This is a story from Nepal, month five of the race. People always ask me about the weather in each country, and to summarize, I’ve been chasing summer around the world. Every country has been HOT. Specifically India, which was the country before Nepal. India was an average of 105 degrees and felt like 120 degrees, everyday. So when I got to Nepal, I was pleasantly surprised when it was around 85 degrees everyday.
Every month prior to Nepal, where we were staying and what we were doing was arranged for us. However, Nepal was an ATL month, which stands for Ask The Lord. My team and I had to figure out lodging, food, transportation, and ministry for the month. We decided to travel out of the mountains, and into the jungle to Chitwan. Chitwan is a small town and we stayed at the Tharu Community Homestay. Every morning we woke up to see the elephants bathe in the river, it was AMAZING.
BUT, it was 100 degrees and very humid everyday. It was so hot, that rarely was there a point when my entire body wasn’t wet from sweat. I let this get in the way of why I was in Chitwan and even on the race. I proposed to my team that we go back to the mountains where it was much cooler.
One of my teammates pointed out that God didn’t make a mistake when he asked our team to go to Chitwan. Leaving would be choosing to be disobedient to what God called us to do because life got hard. Reflecting on my life, I often run the other way when life gets hard. I will say things like “oh must be God closing that door”, when it’s just that life isn’t always easy.
I decided to rest confidently in what God had called us to do, to simply love the people in front of us. After I made this choice, my circumstances didn’t change, and the temperature didn’t get any cooler. The only thing that changed, was my perspective. I could have let my circumstances affect me, but that would have been cutting short everything God had in store for that week. After I changed my perspective, my eyes were opened. We loved, formed relationships, and became family by the end of the week. Chitwan went from a place where I was absolutely miserable, to one of the places I will miss the most.
