Dear Mom- today we hitchhiked, smoked, and were married…

My third best day on the World Race all started this morning. Andrew and I decided to have ATL day. We went to breakfast and ate double-decker egg sandwiches, apples, a bunch of bananas and way too much milk tea (I don’t really even like milk tea). We flip a coin to decide if we’re going to do ministry while hiking a mountain, or minister in the city slum. We got the mountain, so we started off. First we went praying for the grandmother we prayed for on our last ATL day. She was tickled that Andrew was praying for her and was cackling with laughter the whole time.

 

Then we went to our friend Anu’s house and prayed for her. She is paralyzed as well after a recent accident in which she fell off of her roof.

 

We start walking through the villages and winding up the Himalayas. We venture through poor little villages, a leper colony and through many fields. As we walk, we meet random people. One guy played Chris Brown for us, so we strolled through the forest in the rain singing “With You” at the top of our lungs. 

 

 

 

Then we met a blind man, who had come looking for us in the rain after hearing our voice in the valley. We prayed for him and then he went on his way.

 

We reached the top of one hill and waited for a bus to take us up a little further. There we ran into some women all dressed up to go dance for Buddha’s birthday, so we took some pictures until a curious man came over and introduced his son to us, telling us He was the next prime minister. I took a picture in case it was true.

 

At this point, nothing all that random had happened. Just sharing Jesus and praying for people. We catch the bus and we’re dropped off near a huge golden temple and monastery.

 

We begin hiking through the forest. We’re attempting to reach a resort at the top of one of the mountains so that we can eat some lunch. We finally make it to the resort and I am winded. Between the altitude and being sick the last couple of days…I was heaving while following Andrew as he sprightly leaped up that dang mountain. When I finally caught up to him and recovered from sudden onset asthma, we stopped in our tracks looking at how the resort was closed and there was no other civilization in sight. Good thing we had a huge breakfast. We kept hiking to the next peak and finally made it. It was beautiful.

 

We ate the rest of our bananas and scavenged for other food at the bottom of our bags. Just when we thought all was lost and I was about to employ my knowledge from watching too much Survivor Man, Andrew came up with two crusty almonds and a little Crystal Light packet that we split into the 8 oz. of water we had left. Okay, this is a little sensationalized, but it’s more fun that way.  

 

 

So we did what anyone else does when they reach the top of a mountain- we came back down. We put on some worship music and slipped down the mountain as it rained- making fun of one another each time we fell. It was absolutely gorgeous.

 

We saw several beautiful monasteries and creeped on a couple making out in the woods. We arrived back at the base and started foraging for food. We couldn’t find anything, but a bus blew past us and we sprinted after it. It finally stopped and we dove on it laughing and out of breath and making quite the scene. Sometime later they dropped us off at a cute restaurant overlooking the valley. I ate a sufficient amount and Andrew, like always, ate for seven people.

 

 We walked out about to burst and decided to hitchhike down more of the mountain. Andrew stuck out his finger and right away these people motioned to get in the back of their pickup. We jumped in and seriously got air for the next 10 minutes. As the truck was going around turns at breakneck speeds we just laughed hysterically and tried to not get tossed out of the truck or toss all the food we just consumed. The people let us off, we bowed to them, and we started walking down again, rubbing our sore butts. There was a young woman right behind us, so I decided to turn around and talk to her. One thing led to another and she invited us to tea. We went into her house, she gave us a photo album to look through and left us alone in her bedroom. Can you imagine leaving complete strangers alone in your bedroom? She comes back a while later along with her sister-in-law and a random assortment of children. She gives us far too much milk tea, some bread, and watermelon. My stomach is all messed up already, but we take the tea that I’m sure was made with unpasteurized goat milk… mainly because it tastes different and I saw the goat as it came in the room and peed all over during tea time. We prayed against any bacteria and told the girls about Jesus. It was getting late, so they asked us to spend the night. I was cracking up as Andrew tried to explain why we couldn’t shack up with them. We take more photos and leave.

We start trudging again and are greeted by several people. The greeting in Nepal is “Namastay” as you put your hands together like you’re praying and bow. We “Namastayed” everyone in the country I think. At one point, Andrew said “Namastay” and was ambushed by this old lady who started growling at him. He started doing it back and they both just doubled over laughing. She kept up the growling and pointed to where we had come from, but we just laughed and continued on. I’m pretty sure she was warning us about mountain lions, but who knows. We walked back through the fields and leper colony, hung out (literally) with some kids on a wire suspension bridge and stopped to talk with farmers there.

 

 

We were then taught how to separate wheat from chaff and snacked on that. Andrew was fascinated and was geeking out about us living like we were in Bible times like Jesus and his disciples. The young boys we met decided to be our personal escorts, so we told them about Jesus as well.

 

They reminded us that it was Buddha’s birthday- promising we’d pass the Buddhist temple…and here’s where it starts getting really interesting. We pass this huge temple party and we’re invited in. I’m hesitant, but Andrew walks in and kicks his shoes off like it’s his stinking living room. So naturally, I follow.

All the Buddhists are sitting on a mat in the courtyard worshipping. We are escorted to the middle of the circle and told we must sing a solo. We admitted that we were Christians and that it was going to be praise to Jesus. I’m not sure they heard us, but hey, I sang worship in a bar in the red light district in Thailand, why not at a Buddhist temple in Nepal? So everyone got quiet and we sang our go-to song “Father, I adore you.” I could not hold it together…I was almost peeing myself with laughter.

 

Afterwards, I try to get up and leave, but I am told to sit. They play for us and then put food in front of us. Not wanting to be rude, we eat it and pray against the fact it was offered up to another god. I can’t eat all of mine, but Andrew is contentedly chomping away and eats the rest of mine. We are given yet another mug of milk tea and gulp that down (have I mentioned I don’t love milk tea?). 

 

And then we’re asked,  “Are you married?”

 

“Yeah…we’re married.”  I heard myself confidently say to the Nepali woman sitting cross-legged next to me. Andrew nods and stifles a laugh. Now everyone is happy and goes back to their Buddhist worship service. What? Lest you entertain ideas that Andrew and I have anything more than an extremely plutonic friendship, I will say that there is nothing between us and I am madly in love with my boyfriend who has endless grace on this ridiculous 11 month predicament I’m in. Okay, so in our defense, we’re told by our ministry contact that it’s highly culturally unacceptable to travel alone with a man if you’re not married. Usually it’s not a big deal, but when you’re in the Buddhist temple? So when the music comes to a halting stop and everyone’s staring at us, asking us if we’re married…what would you say? We all know how good it worked out for Abraham when he said Sarah was just his sister. I answer and Andrew nods, the music begins again and we breathe a sigh of relief. Thankfully we both have the same ring from Israel and had just switched them to our left hands in case. I mean, squad leading is very reminiscent of a strange, dysfunctional marriage, so it wasn’t all that much of a lie right?

Then a scary man comes next to Andrew and asks again if we’re married. Andrew says yes and the scary guy offers him a cigarette. Andrew declines and is given a dirty look that just says, “You have offended me, please leave.” So Andrew is forced to take a smoke. I just start giggling like a middle-schooler. This day has been too much. I am beside myself and I can’t pull it together. I’m sure I was being disrespectful (I was even shushed by the ladies), but it was all too bizarre. I get the church laughs where you are like shaking, convulsing and sweating, trying to stop laughing to no avail. We listen to yet another song and Andrew finishes his smoke. We get up to leave because by now it is dark, I’ve drank enough milk tea to supply a small army, and now it’s me completely geeking out with church laughter. As we head out everyone bows and we have to take a hundred photos. We finally stumble out and continue to be guided by our escorts and other random villagers.

 

Thank God for those boys who maneuvered us through dark alleys and protected us from some terrifying dogs. At one point a kid just drop kicked a dog that was barking at us. We finally reach our neighborhood and look out over the fields.  We can see the town lights and there are hundreds of lightening bugs going through the fields. mmm it was like the cherry on top of an incredible day. The kids brought us home high on life to our proverbial “kids” who had been wondering what the heck happened to us all day. As we launched into our ridiculous tale of the day, Ryan just smiled proudly and said, “I am so thankful to have you guys as our squad leaders.”

 

Sweet Success.