God is moving… and so is our squad…
Teams have been changed… And this has been a nice refreshment… a chance to get to know, learn from, and sharpen new peeps. It’s amazing how much our reality is shaped by the ones whom we do life with…
We are yet to come up with a name… but God is speaking to us about new life… and about rivers of life.. Ezekial 47, Revelation 22… we will see what happens.
So i welcome you to meet my new team…
Tim Guindon (our leader)- great thinker, high view of God’s glory, incredible at note taking
Bonnie Coley- bringer of peace, humble and huge heart
Pam Wilson- loves much, especially little ones, nuturer
Jasmin Del Rosario- bold, worshipper, fragrant aroma to Christ
and myself- 1 Cor 15:10…
So we arrived here in Nepal… stayed a couple nights with our main contact. His name is Bhuvan… incredible story. Been a believer for not too many years… grew up fundamentalist Hindu… got deeply involved in the communist party.. became a spy to attack christians… was assigned to a specific church… and for six months acted the part, worshiping, raising hands, praying, doing all the “right stuff”. I mean how good can we humans be at faking it?!!
But as the grace of God would have it… the gospel started to penetrate… His word shall never return void, it will always accomplish the purpose for which it is sent.
Bhuvan finally took the pastor aside, confessing and asking Him more about this Jesus. The pastor replied with the story of Jesus washing His disciples feet… as the testimony to the One True God, the God who comes to His people, Who serves His people, who saves His people, who died for His people.
That was it for Bhuvan. He is now on fire for Jesus… heading up youth of Nepal, he travels all over the country. He has started a home, (where we stayed) that is for women and their children who have been rescued out of the sex industry. He is now editor of the largest Christian Nepalese magazine…
So after a couple days we were sent out to our ministry location… five hours north to the border of Nepal and Tibet. Kind of a crazy journey up here… no one speaking English, all of us confused what was going on… and our bus starts slipping on the side of this mountain, the rain beginning to pour… the wheels couldn’t get a grip… i was unnerved… i mean it’s one thing when you feel these things at the fair, when you atleast have some cheap metal between you and death… but atleast its there and it is a “ride”… here, uh, this was no ride, it was real, and i had a window seat. eesh…
After a couple hours we all got out and began to hike the rest of the way up the mountain. Pretty insane… what’s new? I didn’t care too much cause of the view.
And this is the view from our place, literally… not bad. not bad… i mean, i’ll take it. And our place… a bamboo hut erected like a day before we got here by the church!! The first night i had a small freak out session in how excited i was to be in these mountains… out of the HEAT and congestion of Africa, and into the crisp cool air of the Nepalese mountains… overlooking a river, and in the distance what look like the Himalayas (at least that’s what i call them). Out here they call the white things mountains… and whatever it is that just took our bus forever to get up.. that is a hill, what i’m actually standing on, that’s called a hill. It’s all relative i guess.
Brief story from Nepal…
After a 45 min hike down to get some internet… and then the hour and half hike back up… i had a most unexpected and wonderful encounter.
Hiking up, carrying on some good conversation, i was interrupted with the sound of a child crying. I looked below me on an adjacent path. He was about 4 or 5, tears were running down his cheek, he had hit his knee on a rock. i jumped down to him, began making noises, tried a couple faces, got a little close to him… but he was mostly terrified with this white man. So now he was crying and terrified. i didn’t give up. it was a battle, him coming in and out of crying.
His mom and another lady were kind of unsure what all was going on, they didn’t seem hopeful he’d stop crying. But just when i was about to call it a loss, something started to break in the child. Then as i was waving goodbye to him, he waved back and his face lit up with joy and he was smiling and laughing. i continued saying, “bye bye” as i walked back up the mountain and kept waving. The little boy’s eyes never left mine, neither did his arm discontinue his wave.
By then we were all laughing, the boy, His mom, the other lady, and myself. It was like the grace of God just fell on us…
i continued to wave to the boy until we were out of site from each other…
It kind of came out of nowhere… and lasted all of like two minutes… but it filled me with so much joy!! Something real took place there in that moment… i thought… why can’t i just live my life this way? just walk around helping people not cry, helping them to laugh… it’s a high calling… and a simple one. why do we make things so complicated?
Ministry is sometimes about doing the small things with a big heart (like carrying a little goat on your shoulder acting like the famous “Good Shepherd” pose) .. or just with an open heart… God will fill it. . Let’s just take the step of faith and “see” what happens. Who knows what waters we can walk on if we will just get out of the boat… jump off the path we are on and get on someone elses? May He be glorifed and may our joy be full!!
