I have a friend back home who started taking one picture a day to help him stay in the moment. At first glance, some pictures seem important and others seem small, but every picture he chooses to take is significant because they allow glimpses into his everyday life. By viewing his pictures, I can know who and what is important to him and it is through that view that I can know him, and the life he leads, better.
So, I have decided to start taking one picture a day to help give you a glimpse into the world through my eyes. While I wish I could bring you here with me to see, smell, touch, and experience everything that I have been given the opportunity to experience, I hope this series of blogs will help bring you into my world, if only a little bit, to see what I see each day and maybe, just maybe, through these glimpses, you can see God in a new way too.
Day 65: Kathmandu, Nepal
After a few days of travel (including stops in Romania, Qatar, and India), we finally arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal!
Day 66: Taulkel, Nepal
My team and four other teams are spending a few days in Taulkel, Nepal, a suburb of Kathmandu, at a rescue home for women and children called Asha Nepal. We went exploring around the little town and met some beautiful people.
Day 67: Taulkel, Nepal
Saturday is the holy day in Nepal so we (all 5 World Race teams, the kids and women who live at Asha Nepal and the staff) crammed onto a bus and went to church. I had a couple of kids on my lap who taught me songs in Nepali and got slightly frustrated at my inability to say the number four correctly. Before entering the church, we had to remove our shoes. The Nepali people sit cross-legged on the floor with the men on one side and the women on the other. I loved singing worship in English at the same time as others were singing in Nepali…it was a beautiful representation of what heaven will sound like!
Day 68: Tamel, Nepal
We went to Tamel, the shopping district of Kathmandu, and I, along with 4 of my teammates bought a guitar. The man at the guitar shop might have thought we were a little crazy when, after my teammate, Jake, and I bought a guitar, we brought other teammates with us to buy their own. He definitely made his sales quota for the month and became the official guitar salesman for the World Race.
Day 69: Kathmandu, Nepal
One of the seven natural wonders of the world…check! We had the chance to fly around Everest today in a tiny little 16 passenger plane where we each had a window seat and they let us go up to the cockpit to get a breath-taking view of Mt. Everest. Being surrounded by the mountains like this just testifies how huge our God is.
Day 70: Taulkel, Nepal
The last couple of days, I had the opportunity to get to know some amazing women and children here at Asha Nepal. The day we left, the kids gave me bouquets of flowers they had picked. Asha Nepal is doing such an incredible work for these women and children…I feel blessed just to have been there for these few days.
Day 71: Kothe, Nepal
We are living in Kothe, a tiny little town of only 120 people with a picturesque view. We fall asleep each night to the sound of the rushing river that is right next to our home in the foothills of the Himalayas.
Day 72: Balepi, Nepal
After hiking 2 1/2 hours up to a village to pass out tracts and talk to people about Jesus, we rode down on top of a bus, in true Nepali fashion. It might have been a little painful, but it was such a fun cultural experience.
