I know I’ve probably said this about every country I’ve been to these past nine months, But Nepal was the coolest place I’ve ever been. From the beautiful Himalayas to the massive Buddhist stupas littered throughout Kathmandu, the beauty Nepal had hidden away inside it was consistently leaving me bent over picking up my jaw off the ground. This beauty made it easy for the grit and darkness that has such a grim grip on Nepal easy to be overlooked. I remember receiving some really useful advice from an alumni racer about how we should utilize our authority and take advantage of every divine encounter the Lord was going to give us. I was told if I just took small leaps of faith in given situations that the Lord was going to take it and show us incredible things.
The first month of Nepal was spent with just the guys on the squad together as a team of 10 with our two male team leaders Jace and Mark. Adventures in Missions likes to call it “Manistry,” it gives the guys on the squad a chance to have an all male community and grow together as men of Christ. It’s super cool and is completely necessary on such a long trip where the guy to girl ratio is horrendously out of wack. We spent the first week or so of the month doing prayer walks and visiting children and old women’s homes. It was a lot of fun meeting new people and having such a relaxed ministry compared to the work we had in India. my favorite period of Nepal though was the 10 day outbreak ministry we had the pleasure of experiencing in the rural villages of Chitwan. Our host Depak decided he wanted to mix things up for us and brought us out there to do a bit of trekking to unreached villages to share the word of the Lord.
The area in Chitwan we were staying at was the most rural we had been the entire race. It was a river delta village that would be completely isolated half the year when the rivers would rise from the rainy season. Everyone who lived here made a living off of farming tobacco or were self sustained by they’re own farm and livestock. We stayed in a two story wooden building that acted as a medical clinic and community center. There was no power or running water, but what we were lacking in first world needs was quickly made up for by the beautiful environment around us. Ministry here was so much fun. We would split into groups and do door to door ministry through the village almost always being welcomed onto people’s property to speak and share tea and snacks. A church had just been planted in the village not long before we arrived and we were able to partner with them and help disciple them on how a church should function. All the guys were super pumped to be out of the city and were ready to see the lord do big things while we were here, and boy He definitely showed up.
The first thing that will always pop into my mind when I think of Nepal is the paralyzed lady who was healed. She was an older woman about 65 years of age. We had met her and her family the second day we were in Chitwan doing house visits. She had been paralyzed now for several years the cause of which I’m not certain. All I know is that her family of new believers desperately wanted her to be better for her sake and theirs. After we got all the information from the family the group prayed over the old woman for healing. Nothing major happened right away but she said she felt more at peace and that she wasn’t experiencing as much pain. We informed her and her family that we would be back tomorrow and every other day we were there until she was healed or we had left. While we were gone though we told her to continue to pray throughout the day for healing as well as for her family to do the same and to just have full faith that the Lord can and will heal her.
As the days went on things started to change for her. It started with something small she had feeling in her left arm. Then she was able to lift her head and neck briefly. About five days into our stay she was able to sit up and move her left arm some. Each day we prayed for more healing and the old woman was receiving it. Our last full day in Chitwan she was was able to be helped to her feet and take the first steps she had taken in years. It was incredible. Her body was weak but we were able to get her physical therapy exercises from one of the guys Dad’s to do until she was strong again. I’m so thankful I was able to witness and be apart of that testimony not only for her and the family but for me and all of you guys reading this.
A lot of big things happened for me in Nepal though. God gave me a desire to pursue Christian psychology and to help save troubled teens. If you’d like to read more into that I wrote a blog called “Gods personal calling” it’s one of my favorites I’ve written.
Nepal is also where I felt the desire to step into some form of leadership position with Adventures in Missions after the race. I had my first and so far my only vision from the Lord. The vision consisted of me with longer hair (that’s how I knew it was the future lol) and my big travel pack posted up in a hut. In the vision I heard the words “ I’m not finished with you yet.” This was really cool because earlier that exact day I was having a minor anxiety ridden tangent about us reaching the halfway point of the race and how I wasn’t ready for it to be over and I still had more to learn. It was such a great experience actually hearing an audible voice in a vision tell me to keep going though. For those of you who don’t know I’ll be alumni team leading for Worldrace gap year this coming September. I’ll be on the field the first three months and basically what my task is, is to instill my team with wisdom and lead them well in community as well as raise up a leader for when my time is up. I plan to write more about it later for you guys.
Nepal was great. So much happened and I wish I could have articulated a better blog but I honestly don’t believe I was quite ready to write this one yet. I’m probably going to come back to this in a month or so and write a follow up for you guys because I know I missed a lot. If you want to email me questions or just comment please do it’ll honestly help a ton.
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