The second part of our time in Nepal has scraped the surface of a dream the Lord put in my heart 10 years ago! If you haven’t read my other Nepal blog yet, we spent the first week of this month in the city of Kathmandu where we experienced God move in some awesome ways. We then traveled about 15 hours on the bumpiest bus ride I have ever experienced to the Morang district in the eastern part of Nepal. Once we arrived in our new city, my team was assigned to ministry at the top of the mountain which meant we had a 1 hour hike with our packs. Thankfully, the hike was not actually climbing p a path through the trees and such, just walking up a rocky road with a constant incline. Don’t get me wrong though….it wasn’t easy with all we were carrying. I was thankful in that moment that I had walked around with 50 lbs or so in my pack for about 3 miles back home before ever leaving for the race just for practice. I knew I could do it and to just press on, but I was certainly thrilled when we finally reached the top. Here I was, the second opportunity to live on top of a mountain. Oh, and not just any mountain, but in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains. How beautiful! Even though I never could actually see it because there was too much dust in the air, knowing Everest was nearby was a pretty cool thought.
On top of this mountain, we were hosted by some of the most generous and hospitable people. In their village, there is no running water and they work hard as a way of life every day. When you live on top of a mountain, anything that is needed requires going down….which then requires coming back up with whatever you went down to fetch. These people make me feel so lazy and like such a wimp! They daily go down to get water and carry it up in baskets that hang down their back from a strap that goes across the top of their head. It’s not just water that they have to go out for, they collect tree branches for fire, there are trees with snap peas that they will collect, they use leaves for different things, etc. This is their life, so everyone from grandma to the young children participate and help. Have no fear though that the kids still get to be kids as they run around and play with great creativity. We ate some of the most delicious food we’ve had to date on the race. They took such good care of us that it makes us feel guilty receiving so much from them. It’s been absolutely beautiful learning to receive and being challenge to serve likewise.
So the dream I mentioned is that just about every day we hiked anywhere from 1-2 hours down the mountain to visit different villages and share the gospel. When I went to Thailand back in 2003, the Lord laid on my heart the verse that talks about not laying on another man’s foundation. I have longed to be one who takes the gospel to remote places since that time. Some of the villages we visited have had other World Race teams visit them; but our final day of ministry, we went to a village where no other team had gone. We were getting to pioneer the way and prepare the grounds. We were told it would be a very hard day, and to remain in prayer as this particular village was not really a fan of people who called themselves Christians. I’m not quite sure of the history behind this, and we had no intent of going for any purpose other than an offer of something that has changed our lives. We were not actually able to share anything with them as they did not want us to stay, but I played with some kids and we prayed as we left the area. My heart was sad as I wanted so badly to be able to stay there and build relationships to simply love these people with the love of Jesus. I had no desire to gain anything from them or even attempt to talk them into anything, I just had a moment of wishing that I could stay and enter into life with them, serve them, and allow Jesus’ life in me to be enough. Strangely though, I did leave that final day joyful and excited for the opportunities to pray over the grounds in hopes that the gospel will be taken there again some day.
Aside from getting to share the gospel in love, the hikes, though wearing, were absolutely beautiful! I don’t really know how to put into words what we’ve experienced here; but I have loved it, and I’m sad that it seemingly ended too quickly. My worn out legs might say otherwise seeing as there’s a slight difference between growing up in Houston and growing up in the Himalayan Mountains, but my heart was ready to stay for a while.
Please continue praying for the seeds that were planted and watered during our stay here. Pray for the families in the villages that meet together and are devoted to prayer and worship, that they would continue to boldly live out their faith even without teams that come in. Pray for our team as we continue to be refined through these opportunities and experiences. The Lord is working through struggles and deep issues to free us to live in greater intimacy with Him, and therefore in greater power through His Holy Spirit!
I still find myself frozen in awe that this is my reality and I wouldn’t trade it for anything! So thankful Jesus invites us into this!
I wanted to post pictures on this blog to break up my wordiness, but this website and Nepal are not getting along. Soooo….You can just check out pictures from the month at https://www.facebook.com/TheFunderama/media_set?set=a.10152284307842856.1073741835.507187855&type=3!
