Highs:

  • Getting to sleep in a hotel for debrief with heavy down comforters.

  • Visiting with some friends of mine who live in Nepal.

  • Arriving at our new home and finding out we have a roof top that over looks Kathmandu!

  • Shabbat Shalom at Dilip’s house and getting to hear all the kids yell worship songs

  • Playing soccer with our community and with the slum kids

  • Getting to buy Momos for street kids and spending time with them

  • Hiking up to the temple at the highest point in Kathmandu and getting to pray over the entire city

  • Walking into a slum and all the little arms of the slum kids asking to be picked up and held

  • Getting fed THE BEST LUNCH after church

  • Acting out bible stories for the slum kids

  • Drinking chai and eating jeris (fried like a funnel cake but made with sugar and honey batter ….. yum)

  • Being a ballerina in the rain on our long walk home and making people laugh.

  • Having the entire building to ourselves, and screaming Taylor Swift songs

  • Getting to talk to a girl working at the dance bar for two hours about her life and connecting her to our host to possibly get out of the industry.

  • Getting to sit in an uncomfortable place (dance bar) and hear a young girls dreams and aspirations for her life.

  • Getting to take our main host and translator (Sameer) out to a nice Easter dinner because one of our teammates parents offered to pay for it.

  • Going to Easter Service and not having to do anything but be a part of the congregation.

  • Finding out we lived in an areas surrounded by Christian restaurants and coffee shops.

Lows:

  • My whole body feeling dry because I am not used to mountain weather anymore.

  • Smog that is so thick you can feel it in the air.

  • Paying for a taxi to go see a movie and the movie being sold out when we got there

  • Seeing a bunch of kids run out of a shack when we arrive, and seeing their drunk parents sitting outside.

  • Not knowing where some of your regular street kids are when they don’t show up on certain days

  • Being drenched and getting hailed on the whole way home from our picnic

  • Sleeping on squeaky bunk beds, where if you moved at all they would wake up the entire room

  • Not showing for three days because your only option was a river that might have leeches in it and it was a 30 minutes walk away.  

  • Getting charged at least double the price almost everywhere we went because we are white.  

  • Finding out that your framer bones are always too long for any bus in Nepal.

  • Letting a small puppy sleep inside the church with us in the village, and finding out the hard way it had fleas. (Aka getting bit by them all night long)

  • Getting bumped by a car when walking down the road and it knocking my water bottle out of my hand.

  • Figuring out that my new hydro flask lid that my parents brought me was giving me a rash in my mouth.  

  • Seeing the sad reality of what girls go through working at the dance bars.  

Bozos:

  • Going to the Lazy Gringo (Mexican food restaurant) and eating so much that you end up not eating for the rest of the day and part of the next day.

  • Trying to shower and the power going out almost every time.

  • Learning that washing our laundry by stepping on it actually cleans our clothes better hand hand washing it

  • Our entire team being so exhausted after a long week that we can’t communicate in anything other than dramatics.

  • The power going out so the doorbell doesn’t work anymore (and we only have one key to our house, and we all live on the second floor)

  • When one of your teammates shares an umbrella with a stranger on our long walk home from our picnic.

  • Having your squad mates over to hang out but our whole team being so tired from long ministry days that we end up trying to avoid them

  • Thinking you were going to the village to do ministry when actually you end up adventuring and camping out on a mountain instead.

  • Climbing down a mountain and your guide is running down the mountain in flip flops (I don’t understand how he did it)

  • Getting into a bus and finding out that there is standing room only and you are a whole head too tall.  I had to be hunched over the entire 20 minute ride.

  • Walking down the the streets and seeing Marijuana plants growing like weeds everywhere.  (Maybe I should have put this as a high 😉 )

  • Buying fresh Buff milk and finding out the hard way that it is only good for one day.