As I look around all I see is mountains in the distance. I breath deep (inhale) it smells like life and surprise.
My team landed in Kathmandu, valley in Nepal at the beginning of this month, and it has been crazy every since. I believe that places carry spirits, and Nepal for sure carries a spirit of adventure about it. Home to the tallest mountain range in the world, this place draws thrill seekers from all over to come and climb, jump and play! Mt.everest is here as well, the tallest mountain in the World! Sometimes I look at people, dressed head to toe in north face and hiking boots, and I imagine that climbing Everst is what has brought them here. I imagine that the journey, the adventure that they are on will change their lives. I envision that it will be a challenge, as they struggle to climb to the top of the mountain. The further up they go, the harder it is to breath, and the challenge intensifies. But something inside of them drives them to keep going. A belief that the outcome is worth risking it all for, even their lives because people have died trying to climb everest, and yet there are some who live to tell the story. And the story changes not only their lives, but the lives of those on the journey with them, the lives of those at home, and the lives of everyone who hears the tale.
I am here for the same reason…
Not to climb Everst, but to allow a great adventure to change my life. To do something I never have before, to risk for something I believe in so strongly, and to live to tell the story afterwards, praying that Christ is all glorified and whoever hears this story is drawn to Him in a way they were not before.
Nepal is less than 2% Christian….
Take a second and chew on that statistic.
Less than 2%
If you are reading this, and you are a believer that should not sit well with you. We live in a culture and a time where it is all too common to sing about doing anything for JESUS, to the point that we sing and say too much, and actually don’t do anything. I have learned that lesson the hard way out here. GOD has had to thoroughly check my heart and motives for every time I told Him i would sacrifice and do anything for Him, had the opportunity, and let it slip past.
Yet in the midst of all of that in His glory I find myself risking it ll for this great adventure, a Kingdom Journey as Seth Barnes would call it. It has gone past the leaving of home, everyone I love, and all that is familiar. It is now about leaving behind a portion of myself I am especially fond of, and attached to. Characteristics that I thought defined me for years, and I fought to hold onto now fade in the distance as GOD makes way for the ones he intended me to have.
I am dieing…
And most days it hurts so bad. I feel like I dont even know myself, like the person I look at in the mirror is unrecognizable.
I’m afraid…
Afraid that this death means that people at home won’t recognize me either. That I will somehow lose myself, and they will lose me.
If you knew me before the world race then you can attest that getting dirty, hiking, and not showering for days is so far from the character of the high heel wearing, dress and makeup loving carm most of y’all know. It is about a girl, becoming a woman, finding out the true definition of womanhood, and sacrifice. I no longer cry at the sight of injustice, I stand in the midst of it, and that has changed me…
My time in Nepal has so far consisted of walking to church through mud for half an hour and then preaching bare foot with muddy feet. Every Sunday we help with the ONLY bible distribution ministry in Nepal. In fact the first time we had it we met a man who had traveled 3 days to our home to get bibles, one day on bus and 2 days walking. How powerful is that! Every Saturday we do a church service. And some days we go into the neighborhoods to encourage the believers, praying for them for healing, strength and deliverance.
Last week was the most intense. We found ourselves on a 16 hour bus ride to the other side of Nepal, and landed in the village of Surunga. That night the 13 of us, 2 squad leaders, and about 8 or so family members of our ministry contact slept in a house, attempting to rest for the next day (the hot house we called it). At 5 am we traveled to the base of the jungle mountains, and when I say jungle and mountains, I mean JUNGLE and MOUNTAINS. For the next 5 1/2 hours we hiked up the mountain, and through the jungle. We walked over steep ledges, where one wrong step would indeed cost you your life. We saw spiders the size of base balls, and slid down rocks. I literally thought my heart would give out. GOD was gracious enough to send someone to carry my back pack for me, I’m not sure I would have made it otherwise.
I was nauseous the whole hike, and at one point my teammate started to throw up. In that moment I needed GOD to PHYSICALLY be my strength! And he did, because we made it, and found ourselves in a beautiful, basically untouched village in the middle of nowhere Nepal. As I looked around i realized that most of the world has not seen this place, and yet GOD had allowed me in my short 24 years to see it, LORD you take my breath away. The day and a half spent there consisted of showering from a bamboo spicket in the jungle, visiting a church out there, sharing the gospel with a family, yelling declarations about my life over the side of a mountain in the middle of the night, and time at the feet of my Father. It was refreshing. Except for waking up at 5am one morning to a snake in our all girls hut, imagine that sight.
The night before on the way out I prayed for the strength of the LORD to overtake me, and to barely feel the challenge of the hike. And do you know what? He answered that! I literally worshiped the whole way out of the village, as I prayed over the mountains, and the land that he had allowed me to tread on for His glory.
“How beautiful on the mountain are the feet of those who bring good news” Isaiah 52:7
That scripture rang in my spirit the whole time we walked. And it was great. I was seeing beauty in a new way. Seeing beauty through sacrifice the way it was meant to be seen.
After we got out of the jungle we traveled to another village where we spent the night in a church. We go up the next morning, and took yet another bus to an elephant safari where we rode elephants, and had a much needed night of rest. The last 10 days of our month will bring a big change as we prepare to begin teaching classes tomorrow to local bible students. I am excited, I find their youth, passion for the LORD and their thirst for Him inspiring.
With all that I have seen, all that has changed in me I realize that this great adventure is just beginning. Not just the next 9 months of the race, but the rest of my life that I will spend living for the glory of the LORD. And it will change me. And if I am unrecognizable then that is ok, I actually hope to be now. Because in no longer recognizing me, you will recognize more of my Father, and let’s be honest He is the one that matters.
Thy kingdom come, why will be done…
Love always,
Carmella
