This month in Nepal has been… shoot, I don’t even know how to describe it. I don’t want to use the cliche “amazing” or “wonderful” that you read at the beginning of every blog of a World Racer.
Let’s see here…
This month has been life-giving, eye-opening, and full of interruptions. You would think the word “interruptions” wouldn’t be something that positively describes my month, but it is. This month was all about being interruptible.
As our first “Ask The Lord” month, Nepal was not about partnering with an organization but going where we felt God was prompting us to go. We spent intentional time at the beginning of the month in loads of prayer and time with Jesus. We did not want to go explore Nepal and all the tourist things it had to offer, but really go to the hard places of this country that needed the love of Jesus.
I was 24 hours into a new team, I looked around at these 5 women who were to be my new immediate family and although I knew them as acquaintances, they were 5 people who I didn’t have deep connections with. I sat and wondered why our leadership would have us switch teams and go straight into an “ask the Lord” month. I felt that maybe we were going in blind with a bunch of strangers. But we left our squad and sat in our own little flat in Katmandu, Nepal and what I thought would become forced interactions turned into natural and quick friendships. These women have quickly become my people and best friends. We naturally gravitate towards each other and love being around each other. One of the first nights as a team I shared my testimony and they surrounded me in prayer and challenged and encouraged me in things I was walking through. THATS how my month STARTED, so I knew that the second we sat together as a team and asked God what He wanted from us this month, it was going to be incredible, and it was going to be GOOD.
We took a day of rest and each spent time with Jesus and then came together to share what we felt God pressing on our hearts. We got a lot of puzzle pieces. One of the big ones was simplicity. Every other team on our squad decided to go trekking, some to remote and unreached villages of Nepal to share the gospel for the first time- CRAZY right?! I’m very proud of them. And once you hear of your squad mates going and doing crazy things like that, you want that as well! But we kept feeling God press on our hearts to keep it simple and to just live with and alongside the people of Nepal and love on them. One of the big mantras of the World Race is “life is ministry and ministry is life.” We don’t want to be a people who lives life for themselves where they are “off” ministry and then puts their ministry hats on when we are in a planned and scheduled ministry. Does that make sense? We want our entire lives to be ministry- in the coffee shop, grocery store, gym, airport, or even waiting in line at the bathroom. So when we kept getting the word simplicity, we felt this was the perfect opportunity to put that into practice. To really live out “life is ministry and ministry is life.”
Our puzzle pieces eventually came to God asking us to find a simple place out of the city, living with Nepali people, and simply loving them. We got visions of kitchen tables and beautiful fields out in the country. And just a few hours later, scrolling through Airbnb, we find a place that fits every single puzzle piece. I sprawled out on the floor in excitement hearing all of our listening prayers come together in one place!
“LOOK AT GOD!” My teammate Jasmine would shout. YES, look at Him go, guiding us to exactly where He wants us to go. We booked it, we packed our bags and we went!
Now here is the funny part: Nepal is our coldest country on the race- I actually could wear pants and long sleeves and not feel like I wanted to cut them off my body. The village that we ended up at was Chitwan- the hottest part of the country. In my opinion, it was hotter than India because of the humidity and in India we were dealing with 120 degrees. We step off our 5 hour bus ride and sweat, sunburn, and those darn skeeters attacked every part of us. I battled a dozen different types of critters that first night. My first question was “WHY would God send us to the hottest and most uncomfortable part of our coldest country?”
A tattoo that my friend from G Squad crosses my mind- “to what extent” were the words he got tattooed on his forearm. To what extent are we willing to go for the sake of the gospel? Am I willing to give us the comfortability of this country for the sake of the gospel? Am I on this trip to be comfortable? Absolutely not- that’s the whole reason I signed up! To be uncomfortable! Well, here I was, following God’s leading to be pretty uncomfortable.
When I told locals in the city or friends I had made at coffee shops that I was going to Chitwan for a week, their eyes grew wide. “No no no, don’t go there for a week, no no, you go there for a day of two, not a whole week!” It was baffling to them that we would choose such a hot and deserted place to go for a week. I would explain to them: “We are not going for travel or touring! We want to share the love of Jesus with those people there!” They would grow quiet and look at me funny and confused. I would smile, knowing that I’m planting seeds in their hearts for future believers to harvest. I could see the wheels turning in their heads asking the questions “what’s different about these people?”
In Chitwan we found our ministry to be just what God asked of us: SIMPLE. We lived and worked alongside the Tharu people. We fished with them, cooked with them, ate, laughed, and quickly became family with them. We would hike into a nearby town and have lunch or breakfast at the same place and meet and love on any person that crossed our path. We made a sweet friend from Switzerland who was in Nepal volunteering and taking care of elephants, we became friends with our wonderful waitress at our favorite little restaurant, we would sing and laugh and talk with the wonderful men that took care of the community Homestay we stayed at. In just over a week, Chitwan and these people became Home.
It was hard to be on a missions trip and not have an organization or a church that you are partnering with. I battled the feeling that I was just traveling and being nice to people and not doing much- maybe I wasn’t even stewarding the money people were donating! But God fought those lies entering my mind and showed me what I was really doing. Sometimes it’s just about planting seeds. We shared the gospel, we loved people OUT LOUD, almost to the point of being obnoxious and they noticed. They noticed the love and joy we had and they tilted their heads and wondered what was different. When we asked for pay for people’s meals they asked why. When we booked an entire week in a hot place they asked why. When we shared that we left our homes and comfortable lives to come to love on them, they asked why.
I don’t have stories to report about new people coming to know the Lord. I don’t have a crazy journey about trekking to the unreached villages of the Tsum valley to preach the gospel. What I do have is a group of people that live in a village called Chitwan whom I love and adore and am constantly praying for. I have a story of praying for them on our last morning and seeing tears in their eyes as we left. I have a dozen new friends on Facebook that fill up all of my messages. I have memories and sweet conversations about God and about their hopes and dreams. I saw dozens of people come and go through this village and only stay a day or two and never look these people in the eye and I am so thankful that God sent us there to look them in the eye, learn their name and show them how much their Heavenly Father loves them.
I have a memory of a dance party on our last night with a group of men who needed some extra joy in their lives. If you go and visit the Tharu community homestay near Chitwan National Park, you will find a hand painted card made and signed by 6 World Race Women framed and proudly presented over their kitchen table.
To God be the glory forever and ever and ever.
More to share, more to come (blog about that word “interruptbile” coming soon),
All my love,
JJ
