cusi newya barsa (Happy new year)

Happy Happy new year. I cannot believe that it is 2008. I also cannot believe that I celebrated the start of 2008 living here in nepal.. i have been here 5 months.. in one more month half a year. Wow. Amazing huh! Thank you to all my incredible encouragers who took the journey of following me and God through our journey in 2007— i cannot wait to see what he does in 2008.

I had an incredible time celebrating new years with friends. Sunday night our bedeshi (foreigner fellowship ) met with about 30 other new friends who had come for a retreat with another m company (most of the people in our fellowship work for that company). It was really neat as sunday night we went around and shared how God had been faithful in the year 2007. These are all age 20 something singles who have left everything they knew in america behind to serve God overseas. They serve in nepal, india and pakistan. It was amazing to here the stories of the faithfulness of God through hard times. This is a hard work, being on the front lines of God’s battlefield.. but an amazing one also, ,and after all the stories we could all agree with a resounding yes, God has been very very above and beyond faithful. Tears streamed down my face as we sang the song Give us clean hands, and came to the part which says, Oh God let us be a generation that seeks your face oh God of Jacob.. I was feeling in that room so blessed to be apart of that generation.

Then on Monday and that group of new friends, (as I mentioned before you become very quickly friends when you serve on the same battlefields) took a five hour bus ride to a jungle like area of nepal where most of my friends celebrated new year’s eve by bungy jumping off the highest bungy jumping bridge in the world, over a giant canyon. Ok…. so I think my friends are nuts– just walking on the swinging bridge made me want to wakwak (throw up ) but I sure did enjoy watching them for hours go to the eddge and when the guy said jump, well they did. It made me think of faith.. and how God said, Jenn Jump! Jump Jenn into the unknown life of Nepal. In 2006 when I was appointed by my organization and began the process of raising support, God said 1 2 3 jump Jenn… I will catch you and it will be a great journey. And jump I did. And faithful God was, is and will be to come. God called me on August 9th 2007 to jump on a plane and travel across the world by myself, to settle in a foreign land with a foreign tounge and serve.. JUMP JENN, JUMP.. I will catch you. And catch me he does. Everyday in the big and little things were he calls me to jump. … to let go.. to trust and obey– 1 2 3 jump.. and he always shows me such beauty along the way, even when it seems I will hit the grown!
So I did not bungy jump, but I have jumped with God and I plan to keep jumping through 2008. What leap of faith is God calling you to take? I have learned you don’t have to be good at it, the perfect Christian, super servant ect.. you just have to be willing to jump and watch the love of God take you on a ride. Oh how God has poured his love on me as I have jumped into his arms of grace and love.

ok.. sorry i didn’t mean to preach. my friends are always laughing at me because they say that i do that often! 🙂
So we spent the night in a resort there by the bungy jumping bridge.. It was fun.. we just played cards for hours, laughed together and cried as we shared our stories from the batlefield. It was awesome. You can tell we aer all getting early– because we were sitting around the fire wondering if we could stay up till midnight.. heheh.. so we did and at midnight we had some sparkling cider, sang the worst versiou of the new year song hugged and went to bed in these amazing tent bungaloos things that looked like they were off a movie. I had to continually pinch myself thinking.. wow.. i am welcoming a new year here in a jungle in nepal. What a crazy life.
Tonight my discipleship girls came over and cooked a huge meal for us to celebrate new years (no peas in the meal either). We had a great time!
ok.. so if i don’t post tommorow on my blog i am not sure yet how often for the next three weeks I will be able to update. I am leaving for a village 18 hours by bus on the border of india and nepal. Please please be in prayer for this trip. we don’t really have an agenda– just to share with as many people as we can, as there are no christians in this village. We are staying with a hindu family, so please pray for God to use us, for spiritual protection, and for ust an amazing stay in the village. Especially pray for the 18 hour bus ride.. that makes a 15 hour plane ride seem easy!

i love you guys
jenn