There were some very odd things going on when walking around this city this past week.
It’s time for one of the most anticipated, and largest, Hindu festivals here in Nepal, called Dashain. It’s a big deal lasting 15 days. Basically everything shuts down at this time of the year for the festival…they don’t even bake bread (I found this out the hard way when I wanted a sandwich)! Hundreds maybe even thousands of people come here to celebrate, known as pilgrims.
Goats suddenly are everywhere in the streets, tied to stairs in front of local hole in the wall shops, in the back of the tiny taxis, on the top of public buses, and of course on the counter at the open air butcher around the corner.
Why such an influx of goats you might ask?
Well they are all going to be sacrificed. Yup, that’s right. These happy smiling Nepali people walking their goats down the road are going to be cutting their throats to spill blood all over the alters as a sacrifice. Man, these people get amped to kill some livestock for their god’s made of rocks and precious stones. It’s so odd to me. It’s not only the poor goats that get the short end of the stick but almost every kind of farm animal you can think of besides cows (because they are sacred), but that doesn’t exclude buffalos. There is apparently one temple in Kathmandu that slaughters tons of buffalos for this festival on a certain day of the festival and there is so much blood being spilled that it can rise up to your ankles. Thousands of animal sacrifices happen within these 15 days for the “cleansing” of one of the goddesses that apparently bathes in blood. Dude. That is some extreme stuff. They have days for sacrificing to almost everything man ever made like cars and businesses so they can receive blessings from them.
I can’t even begin to imagine how all of this sacrificing to false god’s makes my God feel. I know it disturbs me to my core…God’s heart is infinitely bigger and more sensitive than mine I’m sure. It must really hurt Him. Seeing all of these lost children of Him having things all wrong. I’m not sure I could even imagine living in a country like this that is ruled by a different religion than Christianity.
I actually met a wonderful young Nepali newlywed couple on a public bus the other day that were Christians. I asked them if it was hard to live here and be a Christian. They of course said yes, but they said that serving the one true living God isn’t the hard part…it’s the part of living the life out for the world to see. And because of all of the Hindu holidays and festivals here it’s hard to always remember not to “celebrate” with friends and family that are Hindu. Celebrating it doesn’t mean sacrificing but just getting together to hang out and feast together. All I knew to say to that is praise the Lord that His people can still have courage and boldness to shine some light in a dark country. Man, mad respect goes to them. I encouraged them and told them I’d be praying for them as they got off the bus. It was definitely a divine appointment moment.
I know that lately I have been very thankful that I serve a living God and not some rock or whatever else they can think of to worship. I am so thankful that Christ made the ultimate sacrifice for ALL of mankind. I hope and pray that these people will one day know of the perfect sacrifice of Christ and His unrelenting love for them. I am one blessed girl to have been born in a country that serves the true God, and that He pursued me until I turned to Him.
Please please pray for this country. That they would be able to see the light of Christ and His sacrifice that trumps all other sacrifices made even until the end of the world. Pray that the one true King, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords would be recognized here. Pray for the Christians here, native and missionary, because they are fighting a big fight. BUT the good news is they got the big guns of God behind them!
