Hi Strangers!!
It’s been a long time since our last post and I, Krista, have several reasonable excuses for thatJ. First and sadly enough, our computer seems to be dyingL, so that makes any computer work (downloading pics, writing blogs, etc.) painfully slow and difficult, and at times want to throw it out the window frustrating. Second, we have been traveling around Nepal quite a bit in the last several weeks and therefore did not take our almost dead computer with us. And third, for the last two weeks we were out in the Himalayas trekking to the Base Camp of Annapurna 1 (which was awesome and if I can work on my patience long enough with our computer, there might be a photo album up in the next few days). Here is a sneak peak, however, just to whet your appetite :-). That's us at Base Camp -- 4,130m or for you Americans, 13,550ft :-)!! (we have ~1,000 pics total!!)
So hopefully those are good enough reasons for those of you who check our blog every day for a word or two (I know there are only a couple of you who do this –thank you by the way!!). With that being said, we are back in Kathmandu and back online with stories to tell! Before speeding right to our beautiful Himalayan trek, however, I must share with you about an experience during the four days we spent in Pokhara before hitting the trail…..
Pokhara is a city west of Kathmandu, nestled up against the Annapurna Mountain Range of the Himalayas. There is also a beautiful lake on one side of the town which adds to the picturesque quality of the place. Pokhara is frequented by lots and lots of tourists because of these factors, many only staying for a few days before or after their trek into the Annapurna Range.
We went as “tourists,” with the primary goal of doing an 11-day trek, but we were blessed with the opportunity to spend some three days with local “believers” and venture out into some areas where no tourist (or even white person for that matter) has gone before.
On our arrival we met a “leader” in the area who immediately took us under his wing. We spent three days with him, visiting “gatherings,” encouraging believers, and having meals with his family. On one of our days with him, we were unbelievably blessed through a visit to a House Fellowship in a remote village outside of Pokhara.
Now, to be honest, I was not looking forward to this outing. He told us we were going to be hiking into a believer's home where every week a group of them would get together to praise and worship the Father. Now, that sounds wonderful and romantic and totally what you envision when you think about reaching the unreached of the world, but in my experience thus far of being overseas, you never get what you expect, so I was a little skeptical to say the least. But, I put on my hiking boots and a smile and we ventured out of the safety of the tourist town one hot, sunny afternoon. Justin, on the other hand, was stoked, so he did help “carry” me for the first half of the day.
So, we hopped on a local taxi which took us about 30 minutes outside of the town to the top of a small hill (by some standards a mountain for sure, but not here in Nepal). We stopped in what looked like a very random location, but off to the side of the road, we found a small trail that led down into the valley, the “leader” we were with pointed out a small house way down the mountainside next to the river – our destination -- and we started walking. And, it was down…..like 45min to an hour straight down a mix of trail and manmade rock steps. The whole time I kept thinking about how I didn’t want to hike back upJ, luckily our leader had another idea for our departure, but you’ll see that later.
Now, in the scheme of things, this is a very short hike compared to what most of the “believers” here do all the time to reach their country with the Good News, and compared to the 11-day one I was about to embark on two days later, but my selfish, want to be in-control heart needed some operating on, which this little hike eventually was able to do.
By the time we reached the valley and crossed our first “Nepali bridge” I was doing 50% better (that smile is half real). Regardless of the sweat dripping down my back, I was at this point excited to be there and do what we came to do…..oh how silly I am sometimes.
After crossing the bridge, we arrived at the house of a believer in the village. He and his family open up their home every week to a handful of surrounding believers so that they can study the Word and worship His name together.
We were immediately welcomed by huge smiling faces and warm greetings. Okay….maybe the hike down in the heat was worth it. At this House Fellowship, anybody was welcome, no matter what your age, caste, or status in the village. From age 4 to 84!
This beautiful old man, had just found the Son two months ago and is extremely joyful in spite of the tough circumstances he finds himself in. His wife passed away many years earlier and all of his children are either estranged from him or dead. He lives alone, survives on very little food, but is beginning to find a new family in his believing brothers and sisters.
After meeting everyone, we spent the next two hours singing praises to His name together, sharing with one another about Him, and then sharing our prayer requests with each other. Justin and I got to do a portion of the sharing which was amazing!
By this point the Father had worked on my heart and opened my eyes to see His glory and the amazing way He is bringing people into His kingdom all over the world! In a remote village, in the hills of Nepal, where some have been forgotten, He has not forgotten them. He is sending people to share the Good News of the saving power of the Son. He is freeing people from a life of either endlessly trying to be better to be accepted and have a better lot in the next life or hopelessly giving up on this life, believing that the karma cannot be changed.
Here is a group picture of all of us right before we left.
That hot, sunny afternoon, we were witness to His work and will be forever changed. A week later, when we were trekking to Annapurna Base Camp, I came upon these verses in my study and couldn’t help but think of this experience.
“I will praise you, Lord, among the nations, I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted O God above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.” Ps. 57:10-11
Praise His Name!!
P.S. So remember how I was hoping we wouldn't have to hike all the way back up the mountain to get out.....we started walking the two hour walk out of the valley, following the river, which was longer but flatter (okay, I'm in), and spotted these guys giving their tractor a wash, and with a little request from our friend, we hitched a ride on this, making it back out of the valley in record time :-) !! Besides being a little on the bumpy side, it was the coolest ending to an AWESOME day!
Aren't these guys awesome? We are so going to miss this place!
