A Little Bit Louder

So I called air canada today to see what it would cost to push out my return date and travel/relax a bit more before returning… $50 I’m told…

a week getting my PADI open water dive cert? Chiang Mai? Hong Kong? Vietnam? Laos? Cambodia? or rush back to the balmy Canadian weather?

Cheap technical clothing? Yes please!

Different:

• Men, women, and children all sit separately. I’ve been thinking of the merits of this… it seems to work really well…
• When it’s prayer time, everyone prays all at once… out loud

Same:

• I still get up late for church
• Cell phones still go off in the middle of service

Sunday was a pretty cool day. We went to one of the slum areas by the river to give some food and found there was a church setup there already. We didn’t feel like going… The morning hadn’t gone well while we were trying to buy supplies, and I was pretty tired having stayed up the night before to prep for speaking at the english service. Mark, Joshua, Bishwas, and I spent some time praying and then decided to go anyway.

They were appreciative of the food we brought for the children. Parents would come running with their kids to get whatever they could. They were all really friendly and surprisingly organized. Each family had their own little plot of land marked out with some makeshift fences and they took pride in keeping the area clean. In fact the street looked cleaner and in much better shape than the streets around the church that is in one of the nicer parts of town.

So after some web difficulties, my blog is alive again….

I got to go to Nepali service Saturday morning. And there, I had my second “wow, that’s really beautiful” moment. It was during worship, when I looked around at all the people crammed into a small room worshiping God in Nepali. Their singing seemed to come from something a little deeper than that in the west. It was a subtle yet strong and heart felt cry… maybe out of the realization of their real need for God… I’m not sure… but the authenticity was amazing.

I also got to share a bit. I’m learning quickly that the verse: 1 Peter 3:15 plays quite prominently here: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” It seems that every time we go somewhere, I’m asked to share something with the group/congregation. Often, very last minute.

Last night at youth, I shared my testimony. This morning was more of an encouragement/exhortation from Philippians 1, and Acts 1:8. Tomorrow, I’ll be teaching at English service. When I stop to think about it, it should be quite easy and second nature to simply share what God has been teaching me, but in reality it is hard when I’ve been going through a rougher patch in my life.

Saturday afternoon, the youth group spent some time cleaning up the neighbourhood around the church. Mark and I envisioned picking up lots of garbage and having the guys who come around for garbage once a week to haul it off. The youth had other ideas. They came with shovels, sickles, and meat cleavers to clear the brush that had overgrown the streets. Think weeds… 6 feet high…. and garbage everywhere. It can be demoralizing to pick up bags and bags of garbage, only to look up and realize the garbage goes back 10 feet from the street. It made a big difference though. After all was cleaned up, we put everything in a big pile and burned it… seems to be the way to clear garbage here. There’s always a fire or two burning somewhere and the smoke and smell gets everywhere. So much for the environment….

I love hanging out with the youth though, which ranges from 13-30 … so it’s more of a youth/c&c mix. It’s a fairly regular group of guys and I’m getting to know them a bit so it’s pretty fun. They’re all quite eager to learn and are fascinated by the fact that I look Nepali…. Limbu/Rai tribes to be exact… so now i introduce myself as Jacob Limbu… makes me feel more hard core mountainy…<—yes, that is a word.