This was a blog I had written about Nepal and had to take down for a little bit. During this in between time my phone was stolen with the blog saved on it, so here goes round two…
We woke up in our little apartment in Kathmandu early in the morning and loaded up in a bus. I was more than happy to leave that apartment since 16/19 of us had been living together sick for the past four days, I guess you could call it cabin fever. I was more than content resting my head on the window and sleeping for the next few hours. The early departure, the cold crisp air, and my music was more than enough to pull me into space where I was ready to pass out. Then out of no where my mind drifted and landed on one of favorite passages, 2 Corinthians 4. I have heard many sermons on this passage and I began to think about how this passage is directly related to the gospel, the story of salvation. I pulled out my phone and typed out my thoughts. As I was turning my thoughts into words I realized that I had enough notes for a sermon to be formed from it. Our host had asked us earlier in the week to try and write our a sermon and/or testimony in case there was an opportunity for us to speak. I put away my phone quite happy with what the points I had written when it hit me. God would not have randomly put those thoughts into my head if He did not what me to share them. Sure enough the first day we were in the new area, Chitwan, our host asked us to speak at churches. Our group was asked to attend three churches, two of which wanted testimonies and a sermon. At first I didn’t speak up and was waiting for others to volunteer, then when no one else was I said I had a sermon. I was nervous, not necessarily for the public speaking aspect but I was nervous that I wouldn’t have enough to fill the 20 min slot they had for me. Now if you had asked me to speak in front of others a year or two ago I would have been petrified to public speak. Over the past two years I’ve actually grown a lot in this area and almost even enjoy public speaking now, funny how that works. I copied my notes onto paper and smoothed out my message, I prayed that it would make sense and then headed to bed.
The next morning three of us followed a guide down a dirt path, through a dry river bed, down another trail, into a village, and finally to a precious church on a hill. The Nepali people welcomed us with warm greetings and we joined them in worship, I think seeing worship in another language and culture is one of the most beautiful things in the world. It just reminds me of how big our God is and how His love transcends cultures. After worship the pastor came up and introduced me, apparently they only had time for a sermon today so the other two didn’t end up sharing their testimonies. I spoke on the jars of clay passage and how the gospel is the treasure inside. We are jars of clay broken beyond repair due to sin, lucky for us our brokenness is how the light gets in. Not only is is how the light gets in but it’s also how we can show others the treasure inside, once we are believers. I spoke about the message of the gospel and how our life is not promised to be easy but we are promised that God will always be with us. At the end of the sermon I challenged any non believers in the room to ask themselves the question, why not. What was holding them back from living a life without fear, and without hope? Then I prayed and sat back down. The pastor began to speak again and a woman approached the front and fell to her knees, they spoke in Nepali and the pastor looked over at us and smiled. This woman came to the front and fell to her knees ready to give her life to Jesus! Ahh I get goose bumps every time I think about it.
Now I hope that when you are reading this you are not thinking of me, it was all the Lord. His hand was all over that. What this experience revealed to me was how through my obedience I was able to be apart of God chasing after one of his daughters, how beautiful is that? He gives us the choice of being apart of His work or standing aside in our comfortability and missing out on the blessings of trusting the Lord. I am still learning so much about obedience to God and have so much growth to do. I challenge you to step out and to be obedient to God even if it means doing something that you are uncomfortable with or scared of, I promise you it’s worth it. The Heavenly Father wants you to be apart of His work to build His kingdom, will you trust Him and say yes?
