Oh Nepal.
Sometimes I think about your beauty and I am in awe that God created all of this.
Sometimes I think about your weather and I am in awe that there are mountains all around us and you still don’t get snow and it stays in the 70’s.
Sometimes I think about your food and I stay in awe of how spicy food can be and Nepali’s don’t even break a sweat.
Sometimes I think about your people and I will forever be in awe of how kind, generous, and loving Nepali men and women are.
I wanted to tell you a story of a day of complete and utter awe.
I am in awe of you Lord.
Complete awe.
October 31, 2016 started off as a day of cramming to get a lot of work done in a little time. You see, it is “All-Squad Month” here in Nepal and that means my whole squad is all together working with the same ministry and staying in the same house. Yep, all 50 of us. It has been an amazing blessing to grow relationships with people on my squad, minister to the people around Nepal together, and just share a lot of laughs and memories together. On my squad, I was chosen as the Financial Coordinator and this month that meant handling ALL of the finances for our squad. If I have learned one thing throughout this month, it is that us Americans use A LOT of toilet paper. Haha! Anyways, with this role comes the responsibility of inputting all of our receipts into a spreadsheet and on October 31, 2016 that was my morning job. I told myself that if I didn’t get it done by 11 am I was going to have to stay back from ministry that day. If we are being honest, I didn’t really want to go. I kept trying to make excuses to not go and almost hoped that I wouldn’t get done so I could stay back and rest.
Well, God had different plans.
The only thing that we knew about ministry for the day was that we were getting dropped off at a mountain and our “job” was to find a “Man of Peace” to stay with for the night. Can you understand why I wasn’t very excited about this? So many unknowns and so many opportunities for things to go wrong. But, knowing this information I packed my bag the night before with some apples, crackers, cookies, and of course peanut butter. I also packed my sleeping bag and tooth brush. I went as minimally as possible knowing that the real challenge rested in trusting the Lord to provide.
Well at 10:45 am I finished all of my financial responsibilities (this was only by the grace of God) and then I got a call that the squad was leaving for ministry, so I ran to our worship center to meet them before they left. Oh yeah, they also needed money for transportation, so they really couldn’t leave without me.
When I arrived with my bag on my back, everyone was already split into teams and I joined my team and decided I was going to have to choose in to this adventure. I didn’t want to waste a whole day being crabby and not enjoying all that this day had to hold. I surrendered ALL of my expectations and decided to sit back and enjoy the ride.
My team had 10 people on it that included 8 World Racers and 2 Ministry Leaders. Our leaders had a general area in mind that we were supposed to head towards, so we decided to jump on some local buses and head up the “hill” (they are mountains to us Americans). Now let me tell you about Nepali buses. Cram.As.Many.People.As.Possible.Into.The.Bus. That’s all you need to know. Remember, there were 10 of us all with backpacks on and this was our view.
At this point, I wasn’t very excited about our day. I was hot, hungry, getting knocked over, and pushed around. My attitude quickly changed though when our leader, Bipin, said it was time to get off. Thank you Jesus. Actually, getting off that bus was probably very entertaining to by-standers. All 10 of us were in the very back of the bus, cramming our way to the front without any of the Nepali’s even flinching to move out of the way. I took a big sigh of relief when my feet hit the road.
Up the “hill” we went, trekking with our backpacks, able to see the Himalayas in the distance. It was beautiful. We ended up at a restaurant where we ate some Nepali doughnuts and bean patties. We restocked our water and continued walking. I decided it was time to test God. “Ok Lord, if you don’t want us to walk any more, send us a truck that will take us up this mountain.” That was all I said and I may have flagged down a couple trucks, but then we heard it. Beep Beep. A truck pulled over and offered us a ride for a free will donation. Yesssssss.
Feeling the fresh mountain air crash into our face, seeing God send us a truck, and having the sun beat down on us was a combination that I will soon not forget. It was glorious.
Bipin said it was time to get off the truck after about 15 minutes and this was the town that we would be ministering in today. This was where our “Man of Peace” was. So we all jumped out and gave our driver some rupees and went on our merry way. Not having any idea what-so-ever where we were going to sleep that night. We were officially homeless. Oh man.
We started walking and not even 20 minutes into our journey we heard a man yell at us. I am not sure what he said but Bipin knew. The man ran over to us and said, “CHRISTIANS! I am a Christian too!” Then Bipin said, “Ok take us to your house.” He said it so boldly and without any worry. One thing you should know about Bipin is that he has no fear of man, only fear of the Lord. The man said okay, without any hestitation, and led us to his house. When we got there, this was what we saw. A pink house with a big white cross on it. He wasn’t lying.
We started talking to the family and more and more people joined us and they made us tea. One girl on our team gave away her walking sticks to an elderly man and woman, one team member rode on the back of a motorcycle, and I had the privilege of talking to the lady whose house we were at. I told her what we were doing and that we had no plans for the day and were letting the Lord guide our every step. Without hesitation she said we could stay at her house, but that I should go and look and see if it was enough room for all of us. At this point, I was in awe of how much God was providing for us. I really didn’t care how much space we had to sleep on, I just cared that the Lord was blessing us so greatly. I took a tour of her house and it was perfect. Yes!!! We weren’t homeless anymore!!!
And then God said, “You think that is good…just wait darling….you haven’t seen anything yet.”
As I was telling her that this house was perfect and we were so blessed by her generosity, she said that her friend Dinesh was coming over. I thought nothing of it and when he showed up, I had a long conversation with him. He told me that he was once a Royal Priest for the Hindu religion and that one day he read the Bible so that he could prove all of his Christian friends wrong about Jesus. While he was reading the stories, he told me that Jesus transformed his life, that he fell in love with Jesus. Dinesh hasn’t looked back for 15 years. Now let me tell you about a “Man of Peace”. Here they are. Bikas and Dinesh. Bikas led us to Dinesh.
I told Dinesh all about this adventure we were on for the day and then he asked where we were staying for the night. I told him at the house with the family and he quickly said, “This place is very small, all of you would be welcome to stay at my house for the night, there is much more room.”
Are you serious Lord?
And then God said, “Wait for it….wait for it….”
I jumped on the back of Dinesh’s motorcycle with him and we stopped at restaurant where he ordered food and said we would come back later for dinner. We also had to go warn his wife that 9 more people were on their way to stay the night at her house. I was expecting her to be very upset, but from the second I walked inside their house, I felt completely at home and at peace. Meet Sunita, Dinesh, Sudikshya, and Simone. The most amazing family that is full of God’s love, peace, and joy.
Also, right when I walked in, Sudikshya brought me some chocolate and believe it or not, it was from COLORADO! Are you kidding me Lord????
I sat and talked with the family for a while and then we headed down to the town square where there was a concert going on and many people were celebrating the Diwali Festival. As we were walking, I mentioned it was my teammate Pat’s birthday the next day and they didn’t even hesitate to go and buy a cake for him, and the bakery just happened to be open.
When the rest of my team made it to where we were standing we headed to dinner and ate a bunch of native Nepali food. It was absolutely delicious and we had so many laughs and a lot of good conversation. Oh yeah, I also bit into a really really really really really really spicy pepper. Ouuuuuuch! Again, Dinesh paid for our dinner and we were completely blown away by their kindness.
Oh yeah, after dinner we had an intense dance party on the side of a mountain in Nepal. Yep. That was awesome. Dancing with the kids. Dancing without any worries. Just pure happiness and joy. I bet that is what heaven will be like.
We all headed back to the house and had a bible study with the family. We studied Matthew 4: 1-11 and talked about fasting and temptation. It was so good and so amazing to hear the wisdom Dinesh poured on to all of us. We then prayed for the family and for the Lord to bless them immensely. We were all very tired, so we fell asleep on the floor, couch, and some were even blessed with a bed.
I just couldn’t stop thanking the Lord as I was falling asleep. So blessed. I cried a lot that day. Tears of joy and thankfulness.
When I woke up in the morning, I went on a morning walk with Dinesh and his brother. We walked to a temple that is on the top of the mountain and I took 1,000 steps up to get there. When we got to the top, I realized it was well worth every step. You could see the beautiful Himalayas as well as a 360 degree view of pure mountains. We then prayed over all of Nepal and I got showered in the love of our Father and just sat in everything we were blessed with in the past 24 hours. It was amazing. I realized that sometimes we don’t need a plan. Sometimes the best things that happen when we least expect it.
We walked back and as we entered the house, I could smell eggs and realized that Sunita had made all of us breakfast and tea. Such a blessing. They then pulled out the cake and lit the candle and sang Pat Happy Birthday. Yep, we ate cake for breakfast. So much fun.
After we finished breakfast, we had to leave to go back to our ministry house. As we were praying over the family I had the realization that this Faith Journey was coming to an end, but then I was reminded that every single day we are on a faith journey. Every single day we have the choice to surrender all to the Lord, to let Him guide our steps, to let Him show His glory, to let Him shower us in His love and blessings. It is so easy to forget that we don’t have to do anything special to let God lead our lives. We don’t have to be half way across the world to let the Lord take control. We don’t have to have a special prayer to say to bring blessings to others. We don’t have to have anything special, we just have to ask. Jesus is just waiting for you to ask for His blessings.
I was reminded in those 24 hours that the Lord is good. He is full of love and blessings. Our family is so much bigger than our immediate family. God will keep us safe. God wants to shower His children in glory. God wants us to stop making plans and let Him lead. God wants us to know that He has us in the palm of His hand. God wants us to remember He is more powerful than anything we could ever imagine and He is just waiting for you to say Yes.
I am so glad I said Yes to this Faith Journey.
Lord, I am in complete awe of YOU.
Please join me in prayer for this amazing family! Ask the Lord to bless them abundantly in every area of their lives!
PS…. I am now in Hyderabad, India!!! We are heading to a village to reach the untouched people of this wonderful country and spread the GOOD NEWS!!
PPS….I am less than $4,000 away from being FULLY FUNDED!!!! If you feel led to help me get there I will be eternally thankful! My deadline is November 30th!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! God bless you immensely!
(I was able to wear a traditional Sari one of my last nights in Nepal!)
