Wow, we are going to the middle of nowhere, I thought, as my butt was numb from riding a tuktuk on a bumpy ride for over than an hour. I looked around me and all I saw was dust. I pulled my shawl a little more over my face so I would not be pelted with all the dust that flew up. I took slow deep breaths, hoping that I wouldn’t breathe in too much of this filth.
We pulled into a side road where people in ratty clothes and funky coloured hair stared at us. Other people pulled their friends out of their houses, made out of tin and bricks, to come look at us. We took a few more turns and we were here. Dogs greeted us with their mangey, hairless skin, and chickens ran around unsure what to do. There were a few kids around, and they looked awkward and scared.
We were shown around our new home for the next few days, a house on stilts. We were told that a family who lived next to the Pastor of the village had given up their house so that we would not have to sleep outside. They had made a make-shift sink so we wouldn’t have to walk to the other side of the property to brush our teeth. We were warned about the water, last time our host was there she get a rash all over her body.
Honestly, this is what I though the race would be like. I thought that we would never have running water, electricity or internet. As excited as I was to be away from all that stuff, I was also scared. What would the people be like? Will people be filled with joy? What would church look like? How will God show up in the people of the village. Is my new team going to get along? (It was manistry month which means that all the men do ministry together, so the girls on my team and the girls from another team were put together).
After a few days I realized how silly my questions were. We follow a God who never changes, he remains immovable. Who am I to question if God will show up? Ofcourse he would! And who am I to question how he would show up? Who am I to question if the people will be filled with joy? The fruits of the Spirit are the same wherever I am, because God is already there. Who am I to say that I am in the middle of nowhere? I can never be in the middle of nowhere because wherever I go I carry God with me.
This has been a reoccurring theme, in case you read my blog in Nepal (Through His Eyes). Funny enough, God has placed me in a village without a lot of the comfortabilities that I am used to at home once again.
