Our ministry site is at an orphanage serving about 16 children, but also going out into the nearby areas and sharing the Gospel. This second month of the race is different in the fact that we are with another team this month. All-in-all, there is a total of 11 of us now. It’ll good to be in a bigger community of World Racers for this month. We all seem to connect well. It’ll be a good month to pour into each other.
Upon meeting our contacts and getting comfortable, they thought it’d be a good idea for us to get to know the area around the ministry site. Why not get acquainted with where we were? We took a walk around the rural terrain of graceful farmlands. The intricate way of farming wrapped along slow rolling hills is a captivating sight – breath-taking actually. Marching along the dusty trail our contact took us further and further into the back alleys of houses and trees. Next thing I realize is that he is leading us to a Hindu temple. The moment I realize what it is, I stopped and began to pray. The feeling of “something doesn’t seem right” swept over me. A suffocating feeling came over me that instant. A few in our group walked up the stairs and into the temple; there was absolutely no way I was stepping into that place even for observational purposes. It was utterly spiritually dark and tense environment around that temple.
Loud music owned the air, youths danced near by, and mass amounts of people just hung about the temple. There was an insane about of people of all ages there. It was almost cult-ish seeing that many people gathered around doing whatever. Whether you are a feeler or not, you could feel the darkness that had submerged that area and the souls there. It was sick. As we walked the more nauseous and the thicker the air became. All I could do was pray and remind myself that Christ is in me and I carry the light of Christ in me.
The spiritual warfare here is pretty intense to say the least. Its all around us. Every morning we intentionally gather for worship and prayer over the city. There’s a lot of strongholds here and chains that need to be broken.
One thing that is always encouraging is that even though there is immense darkness here, Christ is here too. There is always light in darkness. It was a pretty dramatic introduction to Nepal and our ministry site.
