It is election time here in Nepal and unlike political elections in the States elections can drastically determine the well being and everyday life of the people. This election is apparently one of the more important elections because there is currently no head leader and the person elected will create all new laws for the country. There have been many days where the roads and schools have been closed in protest to the elections and the political parties. Civilians have stoned cars who drive on the road during the times of protest.
Crazy right?
Because of the potential risks our ministry this month has been very limited to only places we can go within walking distance. Although living at the base of a mountain range is beautiful it has left even fewer options for ministry because there is not much within walking distance. After many days of being hopeful for ministry but informed we cannot do anything because the roads and schools are closed again, we realized it was time to find our own ministry around the house.
The church we are living in is a small cement room with plywood windows, stripped tree limbs for rafters, and sheets of aluminum held down by rocks for the roof. It is simple but beautiful and does the job it was built for, housing worship for the community and the occasional group of traveling Americans.
As soon as I walked in at the start of the month I noticed the dingy (what used to be white) almost grey walls and the masses of dirt/dust/cobwebs in the rafters. I immediately wanted to clean and paint this church for the family, but I quickly figured that was not a possibility.
The month went on and we became more and more bored with more and more free time. At some point one of the girls mentioned we should clean the church and someone else piped up with maybe we could paint, my heart jumped and I was all in. The team sat down planned it all out with the schedule; we crunched the numbers and went to buy paint that day.
No turning back now.
I was nervous to take on such a large task,
What if it smelled too strong and we would not have place to sleep?
What if we did not have enough paint or money to buy more?
What if we did not have time to finish?
What if we would mess it up?
So many doubts flooded my head, but I knew we had a real opportunity to bless this family and we could not miss it.
A few days later we started the project, we did a deep clean of the carpets, rafters and walls. We got the paint and supplies all ready, pulled out the speakers and tunes, turned our clothes inside out and went at it.
It was one of the best days bonding as a team, we had lots of on looking eyes from the family but the joy when they saw the new color and life covering their church was indescribable.
None of the concerns I had were an issue and everything went better than I could have imagined. It was such a blessing to the family, community of believers, and our team.
The best part of it all was when we mentioned the idea to the pastor’s son he said they were planning to repaint next month, so we literally came at the perfect time.
Our ministry that we came here to do did not work out as we had planned or hoped, but I have no doubt that one of the main reasons we came was to be able to paint this church.
God always has more in store for us than we could imagine, sometimes it just takes looking outside of your own plans and over your doubts.
