Downtown Kathmandu
Finally, a chance to tell you a little bit about what we’re doing here in Nepal! Our ministry is actually very similar to last month’s in India – we are supporting local Christians by visiting their homes, praying with them, and helping to lead services and bible studies. We are in a suburb of the capital, Kathmandu. If you walk out our front door and turn left, you can ride public transportation for about 30mins and find yourself in the middle of the city. If you walk down the hill behind our house, though, you see this:
Kathmandu valley
I’ve loved that we get to experience this contrast. We’ve spent a lot of time exploring the city streets… people have facial features that seem Chinese but skin tone that seems Indian. You’ll see a woman dressed in a sari walking next to her friend in a punjabi next to a third in completely western clothes. Hindi and Buddhist temples are everywhere, and restaurant menus are usually a mix of Tibetan and Indian food. It’s fascinating.
Most of our ministry, though, takes place in the valley. We walk through wheat and rice fields every day to churches and village neighborhoods. It is so peaceful.
A typical morning scene
Truthfully, our ministry isn’t the defining aspect of this month the way it was in India – other things are taking up my concentration. B-Squad’s next debrief (our 2nd so far) will be at the end of April, and as part of the Logistics Team, I’ve been spending a lot of my time organizing that. We’re also living and working together with another team – Braveheart – and we’ve gotten to spend time investing in those new relationships, which has been wonderful.
This month is truly flying by, but out of the countries we’ve visited so far, Nepal is definitely the most intriguing – I’d love to come back here someday.
There are baby animals everywhere in this valley. We are perfectly ok with that.
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Something I learned recently:
My team had a conversation the other night about the social conundrum of the “facebook chat sneak attack” – when someone you barely know sees that you’re online, and tries to strike up a conversation during your precious wifi time. I avoid the problem altogether by always having my chat turned off – one of the things I value most is using my time well. I hate wasting it. If you want to talk, let’s set aside time to really talk and catch up. Otherwise, that shallow 5-minute chat conversation (when we haven’t actually talked in years) is just distracting and frustrating me. So whether it’s committing an hour to rest and rest well, or setting aside time to tackle my email inbox, I’m focused, I’m in the zone, and I do not like unexpected interruptions that keep me from accomplishing what I’m out to accomplish. And I view that as a positive thing – I’m good at being productive with my time.
The morning after our conversation, I read this out of C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters.
(In this book, a little demon has been assigned to keep one particular man as far away from God as possible. His advisor is now writing instructions to him.)
“The sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim has been denied. The more claims on life, therefore, that your patient can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured and, as a result, ill-tempered… nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him. It is the unexpected visitor (when he looked forward to a quiet evening), or the friend’s talkative wife (turning up when he looked forward to [being with] a friend) that throw him out of gear… they anger him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen. You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own’. Let him have the feeling that he starts every day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours.”
Shoooooot.
It’s one thing to read C.S. Lewis and marvel at some idea he’s presented – it’s another to have him point out that what you think is wrong.
So I think I’ve found a new way to work on letting go of control: “my time is not my own.” If God has something to teach me, or a way He wants to work through me, I don’t want to miss it. But that lesson or opportunity could definitely come in the form of an interruption to my previous plans. As of right now, I’d do anything to shut that intrusion down. But if I let myself be interrupted… maybe that ‘waste of time’ will turn out to be the most important moment of ministry out of the whole month. Or it’ll end up being a breakthrough conversation with a teammate. Or my biggest lesson of the Race.
I don’t want to miss those. So, since He knows so much more about what I need than I do… I should probably be ready and willing to operate by his plan for the day.
(Darn you, Screwtape.)
