January 20, 2010
Our second day of evangelism was more exhausting than the first. To start, I was still tired from the day before, as all the girls were having a little trouble sleeping at night because of the deep cold seeping through our sleeping bags! And we ended up hiking much farther on the second day than the first. We headed out around 9:30, with a smaller group- Manoj, Ranjib, Rami and I.
We went the same way through the jungle as we did the day before, but we continued further, until we reached a mountain that had sporadic houses here and there. So, we would make huge sine waves on the mountain, climbing up and stopping here and there at homes before climbing another 15-20 minutes to the next house. Up and down and up and down and now over to that mountain, back and forth we went. A piece of advice: if you’re ever going door-to-door through the jungle in the mountains and you see the next house and it looks pretty close, it’s not. Because you can’t just walk straight to it. You have to walk up and around a stream and through the rice paddies and then back down. We split up a couple of times, but Ranjib gave us his cell phone so that we could call him and Monoj if we ever got lost or confused (amazingly, we didn’t!).
Compared to the day before, we found even less interest in the Gospel, but there was one home that stands out to me. There were probably around 8 girls and children sitting around, and one teenage boy with them. From the conversation that ensued, we found out that they were all siblings. Anyway, there weren’t any parents home, so we gave the tracts to them. The older girls fanned through them, and handed them back to me. But the boy sat and began to read it with interest. Suddenly, the girls began to lash into him, scolding him thoroughly (scolding sounds the same in any language ;)!). Well, Rami and I walked off, not to get in between a family feud. As we escaped earshot of the house, Rami explained to me that the girls were scolding their brother because their father wouldn’t allow anything Christian in their house, and would beat him for having it. Needless to say, I was slightly relieved that the parents weren’t home when we visited! But I was more excited that this boy had chosen to take and read the tract, even amidst the scolding and probable beating he would get for it. My heart went out to him, though I don’t know his name or anything else about him. The image of him reading that book about Jesus might be ingrained in my memory forever. And while I don’t know anything about him, God does, and that’s what really matters!
After that, we hiked up and down a couple more mountains, and finally, around 4:30 we were finished. We didn’t get to many houses that day (maybe 20 at the most), but that’s the life of missions in the jungle! All four of us were beyond tired, and we weren’t really up to a 2 hour hike back home. That, and around 6 it gets dark, and walking through the jungles after dark with a white girl was just a bad idea I learned! So, we caught this bus that took us this very round-about way on the worst of “roads” back to the road that the church is on. It was the most painful bus ride I’ve ever been on, but I was also more thankful for it than any other bus ride! Never underestimate the relief of being able to take a bus :).
Monday, January 25, 2010
Evangelism- Day One!
January 19, 2010
Evangelism Day 1. Several members of the Gorkha church teamed up with us from Kathmandu so that we wouldn’t get lost and so that a local face would be there with us evangelizing. Several members of our group are also originally from Gorkha, so they were also group leaders. Monoj, our church worship leader who is probably a couple of years younger than me, was our group leader. We also had an older auntie from the Gorkha church and a friend of Monoj’s named Ranjib. Rami and I were a pair, and along with Shiva, we completed our group.
We headed out with several Gideon New Testaments in Nepali (when I get home, they’re immediately going on my list of “organizations” to support! their Bibles are floating around all over the place here!) and hundreds of tracts. Monoj warned me that his home was so far away, and he wasn’t sure if I could make it. Shiva added that he was sure it was at least 15 km each way. If ever there was a way to motivate me, telling me you think I can’t do something is the number 1 way to get me to do everything in my power to do it! So, we started out, walking along a well established dirt road, when suddenly we veered off through the rice paddies and into the jungle. We climbed up and stumbled down hills and through creeks and over log bridges! About an hour later we rejoined another road, and walked another 30 minutes or so to “our spot.”
I guess we didn’t want to overwhelm the natives, so we broke into 3 groups: Shiva and the auntie, Monoj and Ranjib, and Rami and I. We would work three “levels” of homes built into the mountain at the same time, regrouping every 15-20 minutes. Rami had never been out evangelizing before, and I knew none of the Nepali necessary to share the Gospel in the jungle! So we made quite the pair. But, as we walked, I prayed that God would work through our broken Gospel and speak directly to their hearts. Most people took the tracts, but that was about it.
However, about halfway through our day, we found ourselves in a village with homes actually right next to each other rather than 5-10 minute hikes apart! Obviously, I caused quite the stir as a white person there is rare (this isn’t exactly a tourist trap!). So, within moments of entering the town, a large crowd of women had gathered around me and were trying to ask me questions, while the men of the town paused their intense cannon-ball game (it’s this big, wooden board game so to speak. people play it all over the place here!) to look on with mild interest. Fortunately, at that point, Shiva and the auntie had joined forces with us, and the Auntie dove right into the Gospel with the authority of a native old-timer.
I just sat on the bench next to the women and took turns holding babies for them and during gaps I would answer their questions to the best of my ability! I felt slightly like a politician?! Not exactly what you’d expect of evangelism, but God will use whatever he wants to draw a crowd, I suppose! So, I had the extremely easy job of entertaining small children who were probably more confused by the white face than they’d ever been in their life! In addition, I got to give out a lot of the Bibles, as they were more than happy to take a gift from a white American. They flipped through it, pausing here and there and mumbling to one another. Finally, we wrapped things up about 20 minutes later, and one of the women insisted that the auntie and I come over for tea. So we did, and it was a nice mid-afternoon refreshment (we don’t eat lunch, remember, and after all that hiking, tea was a nice but small source of calories!).
After finishing our tea, we headed out once more, and hit a few more homes here and there with tracts before dividing up once again. This time, Monoj and Ranjib joined Rami and I while Shiva and the auntie went their separate way. They were going to about 10 more homes spread across the mountain while we were going up to Monoj’s house. So, we started out, and it was quite the hike! After about 30 minutes of climbing, we arrived, and his mother had prepared an afternoon snack for us, which was exactly what we all needed! We each had a plateful of popcorn (not salted, sugared, or any sort of other spices; just plain, white popcorn. I might develop a taste for it before I come home!) with gundruk on the side, the national curry of Nepal! The kids have asked me ever since I arrived what the national curry of America is, and then I have to explain that not only do we not have a national curry, but most Americans have probably never even eaten curry. This amazes them to no end, as we eat it twice a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. So, gundruk is actually pretty rare in Kathmandu, but basically it’s like dried spinach with a lot of salt and other spices and cooked in a little oil. It’s not actually spinach (we have that all the time in Kathmandu), but it’s like it. It was a great afternoon snack!
To my enjoyment, for dessert I got a long pole of raw sugar cane to eat. Well, I’ve never had sugar cane before, so, they handed me this long very hard pole for me to eat, and I was completely clueless in how to eat it! So, I kind of looked at it, and whispered to Rami, and she didn’t know how to explain it, so I just looked at it intently some more, before Manoj’s family started laughing and his dad came over and basically broke it all down for me. You skin the outside either with a sickle or by peeling it with your hands, and then break it into strips to chew on. Then, you suck all the sugar juice out and spit the rest of it on the ground (there’s no way you could chew it up anymore!). So, my lunch was well balanced: fiber, iron, salt, and sugar! Pretty much all you need in a day (give or take a few vitamins and minerals)!
Well, as it was nearing 3:30 in the afternoon now, we began the trek back, and only stopped for water this time. Up and down, all around, hiking in the setting sun. We finally reached the main road once more, and we were down to a trudging pace at best. Our legs groaned under our weight, creaking like rusty gate hinges in the wind. Finally, about 30 minutes from home, Manoj and Ranjib veered off to go to Ranjib’s house, and Rami and I found a stone wall on a bridge to sit on for a few minutes, mustering up the energy to get up and go on. My entire body felt the battle of “door-to-door” evangelism in the jungle, even though we were only out for about 7 hours! My heart is full of thanks for the missionaries who do this for their entire life, moving from village to village in the jungle, preaching where others may have never heard the Word before! I know that we saw a lot of interest in the Gospel but had no actual bites, but what I really learned from the day was just how much missionaries go through to reach the villages that may have no other method of hearing the Gospel. And that’s a lesson I’ll never forget.
Evangelism Day 1. Several members of the Gorkha church teamed up with us from Kathmandu so that we wouldn’t get lost and so that a local face would be there with us evangelizing. Several members of our group are also originally from Gorkha, so they were also group leaders. Monoj, our church worship leader who is probably a couple of years younger than me, was our group leader. We also had an older auntie from the Gorkha church and a friend of Monoj’s named Ranjib. Rami and I were a pair, and along with Shiva, we completed our group.
We headed out with several Gideon New Testaments in Nepali (when I get home, they’re immediately going on my list of “organizations” to support! their Bibles are floating around all over the place here!) and hundreds of tracts. Monoj warned me that his home was so far away, and he wasn’t sure if I could make it. Shiva added that he was sure it was at least 15 km each way. If ever there was a way to motivate me, telling me you think I can’t do something is the number 1 way to get me to do everything in my power to do it! So, we started out, walking along a well established dirt road, when suddenly we veered off through the rice paddies and into the jungle. We climbed up and stumbled down hills and through creeks and over log bridges! About an hour later we rejoined another road, and walked another 30 minutes or so to “our spot.”
I guess we didn’t want to overwhelm the natives, so we broke into 3 groups: Shiva and the auntie, Monoj and Ranjib, and Rami and I. We would work three “levels” of homes built into the mountain at the same time, regrouping every 15-20 minutes. Rami had never been out evangelizing before, and I knew none of the Nepali necessary to share the Gospel in the jungle! So we made quite the pair. But, as we walked, I prayed that God would work through our broken Gospel and speak directly to their hearts. Most people took the tracts, but that was about it.
However, about halfway through our day, we found ourselves in a village with homes actually right next to each other rather than 5-10 minute hikes apart! Obviously, I caused quite the stir as a white person there is rare (this isn’t exactly a tourist trap!). So, within moments of entering the town, a large crowd of women had gathered around me and were trying to ask me questions, while the men of the town paused their intense cannon-ball game (it’s this big, wooden board game so to speak. people play it all over the place here!) to look on with mild interest. Fortunately, at that point, Shiva and the auntie had joined forces with us, and the Auntie dove right into the Gospel with the authority of a native old-timer.
I just sat on the bench next to the women and took turns holding babies for them and during gaps I would answer their questions to the best of my ability! I felt slightly like a politician?! Not exactly what you’d expect of evangelism, but God will use whatever he wants to draw a crowd, I suppose! So, I had the extremely easy job of entertaining small children who were probably more confused by the white face than they’d ever been in their life! In addition, I got to give out a lot of the Bibles, as they were more than happy to take a gift from a white American. They flipped through it, pausing here and there and mumbling to one another. Finally, we wrapped things up about 20 minutes later, and one of the women insisted that the auntie and I come over for tea. So we did, and it was a nice mid-afternoon refreshment (we don’t eat lunch, remember, and after all that hiking, tea was a nice but small source of calories!).
After finishing our tea, we headed out once more, and hit a few more homes here and there with tracts before dividing up once again. This time, Monoj and Ranjib joined Rami and I while Shiva and the auntie went their separate way. They were going to about 10 more homes spread across the mountain while we were going up to Monoj’s house. So, we started out, and it was quite the hike! After about 30 minutes of climbing, we arrived, and his mother had prepared an afternoon snack for us, which was exactly what we all needed! We each had a plateful of popcorn (not salted, sugared, or any sort of other spices; just plain, white popcorn. I might develop a taste for it before I come home!) with gundruk on the side, the national curry of Nepal! The kids have asked me ever since I arrived what the national curry of America is, and then I have to explain that not only do we not have a national curry, but most Americans have probably never even eaten curry. This amazes them to no end, as we eat it twice a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. So, gundruk is actually pretty rare in Kathmandu, but basically it’s like dried spinach with a lot of salt and other spices and cooked in a little oil. It’s not actually spinach (we have that all the time in Kathmandu), but it’s like it. It was a great afternoon snack!
To my enjoyment, for dessert I got a long pole of raw sugar cane to eat. Well, I’ve never had sugar cane before, so, they handed me this long very hard pole for me to eat, and I was completely clueless in how to eat it! So, I kind of looked at it, and whispered to Rami, and she didn’t know how to explain it, so I just looked at it intently some more, before Manoj’s family started laughing and his dad came over and basically broke it all down for me. You skin the outside either with a sickle or by peeling it with your hands, and then break it into strips to chew on. Then, you suck all the sugar juice out and spit the rest of it on the ground (there’s no way you could chew it up anymore!). So, my lunch was well balanced: fiber, iron, salt, and sugar! Pretty much all you need in a day (give or take a few vitamins and minerals)!
Well, as it was nearing 3:30 in the afternoon now, we began the trek back, and only stopped for water this time. Up and down, all around, hiking in the setting sun. We finally reached the main road once more, and we were down to a trudging pace at best. Our legs groaned under our weight, creaking like rusty gate hinges in the wind. Finally, about 30 minutes from home, Manoj and Ranjib veered off to go to Ranjib’s house, and Rami and I found a stone wall on a bridge to sit on for a few minutes, mustering up the energy to get up and go on. My entire body felt the battle of “door-to-door” evangelism in the jungle, even though we were only out for about 7 hours! My heart is full of thanks for the missionaries who do this for their entire life, moving from village to village in the jungle, preaching where others may have never heard the Word before! I know that we saw a lot of interest in the Gospel but had no actual bites, but what I really learned from the day was just how much missionaries go through to reach the villages that may have no other method of hearing the Gospel. And that’s a lesson I’ll never forget.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Gorkha, Take 2: Road Trip!
January 22, 2010
Gorkha, take 2. So my second trip to Gorkha was much more eventful than the first one. Probably because it was 5 days long instead of 1! Or maybe the fact that we were hiking through the jungle to preach the Gospel? Anyway, because I have a lot to sift through from my time there, I’m going to break my trip into 4 parts- On the Road (going and coming), Preaching in the Villages, Preaching in the Jungle, and Celebrating!
So, On the Road. To start, there were several other members of our church who went to Gorkha with us, so, I wasn’t responsible for making sure we were in the right place at the right time! There were 2 older women, 1 girl my age, and 1 young girl who came along. On the boys’ side, there were 7 older men, the youth leader who’s about my age, and 1 boy who came along. With the 8 of us from the children’s home, it made the most sense to charter a Micro-bus for us (basically, a big 15 passenger van, but you always pack way more than 15 people inside!). So, we loaded all our bags and guitars and speakers and boxes of tracts and Bibles (it’s a good thing we chartered a bus!) and we packed in the remaining seats. And off we went!
Now, if you’ve ever been on a youth trip of any sort (school, church, whatever), imagine that. We start out with lots of shouting and singing and kids bouncing all over the van, while the adults in the front try to ignore us in the back. Of course, in a van that’s a lot harder! I happened to bring a big bag of bubble gum with me (thanks so my Grandaddy and Sandra!), and I doled it out with speed and efficiency. Well, if you chew bubble gum, you have to blow (or inhale, the kids are teaching me to make inverted bubbles that pop without ever opening your mouth! cool, huh?!) bubbles. I mean, that’s why it’s called BUBBLE GUM! Well, I guess that after 15 minutes of “pop, Pop Pop, POP POP POP!” even the most patient of grown-ups might get annoyed (I would not consider myself an adult in this instance. well, really in any instance. I usually feel like an overgrown kid. maybe it’s living with 14 of them!). Well, finally one of the men in the front turned around and told us he better not hear any more popping! To which, we all acted appropriately remorseful, but inside, we were laughing because it was pretty funny (remind me to read this before going on roadtrips when I have my own kids; I might rethink the humor in it then!). So, we stopped the gum popping, for the most part ;).
About 2 hours into the seven hour trip, we stopped to take a short break. Well, it was amazing. Vendors flocked to the van, selling oranges, dried coconut, chow-na-chapote (basically, rice krispie things mixed with tomato sauce and vinegar, fresh chopped onion, green chiles, boiled potato pieces, and nuts mixed in. it’s AMAZING! totally unsanitary- I won’t tell you how it’s made and served- but after you get your mind over the germs you’re ingesting, you devour it with a passion! it’s probably my favorite snack food here!) and bagged chips with water. And just like American teenagers, the money flies as they buy up as much food as they can! Only, in this case, it only takes about 50 cents for everyone to have more than enough. To put it in perspective, you can buy a liter bottle of water, 1 “serving” of chow-na-chapote, 1/8 of a dried coconut, and an orange for 50 cents. The best rest stop EVER!
After we’re all fat and happy, the kids sprawl all over each other, and the van quiets as most of us drift in and out of Never-never-land. Of course, there’s the occasional yelp when the bus hits a big pothole and all of us clank heads and knees, but besides that, it’s pretty quiet. A great time to just enjoy the beauty swirling around you! So this goes on for about 2 more hours. Then, we stop again.
At this stop, I realize we’re still a ways from the church in Gorkha, but we’re unloading all our baggage and boxes and instruments and whatever else we could find off the bus, and I’m beginning to grow concerned that we’re about to hike the rest of the way with all this junk! But, to my great joy, a vehicle pulls up, and we begin to pile everything on top of it while kids pile into it. Now, picture the front of a hummer with the bed of a truck, covered like a covered wagon from that Oregon Trail computer game (you know the one where everyone just bought ammunition and nothing else so you could shoot all the little animated birds and deer!) using a thick iron cage-like structure with a thick tarp over it and a huge place for luggage on top. A pretty cool, sturdy looking ride.
Well, most of the people piled in, and I was still helping load some of the luggage with the guys, and we realized that we weren’t all going to fit in the canvassed seat area. So, the youth leader who was on top already loading luggage, leaned over and asked me if I wanted to ride on top. I immediately said yes and vaulted up to the top. Now, we rode on the roof of the actual truck part, not on the canvassed part. There was this iron bed on top of it for other luggage or people if you need it. A minute or two later Laxman came bounding up, grinning like a 3 year old with his favorite lollipop! He had gladly given up his seat to one of the women for the chance to ride on top. So, one other man clambered up, and a few of the older men stayed behind to meet up with us the next morning.
If you ever have the chance to ride on top of a hummer-truck through the jungle and in rivers, you should totally do it, if for no other reason than the awesome photo opportunities! You’re sitting about 6 and a half feet in the air, giving a great view of all the area around you! Be warned though, you will be sore after it! There were a few times when I felt like I was about to fall off due to huge potholes that we might have taken a little too fast! Once Laxman was sure I was going to fall, and he yelled “SISTER!” but I was ok :). Just hold on tight! So, in the gaps of the jungle, we had a fantastic view of the taller Himalayas (it still amazes me that I can say that I am in the Himalayas!) and this river and some waterfalls. Pretty awesome ride!
Well, the trip home was all on one chartered bus, which was a little nicer than the van. Still a long trip, but it was nice to be on the same vehicle the whole way. However, I was as concerned as I’ve ever been in my life on the trip home. It wasn’t the driving or potholes or the fact that we could fall off a cliff at any given moment if two other vans came barreling around a corner blindly. It was the fact that halfway through the trip, suddenly in the road in front of us there appeared a group of 8-10 men holding a Maoist flag, blocking our way. So, we stopped, and they immediately climbed on. They looked around at us, did a double take at me, said something to the bus driver’s helper, and then got off the bus. The entire event probably took all of 15 seconds max (I didn’t even have time to get a good prayer in!), but it felt like an eternity. You could have heard a pin drop in that moment they climbed on. I have no idea what they said, or if we paid them the “donation” (forced donation, if you could even call it that.) they probably wanted, or why they were there. But I do know that my heart rate skyrocketed as if I had just run a mile at a dead sprint. I’ve read so much about them in the papers, and even have seen them in the roads during strikes, but these men weren’t just men sitting in the street because they wanted a day off of work. They meant business. I guess it made a “real” situation a whole lot more real to me. Needless to say, I’m glad I’ll be sticking around Kathmandu for the next few weeks!
Nevertheless, it was a good road trip home, with nothing else to write home about. Tomorrow I should ask the kids what the Maoists said. I was too flustered at the time to say anything after they got off. Know that while I’m sure Satan was intending that for evil, I fully felt the presence of God and His angels watching over us quickly disperse the enemy! I probably won’t ever take another uneventful road trip for granted!
Gorkha, take 2. So my second trip to Gorkha was much more eventful than the first one. Probably because it was 5 days long instead of 1! Or maybe the fact that we were hiking through the jungle to preach the Gospel? Anyway, because I have a lot to sift through from my time there, I’m going to break my trip into 4 parts- On the Road (going and coming), Preaching in the Villages, Preaching in the Jungle, and Celebrating!
So, On the Road. To start, there were several other members of our church who went to Gorkha with us, so, I wasn’t responsible for making sure we were in the right place at the right time! There were 2 older women, 1 girl my age, and 1 young girl who came along. On the boys’ side, there were 7 older men, the youth leader who’s about my age, and 1 boy who came along. With the 8 of us from the children’s home, it made the most sense to charter a Micro-bus for us (basically, a big 15 passenger van, but you always pack way more than 15 people inside!). So, we loaded all our bags and guitars and speakers and boxes of tracts and Bibles (it’s a good thing we chartered a bus!) and we packed in the remaining seats. And off we went!
Now, if you’ve ever been on a youth trip of any sort (school, church, whatever), imagine that. We start out with lots of shouting and singing and kids bouncing all over the van, while the adults in the front try to ignore us in the back. Of course, in a van that’s a lot harder! I happened to bring a big bag of bubble gum with me (thanks so my Grandaddy and Sandra!), and I doled it out with speed and efficiency. Well, if you chew bubble gum, you have to blow (or inhale, the kids are teaching me to make inverted bubbles that pop without ever opening your mouth! cool, huh?!) bubbles. I mean, that’s why it’s called BUBBLE GUM! Well, I guess that after 15 minutes of “pop, Pop Pop, POP POP POP!” even the most patient of grown-ups might get annoyed (I would not consider myself an adult in this instance. well, really in any instance. I usually feel like an overgrown kid. maybe it’s living with 14 of them!). Well, finally one of the men in the front turned around and told us he better not hear any more popping! To which, we all acted appropriately remorseful, but inside, we were laughing because it was pretty funny (remind me to read this before going on roadtrips when I have my own kids; I might rethink the humor in it then!). So, we stopped the gum popping, for the most part ;).
About 2 hours into the seven hour trip, we stopped to take a short break. Well, it was amazing. Vendors flocked to the van, selling oranges, dried coconut, chow-na-chapote (basically, rice krispie things mixed with tomato sauce and vinegar, fresh chopped onion, green chiles, boiled potato pieces, and nuts mixed in. it’s AMAZING! totally unsanitary- I won’t tell you how it’s made and served- but after you get your mind over the germs you’re ingesting, you devour it with a passion! it’s probably my favorite snack food here!) and bagged chips with water. And just like American teenagers, the money flies as they buy up as much food as they can! Only, in this case, it only takes about 50 cents for everyone to have more than enough. To put it in perspective, you can buy a liter bottle of water, 1 “serving” of chow-na-chapote, 1/8 of a dried coconut, and an orange for 50 cents. The best rest stop EVER!
After we’re all fat and happy, the kids sprawl all over each other, and the van quiets as most of us drift in and out of Never-never-land. Of course, there’s the occasional yelp when the bus hits a big pothole and all of us clank heads and knees, but besides that, it’s pretty quiet. A great time to just enjoy the beauty swirling around you! So this goes on for about 2 more hours. Then, we stop again.
At this stop, I realize we’re still a ways from the church in Gorkha, but we’re unloading all our baggage and boxes and instruments and whatever else we could find off the bus, and I’m beginning to grow concerned that we’re about to hike the rest of the way with all this junk! But, to my great joy, a vehicle pulls up, and we begin to pile everything on top of it while kids pile into it. Now, picture the front of a hummer with the bed of a truck, covered like a covered wagon from that Oregon Trail computer game (you know the one where everyone just bought ammunition and nothing else so you could shoot all the little animated birds and deer!) using a thick iron cage-like structure with a thick tarp over it and a huge place for luggage on top. A pretty cool, sturdy looking ride.
Well, most of the people piled in, and I was still helping load some of the luggage with the guys, and we realized that we weren’t all going to fit in the canvassed seat area. So, the youth leader who was on top already loading luggage, leaned over and asked me if I wanted to ride on top. I immediately said yes and vaulted up to the top. Now, we rode on the roof of the actual truck part, not on the canvassed part. There was this iron bed on top of it for other luggage or people if you need it. A minute or two later Laxman came bounding up, grinning like a 3 year old with his favorite lollipop! He had gladly given up his seat to one of the women for the chance to ride on top. So, one other man clambered up, and a few of the older men stayed behind to meet up with us the next morning.
If you ever have the chance to ride on top of a hummer-truck through the jungle and in rivers, you should totally do it, if for no other reason than the awesome photo opportunities! You’re sitting about 6 and a half feet in the air, giving a great view of all the area around you! Be warned though, you will be sore after it! There were a few times when I felt like I was about to fall off due to huge potholes that we might have taken a little too fast! Once Laxman was sure I was going to fall, and he yelled “SISTER!” but I was ok :). Just hold on tight! So, in the gaps of the jungle, we had a fantastic view of the taller Himalayas (it still amazes me that I can say that I am in the Himalayas!) and this river and some waterfalls. Pretty awesome ride!
Well, the trip home was all on one chartered bus, which was a little nicer than the van. Still a long trip, but it was nice to be on the same vehicle the whole way. However, I was as concerned as I’ve ever been in my life on the trip home. It wasn’t the driving or potholes or the fact that we could fall off a cliff at any given moment if two other vans came barreling around a corner blindly. It was the fact that halfway through the trip, suddenly in the road in front of us there appeared a group of 8-10 men holding a Maoist flag, blocking our way. So, we stopped, and they immediately climbed on. They looked around at us, did a double take at me, said something to the bus driver’s helper, and then got off the bus. The entire event probably took all of 15 seconds max (I didn’t even have time to get a good prayer in!), but it felt like an eternity. You could have heard a pin drop in that moment they climbed on. I have no idea what they said, or if we paid them the “donation” (forced donation, if you could even call it that.) they probably wanted, or why they were there. But I do know that my heart rate skyrocketed as if I had just run a mile at a dead sprint. I’ve read so much about them in the papers, and even have seen them in the roads during strikes, but these men weren’t just men sitting in the street because they wanted a day off of work. They meant business. I guess it made a “real” situation a whole lot more real to me. Needless to say, I’m glad I’ll be sticking around Kathmandu for the next few weeks!
Nevertheless, it was a good road trip home, with nothing else to write home about. Tomorrow I should ask the kids what the Maoists said. I was too flustered at the time to say anything after they got off. Know that while I’m sure Satan was intending that for evil, I fully felt the presence of God and His angels watching over us quickly disperse the enemy! I probably won’t ever take another uneventful road trip for granted!
Hey, let's make this room bigger. TODAY!
January 13, 2010
Today was just any other day in Nepal. Ok, not really. Not at all in fact. Except for the fact that I had no idea what to expect when the day started! Well, after breakfast, we began moving Uncle’s office up two flights of stairs to the third floor so that we could expand the sitting room, which was far too small for everyone! Imagine 20+ people sitting in a room that only fits 3 chairs and one couch. A tight squeeze! So, we doubled the size by knocking out the wall between the office and the sitting room. Now, thankfully, this wasn’t a typical Nepali wall of solid cement. Rather, it was a wooden wall added a couple years ago when Uncle moved his office downstairs. We pried it this way and that, pulling off siding until finally the frame was ready to come out.
We reuse everything here (I’ll be very eco-friendly when I come home!), so Asha, Manisha and I started pulling the hundreds of nails out of the siding, with Manisha pounding them on their point to drive them backwards, me pulling the pounded nails out by pliers, and Asha collecting the rusty, sharp collection with a magnet we found! We had a great assembly line going; we put the boys to shame!
As soon as we finished, we had a new job ready and waiting- to paint all the dirty spots in the sitting room, along with the white lines where the way once was. Well, about halfway through painting, Uncle decided we needed to patch the holes the nails left with cement, so I handed off my brush to Asha and Laxman and I began to fill holes with cement filler, our hands, and a scrap of wood! Quite the experience :).
After cementing, we were back to painting, and we finished the job not too long later. Which meant that we were now ready to wash all of the curtains for the sitting room, all 12 of them, by hand. We pulled water and rub-a-dub-dubbed them, bubbles flying here and there as we bathed them in sudsy water. Then, Ranjita (who happened to stop by for the day; a great day to visit!) began to soap them all and scrub them thoroughly. After she finished, Manisha and I proceeded to roll up our pants to mid calf so that we could use our feet to dance the dirt right out of them (don’t worry, we washed our feet first!). Step here, two hops there, a right foot front with a left foot back. To my amazement, bubbles just kept coming. There were about 4 times I thought we were finished, and we just kept going! Finally, they were ready to rinse, so we kept doing our little dance, adding water to the buckets to rinse. The most unusual rinse cycle I’ve ever seen! We finally got them clean about 2 hours later, our muscles moaning, skin shriveled, feet freezing.
Meanwhile, Isha reminded me like the kids in the Von Trap family from the Sound of Music when they’re hanging out of the trees over the street. She was standing on the window ledges, hanging outward, washing all the windows. After she finished one, she’d swing right over to the next one, and so on until they were all sparkling.
Finally it was time to move the couches from my room downstairs. We moved them down, and the completed sitting room looked amazing! I was floored at how nice it looked with more space. The kids and I collapsed into the awaiting chairs, basking in the sunlight, reveling in a moment of stillness. That might have been about as tired as my muscles have been in a very long time! And tomorrow, we get to wash the rugs :)...
Today was just any other day in Nepal. Ok, not really. Not at all in fact. Except for the fact that I had no idea what to expect when the day started! Well, after breakfast, we began moving Uncle’s office up two flights of stairs to the third floor so that we could expand the sitting room, which was far too small for everyone! Imagine 20+ people sitting in a room that only fits 3 chairs and one couch. A tight squeeze! So, we doubled the size by knocking out the wall between the office and the sitting room. Now, thankfully, this wasn’t a typical Nepali wall of solid cement. Rather, it was a wooden wall added a couple years ago when Uncle moved his office downstairs. We pried it this way and that, pulling off siding until finally the frame was ready to come out.
We reuse everything here (I’ll be very eco-friendly when I come home!), so Asha, Manisha and I started pulling the hundreds of nails out of the siding, with Manisha pounding them on their point to drive them backwards, me pulling the pounded nails out by pliers, and Asha collecting the rusty, sharp collection with a magnet we found! We had a great assembly line going; we put the boys to shame!
As soon as we finished, we had a new job ready and waiting- to paint all the dirty spots in the sitting room, along with the white lines where the way once was. Well, about halfway through painting, Uncle decided we needed to patch the holes the nails left with cement, so I handed off my brush to Asha and Laxman and I began to fill holes with cement filler, our hands, and a scrap of wood! Quite the experience :).
After cementing, we were back to painting, and we finished the job not too long later. Which meant that we were now ready to wash all of the curtains for the sitting room, all 12 of them, by hand. We pulled water and rub-a-dub-dubbed them, bubbles flying here and there as we bathed them in sudsy water. Then, Ranjita (who happened to stop by for the day; a great day to visit!) began to soap them all and scrub them thoroughly. After she finished, Manisha and I proceeded to roll up our pants to mid calf so that we could use our feet to dance the dirt right out of them (don’t worry, we washed our feet first!). Step here, two hops there, a right foot front with a left foot back. To my amazement, bubbles just kept coming. There were about 4 times I thought we were finished, and we just kept going! Finally, they were ready to rinse, so we kept doing our little dance, adding water to the buckets to rinse. The most unusual rinse cycle I’ve ever seen! We finally got them clean about 2 hours later, our muscles moaning, skin shriveled, feet freezing.
Meanwhile, Isha reminded me like the kids in the Von Trap family from the Sound of Music when they’re hanging out of the trees over the street. She was standing on the window ledges, hanging outward, washing all the windows. After she finished one, she’d swing right over to the next one, and so on until they were all sparkling.
Finally it was time to move the couches from my room downstairs. We moved them down, and the completed sitting room looked amazing! I was floored at how nice it looked with more space. The kids and I collapsed into the awaiting chairs, basking in the sunlight, reveling in a moment of stillness. That might have been about as tired as my muscles have been in a very long time! And tomorrow, we get to wash the rugs :)...
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Darshan, the compassionate body builder!
January 12, 2010
Darshan is one of those kids who just wants to please you. In whatever he does, he’ll look up at me with his big, dark eyes, asking for approval without a word. He’ll jump to help me with just about anything! While he’s the second youngest of all the children, he’s one of the most helpful, from sweeping the dining hall to pulling water for me!
He’s also attached to Raju at the hip, and they do most everything together! I’ll often find them playing cars together, playing Uno, or my personal favorite is when they enlist another child to hold my camera and video tape them doing short dramas. HILARIOUS! Even with them all in Nepali, their facial expressions are amazing! I was laughing so hard at one of them that tears were streaming down my face! I’ve often found myself going through pictures, and suddenly there’s a video that I didn’t take, containing them dancing around the boys room with stuffed animals (really, dancing! as in, waltzing!), practicing Karate on each other, or doing these short plays for me. When I get home, I’ll make one video of them and upload it so you can have the full experience!
Darshan’s a great student in school, and is 4th in his class. He works incredibly hard and likes to be the best at whatever he does! He’s bigger than the other kids at home in terms of his frame, and I imagine that had he grown up in America, he would have been a lineman! I’ve told him that since he’s bigger, he’s also stronger, and in just a few years will put all the other boys to shame in terms of strength!
He’s one of those kids who will walk down the street and out of the blue will ask me how big God is. Or, where God lives. Or any number of other theological questions that are hard for my mind to grasp! His heart beats for God though, and he loves singing to praise Him! He’s not afraid to sing at the top of his lungs praising his King, and he doesn’t mind giving all he has to worship his Savior! In Sunday School, he’s that kid who will catch when you leave out a detail, and as soon as you’re finished will ask you about it. You know, those hard parts of Bible stories that we skim over because we don’t really understand the why behind them, and we sure don’t know how to explain them to a bunch of children! But he’s the one who will ask, forcing you to dig deeper :).
Darshan wants to be a missionary doctor when he grows up, and I could totally see him doing that! His heart for people is so big, and tying physical health into spiritual health is perfect for him! He also has a mind that can grasp the expanse of medicine, and I hope that one day I hear that he is indeed a missionary doctor, ministering to the poor and lost in the rural areas of Nepal! I can’t think of anyone better to do that job!
Darshan is one of those kids who just wants to please you. In whatever he does, he’ll look up at me with his big, dark eyes, asking for approval without a word. He’ll jump to help me with just about anything! While he’s the second youngest of all the children, he’s one of the most helpful, from sweeping the dining hall to pulling water for me!
He’s also attached to Raju at the hip, and they do most everything together! I’ll often find them playing cars together, playing Uno, or my personal favorite is when they enlist another child to hold my camera and video tape them doing short dramas. HILARIOUS! Even with them all in Nepali, their facial expressions are amazing! I was laughing so hard at one of them that tears were streaming down my face! I’ve often found myself going through pictures, and suddenly there’s a video that I didn’t take, containing them dancing around the boys room with stuffed animals (really, dancing! as in, waltzing!), practicing Karate on each other, or doing these short plays for me. When I get home, I’ll make one video of them and upload it so you can have the full experience!
Darshan’s a great student in school, and is 4th in his class. He works incredibly hard and likes to be the best at whatever he does! He’s bigger than the other kids at home in terms of his frame, and I imagine that had he grown up in America, he would have been a lineman! I’ve told him that since he’s bigger, he’s also stronger, and in just a few years will put all the other boys to shame in terms of strength!
He’s one of those kids who will walk down the street and out of the blue will ask me how big God is. Or, where God lives. Or any number of other theological questions that are hard for my mind to grasp! His heart beats for God though, and he loves singing to praise Him! He’s not afraid to sing at the top of his lungs praising his King, and he doesn’t mind giving all he has to worship his Savior! In Sunday School, he’s that kid who will catch when you leave out a detail, and as soon as you’re finished will ask you about it. You know, those hard parts of Bible stories that we skim over because we don’t really understand the why behind them, and we sure don’t know how to explain them to a bunch of children! But he’s the one who will ask, forcing you to dig deeper :).
Darshan wants to be a missionary doctor when he grows up, and I could totally see him doing that! His heart for people is so big, and tying physical health into spiritual health is perfect for him! He also has a mind that can grasp the expanse of medicine, and I hope that one day I hear that he is indeed a missionary doctor, ministering to the poor and lost in the rural areas of Nepal! I can’t think of anyone better to do that job!
Suita, my writer!
January 12, 2010
Sunita is the oldest of the girls, though Isha is the one who has the personality of an oldest child (trust me, I know... being an oldest child myself, I know the stress of wanting everything done right and perhaps maintaining a bossy personality to ensure that it is done correctly!). So, Sunita usually steps back, but occasionally, she’ll jump in and we’ll have a conflict of which way is better! But more often, Sunita lets Isha go and just watches from the sidelines!
If Isha has my “bossy” personality (I still don’t like to claim that title, though I know it’s true!), then Sunita has my writer’s personality. She’s gone through I don’t know how many diaries/journals since I arrived, and loves to write in them during church, jotting down notes here and there. She always seems to have a journal of some sort on her and is equipped with a pen to write out her emotions as she’s one of the girls least likely to show her feelings.
Sunita struggles with school, but that could also be because she’s skipped grades to catch up with the kids her age, so her foundation is even weaker than most kids. However, she’s quick to ask for help, and her mind tends to understand, but there’s so much that she just can’t remember it all. Most the time she prefers to study on her own, with her independence driving her until she decides that she has to ask for help. If you walk into our kitchen after school, there’s a 95% chance she’ll be camped at the kitchen table studying while intermittently helping Didi with the cooking!
Her mom lives nearby in Kathmandu, so she goes home more than the other kids. She loves spending time with her mom whenever possible! At church, she helps lead worship, and has a great voice! She often does our special songs on Saturdays, and she’s very involved with the youth group. She also is a fantastic dancer, and dances at almost all of our special programs for church or the children’s home! It’s a lot of fun watching her dance the traditional Nepali dances :).
While it took me awhile to get to know Sunita, she and I have a bond now built on laughter and trust and I really feel like I know her well. I don’t know all of her story (though I hope to hear it before I leave!), but I know her heart, and that’s where our friendship is built! We can just sit and talk about nothing for 30 minutes without even realizing how much time has passed. Or we sit and make cards for our friends together, writing novels to our audience of one. I cherish my time with her, and pray that God takes her far in life, wherever that may be!
Sunita is the oldest of the girls, though Isha is the one who has the personality of an oldest child (trust me, I know... being an oldest child myself, I know the stress of wanting everything done right and perhaps maintaining a bossy personality to ensure that it is done correctly!). So, Sunita usually steps back, but occasionally, she’ll jump in and we’ll have a conflict of which way is better! But more often, Sunita lets Isha go and just watches from the sidelines!
If Isha has my “bossy” personality (I still don’t like to claim that title, though I know it’s true!), then Sunita has my writer’s personality. She’s gone through I don’t know how many diaries/journals since I arrived, and loves to write in them during church, jotting down notes here and there. She always seems to have a journal of some sort on her and is equipped with a pen to write out her emotions as she’s one of the girls least likely to show her feelings.
Sunita struggles with school, but that could also be because she’s skipped grades to catch up with the kids her age, so her foundation is even weaker than most kids. However, she’s quick to ask for help, and her mind tends to understand, but there’s so much that she just can’t remember it all. Most the time she prefers to study on her own, with her independence driving her until she decides that she has to ask for help. If you walk into our kitchen after school, there’s a 95% chance she’ll be camped at the kitchen table studying while intermittently helping Didi with the cooking!
Her mom lives nearby in Kathmandu, so she goes home more than the other kids. She loves spending time with her mom whenever possible! At church, she helps lead worship, and has a great voice! She often does our special songs on Saturdays, and she’s very involved with the youth group. She also is a fantastic dancer, and dances at almost all of our special programs for church or the children’s home! It’s a lot of fun watching her dance the traditional Nepali dances :).
While it took me awhile to get to know Sunita, she and I have a bond now built on laughter and trust and I really feel like I know her well. I don’t know all of her story (though I hope to hear it before I leave!), but I know her heart, and that’s where our friendship is built! We can just sit and talk about nothing for 30 minutes without even realizing how much time has passed. Or we sit and make cards for our friends together, writing novels to our audience of one. I cherish my time with her, and pray that God takes her far in life, wherever that may be!
Food for Thought...
January 11, 2010
Sometimes you just have to step back and laugh. Really laugh. Not just a short little chuckle when someone trips on the sidewalk (I know, I’m heartless, but 90% of the time I’m the one who tripped, so it’s ok!), but a gut wrenching laugh that makes you half cry! So, with less kids home for the break (we’ve currently got Laxman, Isha, Asha, and Manisha here), there’s more time to step back and just laugh and relax with the kids!
Story 1. *This story contains bodily functions humor, and if that offends you, I’m sorry from the start and you might not want to read this one!
Once upon a time, there were four little children (ok, not so little) and one big sister home alone for the night. Their Auntie and Uncle had gone out for the evening, meaning they were on their own for dinner and the rest of the evening. Well, life started out quite fun with Sister making stir fry for them to eat for dinner. Everything was great, and Isha was ever so helpful and made the rice. Suddenly, with a loud hiss, water erupted from the pressure cooker lid, causing the flames of the gas burner to flare and then die with style! Shrieking ensued, with the children and Sister frantically trying to figure out what went wrong. Finally, they decided the lid was not on correctly. Amazingly, the rice cooked fine.
As they served dinner, in true Nepali fashion, the power went out, as it does daily. Usually the power is out for 7-8 hours during the day, broken into 2-3 hour chunks. However, there doesn’t seem to be any pattern as to when or for how long it will go, so it’s always one of those nice little surprises that life gives you each day! Sorry, back to the children. Well, they proceeded to light candles and ate a tasty stir fry dinner by candle light in about 4 minutes flat (they eat really fast. it’s a curse of living with 15 kids and fighting for the seconds that may be left!). Then, they tidied the kitchen, cleaning away all the crumbs and leftovers for the chickens so that the mice wouldn’t be able to find any munchies during their midnight stroll through the kitchen (they often leave “evidence” that they’ve visited on the counters; the day I actually see one, I’m not sure what I’ll actually do. Probably scream and scrunch my toes like I do when I’m scared out of my wits!)!
Because of the vast darkness encompassing the home, the 4 little children and Sister decided to camp out in the sitting room until the power came back on or Uncle and Auntie returned, whichever came first. So, they gathered the candles and made their way into the sitting room, shutting the door on the rest of the darkened home. Sister has an AMAZING mom who sends her all sorts of fun things to share with the children, including a gingerbread house kit, complete with several types of frosting and sprinkles. Making a house to just look at it seemed like a waste in a society where food is more treasured (especially if it isn’t rice!), so, Sister adapted and gave each child a piece of the house to decorate and eat (she tried the gingerbread first to make sure it was edible, and it was, and tasted delicious!).
In awed confusion, the children watched Sister spread a layer of frosting and then create designs with sprinkles. As they sampled the frosting and sprinkles and realized they were merely solid forms of sugar, smiles spread across their faces and they dove in with gusto! And their creations were beautiful and I’m sure Auntie and Uncle would have been appalled at the amount of sugar consumed. About halfway through, though, the loudest “bbrrrruuuummmmmmppppphhhh” vibrated the entire room. Sprinkles flew as the children dove away from the child suffering the after-effects of eating too much rice (this is a common occurrence; usually, though, they hide it better)! The room resounded with laughter turned to tears as they all laughed until their sides hurt, burying their noses inside their shirts and hoping that the candles would burn off the excess methane quickly! And the moral of the story is: don’t eat too much rice at once; others will surely know if you do!
Story 2:
Have you ever had Twizzlers? You know, they’re long licorice strips, which now come in a rainbow of flavors and have a hole down the middle making them the perfect candy straw! Well, I gave some to the girls to eat one afternoon, and they weren’t too impressed with them until they realized they could use them as a “pipe” (that’s Nepali for straw). Then, they ran to get glasses of water to drink through their “pipes.”
If you’ve ever done this, you know the Twizzlers begin to absorb whatever liquid they’re submerged in and turn to a soggy mush after awhile. Well, the girls didn’t like the taste of them too much before they used them as straws, and they really didn’t like them afterwards, so we decided to feed them to Dolly, our dog (don’t worry, the only food Dolly ever eats is human food, so it was all good!). Well, Dolly loved them, and chewed and chewed on them, gnawing here and there on them, savoring each one! Which was rather humorous in itself!
But, she lost one without us knowing it, and it was left out on the ground all the cold night long, hardening as the air sucked the water right out of it! As any good boy would do, Laxman went out the next morning and swept all the grounds, and found this strange looking blue tube on the ground. As he thought about it, it dawned on him what this must be, and he came running in the kitchen looking for scissors. Fortunately, at that very moment, I was in the kitchen helping Asha make pancakes, and I asked Laxman what he was doing. “Sister, it’s those things we put in the walls so we can screw stuff into them! And it’s so long so I’m cutting it to make lots of them so I can use them!” The girls, realizing what Laxman was holding, burst into laughter as I tried to control myself long enough to explain that that indeed was NOT for using in walls or any other construction, but was candy that Dolly rejected.
In confusion, he looked at it, and then back at me to make sure I was telling him the truth. When he realized I was indeed serious, he began to laugh at the fact that he was about to drive Twizzlers into the wall as homes for whatever screws he could scrounge up! Moral of the story: make sure your dog eats all its Twizzlers or they may end up holding screws in your walls!
Sometimes you just have to step back and laugh. Really laugh. Not just a short little chuckle when someone trips on the sidewalk (I know, I’m heartless, but 90% of the time I’m the one who tripped, so it’s ok!), but a gut wrenching laugh that makes you half cry! So, with less kids home for the break (we’ve currently got Laxman, Isha, Asha, and Manisha here), there’s more time to step back and just laugh and relax with the kids!
Story 1. *This story contains bodily functions humor, and if that offends you, I’m sorry from the start and you might not want to read this one!
Once upon a time, there were four little children (ok, not so little) and one big sister home alone for the night. Their Auntie and Uncle had gone out for the evening, meaning they were on their own for dinner and the rest of the evening. Well, life started out quite fun with Sister making stir fry for them to eat for dinner. Everything was great, and Isha was ever so helpful and made the rice. Suddenly, with a loud hiss, water erupted from the pressure cooker lid, causing the flames of the gas burner to flare and then die with style! Shrieking ensued, with the children and Sister frantically trying to figure out what went wrong. Finally, they decided the lid was not on correctly. Amazingly, the rice cooked fine.
As they served dinner, in true Nepali fashion, the power went out, as it does daily. Usually the power is out for 7-8 hours during the day, broken into 2-3 hour chunks. However, there doesn’t seem to be any pattern as to when or for how long it will go, so it’s always one of those nice little surprises that life gives you each day! Sorry, back to the children. Well, they proceeded to light candles and ate a tasty stir fry dinner by candle light in about 4 minutes flat (they eat really fast. it’s a curse of living with 15 kids and fighting for the seconds that may be left!). Then, they tidied the kitchen, cleaning away all the crumbs and leftovers for the chickens so that the mice wouldn’t be able to find any munchies during their midnight stroll through the kitchen (they often leave “evidence” that they’ve visited on the counters; the day I actually see one, I’m not sure what I’ll actually do. Probably scream and scrunch my toes like I do when I’m scared out of my wits!)!
Because of the vast darkness encompassing the home, the 4 little children and Sister decided to camp out in the sitting room until the power came back on or Uncle and Auntie returned, whichever came first. So, they gathered the candles and made their way into the sitting room, shutting the door on the rest of the darkened home. Sister has an AMAZING mom who sends her all sorts of fun things to share with the children, including a gingerbread house kit, complete with several types of frosting and sprinkles. Making a house to just look at it seemed like a waste in a society where food is more treasured (especially if it isn’t rice!), so, Sister adapted and gave each child a piece of the house to decorate and eat (she tried the gingerbread first to make sure it was edible, and it was, and tasted delicious!).
In awed confusion, the children watched Sister spread a layer of frosting and then create designs with sprinkles. As they sampled the frosting and sprinkles and realized they were merely solid forms of sugar, smiles spread across their faces and they dove in with gusto! And their creations were beautiful and I’m sure Auntie and Uncle would have been appalled at the amount of sugar consumed. About halfway through, though, the loudest “bbrrrruuuummmmmmppppphhhh” vibrated the entire room. Sprinkles flew as the children dove away from the child suffering the after-effects of eating too much rice (this is a common occurrence; usually, though, they hide it better)! The room resounded with laughter turned to tears as they all laughed until their sides hurt, burying their noses inside their shirts and hoping that the candles would burn off the excess methane quickly! And the moral of the story is: don’t eat too much rice at once; others will surely know if you do!
Story 2:
Have you ever had Twizzlers? You know, they’re long licorice strips, which now come in a rainbow of flavors and have a hole down the middle making them the perfect candy straw! Well, I gave some to the girls to eat one afternoon, and they weren’t too impressed with them until they realized they could use them as a “pipe” (that’s Nepali for straw). Then, they ran to get glasses of water to drink through their “pipes.”
If you’ve ever done this, you know the Twizzlers begin to absorb whatever liquid they’re submerged in and turn to a soggy mush after awhile. Well, the girls didn’t like the taste of them too much before they used them as straws, and they really didn’t like them afterwards, so we decided to feed them to Dolly, our dog (don’t worry, the only food Dolly ever eats is human food, so it was all good!). Well, Dolly loved them, and chewed and chewed on them, gnawing here and there on them, savoring each one! Which was rather humorous in itself!
But, she lost one without us knowing it, and it was left out on the ground all the cold night long, hardening as the air sucked the water right out of it! As any good boy would do, Laxman went out the next morning and swept all the grounds, and found this strange looking blue tube on the ground. As he thought about it, it dawned on him what this must be, and he came running in the kitchen looking for scissors. Fortunately, at that very moment, I was in the kitchen helping Asha make pancakes, and I asked Laxman what he was doing. “Sister, it’s those things we put in the walls so we can screw stuff into them! And it’s so long so I’m cutting it to make lots of them so I can use them!” The girls, realizing what Laxman was holding, burst into laughter as I tried to control myself long enough to explain that that indeed was NOT for using in walls or any other construction, but was candy that Dolly rejected.
In confusion, he looked at it, and then back at me to make sure I was telling him the truth. When he realized I was indeed serious, he began to laugh at the fact that he was about to drive Twizzlers into the wall as homes for whatever screws he could scrounge up! Moral of the story: make sure your dog eats all its Twizzlers or they may end up holding screws in your walls!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Manisha... she's got spirit!
January 10, 2010
Manisha. You’ve met her before in the story about using ink to dye her hair black. And that would be an incredibly great picture of her. She’s the one who will come up with the most unusual solutions to problems and have no qualms about potential failures! She’s also the one who is the first to apologize to me if she thinks she’s done anything to hurt me. She apologized to me yesterday for giving the English newspaper to the volunteer who’s stayed in our home for the last 4 days before giving it to me! I quickly informed her that I didn’t care when I got the newspaper as long as it was still readable when I got it!
She loves walking around with me and likes to know about everything. We’ll see something unusual in the street, and she’ll immediately ask why. It’s that child’s curiosity in the body of a teenager! She’s in class 6, meaning that I’m her math teacher. And I can tell you that she studied harder than any of my other home students for her exam last term! After she finished reviewing the 100+ problems I had assigned, she went back through every single lesson practicing problems and occasionally asking me how to do a problem and why. We made it through the practice, and her test reflected the fruits of her studies- she went from failing math to a B! I was so impressed with her incredibly hard work!
She’s from Gorkha and lives with her mom there when she goes home. Her mother came to our anniversary program, and I could tell that Manisha reflects her mom in so many ways, from her smile to her bright laughter! She loves to solve problems herself, but will allow others to help her pick up the pieces when her solutions go awry :). She hates letting me work, and when I first got here she would always come take the dishes from me or the wash from me or whatever else I was doing and say, “Sister, I’ll do it!” She’s learned to make pancakes from me, and does a pretty good job, though she likes a little more oil than I do (the Nepali in her!).
She’s a spirited girl who will make her voice known if she disagrees with something. She doesn’t mince words, and she’s quick to correct the other kids. But she is also incredibly quick to forgive! If someone wrongs her, she lights into them, and then it’s over. No nursed grudges, no lingering anger. And the other kids appreciate that! She brings so much life to this home :).
Manisha. You’ve met her before in the story about using ink to dye her hair black. And that would be an incredibly great picture of her. She’s the one who will come up with the most unusual solutions to problems and have no qualms about potential failures! She’s also the one who is the first to apologize to me if she thinks she’s done anything to hurt me. She apologized to me yesterday for giving the English newspaper to the volunteer who’s stayed in our home for the last 4 days before giving it to me! I quickly informed her that I didn’t care when I got the newspaper as long as it was still readable when I got it!
She loves walking around with me and likes to know about everything. We’ll see something unusual in the street, and she’ll immediately ask why. It’s that child’s curiosity in the body of a teenager! She’s in class 6, meaning that I’m her math teacher. And I can tell you that she studied harder than any of my other home students for her exam last term! After she finished reviewing the 100+ problems I had assigned, she went back through every single lesson practicing problems and occasionally asking me how to do a problem and why. We made it through the practice, and her test reflected the fruits of her studies- she went from failing math to a B! I was so impressed with her incredibly hard work!
She’s from Gorkha and lives with her mom there when she goes home. Her mother came to our anniversary program, and I could tell that Manisha reflects her mom in so many ways, from her smile to her bright laughter! She loves to solve problems herself, but will allow others to help her pick up the pieces when her solutions go awry :). She hates letting me work, and when I first got here she would always come take the dishes from me or the wash from me or whatever else I was doing and say, “Sister, I’ll do it!” She’s learned to make pancakes from me, and does a pretty good job, though she likes a little more oil than I do (the Nepali in her!).
She’s a spirited girl who will make her voice known if she disagrees with something. She doesn’t mince words, and she’s quick to correct the other kids. But she is also incredibly quick to forgive! If someone wrongs her, she lights into them, and then it’s over. No nursed grudges, no lingering anger. And the other kids appreciate that! She brings so much life to this home :).
It's gettin' hot in here!
January 10, 2010
Life has slowed down here at the home with most of the children going home for our winter vacation. I should be traveling to Gorkha with some of the children next week for an outreach project and church dedication, but I don’t count on anything until it happens! In the absence of 10 of the kids, I’ve become a little more creative in the kitchen as we make rice much later now, and it’s just too hard to go from 7 till 12 every day without eating anything for breakfast!
So, my first experiment in the kitchen was sweet bread, which is basically like sweet tortillas that I make with a layer of cinnamon sugar and finely chopped almonds in the middle. It didn’t turn out exactly as I had planned (what things do?!) but after a few tries it was edible and the kids thought it was quite tasty! I don’t think they’d ever had sweet bread before! However, in true Nepali form, they decided it needed “MORE OIL!” so it ended up being more like a fried sopapilla without the puffyness! It was good enough to make again though, and the second time was much smoother and there was much less waste!
Then, we decided to venture into the realm of pancakes! They had definitely never had pancakes before, so introducing them was a lot of fun. All the kids still at home had advice for me to improve them, before they’d even tasted them! “Sister, don’t do it that way,” “you need more oil,” “turn up the gas, the flame’s too little,” and so much more! Finally, I looked at them and told them that I was making the pancakes and they were welcome to help, but they were not allowed to give advice. Well, after oiling the pan for the first pancake, to their panicked dismay I refused to let them put more oil in the pan, and to their amazement it didn’t stick, as the cast iron flatbread pan is very smooth! Well, they quickly realized that these are way more fun to make than flatbread (roti) as they get to “flip” the cakes and if they want to they can make designs with the batter! Our best designs so far are a Mickey Mouse head and flowers. They love them, and I love that they’re so easy :).
Finally, I made spaghetti for them one night, and it was quite the event. Rami and I went shopping for vegetables to put in the sauce, and in my American ignorance, I tried to only buy 3 chili peppers. Well, the shopkeeper burst out laughing and informed me that I couldn’t buy that many peppers. Their total cost would be less than a rupee (basically, less than a penny)! So, the smallest amount I could buy was 5 Rupees worth (it was the smallest balancing weight he had) and we ended up with over 50 chilis. Not that it mattered, because unknown to me, Rami chopped up 15 of them and put them in the sauce. Needless to say, it was the spiciest sauce I’ve ever had! Delicious, but so so hot! The kids loved it though, so we had it again a few days later for afternoon “snack.”
In my time in the kitchen, I’ve also started learning how to make curry. Not so difficult, but I don’t know what a lot of the spices are. In addition, I’ve never seen anyone use more green chilis than they do here, and I’ve seen some New Mexicans who love their green chili! But here we bring the green chili love to a whole new level! There are times I’m literally pouring sweat after eating due to the heat in the chili... it’s a good thing I love spicy food! I figure I’ll learn enough to make a least one Nepali dish while I’m here, and Manisha and Laxman already know how to make pancakes and I’m sure they’ll keep making them! It’s what we call teachers call collaborative learning :).
Life has slowed down here at the home with most of the children going home for our winter vacation. I should be traveling to Gorkha with some of the children next week for an outreach project and church dedication, but I don’t count on anything until it happens! In the absence of 10 of the kids, I’ve become a little more creative in the kitchen as we make rice much later now, and it’s just too hard to go from 7 till 12 every day without eating anything for breakfast!
So, my first experiment in the kitchen was sweet bread, which is basically like sweet tortillas that I make with a layer of cinnamon sugar and finely chopped almonds in the middle. It didn’t turn out exactly as I had planned (what things do?!) but after a few tries it was edible and the kids thought it was quite tasty! I don’t think they’d ever had sweet bread before! However, in true Nepali form, they decided it needed “MORE OIL!” so it ended up being more like a fried sopapilla without the puffyness! It was good enough to make again though, and the second time was much smoother and there was much less waste!
Then, we decided to venture into the realm of pancakes! They had definitely never had pancakes before, so introducing them was a lot of fun. All the kids still at home had advice for me to improve them, before they’d even tasted them! “Sister, don’t do it that way,” “you need more oil,” “turn up the gas, the flame’s too little,” and so much more! Finally, I looked at them and told them that I was making the pancakes and they were welcome to help, but they were not allowed to give advice. Well, after oiling the pan for the first pancake, to their panicked dismay I refused to let them put more oil in the pan, and to their amazement it didn’t stick, as the cast iron flatbread pan is very smooth! Well, they quickly realized that these are way more fun to make than flatbread (roti) as they get to “flip” the cakes and if they want to they can make designs with the batter! Our best designs so far are a Mickey Mouse head and flowers. They love them, and I love that they’re so easy :).
Finally, I made spaghetti for them one night, and it was quite the event. Rami and I went shopping for vegetables to put in the sauce, and in my American ignorance, I tried to only buy 3 chili peppers. Well, the shopkeeper burst out laughing and informed me that I couldn’t buy that many peppers. Their total cost would be less than a rupee (basically, less than a penny)! So, the smallest amount I could buy was 5 Rupees worth (it was the smallest balancing weight he had) and we ended up with over 50 chilis. Not that it mattered, because unknown to me, Rami chopped up 15 of them and put them in the sauce. Needless to say, it was the spiciest sauce I’ve ever had! Delicious, but so so hot! The kids loved it though, so we had it again a few days later for afternoon “snack.”
In my time in the kitchen, I’ve also started learning how to make curry. Not so difficult, but I don’t know what a lot of the spices are. In addition, I’ve never seen anyone use more green chilis than they do here, and I’ve seen some New Mexicans who love their green chili! But here we bring the green chili love to a whole new level! There are times I’m literally pouring sweat after eating due to the heat in the chili... it’s a good thing I love spicy food! I figure I’ll learn enough to make a least one Nepali dish while I’m here, and Manisha and Laxman already know how to make pancakes and I’m sure they’ll keep making them! It’s what we call teachers call collaborative learning :).
Friday, January 8, 2010
Painful Love...
January 6, 2010
For about a week and a half I’ve been wrestling with whether or not to write about one of the hardest things for me since arriving here. I haven’t written much about rough days mainly because I usually write 1-2 days after the event occurred, and at that point, I don’t want to think about the rough day again or it no longer seems like a big deal. However, this time, the pain was deep enough to share, on an anonymous basis. I don’t want to share this child’s identity because, well, if it were me I wouldn’t want my mistakes broadcast to the world. But since the waves caused by this have changed the dynamics of our home, I figured you should know about it, at least from a bird’s eye view.
I haven’t mentioned this before, but over my time here, I’ve had a few things “disappear” from my room. Nothing major, but enough for me to notice things are gone each time. At first I thought I had just misplaced the items, and perhaps some I did, but there were some that I knew exactly where they were and the next time I came into my room they were gone. Well, Uncle told me to keep my room locked at all times because of this, and I had no idea who to suspect, and it hurt me so much that I couldn’t trust any of the kids to come into my room since I had no idea who was taking things.
Christmas day, this climaxed with a cell phone being stolen at church. Now, at the time we had no idea one of our kids was involved, but in the ensuing chaos tumbling through the next few days, we came to the knowledge that one of our kids was involved. Well, actually, the mastermind behind the elaborate scheme, which was a way to rectify something else they had taken in the past from someone outside the home. Funny how sin always drags us deeper and deeper to cover our tracks.
After finding out who was responsible, Uncle had the tough job of deciding what to do. As this wasn’t the only thing this person had taken, and many chances had been given even before I arrived, he finally came to the decision that this child needed to move back home with their mother. I think it might have been the hardest example of love that I’ve ever been part of. As this was one of the older children, they were fully conscious that what they were doing was wrong, and Uncle realized that having the older children doing things like that will only teach the younger kids to do the same in time and will only escalate. So, this child moved home the next day after Uncle met with their mom to explain what all had happened with a full confession from the child.
Even though this child will live at home now, Uncle will still provide for their school fees so that they can finish school as long as they keep their grades up. And if we see a change in their heart, Uncle’s willing to consider letting them come back here to live after a few months. I guess that while it was really hard, it was a huge learning lesson for the kids still here. We talked for a long time the other night about how real love isn’t letting us do whatever we want to do, but rather draws us nearer to God, the true source of love. And if sin is standing in the way, then allowing that sin to continue to grow is not love as it pushes us farther and farther from the only source of love, Jesus himself. But in that, there is grace, and Jesus chooses to forgive us and has already forgiven us, but as a Father he will discipline us when we walk away. I think that the kids here have a better grasp of God’s love in discipline now and a more real understanding of the darkness of sin.
I’m still struggling to process my emotions over this, as I found out about most of it after the fact and it felt kind of like a landslide that I was caught in and was powerless to help. I fully believe that Uncle made the right decision in sending this child home and I pray that God changes this child’s heart but it is hard knowing that many of them don’t have the same Christian influences at home, so the battle is even harder there. Not that a rough background is an excuse for anyone’s sin, especially the older kids who have been here for a long time, but it’s a little easier to understand their actions when you think about where these kids have come from. It’s sad, though, because it’s made me think twice about trusting any of the kids, but as one of the other kids said, “at some point we have to just trust each other.” Marvelous wisdom from a young teenager! So, when you go to bed tonight, pray that God would move here in the wake of things and that his Holy Spirit would be alive and active in convicting us when we go astray. Because when we no longer wage battle against sin and don’t feel that gentle stir urging us to do right, well, that’s when we’re in serious trouble...
*It's been a few days since I wrote this, and I've seen this child at church a few times, and we got to talk about this incident and it helped heal some of the relationship there. Hopefully as God continues to move, that trust can grow again as well!
For about a week and a half I’ve been wrestling with whether or not to write about one of the hardest things for me since arriving here. I haven’t written much about rough days mainly because I usually write 1-2 days after the event occurred, and at that point, I don’t want to think about the rough day again or it no longer seems like a big deal. However, this time, the pain was deep enough to share, on an anonymous basis. I don’t want to share this child’s identity because, well, if it were me I wouldn’t want my mistakes broadcast to the world. But since the waves caused by this have changed the dynamics of our home, I figured you should know about it, at least from a bird’s eye view.
I haven’t mentioned this before, but over my time here, I’ve had a few things “disappear” from my room. Nothing major, but enough for me to notice things are gone each time. At first I thought I had just misplaced the items, and perhaps some I did, but there were some that I knew exactly where they were and the next time I came into my room they were gone. Well, Uncle told me to keep my room locked at all times because of this, and I had no idea who to suspect, and it hurt me so much that I couldn’t trust any of the kids to come into my room since I had no idea who was taking things.
Christmas day, this climaxed with a cell phone being stolen at church. Now, at the time we had no idea one of our kids was involved, but in the ensuing chaos tumbling through the next few days, we came to the knowledge that one of our kids was involved. Well, actually, the mastermind behind the elaborate scheme, which was a way to rectify something else they had taken in the past from someone outside the home. Funny how sin always drags us deeper and deeper to cover our tracks.
After finding out who was responsible, Uncle had the tough job of deciding what to do. As this wasn’t the only thing this person had taken, and many chances had been given even before I arrived, he finally came to the decision that this child needed to move back home with their mother. I think it might have been the hardest example of love that I’ve ever been part of. As this was one of the older children, they were fully conscious that what they were doing was wrong, and Uncle realized that having the older children doing things like that will only teach the younger kids to do the same in time and will only escalate. So, this child moved home the next day after Uncle met with their mom to explain what all had happened with a full confession from the child.
Even though this child will live at home now, Uncle will still provide for their school fees so that they can finish school as long as they keep their grades up. And if we see a change in their heart, Uncle’s willing to consider letting them come back here to live after a few months. I guess that while it was really hard, it was a huge learning lesson for the kids still here. We talked for a long time the other night about how real love isn’t letting us do whatever we want to do, but rather draws us nearer to God, the true source of love. And if sin is standing in the way, then allowing that sin to continue to grow is not love as it pushes us farther and farther from the only source of love, Jesus himself. But in that, there is grace, and Jesus chooses to forgive us and has already forgiven us, but as a Father he will discipline us when we walk away. I think that the kids here have a better grasp of God’s love in discipline now and a more real understanding of the darkness of sin.
I’m still struggling to process my emotions over this, as I found out about most of it after the fact and it felt kind of like a landslide that I was caught in and was powerless to help. I fully believe that Uncle made the right decision in sending this child home and I pray that God changes this child’s heart but it is hard knowing that many of them don’t have the same Christian influences at home, so the battle is even harder there. Not that a rough background is an excuse for anyone’s sin, especially the older kids who have been here for a long time, but it’s a little easier to understand their actions when you think about where these kids have come from. It’s sad, though, because it’s made me think twice about trusting any of the kids, but as one of the other kids said, “at some point we have to just trust each other.” Marvelous wisdom from a young teenager! So, when you go to bed tonight, pray that God would move here in the wake of things and that his Holy Spirit would be alive and active in convicting us when we go astray. Because when we no longer wage battle against sin and don’t feel that gentle stir urging us to do right, well, that’s when we’re in serious trouble...
*It's been a few days since I wrote this, and I've seen this child at church a few times, and we got to talk about this incident and it helped heal some of the relationship there. Hopefully as God continues to move, that trust can grow again as well!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
It's for the CHILDREN!
January 4, 2010
I really can’t believe I just typed 2010. It seems like just yesterday I was awestruck with the fact that the date started with a 20 instead of a 19! Whoa. Anyway, back to your previously scheduled program. So, once again Uncle left home, this time with Auntie and their two boys. They went to Ghorka and Chitwan and were gone from Sat afternoon till Wednesday afternoon. So, Didi and I stayed with the kiddos, and one of the deacons from church has stayed here every night.
Monday, the call came. The one that I always look forward to. The only time the kids ever yell, “SISTER! TELEPHONE!” Then I know. Before I even pick up the receiver. And that nice lady’s voice floats over the line, “You have a notice of a package at customs. You need to come pick up the form and go to the general post office to claim it. Thank you!” This time, it was a little different. “You have FOUR notices of packages at customs!” YESSSSS!
New Life Church in Spring, TX sent Christmas gifts for the kids, one box of Bibles (with the kids names embossed on the front of 17 DIFFERENT Bibles, how awesome is that? in a home of 17 kids, it’s VERY awesome!) and three boxes of other gifts. Now, the Bibles arrived first, about a week ago, and they went straight to our normal post office, which was quite the surprise when I got to the post office on the bike and the lady drags out this HUGE box in a big white bag and says “Here. Take it.” And I realize that I now have to lug this box and the bike back up the 20 minute ride home. Well, walking the bike with one hand while dragging the box with the other was out of the question, so finally I managed to get on the bike, resting the box between my forearms and knees, trying to keep it totally balanced as to not throw off my own balance! After much huffing and puffing and only one near death experience (never play chicken with a car, even if they are driving on your side of the road, especially when you have a big box in your lap!), I made it home. And the children were sooooo excited to have their very own English Bible with their names on them... pretty awesome!
OK, back to January 4. After school, Rami, Prabin and I headed to the post office to grab the notices. Unfortunately, since Uncle wasn’t here, I didn’t have a way to get a letter from him to claim them, so I was praying that at least one would be from my mom so that it would have my name posted all over it! Well, we hiked down that hill that I had huffed and puffed up just the week before and picked up the notices. Then it was off to the general post office. We took a micro-bus, which is basically a really big van with about 40 people packed into it. A very cheap, very interesting way to travel.
So, we got to the post office, and I gave them the notices, and the lady was like, “Are you Krishna? Are you Nepal Children’s Welfare Association? Why doesn’t your passport match? Who are you?” So, I attempted to explain that I work in a children’s home (always good to play the “I work with the poor Nepali children, would you deny them their Christmas presents?!” card. it usually works.) and Uncle was out of town and one of the packages was from my mom and would have my name all over it. So, she walked us back to the store room for packages. And now I know why sometimes it takes me weeks to get notices- I’m surprised more packages haven’t been lost!
It was a jungle of a disorganized mess, enough to make a hyper-organized person want to jump off a bridge. So, we began searching for the packages, which thankfully have numbers scribbled on their sides corresponding to the notices. Well, we found one from my mom, and sure enough, my name was pasted all over the front of it. Which was enough for the man working back there, but two other officials had to come back and OK the transaction. It helped that my mom’s name was on the package and I was able to say, “Look, miro ama!” which means “my mom!”
So, then we hunted for the other 4 packages. Oh wait, did I say 4? Why yes I did. One of the notices had 2 packages listed on it, so, we had a total of 5 packages to claim. Well, we found another one from my mom, sent about a month before the first one we found (funny how that works here...), and then we found the one’s from New Life. Well, Rami found one, and the kind man found the other two. I think he was amused by the white American in the Nepali Kotessera with two orphan children in tow. I seem to have that affect on people! Back to the packages- they were big boxes. So, me, two kids, three BIG boxes, two smaller ones. All heavy!
Well, I do the Customs office dance (I have it memorized now), and get a signature here, pay a few rupees there, and then comes the moment of truth- the moment the man takes the knife and plunges it in to open them and make sure everything’s ok. The first two from my mom are just “chocolate” as they call anything edible that they don’t recognize. Then, the other three are filled with the wrapped gifts. And I’m afraid that he’s going to make us unwrap all the presents, but he looks at the two kids standing there with HUGE eyes, gaping at these boxes filled with gifts for them, and he chuckles and leaves it. And charges me a whole 90 rupees per box, meaning a little over a dollar for each one! WAY cheap compared to past trips!
We head out after emptying one of my mom’s packages into my backpack, sagging under the weight of love from Texas! I knew there was no way we were getting on a Micro-bus with four boxes and an exploding backpack, so we hailed a Taxi. And I feared how much it was going to cost, and the kids warned me that it was expensive. But we got one, and to my delight, it was a mere 250 rupees, just under $4. Definitely manageable! We pack in, and I’m pretty sure the ride home was scarier than riding uphill with a box full of Bibles! We narrowly missed crushing a motorcycle with tires screaming and rubber burning as he hit the brakes! Then, we danced around a Micro-bus, and I’m still not sure we didn’t leave some paint as a memory for them.
When we finally made it home, the kids came running out to “help” with the packages, and they had the joy of Christmas in January! They loved their gifts, and this time I made them open them one by one so that there was a little more order to the chaos! I think they had as much fun watching each other open presents as they did opening their own presents! It was just another unforgettable day!
I really can’t believe I just typed 2010. It seems like just yesterday I was awestruck with the fact that the date started with a 20 instead of a 19! Whoa. Anyway, back to your previously scheduled program. So, once again Uncle left home, this time with Auntie and their two boys. They went to Ghorka and Chitwan and were gone from Sat afternoon till Wednesday afternoon. So, Didi and I stayed with the kiddos, and one of the deacons from church has stayed here every night.
Monday, the call came. The one that I always look forward to. The only time the kids ever yell, “SISTER! TELEPHONE!” Then I know. Before I even pick up the receiver. And that nice lady’s voice floats over the line, “You have a notice of a package at customs. You need to come pick up the form and go to the general post office to claim it. Thank you!” This time, it was a little different. “You have FOUR notices of packages at customs!” YESSSSS!
New Life Church in Spring, TX sent Christmas gifts for the kids, one box of Bibles (with the kids names embossed on the front of 17 DIFFERENT Bibles, how awesome is that? in a home of 17 kids, it’s VERY awesome!) and three boxes of other gifts. Now, the Bibles arrived first, about a week ago, and they went straight to our normal post office, which was quite the surprise when I got to the post office on the bike and the lady drags out this HUGE box in a big white bag and says “Here. Take it.” And I realize that I now have to lug this box and the bike back up the 20 minute ride home. Well, walking the bike with one hand while dragging the box with the other was out of the question, so finally I managed to get on the bike, resting the box between my forearms and knees, trying to keep it totally balanced as to not throw off my own balance! After much huffing and puffing and only one near death experience (never play chicken with a car, even if they are driving on your side of the road, especially when you have a big box in your lap!), I made it home. And the children were sooooo excited to have their very own English Bible with their names on them... pretty awesome!
OK, back to January 4. After school, Rami, Prabin and I headed to the post office to grab the notices. Unfortunately, since Uncle wasn’t here, I didn’t have a way to get a letter from him to claim them, so I was praying that at least one would be from my mom so that it would have my name posted all over it! Well, we hiked down that hill that I had huffed and puffed up just the week before and picked up the notices. Then it was off to the general post office. We took a micro-bus, which is basically a really big van with about 40 people packed into it. A very cheap, very interesting way to travel.
So, we got to the post office, and I gave them the notices, and the lady was like, “Are you Krishna? Are you Nepal Children’s Welfare Association? Why doesn’t your passport match? Who are you?” So, I attempted to explain that I work in a children’s home (always good to play the “I work with the poor Nepali children, would you deny them their Christmas presents?!” card. it usually works.) and Uncle was out of town and one of the packages was from my mom and would have my name all over it. So, she walked us back to the store room for packages. And now I know why sometimes it takes me weeks to get notices- I’m surprised more packages haven’t been lost!
It was a jungle of a disorganized mess, enough to make a hyper-organized person want to jump off a bridge. So, we began searching for the packages, which thankfully have numbers scribbled on their sides corresponding to the notices. Well, we found one from my mom, and sure enough, my name was pasted all over the front of it. Which was enough for the man working back there, but two other officials had to come back and OK the transaction. It helped that my mom’s name was on the package and I was able to say, “Look, miro ama!” which means “my mom!”
So, then we hunted for the other 4 packages. Oh wait, did I say 4? Why yes I did. One of the notices had 2 packages listed on it, so, we had a total of 5 packages to claim. Well, we found another one from my mom, sent about a month before the first one we found (funny how that works here...), and then we found the one’s from New Life. Well, Rami found one, and the kind man found the other two. I think he was amused by the white American in the Nepali Kotessera with two orphan children in tow. I seem to have that affect on people! Back to the packages- they were big boxes. So, me, two kids, three BIG boxes, two smaller ones. All heavy!
Well, I do the Customs office dance (I have it memorized now), and get a signature here, pay a few rupees there, and then comes the moment of truth- the moment the man takes the knife and plunges it in to open them and make sure everything’s ok. The first two from my mom are just “chocolate” as they call anything edible that they don’t recognize. Then, the other three are filled with the wrapped gifts. And I’m afraid that he’s going to make us unwrap all the presents, but he looks at the two kids standing there with HUGE eyes, gaping at these boxes filled with gifts for them, and he chuckles and leaves it. And charges me a whole 90 rupees per box, meaning a little over a dollar for each one! WAY cheap compared to past trips!
We head out after emptying one of my mom’s packages into my backpack, sagging under the weight of love from Texas! I knew there was no way we were getting on a Micro-bus with four boxes and an exploding backpack, so we hailed a Taxi. And I feared how much it was going to cost, and the kids warned me that it was expensive. But we got one, and to my delight, it was a mere 250 rupees, just under $4. Definitely manageable! We pack in, and I’m pretty sure the ride home was scarier than riding uphill with a box full of Bibles! We narrowly missed crushing a motorcycle with tires screaming and rubber burning as he hit the brakes! Then, we danced around a Micro-bus, and I’m still not sure we didn’t leave some paint as a memory for them.
When we finally made it home, the kids came running out to “help” with the packages, and they had the joy of Christmas in January! They loved their gifts, and this time I made them open them one by one so that there was a little more order to the chaos! I think they had as much fun watching each other open presents as they did opening their own presents! It was just another unforgettable day!
Friday, January 1, 2010
A New Years Prayer...
December 31, 2009
New Year’s Eve. The close of one year, the start of a new chapter. But really, it’s just one more day... I hadn’t even thought of a New Year’s resolution! We went to church right after dinner for the service, bundled in layer upon layer of clothes to fight off the bone-creaking cold seeping through the night air. I had on 3 long sleeved shirts with my hoodie over them, two pairs of pants (and I should have worn 3!), and 2 pairs of socks! That topped with a scarf wrapped tightly around my neck and over my ears, covering my mouth and nose, leaving only my eyes and forehead showing. I probably looked like some sort of strange Middle Eastern snow man!
Anyway, so, we started by singing for an hour or so, thanking God for all that He’s done in 2009 and all that He’s going to do in 2010! We sang some songs I knew, and a lot I didn’t, and then we did a short lesson over the Passover and God giving the Israelites a new start as he led them out of Egypt. God led them by day and by night, through obedience and disobedience. It was a pretty cool passage to ring in the New Years, especially since that’s what I read in the morning on my own as well! I love when God does that :).
Then, they played some Nepali Christian film which I probably could have followed if I had tried to, but I’ve been going through “A Ragamuffin Gospel” by Brennan Manning and was smart enough to bring it with me to read during the movie. And as I read, I discovered what I want for this year. I want to live by grace. I know, that sounds like a cop-out, but let me explain. As I’ve read through this book and searched through the parallel Bible passages, I’ve begun to see this fervor in grace that I hadn’t ever seen before. And I certainly hadn’t let myself live in it before!
I knew Christ died for my sins and rose again in triumph, but rarely do I accept that as full payment for myself before God. It’s head knowledge, not heart knowledge. So often, I find myself doing the right things for all the wrong reasons. Once again, I’m diminishing the power of the cross thinking I have to add to it to earn God’s love and acceptance. I need to do X, Y, and Z today in order to fulfill my end of the deal. And as I’ve read about God’s overwhelming grace with fresh eyes, I’ve found myself floored at the reality that I have freedom in Christ. NOTHING I do will make Him love me more or less! Not to say I should stop doing right, obviously, but I can do what’s right out of gratitude that He’s loved me first and I’m not earning any more “points” with Him by doing good. My love and service can be unconditional, an outpouring of the reality that God’s saved me and His Grace is enough!
Now that’s easy to say, yet my pride makes it incredibly difficult to live. But, this is what I want to learn most this year- how to live in the freedom of Christ’s love and grace while serving Him to the fullest. And I’m beginning to see that I can’t have one without the other. I can’t serve Christ to the fullest when I’m trying to earn His favor, since the only way I can really give the full love of God is when I’ve experienced it myself. And when I experience God’s love and grace to the fullest, I can’t help but serve Christ to the fullest, as my heart stills in wonder and amazement at the price paid for me. I want to stop minimizing Jesus’ incredible work on the cross through my prideful intentions of earning God’s love and grace. Basically, I want to know that grace in a way that bleeds into all I do. That’s pretty much my New Year’s prayer (I never keep resolutions. a New Year’s prayer has a much higher probability of achieving something substantial!). To quote Manning, "My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it!" And that, my friends, is good news this new year!
New Year’s Eve. The close of one year, the start of a new chapter. But really, it’s just one more day... I hadn’t even thought of a New Year’s resolution! We went to church right after dinner for the service, bundled in layer upon layer of clothes to fight off the bone-creaking cold seeping through the night air. I had on 3 long sleeved shirts with my hoodie over them, two pairs of pants (and I should have worn 3!), and 2 pairs of socks! That topped with a scarf wrapped tightly around my neck and over my ears, covering my mouth and nose, leaving only my eyes and forehead showing. I probably looked like some sort of strange Middle Eastern snow man!
Anyway, so, we started by singing for an hour or so, thanking God for all that He’s done in 2009 and all that He’s going to do in 2010! We sang some songs I knew, and a lot I didn’t, and then we did a short lesson over the Passover and God giving the Israelites a new start as he led them out of Egypt. God led them by day and by night, through obedience and disobedience. It was a pretty cool passage to ring in the New Years, especially since that’s what I read in the morning on my own as well! I love when God does that :).
Then, they played some Nepali Christian film which I probably could have followed if I had tried to, but I’ve been going through “A Ragamuffin Gospel” by Brennan Manning and was smart enough to bring it with me to read during the movie. And as I read, I discovered what I want for this year. I want to live by grace. I know, that sounds like a cop-out, but let me explain. As I’ve read through this book and searched through the parallel Bible passages, I’ve begun to see this fervor in grace that I hadn’t ever seen before. And I certainly hadn’t let myself live in it before!
I knew Christ died for my sins and rose again in triumph, but rarely do I accept that as full payment for myself before God. It’s head knowledge, not heart knowledge. So often, I find myself doing the right things for all the wrong reasons. Once again, I’m diminishing the power of the cross thinking I have to add to it to earn God’s love and acceptance. I need to do X, Y, and Z today in order to fulfill my end of the deal. And as I’ve read about God’s overwhelming grace with fresh eyes, I’ve found myself floored at the reality that I have freedom in Christ. NOTHING I do will make Him love me more or less! Not to say I should stop doing right, obviously, but I can do what’s right out of gratitude that He’s loved me first and I’m not earning any more “points” with Him by doing good. My love and service can be unconditional, an outpouring of the reality that God’s saved me and His Grace is enough!
Now that’s easy to say, yet my pride makes it incredibly difficult to live. But, this is what I want to learn most this year- how to live in the freedom of Christ’s love and grace while serving Him to the fullest. And I’m beginning to see that I can’t have one without the other. I can’t serve Christ to the fullest when I’m trying to earn His favor, since the only way I can really give the full love of God is when I’ve experienced it myself. And when I experience God’s love and grace to the fullest, I can’t help but serve Christ to the fullest, as my heart stills in wonder and amazement at the price paid for me. I want to stop minimizing Jesus’ incredible work on the cross through my prideful intentions of earning God’s love and grace. Basically, I want to know that grace in a way that bleeds into all I do. That’s pretty much my New Year’s prayer (I never keep resolutions. a New Year’s prayer has a much higher probability of achieving something substantial!). To quote Manning, "My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it!" And that, my friends, is good news this new year!
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