Last week Gladiators and Undefined trekked through the foothills of the Himalayas to minister to the Chepang people. We stopped in 5 villages where we participated in church services and played with children. We slept on dirt floors, and one roof. We ate rice, corn meal, and cooked pumpkin leaves for the most part. We used the bathroom outside and occasionally in squatty potty outhouses. We got a few leeches stuck on us a long the way. I was the first one to get a leech! We hiked 2 to 5 hours a day, sometimes straight up mountain sides, sometimes straight down mountain sides, sometimes along (and in) the river.
Pastor Mithun was our guide. He is Chepang and has planted many churches in the Chepang villages. He knows some English and is a very gentle and humble man. Samir served as our translator for the week. He is the son of our ministry hosts here in Kathmandu and just turned 15. He is very smart, very fun, and the most mature 15 year old boy I’ve ever met. Now let me tell you about Sham, the Chepang man who won my heart through his humility, kindness, and gentleness.
Here he is.
On the first day of the trek, before we even started hiking, a small Chepang man offered to carry my bag. I declined, saying that I’d like to carry it as far as I could on my own. That wasn’t very far. I made it about 2 hours into the 6 hour hike. I went to Samir and said, “I need help carrying my pack.” He turned back to the same man, who agreed with a smile that he would carry it for me. I didn’t know his name yet, but that was Sham. Later that day I decided that I’d like to try carrying my own pack again. I went to Pastor Mithun and Sham and gestured that I would take a turn. Sham turned to Pastor and said some stuff in Nepalese. Pastor turned to me and said, “He says he is a strong little man so he is fine.” Haha, a strong little man indeed! Sham smiled at me and continued up the mountain.
The next morning I decided to try carrying it myself again. We went straight downhill and it was throwing my balance off a lot so I gave it up again. Sham said he would carry it. He carried it the rest of the day and didn’t give it back to me when I offered to take it from him.
On day 3 Sham didn’t even ask, he just put my pack on and started walking. This continued for the rest of the week, until the last day when I carried my pack for half the hike back along the river. During this time not only was Sham carrying my pack everyday, but he was helping me and most of our team across rivers, over rocks, and up & down steep inclines. He had a part in serving our meals, and he played the drum in all the church services we went to. He sang a song in one service and we found out later that it was a song he had written, “I See Jesus in the Time of Praise.” He had a whole notebook of songs he’d written. I was quite impressed.
Toward the end of the week, we learned that Sham was a pastor too. He is 24, has been married since he was 17 & has two children. He showed us pictures of his family, his parents, and his church family. He told us that his church was blown away in a big storm a couple months ago.
The Chepang people, especially Sham and the other men who accompanied us on the trek gave us so much. They were extremely attentive to us. They sacrificed their own physical comfort for us. They sacrificed their own money and time for us. They left their families to serve us and serve alongside us for a week. We did nothing to deserve their love and kindness but they gave it to us anyway. That is a huge reflection of the way God loves us, and Christ gave his all for us.
We wanted to give Sham a gift to thank him for helping us and serving us on the trek. He picked out a backpack in Manahari and we bought it for him. He had the biggest smile. Gift giving is one of my top love languages and it blessed my heart to see that. I cried a little. The night before we parted ways with Pastor Mithun and Pastor Sham they sang a song for us and prayed over us. Pastor Mithun told us that he’d had a vision of God washing away all of our sorrows and all of our problems. Beautiful. I cried a lot.
I love giving gifts, and I love receiving gifts that a lot of thought have gone into. If I had been asked by God to choose a gift for myself, I never would have picked a trek through the Himalayan foothills with the Chepang people. But our Father knows what we need. He knows better than I do. The trek was a gift. The Chepang people are a gift, and Sham is a gift. God loves me so much.
Please pray for Pastor Sham and Pastor Mithun. They are good, honorable, strong men who are passionate about sharing God’s love with the Chepang people. Pray for them and their families to be blessed and encouraged.
