Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, at sunset.
A few months during our final days in Hong Kong, I borrowed a Lonely Planet travel guide to Nepal and began soaking up everything about these people I could in the few days we had before our flight to Kenya. Even then I wondered if God would ever send me to this amazing country. And even before then during our time in the Philippines, I began dreaming of what Tibet would be like, wondering if I’d ever be able to head there. And finally during our weeks in Northern India, I immediately began to fall in love with the people here, partly remembering what the Indians were like from going to college with so many of them, and partly because I feel like God has placed them on my heart now more than He ever has. I don’t know why, but I’m growing to love the people of the Himalaya in all of these three nations. Far more than anyone anywhere we’ve been so far.
Excitingly part of our team did have the wonderful privilege of actually visiting Nepal, seeing Everest, and praying for and sharing with the people of Kathmandu! Yesterday, we returned to India from Nepal early afternoon to spend about sixteen more memorable hours in the Delhi airport waiting for our flight to Kyiv. And as we finally lifted off of the runway from India this morning, I felt my heart breaking to leave this place. Even as I wait here in the airport in Ukraine for the remaining members of my team to fly in through Austria, I’m constantly fighting tears because I just want to go back. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about people in another country before. I love the beauty of the Himalayas…and yet surprisingly I think my love is more for the people than the place. God has so much love for the “Himalayans”, and I feel his heart for them. They are beautiful and yet desperately hurting. Most of them are in slavery to Hinduism or Buddhism – physically and spiritually oppressed by dead gods and the real Satan that cannot and will not love them.
Yet we’re here in what feels like the Western world now, though. Even though Ukraine is still not as wealthy as the West, it still seems much like America right now. It’s comfortable, the roads are nice, and most people go about their own business. And it’s almost too quiet. I often need the serenity and the beauty of the wilderness. But I miss the sea of people in Nepal and India. I miss their curiosity, the chaos, the beautiful colors of their clothing, even though it all sometimes overwhelming. I miss it because I now see so much beauty in them. And I’m hurting inside. I long to return someday…perhaps for a long time. I know this is love.
Excitingly part of our team did have the wonderful privilege of actually visiting Nepal, seeing Everest, and praying for and sharing with the people of Kathmandu! Yesterday, we returned to India from Nepal early afternoon to spend about sixteen more memorable hours in the Delhi airport waiting for our flight to Kyiv. And as we finally lifted off of the runway from India this morning, I felt my heart breaking to leave this place. Even as I wait here in the airport in Ukraine for the remaining members of my team to fly in through Austria, I’m constantly fighting tears because I just want to go back. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about people in another country before. I love the beauty of the Himalayas…and yet surprisingly I think my love is more for the people than the place. God has so much love for the “Himalayans”, and I feel his heart for them. They are beautiful and yet desperately hurting. Most of them are in slavery to Hinduism or Buddhism – physically and spiritually oppressed by dead gods and the real Satan that cannot and will not love them.
Yet we’re here in what feels like the Western world now, though. Even though Ukraine is still not as wealthy as the West, it still seems much like America right now. It’s comfortable, the roads are nice, and most people go about their own business. And it’s almost too quiet. I often need the serenity and the beauty of the wilderness. But I miss the sea of people in Nepal and India. I miss their curiosity, the chaos, the beautiful colors of their clothing, even though it all sometimes overwhelming. I miss it because I now see so much beauty in them. And I’m hurting inside. I long to return someday…perhaps for a long time. I know this is love.
Gods at the Swayambhunath temple in Kathmandu, Nepal. Many people are in slavery to these images.
Pictures of downtown Kathmandu. The smoggy city is a clash between Eastern and Western culture. Outside the busyness of Kathmandu, however, the country is a beautiful mountain hideaway where tropical forests in the lowland slowly yield to pine forests, then tundra, and finally the snow-capped peaks of the highest mountains in the world.
