A note before the blog: I’d like to apologize to all of my supporters, friends, and family, and everyone who follows my blog. Wifi was very scarce in Nepal, and I had a lot of issues getting my blogs up. I am so sorry these are being posted so late, but in recompense I’m posting three blogs today, and will follow them up within the next week or so with some more. Nepal was a super sweet month for me, and I can’t wait for you guys to hear about what the Lord did in my life there. Again, apologies for the lateness of this post, and I hope you can forgive me. Enjoy!
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Just wanted to dedicate this post to our wonderful host family for Nepal, they were amazing and wonderful and I’ll never forget what hospitality and love they showed me.
Our official host for the month was a young man named Gresom Grace. He’s a dork, but a very loveable one. He’s 21 years old, has played guitar for 12 years, and has a mixed secular and Christian band named the Colors Band. He’s very good at swinging high on their little tree swings, nearly gave me a heart attack. Oh! And he’s also a punk. He’s got long, dyed-red hair, and always wears ripped jeans and these ridiculous sunglasses. My favorite line of his was: “Okay my girls!” (Also the way he said, “No?” Haha, I’m laughing just thinking about it).
Gresom’s father spent a lot of time with us throughout the month. The first night, he came in and told us not to call him Pastor, but “Papa.” He was incredibly kind. Papa always stressed how he wanted to know if anything was happening, because now that we were staying with them, we were all family, and so we were now his daughters. I remember being so blown away by his love for us, even though we were still strangers to one another.
Gresom’s best friend, Ramesh, stayed with us during the month and helped with transportation and general fun times. He was taught guitar by Gresom, and he’s one of those obnoxiously-always-picturesque people who look photogenic literally all the time. He had a great sense of humor, and came with us to Gorkha. He’s usually the one who cooks (which was really cool? Because there’s a stereotype that women are the cooks?? But he always likes to do the cooking which is sweet) and made us tea in the morning. He was also some sort of gremlin and hopped around like a possessed crazy frog when we did our little Halloween celebration, which made me laugh so hard I was crying and could barely breath.
Samuel is a famous sarongi player, which is kind of like a mix of the violin and cello but without frets on the neck. It’s a really hard instrument to play! He teaches lessons, and Elizabeth took some while we were there. Papa can also play the sarongi, and from what I understand he actually won a tournament for sarongi playing once!
Suraj, who is in Gresom’s band, came with us on our crazy 10-mile hike and helped us out sometimes when Ramesh couldn’t make it. Another guy named Solomon also came around sometimes, and is also in Gresom’s band. He came in one night with the entire band to play some songs for us. (We had a dance party, and it was a lot of fun. Sami still managed to light up the dance floor even with her gimp leg, and we taught Gresom and Ramesh the church clap. It was pretty awesome).
Two of Gresom’s sisters, Elizabeth and Opia, around their early twenties, were amazing. They cooked for us every meal, including breakfast which I learned isn’t really a thing in Nepal? Apparently, they only have tea and crackers/cookies in the morning, lunch, and dinner. So they were super nice in not only cooking for us, but also going the extra mile to cook us breakfast, along with all the amazing tea.
In Gorkha, where Papa lives, Gresom’s mother (who we called Mama) and Gresom’s littlest sister Gresha live together with Papa when he’s not visiting Gresom. Mama didn’t really speak too much english, but we could all sense a gruff sense of love from her all the same. Gresha was super sweet, and her english was pretty good for a 10-year-old! She really bonded with Elizabeth, and kept sticking flowers in our hair and just generally being super cute.
Our host was more than just a host family this month; they were our family. And I’ll never forget the love and care they gave us this month. They didn’t have to invest so much of their time, effort, and love on us, these random strangers from a foreign country. They could’ve done the bare minimum, and then shuffled us on our way, but instead they made the effort to love on us and get to know each and every one of us. I’ll never be able to express how much that meant to me.
