Jemasee, friends!
Nepal has been breathtaking, welcoming, heartbreaking, and eye-opening. I want to give you an update on everything, but it’s a bit too much to put in one post. So I’ll just give you a glimpse of my heart for the past few days and of my day today! (This might be a long one)
So, this morning, I cried on a public bus in Kathmandu on the way to ministry. It was easy to pretend it wasn’t happening since I could blame the extraordinary dust and smog and cold air coming through the window. The past few days (weeks… months…) have been really difficult. The Race is amazing; I’m so thankful to be here and the Lord gives me fresh gratefulness often. But it’s rough. The enemy has been attacking my worth, my team, and my view of how I’m able to be an effective part of the Body of Christ this season. I’ve often felt like I’m falling short, focusing on each way I could’ve done better serving my ministry, my host, my team, or my God. I’ve felt distant from my own emotions, from the Lord, and like I’ve been missing precious moments of the second half of this journey.
It all hit me yesterday, really. I’d been doing pretty well, but I’d also been asking the Lord to show me what I’m walking through and where the enemy has been attacking me. And last night, I received some constructive feedback from a teammate (totally valid and given out of love) and the enemy used it to pick at every way I’ve made mistakes over the past few months, then I got hit with a wave of homesickness, and was left feeling lacking and bitter.
This morning on the way to ministry, I was still sitting in those feelings. I got on the bus and did that dramatic-movie-staring-grumpy-out-of-the-window thing and my aforementioned teammate reached out, touched my arm, and asked if I was okay. And thus commenced my crying on the bus. I was so frustrated with the enemy for using my mind against me, for trying to use little things to make me upset with my team, and with myself for letting the enemy have that much influence over me.
*queue change to overview of my favorite day in several months*
After our bus switch (we ride a lot of public transport here), I asked the Lord for something restorative and healing and comforting to happen before we got to our hiking ministry. And then a mama sat next to me and her one-year old little one reached over and held my hand for our bus ride together. If you know me well, you know that that’s basically the most restorative and comforting thing that could ever happen to me (aside from maybe puppies or chick-n-minis for breakfast).
My little baby friend hand-holding party gave me such a heart of thankfulness and brought me so much gladness. It really fueled me for the seven hours of mostly uphill hiking that commenced today.
So we’re hiking the STUNNING hillside (my calves are on fire about .02 seconds in) and for our first stop, we got to pray for a sweet family of new Christians on the hillside, one of my teammates shared a powerful testimony of God’s goodness when we don’t see healing, we listened to our host-dad worship with his sarangi, and we continued our hike.
Stop two, we spent a couple of hours in a village church down the mountain. We prayed for the congregation, they prayed for us, and we sang a LOT of Nepali songs. I got to speak (a bit unplanned and impromptu) to them about how God is sovereign and good and how He works through mental illness, and then I got to pee on the ground in the a tiny hut outside with two bricks to stand on. The second thing wasn’t super fun, but I am so thankful I got to speak about my favorite things: Jesus and the human mind.
A mindblowingly uphill couple of hours later (for which we were joined by an adorable stray dog), we got to have a 4 pm lunch of yummy Nepalese food prepared by the pastor’s wife and son. Our team prayed for the precious, cartoon-loving daughter of the family who is mute and partially paralyzed and prayed for the family, as well. They sent us off with washed faces and full water bottles, and then we realized we had 30 minutes to run up the mountain to catch the final bus of the day.
So at this point, I’m really thanking the Lord for my legs and for carrying me through the first six hours of hiking (and for the dog that was still sticking with us), but that last stretch of hiking was ROUGH. I was waddling around with the walking stick I picked up off the ground and wondering the likelihood of getting a taxi out in that village. I asked the Lord to take the reigns on my legs and the last two minutes of the uphill hike and the run to our bus were really easy breezy.
Overall, a rough, restoring, and beautiful day.
Thanks for having grace as my updates have been a bit few and far between. I’ll add some photos to those post when I have better WiFi!
I love you all very much!
