While typing this I am only an hour into our 13 hour bus ride back to Kathmandu from Chitwan, Nepal. Somehow there is way too many people on this bus so the aisle is full of people standing up. There are also two kids asleep on the floor and a grandmother sitting with them. The hope is that people will get off the bus because I don’t understand how they will stand for 13 hours straight. Update on that… some people got off the bus around hour five, but there are still people sitting in the floor using my leg as a pillow. Let’s just say it was a rough night.
Overall, this past week has been eye opening to so many ways. I will try to give you a picture of Chitwan. It’s basically villages in a valley which is a dried up river bed in the middle of the jungle of Nepal. To get there, we rode on an overnight bus for 13 hours. It was the roughest most bumpy bus ride I have ever encountered. After arriving at like 9 am, we had to hike half an hour with all our stuff and a cart pulled by two oxen to the village. We slept in a community hall type house with some bats and rats. Yes, one night I woke up to a bat screeching right above me. I felt so helpless all I could do was bury myself far into my sleeping bag liner with my hood on. Actually, the living space wasn’t as bad as it seems. I mean we were roughing it with our squatty potties and carb eating all meal every meal, but it was actually a pretty nice set up. Going to the houses of so many villagers made me realize that we had it pretty good.
The village was basically an agricultural society. Families planted enough food for them to try and survive on for that year, and even then the children had bulging bellies. There was one clinic right next to us which didn’t have anything but a few over the counter drugs. On the day we were leaving, a woman actually gave birth in the clinic to a baby boy. I got to see him and pray over him, too. Yea, baby fever is through the roof in foreign countries! I want to love all of the little kids. Not only were there babies but also we played with little goats and chicks. One night after playing around with the hackey-sack, I got recruited to play soccer with the guys. Tamara, another squad mate, came with me. I scored two goals, and she scored one too. It was so much fun, and I was happy to finally play real soccer.
Our ministry was evangelizing to people groups that had literally never heard of the name of Jesus. Honestly, it was difficult. The first day we walked two and a half hours both ways which was like 11 miles to witness to a few drunk men and their families. It was pretty frustrating at first and so hard to figure out how to come into their homes and share about our God that they had no concept. We also had to be careful to not step on their religion and culture. It was hard to convince them that our God is a provider when their bellies are empty or that He loves them as His children when I was told by one man, “I don’t feel love from anyone, because my daughters are all married.” A common reasoning we found for not converting to Christianity was because of fear. Either fear of what a family members will think or fear of not fulfilling promises made to their gods. Through all of this we focused on encouraging them, and really trying to let them know how loved they were. Even if all they got out of it was the name Jesus Christ, I am learning that I have to put my faith in the Lord believing that He will reveal Himself to them when the time is right. Walking in Faith and being His hands and feet is sometimes challenging, but I am constantly reminding myself that He has a plan, and I am his vessel to use.
I really do believe we brought joy to these little villages whether it was playing hackey-sack with the kids, eating homemade popcorn, sharing at a church service with 50 young believers, laughing at Katie falling in mud, waving at every person passing by, or illegally crossing the boarder into India in a tiger jungle. The Lord is at work, but I just have to continue trusting in Him.
Also, fun fact we witnessed to the only people group in the world that are immune to malaria. AND, we met the oldest lady in Nepal, so to say. She was 110 years old. I also got to meet the “newest” baby (at the time or close enough) in Nepal because of the little boy that was just born.
We leave tomorrow for our trek, so please pray we are all healthy and energized enough to do it. I am running on maybe 2 hours of sleep right now, and tomorrow morning we have another 8 our bus ride. It will be great though and an adventure. Thank you for your prayers and support. Sorry the pictures wouldn’t load well today, so I tried to post a few on Facebook!
