Amazing adventures, pizza hut and GREAT coffee

Wow. I can already warn you in advance this is going to be a long post.. but I know if no one else wants to read it that my family will so I apologize if it gets to long for the rest of you.. but Wow. My Jesus has shown up and shown out already here on my incredible journey!
So I left on Saturday for Calcutta. Our plane was two hours late and I cannot even tell you how many people I got to share Jesus with at the aiport. It was amazing! So I was waiting in line for the plane to come and just praying, beause I knew that since the plane was delayed it would be dark when i got to calcutta, and I was not looking forward to getting a taxi and going to the hotel in the dark by myself. So guess what! Our God is so good. I hear a voice behind me in a british accent say, are you traveling alone. I turned and this blonde girl about my age was standing there. I said yes, and she said, you wouldn’t be interested in sharing a taxi when we get to calcutta would you, I don’t want to by myself. WOW! of course! and it was an amazing God thing, because when I got to the airport they would not exchange nepalee rupees, so i would not have had any money for a cab anyways. So we got to talking and she was VERY buddhist, but I just got to share with her. When we got to her hotel, we parted ways, and I said well I am just going to pray that I get to see you again before we leave. … .. just remember that in the back of your mind.

So I get the hotel (imagine the motel 8 but 5 times worse.. we stayed at the ywca hostel and that would about describe it! 🙂 ) and my friends were out and I had no idea where i would find them. So I asked Jesus and I felt he said go to the kentucky fried chicken across the street. And they were there. And so was a yummmy amazing fried chicken sandwhich calling my name!!

So the next day we just did touristy stuff, walking around calcutta ect. It was so great to be with the girls i had spend a whole summer with in nepal before. But as we went throughout the day, we had incredible oppertunities to share jesus. It was like he opened door after door. This is a lost lost lost area of the world. We were walking down the street and I saw a bible society so we went in, and they had just finished church. So we got to pray with the pastor and his wife.. and now I have an invitation to come back and lead a women’s conference. How cool huh? Then we went to this coffee shop that I believe St. Peter brought down from heaven (ok so that’s an exagerration) and we met these people that volunteer at Mother Teresa’s house for the destitute and dying. So guess what. They worked it where i get to spend a half a day there tommorow feeding the dying there, bathing them, praying for them ect. Wow! What an oppertunity. So as we were sitting in the coffee shop guess who walks in– Jenny, the buddhist girl I shared a taxi with. Go God! So we got to talk with her forever, and we made plans to meet the next morning..!

So from there we did some more touristy stuff .. and then.. glory glory glory.. yummy pizza hut! Real pepporoni.. wow! Then we went to the most hearbreaking festival I have ever seen. You see we just so happened to be in calcutta during there biggest hindu festival of the year.. durga puja. I have never ever felt or seen such darkness before. For hours you would see trucks loaded down with people and a huge constructed figure of the goddess durga puga. So they all load up with dancing, parades ect and they have this huge parade down to the river, and there they drown all the durga puga idols to set the goddess free. There were literally hundreds of thousands of people there, incense, idols, people everywhere in a transe dancing– it was the saddest thing I have ever seen.. but to them it was a huge celebration that they wait all year for. But praise God we were here but we just got to walk and pray and pray and pray.. at points all I could do was whisper the name of Jesus as I watched them drown all these idols and believe that it would bring freedom. You know why don’t we christians who know the truth have celebrations like that where with our lives we make it obvious that we worship the TRUTH! So we prayed and cried and watched a nation that is so lost. And God broke my heart again for south asia. He reminded me why I have come– to try to shine the light in the darkness.

So after that we went to visit a catholic church– well what we thought was catholic.. but it was a protestant service and such a blessing to worship after seeing such false worship. So I was talking to the priest.. and after talking he also begged me to come back and lead a conference for his youth. Wow.. 2 invitations to fulfill the dream calling God has given me.

So my taxi friend jenny works at the discovery channel and she told us how they had done a piece on this group that meets in the park every morning and is called the laughing club. They start mock laughing in a circle and then they all literally laugh for about 30 minutes. She asked us if we would go with here. So we went at 5:45 this morning and it was the funniest thing i have ever seen. We did morning exercises with them and then we laughed for about 30 minutes. Wow.. it was the most unique expereince. But through that we got to spend more time with Jenny and share more about jesus with her. Isn’t God good.

ok.. so i know this is very long so I will stop now. I just wanted to let you know all the exciting things that our God is doing. I feel soo alive!
oh yeah– and before I left I had my first scooter driving lesson in nepal. Don’t worry daddy. Nathan started me out in the living room, then we were in the driveway for a while.. then we really did go to a “park” to practice.. i thought you would be proud.

thank you for praying.. keep it up. This is a dark place but our God is big big big.