Sweat drips down my face, I feel like my lungs might explode at any point. I feel like we have been walking for ages. Just when it is starting to get easier and I’m going to make it Abhipraya (pictured above) the 4-year-old daughter of our contact stops walking. “Sister I can’t” she says while gasping for air. Guess we’re finishing this like Obi Wan and Yoda, I toss her on my back and up we go. We have been hiking up a “hill’, more like small mountain, for some time now and I am really starting to realize how out of shape I am. We stop almost to the top of the hill and I realize I still have more to go than I realize. How the heck am I going to do this? Just a few more steps to go and finally I have made it up to the top of what I now know deep in my heart is a freaking mountain, no matter what the Nepalese say.
Situated on the top of mount lung destroyer is the Hindu temple that we hiked all of this way to see. While I am still trying to recover from the climb my heart starts to grow heavier with the reality of where we are setting in. Thousands of people make this climb every year, but their motivation behind the climb is something completely different than why we are here. The temple that I am standing in is one that is used for sacrifices. So many people climb up to this temple with animals ready to sacrifice them in search of something that they will never find. They are looking for something to cover their guilt, to make them feel complete, they are searching for salvation but I stand here knowing that they are not going to find it here. Every drop of sweat spent climbing, every drop of blood that is shed is in vain. Then the reality of what happens here really hits me, they do human sacrifices here once a year. Our contact had told me this before we made the hike but now that I was standing right where it happened I couldn’t believe it.
In the same way that I had previously carried Abhipraya up this mountain people did the same thing, but knowing that they would not be carrying their loved one back down. What a broken world we live in. This is why I came on the World Race, because things like this still happen in the world and it is perfectly normal to them. As Christians we have the very thing that these people are searching for. We know someone who can bring an end to all of their pain, guilt, and shame. Jesus does not ask you to climb up a mountain to sacrifice someone else to pay for your sins, He has already done that for us. Sometimes Jesus does ask you to sacrifice your own life so that you can climb up that mountain and see the World that so desperately needs him. I am so glad he asked me to; my eyes are opened to the severity of peoples need for Jesus.
So today I want to ask you if you will help me continue to reach out to the lost, hurting, and dying people of this world. They are searching for something and I want to tell as many people as possible that the thing they are searching for is not far. With your help we can reach out to this desperate world. I currently have a financial deadline coming up for me to continue the race. I currently need roughly 3,700 dollars by January 1st to continue on the World Race. So as you are preparing for the holidays back home I would ask you to give me a gift that really does keep on giving more than you know. Like the incredible theologian Dr. Seuss once said, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
