I was driving in a packed van along the busy and lane-less road in Kathmandu, Nepal. I’m here. I can’t believe I’m here. It’s been 3 months. As I look out the window with my mouth hanging open I try to take in everything I see. The chaos of the streets where men are selling pomegranate and oranges out of a bike basket, the hundreds of stray dogs, the people sleeping under as many blankets at they could find on the streets. The smells and the intricacy of it all. This city looks like it’s taken a million years to build. Like every block is meticulously placed slightly crooked and every crack in the sidewalk is on purpose. Like all the wires wrapped around the poles and the thousands of string lights are all placed exactly where they stand because it was meant to be this giant land of perpetual confusion and variety. Everything is in such order although it‘s a complete mess. Everything makes sense though I can’t focus. Every square corner is a different color, every door frame a different design. I thought I’d miss the quiet of Swaziland, and yes there’s a totally different kind of magic in the silence. But this place is different, it’s full of life and stories and mistakes and pain and love. It’s full of people who have seen devastation like no other. It’s full of people finding hope in things that won’t sustain them. It’s full of confusion and lights and color and yet somehow darkness. It screams the name of Jesus because it is desperate to grab at the ankles of hope and let that hope pull it out of a pit. It’s another world, one I am so incredibly and indescribably blessed to be in. To be here. To be light and to bring light and to uncover darkness. I’m not sure how, it’s not my responsibility to know. I’m not sure when, I may not see the fruits of this soon or maybe ever. But I know why, and I know who. So everyday I will sit on my rooftop with a 360 degree view of a million different stories and voices. And I’ll believe something is going to move.
