So the family we have ended up staying with for the end of this first month is pretty interesting. The pastor used to be a witch doctor and long story short when a missionary came to Nepal and prayed for his sick mother the whole family eventually came to know Christ.
This “town” is pretty tiny or at least the part that is visible from the road is. We found out yesterday that there are actually houses and way more people living up this steep,steep mountain. “Our ministry has been two fold and we are just settling into a routine again. There is a MAT class that our ministry contact (Samuel) teaches 3 early mornings a week and then we go and house fellowship with members of their church. The MAT (Mothers Against Trafficking) classes take place early in the morning before the women have to go work in the fields. Our host has a series of lessons teaching them the dangers and specifics of trafficking in Nepal. House fellowship includes an indiscriminate amount of hiking to an undisclosed mud hut and singing and praying and sermon-ing (yes I just turned it into a verb) for quite some time. Honestly it’s an amazing thing to see Nepali Christians in fellowship. Of course we can’t understand anything they are saying. But the tone and the ceaselessness in their praying cannot be misunderstood. It’s challenging I’m “done” praying and they’re still going. One of my teammates put it so well ” I was done praying and I couldn’t figure out how they haven’t run out of things to pray about when I realized you can never be praying enough” (of course I’m paraphrasing it’s no where near the actual quote but that’s the gist). My favorite day of fellowship so far after two fellowships (which included all the same people just took place 30 minutes apart in different houses) they fed us. Massive amount of food, these families have little and yet they BOTH wanted to show love in their hospitality.
Random tidbits:
-It has rained every day, mostly starting at night.
-The humidity is unreal. Clothing I know I washed and dried is still damp in the morning. Never before have I just sat still and had sweat pouring down my face
God has been so good to us in everything but specifically in small ways lately. Things that I casually mention to The Lord in my quiet time later that day He fulfills.
Like:
– rain during the day that cooled the weather down our hardest day of hiking.
-“Donuts” for lunch after mentioning how much I was desperately missing bread
– A couch to sit on (the first and so far last couch I have seen in Nepal) we only have the concert floor or a hard bench with no back to sit on and I just really missed being able to curl up on a cushioned backed couch.
And yesterday going to lunch to find out our hosts had bought us Nutella AND Peanut Butter!!! And donuts to put it on, oh it was amazing!
It is just so lovely to know how much our Father cares for us that He even gives us these tiny things. It’s amazing to know how close He listens to us!
Psalm 103 I recently reread and it just hit me in a new way
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. (8) As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on His children; for He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust. (13-14)”
He has compassion on us because He knows how we are made. He gives me gifts of Nutella and couches because He made me, He knows how to make me feel loved.
We have one more week, roughly 9 more days of ministry before we meet back up with our squad and have our first debrief. It’s hard to believe we are almost done with our first month, our first country. Soon it’ll be onto India! Please be praying for us in our last week that we will finish out our ministry in Khoti well and for the transition as it becomes real that we’re going to another country and not home once we are done here.
