I had to laugh when our next contact was announced to us at the beginning of this month, it was all I could do. After a few days of exhausting travel through the chaos of Bihar (the poorest state in India), my team was so excited for a change of pace in Nepal. We had just spent a glorious day of shopping in Kathmandu and were loving it. The air was clearer here, people were happier and chow mein was eaten! Sweet treehouses dotted the countryside and impressive mountains loomed on every horizon. But, that evening, Amiee announced our next contact’s location. We found out that we would be going to the low lands in southern Nepal. It was an area quite near the border of India and heavily influenced by, you guessed it, the state of Bihar. Back to Bihar. Apparently God didn’t think we were done with it yet.
As we traveled over the mountains towards our ministry location, a glimpse of the Himalayas cheered my up and gave me a bit of hope. Then we pulled into our contacts driveway and guess what- we got to live in a treehouse for a month!
One similarity I didn’t expect though, was the intense idol worship. Prayer flags line the streets here and idols and their images are still everywhere. I’ve always sort of written off Hinduism and Buddhism as harmless religions but our experiences in India and Nepal have opened my eyes. My team prayer walked around some temples that continue to do human sacrifices and even hearing firsthand accounts of incredible spiritual warfare is hard to take in.
One of our Indian contacts told us before we left that for every 2 people in India, there is 1 god. And they continue to make up new ones. It made me do a doubletake that someone could put their faith in something that they themselves made up. But then I looked at my own life and realized that I’ve done the same thing. Not as literally as drawing a picture and worshiping it, but aren’t there traits I’ve added to God to make Him into my own human image? For me it’s giving him the human capacity to love me & thinking that he doesn’t care about my life. I’m afraid to trust him with certain areas of my life because I assume that, like any human, he is untrustworthy & doesn’t know what’s best for me. I’m starting to take another look at Him though, and I challenge you to do the same. Look at how you’ve been viewing God and compare it to what he says about himself in the Bible. God has no opposite or equal, don’t bring him down to your level. Trust that even if he’s bringing you back to Bihar, it’s because he has something crazy awesome in store for you. Pray for him to open your eyes to lies you’ve been telling yourself and pray for the Indians & Nepalese to recognize their bondage as well.
