Just returned from an 8 day trek!!

I am sitting in a café trying to process what happened the past eight days and what I saw and experienced.

When we were back in Kona at one of our team meetings, God spoke the word “Puma” to me. I looked it up to see if it had anything to do with Nepal, and sure enough, it was a small village in the mountains. I told Joel I got this word and he started to pray into it. Well, this was going to be the first stop of our trek it turns out. We spent the weekend running around gathering our gear, packing bags, buying granola bars and peanut butter and travel towels and sleeping bags. Here we were, about to spend 8 days going to the unreached. To people who have never heard the name of Jesus. This was something I heard in lecture phase, in college, people you talk about and ache for, but I was about to meet villages of beautiful people who have never even heard his name. I had no idea what was ahead☺

We started out around 5 am on Monday morning and took a 6 hour, bumpy and hot bus ride to a little city at the bottom of the mountain. We were headed to puma, which looked like a tiny spec at the top of an impossibly huge mountain we were about to climb. Yikes. We hiked for about 5 hours pretty much straight up the mountain, climbing rocks and sweating more than I ever have. To say it was physically challenging is an understatement. There was 25 of us total on this trek, and we needed each other every step of the way to encourage and support and lean on to make it to the top. As we all literally crawled for the last few steps, we made it to this beautiful village nestled in the green mountains covered with rice fields. It looked like a scene from a movie. We were exhausted, but so thrilled to be standing in a place that God told us to go! We were welcomed with open arms, met some of the people that live in Puma, ate some dinner and threw our sleeping bags on the ground for a night of sleep much needed. We woke up the next morning ready to see the village and love on the people. We worshipped for a few hours in the morning and just spent time in His presence, asking God what He wants for the day. Then we split up into 4 teams to go to houses and talk to people, help them with whatever they might need, love and pray for them and to tell them about the Jesus film we were showing that night! My group ended up at the first house we went to for the whole afternoon. As we sat on a bench, person after person after person came over and asked to be prayed for. We left that bench in full amazement of what God just did. He healed so many and filled them with peace and joy. To see the look on their faces when they felt no more pain, when they said fear in their hearts was gone and they felt light and peace was so beautiful! God was moving. We set up the movie, praying that God would bring people to it, and over 150 people came to see the film!!! Seeing a village sitting there, seeing the story of who God is, and how he was opening their hearts was insane. After the film one of our amazing translators preached and then asked if anyone wanted to accept Christ, or if anyone wanted prayer for anything. An entire family accepted Jesus that night and many people were healed! We lost count of how many healings we saw. I’ve never seen anything like it. My eyes were majorly opened! I was realizing more and more how powerful our God is. He is so faithful to our hearts. We left Puma so filled and so expectant for the next village!

We set out on foot for the next village (Dadhuwa) and was told that at most the trek would be 8 hours. Longer than the first, but we could do it. This quickly turned into one of the most exhausting and challenging days of my life. We started completely downhill for the first few hours trying to keep my eyes on the ground and step on stone after stone and not fall down a cliff, my eyes become blurry and my toes started to blister. After 8 hours we reached the ‘midpoint’ which was between the two moutains we were traveling to and from- we stopped at this bridge to eat whatever we had and as the sun was starting to set, we were told we needed to hurry and get moving. That we were nowhere close to being there. We started to walk through what seemed like thousands of miles of rice fields, over rivers, and straight up more stairs of stone that I ever want to think about-in the dark. At one point I literally looked at another girl on my team and told her I didn’t know if I was going to make it. I was in the middle of the biggest mountain I had ever seen, climbing straight up with legs that were completely numb, ready to fall asleep at any point, and the end was nowhere in sight. I realized that most of this past week- every step, every breath, every trek was all Jesus. Literally by the grace of God, we made it and pressed on after 13 hours of trekking that day. I have never been happier seeing the village. The next day we went to homes and told them about the film we were showing that night. It was ridiculous seeing the way that the kingdom attracts people. Everywhere we went, people followed. They had no idea who we were and even if we were eating a meal- there were people around us and wanting to talk to us and have us pray for them.

As exhaustion grew, my emotions became sensitive and I felt so drained. All day I remember thinking that I’ve never been this stretched before physically, emotionally, and mentally. I have honestly never reached that point of complete exhaustion before. I told God that morning that everything that came from that day, every breath, every move, every smile, laughter, conversation, was all Him- because I felt like nothing. I was at the end of my rope. I didn’t know how much more I could do. And that day God taught me that His power is made perfect in my weakness. That literally when I am nothing, he is everything. He’s my strength and my joy. He’s my every move. And that day he carried me, completely. I felt so weak. That night family after family gathered under a huge tree as we started the film. I couldn’t believe how many people were before my eyes. We prayed throughout the movie for what was going to happen after and after the gospel was shared we offered prayer and the option for salvation again. There were over 300 people there! As the crowd started to come forward our team split up and started to burst into prayer. I remember standing there, with nothing in me, barely awake, saying whatever I could, and then asking them how they felt- healed. Bam. God did he. He was moving. And what was my job? To pray. He does the rest. We saw back, leg, and arm pain disappear, dizziness go away, tooth pain leave, and personally feeling a tumor go away. It was nuts. Many gave their lives to Jesus and a load of Bibles were distributed. We were seeing Jesus encounter so many hearts, it was beautiful. Here we were, 9 completely burnt out young people, simply laying hands and praying for these precious people- and God was meeting them. He just loves us so much. While healing was beautiful and increased my faith so much, salvation was the most incredible miracle of all these villages. Knowing that eternities were changed. That I had new brothers and sisters. That the Father drew home sons and daughters. Now this is what we came here for.
With a whole new level of faith, and a few days left, we left for the third village. The trek took us about 6 hours. With my body almost literally shutting down, we walked straight down again making it to a river. This would be my first and only ‘shower’ of the trek. I layed on a rock and the girls washed my hair in the river. I’ve never felt cleaner☺ Let’s just say these eight days I have never smelled worse, had greasier hair, or felt dirtier. We were an enjoyable bunch to be around! Ha! We made it to the village once again exhausted and we stayed in a two story home- infested with the biggest spiders I have EVER seen. I opened the door to our room and absolutely freaked out. There was no way I was sleeping there. As we ate dinner we had about 30 people starring at us, standing an inch away from us, talking about us, it was crazy. We had gotten there early enough to show the film both nights, and about 100 people came the first night! I could feel how different this place was from the first two, heavy and dark. It was real spiritual warfare here. There was such a spirit of confusion here. The first two villages were hungry and open- this was not. Only a few asked for prayer and the reality of the darkness became so real to me. I slept outside on the porch that night and woke up the next morning ready to love these people the best I could. We talked a lot that day about the absolute honor and privilege it was to be sharing the gospel with the unreached. The challenging moments of this trek, the moments of exhaustion and breakdown was absolutely worth it. We went into the village and told people about the film that night and prayed for some people. Before the film that night I got to talk to the group that was there and told them who Jesus was in my life and tell them how much He loved them. Speaking and using my voice has been spoken over my life over the past two years and it’s been something I easily ignore- but I am letting God break me of the fear and it was incredible being able to share my heart and let God talk through me! That night about 6 people gave their lives to Christ and we saw more healings break through. One girl started mocking us like crazy when we started praying and laughing at us- we started to pray for her and her heart began to change immediately. She ended up accepting Jesus that night, haha He is SO GOOD! We left one of the darkest places I’ve ever been with fulfillment knowing Jesus has marked that land- and it will never be the same. The hills of these mountains are about to change dramatically. It’s going to be awesome.

Oh I forgot- earlier that day I sunk in water buffalo manure☺ thought you would all enjoy that. I literally sunk about a foot deep in poop. It was dark and I had no idea where my leader Cody went, left or right, and I went right, and quickly realized I was standing to the left of a water buffalo, and to the right of the biggest pile of poop ive ever seen. Bless the heart of one of the men in our group who dug through it for my flip flops, washed my jeans and my feet, and took great care of me. Needless to say, I died of laughter. Just a cherry on top of this insane week ☺
We are now back in Katmandu after a 2 hour trek the last day and a 9 hour bus ride! Arriving home to our house was the best feeling. We all got warm showers (we have to shower at the right time of night to grab hot water for like an hour!) and climbed in our beds so at peace being back.

I wouldn’t trade this week for anything! I grew more than I ever thought possible. Was so stretched, so challenged, it was one of the hardest weeks of my life, but God did so much. God brought our family SO much closer also. We grew so much together!!! I am so excited to see what else God has for the next two months. However, I miss home and family and friends like crazy. Know that you are all so so so deeply missed and thought of often!!!!!! Thank you for all your prayers for Nepal and continue to pray for unity on the team and that God would keep taking hearts of this nation! Love you all!

A Beautiful Beginning

The first two weeks we spent around Katmandu and praying A LOT into what the next three months will look like. The first week, we went to a Buddhist temple that was on the top of a huge hill, overlooking the entire city, and we got to pray for a little girl who was blind, who could see better after! As we walked up a million stairs to the top of this temple my eyes were just opened so much to the spiritual warfare here. It’s crazy learning about the Hindu and Buddhist religion. Its so hard for me walking around that place, seeing all these man made gods that they worship and gold jewelry and statues everywhere. They sacrifice anything and everything, multiple times a day, because they think that this is how they will be forgiven and seen as ‘ok’ in this life. Just makes my heart want to scream and tell them all that there is one God, living, who paid every price for their sin and wants relationship with them. We got to the top and my heart got heavy and my head started to hurt as all you can see is gold and crazy symbols and statues everywhere. We stood at the top of this mountain and started to worship Jesus and it started pouring rain. As I just looked out into the city God started to speak to me about how much He is going to do in these three months. We all left feeling so ready for what God is going to do, so excited, ready to run after Him.

We live in a little flat close to the children’s home. It’s been such a blessing having our own space for our family of nine to come home to at night. We are growing each and everyday with what it means to be a family, to love each other well, to run after Jesus together, and I am learning so much through that. We have three bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a living room. We spend most nights curled up in the living room reading Narnia together, telling stories, worshipping, and drinking hot chocolate. I’ve been getting up early in the morning to have alone time with God and just talk to him, worship, journal, and be still. It’s been in these moments that God has softly spoken and met me deeply. I am growing in what it means to be intimate with God. The reality of intimacy is becoming a lifestyle for me, in ways it never has before. Time alone with God is something I hunger for more than I ever have. Understanding that my entire life is an overflow of intimacy with him, intimacy has become what I want. My life is a response to how much I love Him. And everything I do in life, every ministry or job or mission field that I am on, every relationship I have, every person on the street I try to love well, every good deed I do, it’s all out of a place of intimacy with Jesus. It has become my obsession.

The second week started a huge Hindu festival here in Nepal where most shops close for the week to allow people to travel home to villages and to spend the week with family, giving sacrifice after sacrifice to the millions of gods they believe in. We decided on Wednesday to travel to a temple where thousands of Nepali’s come to sacrifice anything from flowers to goats and chickens and money. We arrived and it looked like a huge party with colors everywhere, food was being sold along the road, and we started walking with thousands of people pushing and shoving towards the temple. I had no idea what was about to happen. As we arrived closer we realized we were walking past a line of thousands of people who are waiting to get to the temple to sacrifice everything in their arms. The need for this nation become real in a whole new way this day. It become an ache in my heart, for them to know the truth. To be set free. To walk with Jesus. To experience freedom and rest in Christ. To know a real, personal God. To understand the love of a Father who is chasing His children.
It’s real.
And He’s after these people.
And I want to fight for them to see it. And feel it. To get them out of this tradition that they are stuck in and often don’t even know why they believe what they do.

I stood there and watched as thousands of people killed things and blood spilled everywhere, the smell that lingered in this place was horrendous. They sacrifice and kill and then they get marked with red paint on their foreheads, believing this will pay for their sins. I started weeping as I walked through this dark place, and somehow Jesus started reminding me what we carry- that we carry LIGHT and that nothing can overcome Him. That he is the light of the world. That he has already overcome ALL of this that I was standing in the midst of. And my heart started to just look at him, praise him, and pray for these people. I felt light. I had hope. We got to tell people about the God we believe in, the one that talks to us and answers prayer and wants relationship and loves us intimately. We walked up the steps and saw about 15 lepers sitting- most asking for money and food- and we began to pray for them. As we began to pray, a few started to ask more questions and then we saw a woman we had handed a Bible to earlier come ask us for another one because she gave one to her friend. As this happened, the lepers started asking for Bibles, haha it was incredible. They started reading them out loud to each other and they started pointing to things in the word. A witch doctor that was sitting there with a satan pitchfork next to him asked us for a Bible! It was a beautiful thing seeing how hard the enemy has to try to keep these people in bondage, and how God barely lifts a finger to move in their hearts. He does it all. We are just vessels being sent. As we step out in faith, in obedience, He moves. He touches and changes hearts, I don’t. But he’s asking me to walk in faith. And believe that he will.

We ended the week going to a leper colony. We got to pray for many and saw some partial healings. We got to encourage the head of the leper colony who was a Christian and just pray for him and his work. As we were leaving, we got to pray for a man who couldn’t walk. He was sitting in a chair and allowed us to pray.
Five minutes later, HE WAS WALKING, and crying as he was encountering the love of God☺ He really does make the lame walk! That night we went to Joel and Tammi’s house for dinner and fellowship. We get to hear testimony every week about what God is doing in Nepal, and the harvest is seriously ready here! He is moving in crazy ways! Continue to pray for revival and that these people would see the one and only living God, that every other idol would fall and the veil would be torn from their eyes to see who Jesus is☺ He is after their hearts!!!!