Hello! I will tell you about my 2nd week living in the Himalayan Mountains! Over the weekend, we did laundry and showered. This was no ordinary laundry and showering though, it was an experience. We had to walk about an hour down the mountain to get to what we thought was going to be a big river, but it turned out to be just a bitty stream. It was a beautiful area though with the little mountain stream, rocks, trees, and birds. One of my teammates brought her hammock too and set that up. There were 9 of us, and we brought 4 bowls/buckets and our laundry, and we took turns. We used the water from the stream and laundry detergent to wash, and then there wasn’t really anywhere to dry our clothes, so we just had to put them on some like bushes to dry ha. We then used the stream and shampoo/conditioner to wash our hair too- it was really cold! My teammate helped me wash mine. That was my first time ever using stream or river water to wash my clothes or my hair. The village we’re in doesn’t have running water, but they get water from streams and rivers. Some of us bathed/showered using the stream water there and others brought water back up to boil or used their water bottle to shower in the outhouse. We then had to hike back up for an hour. It was fun! But a lot of work! We actually haven’t washed clothes or showered since and that was about a week ago because it was so much work and because we’re waiting to just get back to Kathmandu.
The whole week was spent sharing the Gospel with the Nepali people here. I really liked the week because it seemed Biblical to me and kinda like what you read about in books. We were going out to the mountainous villages of Nepal to unreached people who have never heard of Jesus or have heard very little. It was refreshing too because our contact charged us saying “Go out and share the Gospel with everyone you meet”. It was refreshing because a lot of times I hear people say to “just love on people”, but don’t say anything about Jesus. I know that you need to listen to God and discern ultimately, and I think that you should love on people and tell them about Jesus and that telling them about Jesus is the most loving thing you can do.
We had two Nepali men come with us who translated for us. We spent about 3-4 hours every day hiking up and down the mountain, and then we talked with about 3-4 homes. Everyone welcomed us into their homes (always with seats to sit and many times with tea), but the responses were different. Some accepted and wanted to believe, some cut us off early, and some just wished us well on our way. I was sharing with a woman one day, and I asked her if I could share with her about Jesus, and she said yes, but then about half way through she asked me to stop talking and to come back when her husband came back. She said her husband wasn’t coming back for a year which was most-likely true because we were told that many of the husbands/dads in the mountains work in Kathmandu, Nepal or Dubai, India to make money. Another one of the days though, I got to share the Gospel with seven women. Many of the homes had goats, and I noticed that many of the older women had gold nose rings through both of their nostrils. Many of the men wear a cylinder hat that we were told was the national hat of Nepal. Another day we went near a school, and it was cool to see the school. The school was about a 2 hour hike from our village, and one of the boys from the village goes to school there. Talk about a “When I was your age, I had to hike up and down a mountain for 4 hours to go to school” story. Another time, we met this woman who couldn’t walk well, so we all prayed for her and told her about Jesus. It was interesting too because as we were praying, one of my teammates felt like God was telling her that the woman had last a child, so my teammate asked her if she had lost a child, and the woman said that she did, and then my teammate had more things to say about it. The woman didn’t become fully healed, but she said that her feet felt a little different, and I noticed that she smiled a little when we left (she had such a serious face the whole time). I think, hope, and pray that God will continue to heal her spiritually, emotionally, and physically. I feel like this month I was learning the importance of faith and to remember how sovereign and powerful God is. Sometimes it is hard to have faith for certain things. At the beginning of the week, the church had a “Child Dedication” to dedicate a newborn baby to God, and we were all invited. There was a worship service, prayer, and a ton of yummy food. It was rice, potato curry, pork meat and fat, and tea. We have that all the time in Nepal.
I’ve really enjoyed my time in the mountains- the people are so hospitable and sweet, the kids are so cute, and the mountains are beautiful. It’s raw and peaceful here. I am excited to go back to Kathmandu again though and have city life again with running water to shower and wash clothes and to have internet and be able to buy some things. The past couple nights it’s been really cold, windy, and rainy here. The rain is really loud on our tin roof, but it didn’t rain for very long at all. I’ve seen these really big, hairy spiders in our outhouse that I’ve only seen in cages before, never wild ones. We were told that they’re not poisonous though, but they still scare me! My teammates said they saw one of the big, hairy spiders in our room once, and another in a different room, but I’ve never seen them. I’ve just seen a daddy long-legs spider- the other night I was reading the Bible with my headlamp, and the daddy long-legs spider crawled on my Bible. It scared me so much! I killed it though. We’ve all had colds here too, and others were having other sicknesses. One thing that’s interesting is that we all are so tired and go to bed so early here. I’ve been falling asleep at like 9pm! That’s so early for me. We wake up around 6:30am-7:30am. We just get so tired from the mountain hiking and elevation I think, and then there’s not much light, so it’s really dark and also quiet which makes it easy to fall asleep. We wake up to roosters, dogs barking, and people talking usually though. We went to church on Saturday, and I had some good conversations with some of my teammates. One teammate really helped me work through some things, and I helped another teammate work through some things that she’s been struggling with.
We’re going to have a mini debrief in Kathmandu, and we’ve heard that there’s going to be team changes for our last two months in Africa. I was feeling sad because they ask people to be leaders, and they’ve never asked me and I didn’t want to be one before, but now I’d really like to, so I was feeling like I wasn’t good enough. But I think God reminded me that I am chosen, and that I am good enough and that I can’t find my identity and affirmation from people, but from Him. I know that I’d probably grow more in not having a leadership role than having one. I talked it through with one of my teammates as I mentioned above, and she said that I did have a lot of good leadership qualities which made me feel good. But I believe that everyone is a leader and everyone is a follower anyway. And it’s nice to have less formal responsibility too I guess. Only about 1 week until we go to Africa! I can’t believe that I’m going to Africa. My twin Madelyn and I’s birthday is on the 30th, and I’ve been told that I’ll be travelling on a plane and having a really long layover in New Dehli, India that day. Maybe we can go to the Taj Majal?? I don’t know ha.In other news, we found out that our flight going home to America will land in Chicago on May 31st! 🙂 I attached a photo of me with a Nepali woman from the village, and one of me with my teammate and friend Megan in the mountains..
