The village. I’m not gonna lie, I was pretty
skeptical//worried about going to the village. Not only was I sick, but we had
just had a really rough couple of weeks dealing with Grace’s situation and I
was feeling pretty discouraged. But. We went anyway. And I am SO glad we did. It
was me, my roommate, and our translator Joy [that’s not her real name but it suits her,
so that’s what I’ll use as her name]. There are a lot of stories to tell and a
lot of information to get through, so I’ll give some background, a brief
summary of each day, & talk about some of my favorite parts!
So, as I mentioned in my summary of week 7, I had a fever
and was throwing up. Not the ideal situation when you have to ride in a jeep
with ten other people for 2 hours, then wait for an hour, get in another jeep
with 10 different people and then drive up the mountain for one more hour… when
it’s super bumpy and the jeep really should only hold 7 people, but the legal
limit is 10, so they fill it up all the way. Needless to say, lots of praying
took part. But I managed to make it to the village just fine and without
getting sick!
Once we were there, we were greeted with such hospitality!
Everyone was so friendly and so thankful that we had come to the village to
teach their kids. There are about 15 believers in the village and then lots of
other familes who follow Hinduism. We were under the impression that we would
just be doing an after school art program type of thing for about 20 kids… Um…
well instead they had us come teach English at the school during 7th
period to grades 0-5 [approximately ages 4-12]. So… after changing our game
plan a little bit, we came up with a pretty good system, we chose 4 stories
[Creation, The Fall, Noah, and The Birth of Jesus] to teach in the school. I
know that seems like a big gap between Noah and Jesus, but we only had four
days of being at the school and the main point of the stories was to show God’s
original plan, how sin entered the world, how God offered a plan of redemption,
and how ultimately the people were still evil, so he had to send a Savior to
the earth to rescue people from sin. Then after school, all of the kids were
invited to the church and we had crayons and paper and art projects for them
make! We also taught them a few games like Red Rover, Gorilla Man Gun, and Red
Light, Green Light! They really enjoyed it and each day a few more kids would
come! We ended up having 47 kids come to the program!! On Fridays the kids get out
of school early, so we watched the Jesus film for kids. They were all extremely
interested and they remembered the stories from our classes. The next day is
Saturday [the day off, and the day they have church] so we told them that we
would show another movie [we have another version that has been edited and is
told by Mary Magdalene and tells different stories than the kid’s version] in
the evening if they wanted to bring their parents. And for the kids from other
villages they could come back in the afternoon. And they came back… more on
that later!
Ok so here is a brief schedule of what our time in the
village looked like:
Day 1 – Friday – We arrived, got settled in, walked around
the village and then went to bed early. Normally the believers in the village
have fellowship on Fridays, which they did, but we didn’t go since we were
sick.
Day 2 – Saturday – We got up, had our morning daal bhaat
[rice, veggies, lentils] and lots of tea [loaded with black pepper to make you
“feel warm inside” – not fun when you still feel really sick], went to church,
then played with the kids all afternoon!
Day 3 – Sunday – We met with the school officials and got
everything ready to go. Then they threw a big party for us and another man that
had come back after serving in the army and was donating money to the village.
They killed a goat for the party [I ate two pieces of it, well, one, and then I
hid the other one in my mouth and waited until I had an opportunity to spit it
out]. And they had a big ceremony at the school. It was raining the whole time
so I felt kind of bad because everyone had to stand outside, but it was so nice
and they made tons of leis for all of us out of marigolds and rhododendrons. It
was so exciting! We thought that we were going to start teaching that day, but
everyone went home after the ceremony… so we just played games with the
kids!
Day 4 – Monday – Today was the first day we had class, but I
didn’t go. I got a second round of sickness so I basically just laid in bed all
day. So… That’s all that happened.
Day 5 – Tuesday – I wasn’t feeling all that great, but I
didn’t want to miss much so I got up and Joy told us that Aama [that means
“mom”, she is the lady whose family we were staying with] was sick and couldn’t
get out of bed. We went into her room to pray for her and she could barely move
her body at all and she was crying from a horrible fever. We prayed for her and
that the fever would go away. We had plans to go to a neighboring village that
morning and so after we prayed for her we went had tea with a few families. We
were gone for maybe 2 hours and when we came back Aama was in the kitchen
cooking and laughing… we were like, “wait? Are you not sick anymore?”, nope!
God healed her! How amazing! That afternoon we had class and taught the story
of the fall of man.
Day 6 – Wednesday – We went back to the other village in the
morning to take some pictures for a family that lives there. They were so
sweet! While we were walking, I accidentally got stung by this plant thing that
puts little needles in you. The cool thing though is that there is always
another plant nearby that you can grind up to make a medicine! How neat! [I’m
fine]. That afternoon we taught the story of Noah. All of the kids had a really
great time.
Day 7 – Thursday – We went to the other village again in the
morning and had tea and breakfast with another family. They wanted us to take a
picture of their family too, so we did and it was really great. The husband is
a very nice man and he had been coming everyday to sit with us and play games,
but everyday we could smell alcohol on him and from the looks of his eyes and
skin, we could tell he was having severe liver problems. We asked Baje what to
do about it and he said that whenever somebody tells him to stop drinking, he
suddenly becomes very angry. So when we went to their house for breakfast we
told him that we didn’t know for sure if he drank a lot [because honestly, we’d
never seen him drink], but that we were concerned about his health. I was
praying the whole time that he wouldn’t get
angry. He told us that he did drink a lot and that he was glad that we told
him. We told him that it would probably be best if he gradually stopped
drinking, so it wouldn’t be a shock to his body, and that it would probably
improve his health quite a bit. He and his wife were very glad that we told
them and he didn’t get angry at all [praise the Lord!]. The next day we saw him
and he had stopped drinking, and that’s how it was for the remainder of
the trip. So hopefully his health will improve! That afternoon we had our last
class with the kids and we taught the story of Jesus’s birth. It was so awesome
to hear the kids saying “The savior’s name is Jesus”, as we practiced telling
the story in English. We told them to come the next day for the movie and they
were all very excited! That evening one of the new believers invited us to her
house for daal bhaat. She has only been a believer for about 3 weeks or so! So
we went and had dinner with her and one of her neighbors who is not a believer.
After dinner we sat with them and talked for a while and prayed with them and
Joy read Psalm 23 and explained it. It was wonderful!
Day 8 – Friday – We didn’t go teach at the school, because
they get out early on Fridays. So we had the kids come to the church at 1:30 to
watch the Jesus film for kids. At first there were only a few kids coming in
and then all of the sudden all of the kids we had been teaching all week showed
up! So they all got to watch they movie and they really enjoyed it!! They even
recognized some of the stories from class! We told them that if they came back
the next day we would watch another movie! On Friday evenings they have
fellowship. Each week it is at a different house, and they basically do all the
same things they do during the church service: sing lots of hymns, pray a lot,
share how God has blessed them throughout that week, share prayer requests,
have someone share something from the Bible, and then sing more hymns. The only
difference is that afterward they drink tea. It was absolutely incredible. All
the believers in that village gathered in a one-room house without electricity
to worship and praise their Lord. This candle was sitting on a little stand and
it reminded me of Matthew 5 [which ironically was the passage that they shared
during fellowship] which says: 14 “You are the light of the world. A
town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither
do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its
stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
It’s hard to choose a favorite time in the village, but I think it may have been
this evening.
Day 9 – Saturday – What an amazing day, we went to church in
the morning, where I was asked to speak. I spoke about 2 Corinthians 1:3-7
which says “3 Praise
be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and
the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our
troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we
ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in
the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and
salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you
patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just
as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.” It went really well [I think]. And as I mentioned before,
we had told the kids they could come watch the movie at either 2 o clock, if
they were from a far away village, or at 8 if they were local. At the first
showing, we had almost all of the kids from our classes come, plus several
adults. One older man that came yesterday, walked for about an hour to come
back today! It was so wonderful! Then, even more people came to the 8 o clock
showing! We had told everyone to bring their families, friends, and neighbors
and they did! Altogether, between both showings we had about 90 people come!!
But here is the best part of the 8 o clock showing: As soon as we started the
movie, the power went off. So we told Joy “oh start praying! We need power to
run the projector”… and before I knew it, all the believers started singing
hymns and praying out loud so that the power would come back on. We decide to
start watching it on the computer until the power came on and it was so tiny,
but everyone gathered around to watch it. Eventually the power came back on and
so while we were getting the projector set up again, all the believers started
singing a hymn called “Dhanybad Jesu” [Thank You Jesus]… what an incredible
testimony to the non-believers there! Then we finished the movie. Everyone kept
telling us how much they loved the movie! We told them that everything they saw
in the movie was a true story and that God loved them all and to talk to the
person who had invited them if they had any questions. It was a great night!
Day 10 – Sunday – The day we had to leave… I didn’t want to
go! Everyone was so kind and caring. But we made it home safely and just in time
for lunch! Our jeep home was supposed to leave at 7:30 in the morning, but at
7:45 we found out the driver had just woken up… We had a little extra time, so
we decided to ask the family we stayed with if we could record their testimony. All
week I had been asking if anyone knew how long they had been believers, but no
one was really sure. So now let me share with you how perfect God’s timing is:
-
4 years ago, my roommate started praying for a girl to
sign up for this trip. But semester after semester, only boys would sign up, so
she didn’t have a partner.
-
4 years ago I had thought I was going to a
completely different school, only to end up back in Arlington at UTA, and
through many, many, many, events, I eventually ended up coming to Nepal for the last semester that they would be able to have a student come.
-
4 years ago [as I found out during the filming
of their testimony] this family we stayed with in the village had become
believers!
It just blows my mind how perfect God’s timing is. He knew
four years ago that one day this family on the other side of the world, in a
country I never thought I’d go to, in a village I definitely had never heard of
or even knew existed until a few weeks ago, would graciously welcome my roommate and I
into their home so that we could help them as they show Christ’s love to their
village.
It really makes you think about all the people around you,
and all the people you don’t even know exist, and how God has a purpose and a
plan for each of them. It’s beautiful.
Well, that’s the village.
Then we came home and ate a ton of food.
Blessings.
