous trip back to Jerusalem and Judah to reestablish the nation of Israel. I needed to be reminded that God chose ME to embark on this crazy river fording, trail blazing adventure, he chose ME to deliver His good news to people living in a remote village in the middle of nowhere, he chose ME to bring hope to the hopeless and He chose ME to love the lost.
The hike ended up taking us a total of 3 hours, not too shabby for a group of 19 (we were partnered with 2 other teams this month, team Pursuit and team Awaken Depth.)
About two hours into the hike, when the exact destination and estimated time of arrival was still a big fat question mark, I took a breather. Swallowing down a swig of water I began to think about the children that would have to trek this hike EVERY SINGLE DAY, there and back, just to get to school. Granted, the hike was absolutely beautiful and peaceful in a way, despite the difficulty, soft glittery sand flushing between my toes and the refreshing sting of ice cold water splashing off my legs and keeping we wide awake. But the reality is that a handful of small children actually die each year attempting to cross the river just to get to school. I screwed the cap back on my nalgene and continued onward.
After the 14th and final river crossing, we were told it would just be a straight hike from here on out, no more water crossings. We traded out our bare-feet or flip flops for our sneakers and pressed on.
Uphill all the way, we encountered some rather skinny cliff edges, steep ravines, and narrow passageways, but a short while later, out of breathe and sporting some well-earned back sweat, we arrived here:
A quaint little wooden house on stilts. Home sweet home for the week. The boys slept in the ground floor room that was three-quarters of the way enclosed while the girls tented inside the upper floor and on the porch upstairs. Two or three to a tent to save space and pack weight of course.
Despite our sore muscles and exhaustion, we got a wake up call at 6am the next morning. Breakfast was ready. We awoke to a cozy little campfire and would start our days and end them with one. The smell of thick bon fire smoke soon saturated our hair and clothes for the remainder of the week.
The bathroom was…everywhere. We pooped in the woods, brushed our teeth and spat in the grass and when it was time to 'shower' we hiked down the mountainside to the river to bathe with a bar of soap in hand.
The first morning we were sent maneuvering our way through the thick fog and narrow foot trails of the mountain, back down to the river where we were to meet a truck that had supplies and food for the week. We each pitched in, carrying what we could back to the house then made a second trip down to the river. My next job was to fetch river water in a metal canister and lug it all the way back to the house carefully trying to spill as little as possible so we had enough water to wash the breakfast dished with. In the meantime the truck had unloaded a gigantic pile of cinder blocks at the base of the mountain and it was our job was to get them from there to the partially built school which was…a long ways away. What was the most logical mode of attack for said workload? The good ole' fashioned assembly line.
We slipped on our work gloves and got into position. Receiving a block from in front and handing it over to the next person in line. We stretched out and made 4 different assembly lines the 1st day, passing them up the mountain, down a valley, along a creek to another mountainside and managed to conglomerate the pile half way up and leave them there for the following days work. All the time while working, village people would randomly come and go, quietly weaving in and out of the trails, carrying baskets of sand and canisters of water on their heads. Being my friendly self, I would always say hi, but in the local dialect of course.
First thing to do is check for the little red dot on the forehead. This would signify that they are Hindu and the traditional 'namaste' in unison with hands folded at the chest and slight bow is the appropriate greeting. If they we not sporting a red dot between the eyes, a Christian greeting of 'jemasee' would be appropriate. Little kids and old grannies alike were toting things up and down the mountain. Washing dishes and clothes in the fresh creek water and collecting bamboo for building things.We had a lot of fun playing with the local kids and praying for people. A few village people treated us to tea made with fresh cows milk and lemonade on occasion.
It took two full to days of work and many assembly lines but several hundred blocks later we were ready to begin construction.
We collected sand from the base of the river and filtered it for cement. Mixed the concrete. Plastered it down and started building the walls. We cleaned up the school-yard, hacking down bushes and shrubbery and trees and making the property look nice and clean. The school should hold about 30-35 students, all younger kids and locals in the village. The World Race teams that had been to this location in the past actually created the design of the school and helped to start build it. Ruben said they hoped to open it this upcoming April or May.
On Sunday we had the pleasure of attending the local church. It was an amazing morning of worship and praise. We sat on the floor of a one room building. Shoes off, girls on the right, boys on the left.
After church we were invited to go electric fishing with the locals. Of course we accepted the invite and soon learned all about this "leisure" activity.
It's quite simple really, all you do is take two long, skinny bamboo sticks, jam some metal on the end, get some wires and attach them to a generator. Get two of your buddies to haul the generator around through the winding river and slimy jagged rocks while you find the fish and zap the current that they're swimming in. Several people stand a ways down-stream to catch the stunned fish and bag them. We ate good for dinner that night. And had some delicious fried eel that we caught as well. Nom nom!
One of the girls in our group had been sick for the entirety of our time in the village up to this point and needed hospital attention. We were out in the middle of nowhere, hours away from civilization and hiking back through the mountains and crossing the river 14 times was not an option for her. So what did the locals decide to do? Build her a raft and have her float down the river back to safety. They ended up constructing a make-shift one out of the shafts of two banana trees, some bamboo, an inner tube and rope. Praise the Lord, she made it back a little wet but safe and sound!
The following days we continued working. Building the school in the mornings and bathing in the river in the afternoons. As our days panned out to a regular routine, I began to think about the way of life here. One of the first things about this place that really struck me was the simplicity of it. The peacefulness that just lingered in the air. The oneness that this village lived in and represented. These village people took care of one another. They voluntarily shared with each other. They delivered water to one another's houses, freely gave food they had home grown from the soil, and welcomed one another into their homes with open arms. They truly loved their neighbors as themselves. They encompassed the idea of sustainability truly living in the essence of community that the early church's in the book of Acts experienced.
"They devoted themselves to the apostles teachings and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and processions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Acts 2: 42-47
And this is exactly the type of community that we strive to live in on the World Race. At training camp we do an exercise where they take half of the squads packs away, therefore half of the squads belongings away. We are expected to take care of one another and be able to survive off of what we have. Living in community means being able to sustain one another. 'What's mine is yours and yours is mine,' is something I say to my teammates often and truly mean it.
One evening under the bright Nepalese stars, clenching onto my steaming cup of tea with my fingerless wool gloves, huddled around the campfire, I asked Ruben what the name of this village was. "Dun-dun-gee' he said. "You know how they get this name?" He went onto explain, "This place used to be all witchdoctors. They would do their witchcraft and make sacrifices and sing and chant and dance and play their drums. Dun-dun-gee, dun-dun-gee, was the sound of them pounding on their drums into the late hours of the night. The people across the river heard this sound echoing through the trees, dun-dun-gee, dun-dun-gee."
This struck me as a surprise as there was not a trace of this sort of darkness anywhere near this mountaintop village. So much of the Eastern world is blinded by deception and living in this heavy darkness.. But Dun-dun-gee has a certain light about it, a certain brightness that not even the darkest most evil spirit of oppression could bog down. Their example as well as the example set by the first Christians in the book of Acts show point blank how the gospel can re-arrange everything. It can rearrange our economics, our relationships, our attachments. They are a thriving example of the radical changes brought about by the Holy Spirit.
As we concluded our week in Dun-dun-gee and headed out of the village back into the wild and across the river, the Lord put one of my favorite verses from the books of Matthew on my heart, which I will leave you with, complete with a little fine-tune editing by me 🙂
"You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill (a village built on a mountainside) cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on it's stand, an it gives light to everyone in the house." Matthew 5:14-15
