A little something from Casey

Hello! Jenn asked me to post my latest blog on hers as well as mine. Any future posts I do about my time in Nepal can be found by clicking here. This is just a little update about my first few days in Nepal. You’ll see toward the end that I mention several on the team who are sick. Leah is feeling much better and Matt is home from the hospital. Jenn is feeling a little better today, but not 100%. Please keep praying! Blessings to you!

“She is Nepali-ho!” This being spoken to Jenn shortly after I met some of her Nepali friends. I tried not to be quick to get offended since it was probably not what I thought it was. I might have been ready to throw down if someone said this to me in American. As it turns out, adding “ho” to the end of something is basically saying “I am” or “she is.” Between my pierced nose and the six Nepali words (ok, maybe a few more than that, it grows a little every day) they were saying I was practically Nepali. They give me too much credit!

It’s been an incredible trip so far! It’s hard to know how to even update you on all that’s happening in any orderly fashion. So, I’m now going to dive into a random assortment of stories so far in no particular order.

Not long after my last post Jenn asked if I wanted to go for a walk. I asked if it was going to be for exercise or fun and she said, and I quote, “Oh, let’s just do a leisurely walk. Bring your camera and we’ll just walk and relax.” This “leisurely walk” turned into a 3+ hour hike up a very large hill. It was fun to walk and take lots of pictures, but it was definitely a lot of work! Especially since I’d only been at that particular altitude going on 24 hours and my body was just beginning to adjust. I got a little more winded than usual, but it was worth it. When we got to the top, we found this Nepali wedding and totally crashed it, literally. We met a woman who found out we’d never seen one, so she pushed and shoved people out of the way to get us to the front to take pictures. I can’t even express to you how uncomfortable this made me! I definitely didn’t want to be a disruption. The lady was super sweet, though, and invited us to come to her house soon for dinner. If Nepal and the south were in a hospitality competition, I think Nepal might just win.

Yesterday, Wednesday, Jenn gave me my birthday present. I feel guilty even telling you this: She took me to a spa for a two hour massage. In America that would be extremely extravagant. Don’t get me wrong, it is here, too, but not quite as expensive. I’ve had massages before, but nothing like this. When I found out it was going to last two hours I had no idea what she could possibly do for two hours. She, literally, massaged me from head to toe and it was glorious. It was especially nice since I was still sore from the “leisurely” walk from the day before.

We came back late that afternoon for the women’s Bible study that Jenn leads. When we got to her house there were about 15 kids lined up at their gate. As it turns out, these kids are from the neighborhood and all in a Bible club with her team director. When they have a good week, they get to come to the house and ride bicycles around the driveway. These kids were lined up at 3:30 for a 4:00 play time. It’s so humbling to see how content these kids are. There’s no way that kids in America would get so excited about riding a bike in someone’s driveway. I walked up and started taking pictures. They were hilarious! They loved having their picture taken. Once they found out they could see them on the back of the camera after I’d taken the picture, I got attacked after every shot. I would have to spend a couple of minutes making sure they could all see it. Then they all started yelling a word I couldn’t understand and pointing at these three older kids. I realized after a minute that they were yelling, “Gymnastics.” The guys were all able to do a back flip off the driveway and the kids wanted me to get a picture of them. It was pretty impressive.

I loved being there for Jenn’s Bible study. She does such a great job teaching these women. Her love for the Lord and love for them is so evident on her face as she teaches. There are also some really precious women in her study. I loved talking with them afterward. They were all so sweet and I got several more invitations to come to dinner at women’s houses.

A couple of nights ago Jenn and I went to this Australian restaurant called The Red Dingo. The food was incredible! It was so reasonable, too. It cost about $15 US for both of us to eat and have an appetizer and coffee. The couple that own the restaurant came for a visit and met this precious two-year-old that they wanted to adopt. In the middle of trying to adopt her, Nepal closed adoptions in their country. The couple didn’t want to leave Nepal without their daughter, so they stayed. They began to run out of money, so they took out a loan and started this restaurant. It’s incredible to see the sacrifices they made for the love of that little girl.

On the way back home from the restaurant, we got stopped in ridiculous traffic. We had to weave in and out of cars on the Purple Pleasure to try to get to our street. It turns out that a gas station had just opened up. There’s a petrol shortage here, so when gas is available, cars line up for hours and hours. This night, there were cars stopped in every direction at a major intersection. It was nuts! We had to get help from several guys to navigate our way through. Oh, the things we take for granted in America.

Last night was the only night I’ve actually felt a little nervous. Jenn’s teammate, Matt, was at the hospital with a parasite and his wife called to see if we could walk by and check on her kids. They were staying with a Nepali woman that hadn’t kept them before and she just felt a little nervous about it. It was dark at this point, but we had head lamps (thanks Mama Hand!) so we didn’t have a problem seeing. As we walked down Jenn’s street, though, we could see five men walking up ahead. As we got closer, we realized they were all police and all had rifles slung over their shoulders. I got a really eerie feeling because none of them really acknowledged us. They just kept walking quietly as we passed them. It should have made me feel safe and protected that the police were patrolling our area. For some reason, though, it made me nervous. Luckily we made it there and back without a problem. (Stop worrying, Mom!)

As I just mentioned, Jenn’s teammate, Matt, was at the hospital last night. Leah, was there as well. She’s been sick for a couple of days and we finally got her to go to the hospital once we convinced her she was too dehydrated to be able to rehydrate herself. She’s feeling much better this morning, but now Jenn’s sick. Please pray for their team as it seems that everyone’s feeling badly. I’d love for you to pray for me, too, that I don’t get sick. I’ve tried to be really careful about water and what I eat. So far so good, just keep praying!

I’m trying to post as often as I can, but you never know when there will be electricity and when it’s off. As a matter of fact, I’ve had to finish this entry in Word because the power went off in the middle of posting. I’ll load it up once the power’s back on. I wish I could post pictures, but my computer isn’t set to use the wireless here, yet, so I’m using Jenn’s computer. I’ve taken a ton of shots already, though. I’ll try to have some up asap.