As I liked to call it, Operation CanManDo-It??? became Operation Man-Can-Do-it (or Did it!), but only with Jesus!. Our time in the mountains was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. We spent most of our days hiking, and then the evenings we spent showing Christian films. We didn’t show the actual Jesus film. The movies had Christian themes, using a story line to show the audience how Jesus is the answer to life. For one of the double feature nights, they showed the Passion of Christ film after one of the local films. It was physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting, but exhaustion never felt so good.
Physically, I stretched my body to limits I never thought I could. Even on what our contact called “non-hiking” days, we were still hiking, just not up an entire mountain. Our bodies and muscles never had time to relax. At one point, I swore if I looked down at my calf muscles that I’d see a bone popping out of my skin. Obviously, it was painful at times, but how many people can say they trekked through the Himalaya’s and actually climbed an entire mountain …. totally up and over it. Even if I knew how much discomfort I’d feel, I wouldn’t have passed up the opportunity.
Emotionally, it was tough being out in the middle of no where for Thanksgiving. Being away from family and friends is hard enough, but then you toss in a holiday and no ability to communicate …. needless to say, we all were a bit homesick. Let me tell you about my Thanksgiving. 🙂 We went to a village very close to the China border; so close that we could see homes and buildings in China. We hiked down to the “hot springs,” which wasn’t anything like we had anticipated. We had been told that we’d get to the hot springs, so we had been looking forward to it. Come to find out, it’s just a public bath house that happens to have hot water, which is very hard to come by. To avoid showering with 20-30 local women out in the open where anyone can see you, us girls got a private room to bathe in. This entailed all 6 of us girls bathing in a large square tub all at the same time. Oh, and my teammate finally "showered", after 51 days of no bath or shower. Now that was a cause for celebration! After group bath time, we all had dinner at a little “restaurant,” where I had egg chowmein. Ended the evening with a 45 minute hike back to our lodging.
Spiritually, the fruits of our labor weren’t evident to us. Yes, we were part of a team introducing Jesus to villages of people, but at the same time, we didn’t witness anyone actually accept Christ. It was challenging, but I just kept reminding myself of what Paul says in 1 Corinthians: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow” (3:6). I’m not here necessarily to see growth because I am not responsible for any growth that happens …. God is – It’s not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow (1 Cor. 3:7). Understanding that helped me see that while I didn’t feel like we were accomplishing much, in actuality, we were playing the part God intended for us. In addition to showing the films, we did get the opportunity to pray over many people … and a sick goat. I personally was not present for the goat prayer, but a group of the girls were presented with a goat that needed prayer. 🙂 We were also presented with the chance to cast out a demon. No, seriously. After welcoming us to stay overnight in his house, a man informed us that his home was possessed with demons. But rest assured, two had already been “removed,” but he needed our help to remove the last demon. May I mention that this information came AFTER we were unpacked and settled into our sleeping bags.
A blog can’t begin to describe our adventure, but I feel like this sums it up pretty well. Click the link below to see pictures from our trip, including all other photos from my time in Nepal:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2722682230417.2149309.1357938768&type=1&l=73f26c3bf1
