From Hell to the Bell

Nepal is over. Wow… month 8.. check!  Overall a great month.  Ministry was super slow, so i had tons of time to get in the word and pray… all while on the side of a beautiful mountain.  Couldn’t ask for a better quiet time spot!  This also allowed a time for our new team, team NEWlife… (Never Ending Waters of life) to get to know and bond with each other.

As far as our service, we did some preaching as well as helped out around the village doing manual labor. 

here are the sweetest cooks…

and our fifteen year old translator Ajay, amazing man!!  who traveled to the village with us and spent about every waking moment with us…. i never heard him complain once… incredible!!

i had a little bit of a rough departure from our contact in Nepal.  It was the last day, we had all packed up our stuff and had everything ready to go.  The girls on our team had already headed down the mountain.  I was staying back with Tim for one last preaching engagement.  I preached from Galatians 6:9, “Let us not grow weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

All was well as I finished my sermon and said my goodbyes/thank you’s to the community.  And then it hit me… during the time that i was preaching (and the church literally next door to our room), someone broke in and stole my ipod, camera charger and battery, and cell phone.

That was a hard one to swallow.  I can’t say i handled it very well.  It did seem God gave me some grace to handle the situation.  It hurt.  Perhaps its more the pain of feeling violated than actually losing the stuff.  What was hard was realizing the probability that the culprit was “one of us.” 

As i tried to keep a good attitude the words from Hebrews reverberated around in my head, “You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.”  (10:34)

I mean, i wasn’t exactly singing.  You can be sure of that.  You want my honest attitude.  As i was walking down the mountain, by myself cause i was mad, a boy was riding his bike towards me.  we were on the side of this cliff with a river down below.  He wasn’t doing anything wrong… well… he was looking at me.  And then I had the most clear vision of me shoving him in the shoulders, seeing his body tumble over the side of the cliff, rolling down towards the river… and the best part… I felt a sense of satisfaction in that.  Like justice would have been served.  What!!?

It’s kind of funny, but that was my reality.  How convicting can life be sometimes?

there’s grace… plenty of it…. AND

there are PROMISES!!!

like… what you leave in this life for the Lord you get back a hundred fold… or blessed are you when you are persecuted… and on and on…

so i knew my reward was coming… how?  i wasn’t sure…

but it came just a week later as my team made its way into India… and THERE IT WAS!!!!

That’s right!!  Taco Bell!!  “Eat in, Hang Out”.  I don’t think it is possible to express what sort of emotions one goes through from entering into such pearly gates!  But it gets better… come with me…

That right there is a classic Soda Fountain!!  It has been close to 9 months since i have seen one of these phenomena.  How do you use it?  I forgot. 

Let me take the time to point out a few miracles that happen with such a machine…. please come…

First:  ICE!!!!  When’s the last time you had ice in ANY drink?  See that middle dispenser… push it and watch the gold come out!!

(i think i look a little too much like Golem in this pic… “My Precious!”)

Secondly:  Choose from like 10 flavors!!!  and if you want drinkable water… you can EVEN choose that!!  And out of the nozzle comes a fountain of perfectly mixed flavored syrup and carbonated water!

Oh yeah… there is more!!

For miracle number three, look above the fountain machine and this is what you see!!!