The first few days for the Nepal Team!

The Nepal team arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday the second full of excitement to be in this amazing country. As the bus wound itself through the soggy streets that are littered with signs of the Hindu religion, the team was pointing out many strange sights. Anywhere from free roaming cows, street venders filling the air with the aroma of Mo-mo’s, monkey’s doing balancing acts on a telephone wire, to (supposed) holy men dressed in full garb.

As soon as we got to our hostel the excitement turned quickly to –head in lap- exhaustion as the realization of how airplane seat pseudo cat naps over a 38 hour travel day can wreck you. We tried to somewhat stay awake- with one short nap before a prayer walk- till the evening but this ended up being a failed plan by, said trip leader, to try to adjust to the new time zone. After a couple of good night’s sleep we have come back to life and have jumped into ministry whole heartedly.

Ministry here is interesting. When we go out to eat on the over-overcrowded streets of Thamel and students meet shop owners and hikers coming through in which they build relationships to share Christ (all in a safe, controlled environment). Maddi and Claire have been doing a great job of getting to know people. It has also been great to see Saige come out of her shell and help students on the team get familiar with the area and point them to shop owners who will sit and have a conversation with them. The students were very engaged in doing ministry at “The Mothers Home” a ministry that has reached out to thousands of elderly women who have been abandoned and in many situations abused as well as being ignored in a society that undervalues them. Shiloh led our team in singing for the women. She also has led our team in worship, which is an amazing pleasure to the ears to hear a group of 28 singing, in almost harmony, praises from a roof-top on warm sticky nights above the bustle of streets over-stuffed with people pursuing the things of this world and gods of the world with total ignorance to a patient merciful God who is bring cracks of light into it through the small amount of believers here.

On a cultural note we visited the Monkey temple (buddhist) in our first day, which as the name indicates is overrun with sandwich stealing Rhesus Monkeys! On the second day, we took in one of the biggest temples, Poshupatinath. Poshupatinath is a temple to Shiva, with a “holy” river running through it (albeit very polluted). The very reason we visit these two places is to give the students a sense of the challenging environment that the local followers of Christ experience around every corner, every day here. Then on the third day (sound familiar) we take them to the local church service where they see a congregation that is alive and worshiping a true God. At all the church services this summer we are doing youth group and at the first one the team jumped right in. Alumni Renae gave her testimony and did a wonderful job while our "boy band" stole the show and were even able to get Andrew, one of our Senior staff, to join in with them. The stark difference is eye opening and gives testimony to the loving and interactive God that we serve.

Hank Dahl

Nepal Mission Trip Leader