adventures of jenn in a village

hello to all of my favorite faithful readers..
i am so glad to finally be able to get to a “internet cafe” that is slower then fred flinstone’s car to write to my faithful readers and prayer warriors! Wow. I have no idea whaere to start on the adventures taht I have had since I left for the village.. but it truly has been an amazing experience and time! I warn you this post will probablly be long ecause I want you to feel like you were on this advneture with me. . and if you have been praying for me.. you were!
So our adventure started when we left our house at 4;00 am to ride on a bus for 16 hours! Let me tell you riding a bus in nepal for 16 hours is well.. frankly quite an exciting experience. Let me just share one little snippet with you. For most of you that know me, you know that I am a bladder midget.. well on the crazy bumpy roads in nepal that is not the most fun thing in the world! so I really had to go the bathroom about 4 hours into the ride and I was so excited when stopped because I knew it was a “bathrroom stop”. What I didn’t know is that meant stopping on the side of the road where there was no trees or anything and the whole bus that needs to go to thae bathroom just gest out adn does their business! Well I had to go so I got out, but I found my bladder to be very shy as I found EVERYONE staring at my white bottom. So I reboarded the bus.. and held my bladder to the point of begging God and about 3 hours later the song Hallelujah chorus came on my MP3 player, and we stopped at a squatty poddy. Let me tell you I was shouting glory!
So we also stopped on the side of the road for about 3 hours because they had closed the roads because someone had been killed in the jungle…. never a dull moment in nepal! But after a long jounrey we reached the village…. which I am pretty sure is at the ends of the earth!
so it was dark but we walked to the house where we are staying and a whole huge family comes out to greet us. I still cannot keep up with all the people that live there. It’s like quickly being transported back to little house on the prairie. I had quite the exciting time trying to go to the bathroom.. it’s a hole you squat over in an outhouse.. but after going to the bathroom I almost fell in the pigpin trying to make my way back to the house.
Leah and I had quite the fun firrst night of sleep. Apparently we have a little frined in the ceiling above ourhead we like to call “rattington” the rat… he runs around and likes to chew on the cardboard that is the roof above ourhead, so much that the cardboard is falling on my head. Leah and I were laughing but both wondered alot when he was going to land on our head. He has partied right over me every night I stayed there, so it makes for a fun night sleep.
anyways– leah and i are constantly laughing all the time! so the next day we went to a church about a 45 mintues walk away because there is no church in this village. It was an awesome church service. Then after going to an amazing youth prayer meeting we went back to the house we are staying with the hindu family and we had some church. We were singing songs to them in nepalee and then I got to share my testimony with them in nepalee. It was awesome!We shared the gospel… i was just so excited.
anyways, we decided to take a trip to india because we are close to visit our national partners family That was quite the experience as we had to travel by bus, jeep, bicycle rickshaw to get there, but when we got there we were told we could not come in because we had to enter througn another point. So we spent the night with some more of our national partner’s family who were also hindu and then tried the nexxt day. so by jeep, bus, and bicyle rickshaw we went into india and spent one night. that morning it was awesome because we went and got up att 4 am to watch the sunrise over the himilayan mountains and it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, but Iwas really brokenhearted also because we were in a room full of hindu people, who watched God display his greated glory and didn’t worship him. God again broke my heart for those epeople. As we left by van they tried to put hindu tika (red paste) on our head. They missed God’s display of glory!
So that afternoon we came back. That was not the most pleasant journey back for me because well I had the diarrhea explosions… so imagine a journey from india to nepal by jeep, bus, rickshaw with this problem. Not the most pleasant jounrey, but God was faithful. We spent the night last night with a christian family and they took good care of me. It is like living in the book of Acts.. this christian family opened their home for us and loved on us.
This morning leah and I had our first shower in 6 days— glory. There is no running water out here, so it really meant we splashed water on ourselves and leah and i took turns washing eachother’s hair under an outside water pump. but wow.. i loved that shower!
ok, sorry this is so long… i just wanted to update you guys. It has been an amazing journey and i feel so gald that God has opened my eyes and allowed me to do this. Almost all of the people we encounter have never heard of Jesus. In this particulat village we are only the second foreigners these villagers have seen in 20 years! I have had more men ask for my picture, more stares, and used more squatty potties (there is no such thing as western tioilets here) then my hole life, but I have also seen my fathers glory more then ever. It’s seen in the eyesof those I meet, the ladies hands that I get to grasp, the babies I get to hold, and the prayers that we get to pray! What a life experience this is.
Thank you for reading and keeping up. i hope to update again next week, and when I get ack home to kathmandu I will post pictures.. they are hilarious!
Please keep praying for us.