My first "Road Trip!"

September 18-19, 2009
On Friday, Chloe, Pastor Krishna’s father, Pastor Yim, Prokesh and I drove to Gorkha. If you Google map it, it doesn’t look that far; maybe 120-130 km to the district. However, the road we traveled was unlike anything I’ve ever been on, and it took us 6 hours each way! Imagine this: the most mountainous two lane road you’ve ever been on, twisting and turning through the mountains with a sheer drop on one side. If you get stuck behind someone, oh well, you deal with it because you certainly wouldn’t pass with that blind turn up ahead and barely enough room for two cars across! Now imagine semi’s driving it, one after another. And busses. With people hanging out the windows, doors, and packed on the roof with goats and market items. And if someone’s going too slow in front of you, you pass them, pretty much regardless of where you are, laying on the horn just in case there’s another car coming the other way. And as you round the corner, you see a car quickly approaching, so it becomes a dangerous game of chicken with whether or not you’ll be able to cut back over in time! Needless to say, there are many many accidents on this road, and it’s one of the best one’s around (I hate to think of the worse ones!). In the words of Chloe, “We made it there and back alive, so it was good!”

Once we reached the district of Gorkha, we reached the end of the “drivable road.” There’s a huge river there (I have no idea what it’s called, google it!), and there’s no bridge to cross it for vehicles. So, Pastor Krishna had asked if we were able to walk about 2 hours, and he wasn’t kidding! We started with a 30 minute hike through the jungle and then walked for 1.5 hours on this flat road like trail. It was BEAUTIFUL country though, so Chloe and I took hundreds of pictures walking there. The area was all green, with rice patties terraced through the mountains and homes peeking through the jungle trees. Once we reached the village where we were staying, we washed up (we were soaked through with dirt and sweat!) and had dinner. Then, exhausted, we collapsed into bed for the night.

The next morning, we awoke around 6 and went to see the home were Pastor Krishna grew up. And by went, I mean we hiked through the jungle another hour and a half or so up this mountain. Definitely the hardest hiking I’ve ever done! But there were homes scattered along the path, with chicken yards and goats and buffalo. Way cool! So we get to his home and I took a video of all of it (which is really why I was there; he’s making some video of his home there and here and the churches), and then we start hiking back down the other side of the mountain. We ate fresh Guava fruit off the trees (I couldn’t get through the tough outside without a knife, but the inside was AMAZING!), and enjoyed the views as we descended. As I am slightly unsteady on flat lands, the mountains are just an accident waiting to happen, and I fell once, but only once! I came close some other times, but I was saved by my amazing walking stick :).

We made it back down to the church, and Prokesh said to take our shoes off. I did, and the heel of my right sock was filled with blood. I was very confused, until he matter-of-factly stated that I had had a leech. A leech. And he grinned and said, “I didn’t want to tell you until we were down because I didn’t want you to be afraid.” Well, they still disgust me a little, but I’m def not afraid of them now, because I never even felt them. So we squeezed the poison out of the bite mark things, and I was thankful that I had some Neosporin with me (I know; that’s so American! but the last thing I want is some leach mark getting infected!).

We then had lunch followed by church, which lasted 2.5 hours! It’s pretty neat how the church there has grown; a couple months ago when it opened it only had about 25 people. Now, it has over 60! It’s the only church within a 2 hour radius, so some people walk a long way to come to church! It was my first real view at how much the Gospel is spreading here! It was amazing to watch these brothers and sisters sing and pray to God with a fervency. While I couldn’t understand their words, I could read their hearts on their faces as they cried out to God in desperation. They have a type of faith and dependency on the Lord that is not comfortable, but is fully humbled and awed by the love and grace of God and His changing power. I long for that change in my faith! It was beautiful, and I’m excited to see how the local church here in Kathmandu relates!

We finally left to head back, walking the 2 hours again. When we got to the river this time, I took my extra shirt (which was beyond dirty and soaked from the day before!), and washed it in the river. I don’t know if I’ve ever been as dirty as I was then, or felt so clean (and been so not clean) as I did after the river! I “washed” my hair in it, and Prokesh, Chloe and I splashed each other with the water! As I had run out of bottled water, I got to use my really cool “will kill anything and everything” filtering water bottle, and it was wonderful to drink cold water! And, so far I’m not sick, so I think the bottle worked :). The we drove back, mostly in the dark, which was kind of nice because then you could see the headlights of a vehicle around the bend before you heard their horn! I slept most of the way, as my Kansas legs are not used to 5 hour climbs! It was quite the adventure to end my first week in Nepal!