The other day after breakfast, Dani (a sweet friend from Australia that is here to serve our ministry host, Rueben, for five months) asked me to accompany her to withdraw cash from a bank. I gladly accepted so she would not be alone with a large sum of cash in a foreign place. We thought it would be a one-hour trip, but had no idea where we were going or what to look for.
We caught a bus in the right direction, and began relying on the native Nepalese to speak English and know where the “Standard Charter Bank” was. After a few failed attempts, a younger man got on the bus and was able to understand what we were asking about. He talked with the driver and the doorman and reported back to us that they understood and would make sure we got off at the right spot. He said it would be a half hour from where we were, already an hour into the trip. It was actually at the two-hour mark when we were finally ushered off the bus. We began walking and found a police visitor info booth. They pointed us up the street and we began walking. We asked a shopkeeper after about 5 minutes and he pointed in the same direction. Dani bought some shoes and socks and we walked, walked, walked some more. We never saw the SCBank so we asked again. This time an older woman and an older man argued about whether the walk back, in the direction we came from, was 7 or 12-15 minutes to SCBank. Mrs. Lall, as we came to find out her name, was aggravated at the man’s obvious ignorance, so she took us by the hands and led us down the street.
The next 2 hours were a whirlwind of crazy goodness. At a jog/speedwalk pace, Mrs. Lall led us straight to the bank and set up the transaction for us. I kick myself now for not timing the walk. Now we’ll never know who was correct. We found out on the walk there that our guide was an English teacher for medical school and for high school. She was raised as an orphan by three different women from Australia, Britain and Ireland. They raised her as a Christian, and I can testify: She is a powerful woman of God, a force to be reckoned with! We asked to buy her lunch for her kindness and she gladly accepted, leading us to her favorite clean restaurant she takes her daughter to when she visits. Over lunch She shared about her life in the orphanage and a lot of her testimony with Dani and I. She shared about her abusive husband that literally threw her food on the floor for her to eat. She shared about her daughter who married a strict Muslim and moved to India. She hasn’t seen them in years. We learned that her other daughter married well and moved to New Zealand and recently had a child. We sat through a painfully awkward story about why that child is a miracle. She told us the hours she spent praying in her church and eventually invited other people to pray that her daughter could have a baby. She said, “I specifically prayed that God would allow the sperm to meet the egg in the tubes, as that is what the issue was.” She went into a bit more details, but I’ll spare you! Haha Mrs. Lall bragged about that little granddaughter every chance she got!
She told us about the eleven months she spent working three jobs to pay the bills and compensate for her husband not working while he was sick. He was bedridden, paralyzed and still angry for those eleven months. Mrs. Lall described how she cleaned him, fed him, took his verbal abuse, had bruised armed and hands from moving his large body around, and STILL praised God everyday. She described how hard it was to love someone who was so awful to her, but that the love came straight from God and He protected her. I was floored when she began to cry at the part when she told us he passed away. That would be relief to you and me, but to her it was a life that needed reconciliation with God that may or may not have happened. She took her arranged (which is typical, especially in older generations in Nepal) marriage covenant seriously.
After lunch and a lot of intense conversation, she led us to a couple ATM’s so we could withdraw our own money. She introduced us to at least ten of her students in the three hours we were with her. They were shopkeepers, doctors, mechanics, and people passing by. We saw her best friend and she excitedly began sharing the craziness of our day. We took a few pictures to remember the moment and told her she had to get back to her second shift at work. This crazy, funny, amazing woman of God spent her entire afternoon time off helping us with all of our needs, not even considering the time she lost to rest for her next work time.
Mrs. Lall began to cry as we parted ways and, I’m not going to lie, I had tears as I turned to walk away. What a random day to be blessed so much.
Dani and I prayed to thank God for that blessing and also to help us find home in Urlabari. We began the process of banging on the side of every bus we saw and saying our village name. Eventually one recognized where we were headed and ushered us on the bus. A deaf younger man got on the bus behind us and we had a half hour conversation. That’s right, a half hour conversation with someone deaf on a jam packed city bus. My hand, Dani’s hand and a napkin were covered with writing and we walked away knowing how to sign USA, thank you, Christian, and Hindu. His name was Santosh and he follows the Hindu religion. I wrote a small note about how much Jesus loves him, praying that one day he will understand the true God. His smile and the communication were precious to Dani and I, so we chalked it up to another crazy God moment in one day.
By this time we had been gone 7 ½ hours, which was originally supposed to be one. We were praying that my team and Rueben were not worried as the phone we tried to call at lunch was disconnected. It occured to us that noone had heard from us and while we knew we were more than fine, they might not think the same. The bus dropped us off about a 25-minute walk from home, but in that time it would be dark and we are always supposed to be back from wherever we are by dark. We decided to take a bicycle taxi. We forgot the name of our specific road area, so we tried to just point in the direction to drive. It wasn’t working. All of a sudden, this random young man walked up and said, “Do you know Rueben?” We told him we did and asked how he knew him. He mentioned something about church and we had a minute or two of being glad to meet. We asked if he knew where the orphanage was and he said he did. “Phew”, we thought and asked him to tell our driver the area. Off we went with the bicycle guy now knowing where to go and feeling relieved that we were almost home.
How funny is it that God provided so many blessings in one day?
**I tried extremly hard to add a picture to this multiple times, but it never downloads** You'll have to get to facebook somehow or I'll gladly have a picture party when I get home in 5 months!! Thanks for reading!
