God used my time in Nepal to teach me a lot of very valuable lessons and I felt like it would be beneficial for both myself and others to share them. Nepal was such a strange combination of a really awesome month but also probably one of the hardest months on the race and definitely the most stretching month. We were pushed out of our comfort zone in a way we hadn’t been pushed before and that brought on a ton of growth.
So, our host in Nepal was a first time host. Anytime this is the case there are usually some miscommunications and misunderstandings that occur. He was an awesome man and I loved him and his team so very much. They were so giving and took such great care of us the whole time. But one of the first miscommunications that we ran into on our arrival to Kathmandu was that he was not informed that we are supposed to have a rest day every week. He had literally planned out everyday of our stay with ministry. (Technically, we are supposed to have one rest day and one adventure day a week, but we let the adventure day slide because he had incorporated important sites into our full days). At first when we tried addressing the rest day situation with him he said that it just wasn’t going to be able to a happen this month, but after more discussion and us sitting down and looking at the schedule together we were able to sort of come to an understanding…Our rest days might wouldn’t always look like they had in the previous months and he might have to settle on us not doing as much as he had planned. This was conversation number two of many to follow.
What our ministry was for that month was to go to a bunch of the churches around Kathmandu and than head out into the villages and visit the churches there as well. Our main objective was to encourage and strengthen the believers in each church and place that we stayed, through sharing our testimonies, giving devos, and preaching. I must say, I felt a little like Paul on his second missionary journey 🙂 So while we loved this ministry and were happy to do it, it was extremely exhausting at the same time because we were constantly on the move. We would only stay in one place for a few days then head out again. And let me just tell you, traveling the roads to get to these villages and churches was no easy feat in and of itself.
Something else that we ran into through our travels of Nepal was a but load of spiritual attack. I knew and was expecting to enter into more than usual attack when we came into Asia compared to the other places we had been but it was still a bit of a surprise in the type and longevity of the attacks we encountered. Now let me just preface what I’m about to share by saying that I in no way am one of those people who think that there is a demon behind every rock or tree or that Satan is the one at work behind everything that doesn’t go the way I think it should. And I also am not glorifying him and his activity in any way, shape or form, but the raw truth is that as children of God, we do have an enemy and he is very real and active in the world around us and he absolutely hates our guts…especially when we are living out God’s will in our lives. The first and strongest area that we started noticing attack was in our rest as a whole and our sleep at night. Thankfully, I personally do not tend to struggle with falling or staying sleep at night, it’s just something I’m able to do easily. But within the first few nights of us being in Kathmandu, me, along with several others on my team started struggling with either very unfit, restless sleep at night or practically no sleep at all. Another way that our rest was attacked was when we were in one of the villages for a few days. We were sleeping on the floor in the basement and our first night there these two ginormous spiders come crawling out on the ceiling and wall next to where we are trying to sleep. Now one thing that you must be aware of, is that I am getting to do life with some extremely strong, independent, awesome ladies…but when it comes to creepy crawly things…they tend to scream and run the other way. So that being said, I’m usually the one left to kill all of these creepy crawly things. The first spider that came out was big but wasn’t huge and I was sorta making fun of them for freaking out about it. We killed it with the help of some of the women we were staying with and thought that was the end of it for the night. But, only a few minutes later, as once again we are attempting to fall asleep after a long day’s travel, an even bigger spider comes out of nowhere and is on the wall next to our sleeping mats. This one, I must say even freaked me out a bit, but after a little bit of maneuvering things around, it too was dead. Laying down and turning the lights out, the prayer that I kept reciting as I tried to fall asleep was “Lord, please protect us from any spiders during the night and let us all sleep well.” Well, our night of fun was still not over. Sometime during the night Alexis wakes us all up by exclaiming that a bug was stuck in her ear, she could hear it trying to fly around. It had flown or crawled into her ear canal while she was sleeping and had gotten stuck and couldn’t get out. We weren’t sure exactly how to fix this problem but thankfully as we began our procedure of extraction, the termite looking insect crawled out and we were able to kill it. Ok….now a new thing to add to my prayer list of recitation as I fall asleep.
All of this was in one night and we soon discovered that almost every night of our stay that something would happen right before we would be going to sleep at night that would evoke fear into us and make it hard to rest. On our last night in this particular village, we had to get up very early the next day to head to our next place so we had all tried to go to bed as early as we could. Once again, sometime during the night I am awakened by all of the girls standing on my sleeping mat (I was the furthest away from the door) and telling me to wake up because there was a snake in our room. Are you kidding me?! It had crawled over poor Alexis’s hand and she had caught a glimpse of it. Thankfully she was super calm and cool about it, much more so than I would have been. We never could find it again so we had to just assume that it had crawled under the door and wasn’t in our room anymore. Needless to say, none of us got much more sleep that night and I had another item to add to my list of prayer. We laugh about all of this now but it truly was one thing after the other. I am not a fearful person my nature but for several nights during this time the only way that I could fall asleep was to listen to worship music so I wouldn’t be thinking and obsessing about all the critters that were around us.
During this time was also our team’s first interaction with a demon possessed woman in one of the churches. We actually ended up encountering many during our travels. This was another area where I could sense the enemy attacking our hearts, minds and faith because even though we prayed for these women excessively and were claiming the power that we have in Christ and believing that it was God’s will for these women to be set free, we never saw any deliverances or healings occur. It’s not that this shook my faith in the sense that I felt God wasn’t able to deliver or heal or use any of us to do that, but it did confuse and honestly anger me at why we weren’t seeing it. I was tired of hearing trite little answers to why we don’t see God’s power shown in situations that we believe it is His will to set free. In all truth, I still haven’t come up with an answer for why but my trust and faith remains in Him and I believe that His will is still going to be done through me and my team and through the lives of those needing freedom.
I say all of this to try to explain why my team was in such desperate need of rest and how it was being so completely attacked the entire month. I had conversation after conversation fighting for my team’s time and rest during these weeks and fighting for my team’s attitudes and perspective on things. The lack of rest and attacks from the enemy were wearing them down hard and as a leader it was hard to see that happening and not be sure how to stop it. I think this lead to me trying to take on more than I was supposed to or could handle in the attempt to encourage and push and carry them along.
It was interesting because one of my biggest passions in life to live out and speak about is always making Christ your source and being completely filled up by Him. It’s so easy to look to those around us or our circumstances to fill us or be our source of anything good but I have seen that time and time again anything but Christ falls short. The first several weeks of the intense schedule and constant talks and discussions and fighting for my team and host, I was able to stay stable and constant and even joyful. While sometimes the attitudes and feelings of those around me weren’t always the best (because let’s face it y’all, we’re all human and have those days or even weeks) I was still finding my joy and rest in Christ and things weren’t effecting me as bad. So in that sense it was super cool to walk that out in a more extreme setting, but on the other hand, I found that when we had about a week to a week and a half left in Nepal, I was finished. Even though I was still spending time with Christ, I was burnt out. I felt it all crashing down on me and I was barely able to keep going till the end. I felt the attack on me and my heart towards those around me. It was a humbling place to be. In so many ways I have been walking in a ton of freedom from pride while on this Race but it had very slowly and slightly started to make its way into my heart and thinking, especially in regards to my leadership. This was something I already knew but it was definitely driven in more that I need to grow in having more grace and compassion for those around me. I also learned a ton from having to learn how to effectively and in a culturally correct manner be firm in what I feel is best for my team and the future ministry that we are able to do. If I’m wanting to do more missions in the future and lead teams all over the world, I have to know how to fight for them and how to be a good mediator between the hosts in a country and my team.
So all of that to say, Nepal was incredible. I loved it so very much and I loved all of the people that we got to do life with all month, they were priceless. God taught me so much from both the joys and trials that I experienced during this time. I was stretched the way that I have been wanting to be stretched on the Race and I feel like God showed Himself mighty in so many ways. I wouldn’t trade my time in Nepal for anything.
