1. We were welcomed to our home in south Nepal in the most wonderful way. Our Nepali family immediately made us feel like part of their family. They gave us two rooms with pillows and blankets: one for the 3 girls and one for the 2 guys. Our first night, we three girls cuddled as closely together as we could, wearing every layer of clothes that we owned and tucked in our sleeping bags. Our room was not closed off from the outside world. We could literally see our breath while we were in our sleeping bags. I stuck my ear plugs in my ears and fell soundly asleep. Neysa, however, did not have ear plugs. We woke up the next morning with a lot of stories to hear… Including that she had heard a rat crawl over my pillow in the middle of the night. We all decided that moment that we were going to set up our tents inside the room. Best. Choice. Ever. The rest of the month we literally spent every night listening to Rat Wars inside our room. It was the loudest, scariest thing ever. We would wake up every morning with the rat poop multiplied outside of our tents. They would wreak havoc on all of our belongings. They chewed holes through Cassie’s toothpaste and knocked my toothbrush on the floor. It was awful. But we were more thankful than ever for our tents. Thank you, Jesus, for not letting me send my tent home in month 3.
2. One morning as we were leaving for ministry, we noticed a very disturbing sight. On a blanket in the grass outside our home, we saw our Mama and Auntie thoroughly checking the hair of the children in our home. Uh oh. We came home from ministry to find that the hair of the youngest child in the family had been cut very short. Double uh oh. We ended up finding out that our home (as well as basically the whole village) had been infected with a major case of lice. We. Were. Terrified. We knew that if any one of us on our team got lice, the rest of us would be sure to get it. We also knew that we would probably never get rid of it for the rest of our Race. Ugh. So, we proceeded to do almost nightly lice checking parties on one another. We would take our head lamps and pick through each other’s hair. Like monkeys. That is team love. And… Despite the fact that we spent our days loving on, hugging, and sitting very close to people who were severely infiltrated… we are all still currently lice-free. Praise the Lord!
3. Because we were so paranoid about lice, we tried to be very observant about the hair of the people we were around. One day, a woman asked us to take a group picture with her. After the group picture, she wanted to take one-on-ones with each of us. The rest of us backed away so that she could take her first one-on-one with Neysa. All of us… except Cassie. She stood there next to Neysa, intently staring at the hair of this woman. Photo bomb. We literally had to tell her to get out of the picture. Hilarious.
4. It was pretty normal for us this month to walk down the down the street and see numerous children who weren’t wearing clothes on the bottom half of their bodies. It was not quite as normal for them to sit with their naked bums and winkies in our shoes. Yeah, that happened to Cassie.
5. One day, we walked nearly 20 kilometers through a jungle and to a church. Each of us stood and shared a Word with the people in that church community. Cassie was the last one to speak, and when she stood up she admitted that preaching was not one of her strengths. After she finished speaking, our pastor told the congregation that even though she thought she wasn’t a good speaker, she was his favorite. Another man told everyone that our squad leader, Megan was his favorite speaker. Neysa was the funny one. And they just told me and Josh that we should exercise more. Awesome. Then we walked another nearly 20 kilometers home. How’s that for exercise? Ha.
6. We walked 160 kilometers this month. Basically 100 miles. True story.
7. One day, Megan found one of the little boys who was staying in our home playing with some new toys. As she came closer, she realized what the new toys actually were. Two words: tampon. applicators. Yeah. And then she had to try to explain what they were to our mama and auntie who hardly spoke any English at all. Later, he dug them out of the trashcan again. Ya win some, ya lose some.
8. In a very extreme change of events from my time in Africa, where we received many unwanted marriage proposals each month, I wanted to marry (or wanted my teammates to marry) almost every Christian Nepali man we met. Quality men, my friends. Quality men.
9. One day, we walked about 10 kilometers to go to a “picnic at the lake”. The lake, however, was really just a bunch of rocks. Scattered across the “shoreline” were many rock piles. Pastor had announced to the congregation on Saturday morning that we would be going. When he said it, he laughed and then told us that they would not take us down there to kill us. Apparently, the Hindu people take bodies down to the lake and burn them and put them in the river. Good joke, Pastor. When he saw the rock piles, Adam asked some of the people who were with us if there were dead bodies under the piles of rocks. They told us “yes”. I was thoroughly disgusted. Adam even said that when you got close to them, it smelled like rotting flesh. I’m not sure how he knew what rotting flesh smelled like. I just asked him. He said, “Like dead cows…when you roll up on them and they’ve been dead for a while.” Sounds pretty fishy to me. Some of the children were sitting on the piles and playing near them. Finally, our pastor arrived and I said, “Pastor, are there really dead bodies under those rock piles?” He looked at me like I was crazy and said “Of course not!” Shew… Close call.
10. Coming from Africa where children knew how to drop it low and back it up from the time they stepped out of the womb, it was definitely a culture shock when we were told that singing or dancing of any fashion was sinful. Dang. One day, some of the women in our church started to dance to a Christian song and my best friend, an older woman named Kopila, pulled me into the middle of the circle. I only moved my hips a little while I was dancing, but my teammates all started yelling and telling me to stop. For the rest of the month, we had to focus specifically on having absolutely no movement in our hips when we were urged to dance. More difficult than one might think.
11. We taught a lovely song and dance called “Tooty Tot” to the children in our church. It is a very silly song, but little children usually love it. This month, however, we found out that Nepali’s of all ages love… LOVE this song. This includes grown men. We were asked many times throughout this month to lead this dance. If only you could have seen these adults looking like fools and loving every minute of it. So stinkin’ cute.
12. On our last night in our home, we ate dinner with the whole family together. 18 people sitting bundled outside and loving every minute of it. We had spent the entire month telling our mama that we loved her, and when we said it she would always respond by saying, “Yes, yes, yes” or “thank you”. On our last night, we said “I love you, Mama!… Say ‘I love you’ back!” She never would. Finally, right before we went to bed, Mama was sitting across from us and she just burst out and said “I LOVE YOU!” It was the most beautiful moment ever. The next day was impossibly depressing. Mama and Auntie cried every time they looked at us. Although it broke my heart to leave, I know without a doubt that I will be coming back here.
