Well it's been almost one month since I left India. I am sorry for the lateness of this entry, but it has taken me some time to get my thoughts organized and resettled into the western lifestyle.
During my trip, my team of seventeen spent 3 weeks in Nepal, traveling from the capital of Katmandu into villages in the west and 5 weeks in India, where we stayed in the northern village of Dharamsala with a quick one week stop in Delhi. Needless to say, we were very busy.
Nepal was a very open place, where we had the freedom to spread the Good News as much as we wanted and people were very open to it. We went to a lot of villages and orphanages and did little church services for them or just talk to people about God in the streets. We met many Christians in Nepal. They are some of the most wonderful people I have ever met, so passionate in worship and prayer. It really gives me hope and joy when I see people pursuing God in that country. YWAM Nepal has a great team running DTSes and others schools, sending people out to meet the needs of evangelism and discipleship in their own country!
India was a little different. It's technically illegal to be a missionary over there, so we couldn't be nearly as open. Most of our activities involved volunteering in english classes or other programs to build relationships. Dharamsala was a very interesting place. The Dali Lama has sought refuge here from the turmoil in Tebet, so his residence is there, along with a many Tibetan refugees. Because of the Dali Lama's influence over the village, many people from all over the world would come to stay for various amounts of time to try and discover the meaning of life. As a result of this, we didn't see very many Indian people, which gave us quite a shock when we got to Delhi.
Building relationships with the people in Dharamsala was one of my favourite experiences. I have a special place in my heart for Tibetan people, so it was such a great opportunity to learn about the culture and their remarkable stories of overcoming adversity. (Please go research these people, or shoot me an email! I couldn't begin to explain the thing's they've gone through in this entry, but it's worth knowing about. it's not talked about enough.) I met so many amazing people over there who I miss very much, especially my "shoe guys". There were guys who sat on the street in front of the Japanese restaurant everyday who cleaned and fixed shoes as their job. One of my favourite memories is sitting with them while they worked all afternoon, just talking.
Me and Rick with Ramesh, Vicky and Sanju (and some other guy)
As much as we saw God move through prayer, conversations and actions during our time in India, which was worth everything, God made His presence very evident one day at one village in Nepal. We had arrived in a district called Surkhet after a rather eventful roadtrip complete with rebel confrontations and nightmare hotels (ask me about that one too!). We walked down a rocky path to a village of several huts in a dry river bed. We were told that the people here were low caste, meaning that they were hated by every other village. So, we got to doing our program, songs, testimonies, bible stories and the Nepalis with us preached and sang up a storm too. Here's a bad quality video.
Something was electric about the atmosphere that day, because when we asked if people wanted to accept Jesus as their saviour, twenty-seven people came forth!!! That doesn't happen! These people have been Hindu all their life and a bunch of white people randomly come in and tell them some stories and they all decide to change their lives? That can only be the power of God. And we saw that for sure, as we prayed over the kneeling crowd, they responded to Him in all manner of ways, from crying to screaming out to laughing with joy. The village leader, who had been suppressing the church previously, knelt there, trembling before the Lord!
While all of this was going on, I looked over and saw a little boy kneeling off to the side. I asked someone what was going on with him and they said he had a polio type disease. I was like "Why are we not praying for this kid???" So I went over and started. A group of YWAMers and villagers formed around and joined in, also bringing another girl with the same disease. There was no major success in the praying, so everyone went off for tea, except the little boy, named Oniel. My heart went out to him. I know what it's like to be left alone and I'm sure this is a normal occurrence in his life. I wanted him to feel valued. All we had were the rocks on the ground, not even the same language between us. So, I began to make a pile of rocks. Tentatively, he joined in. I thought of home. We have so many different ways of communicating with one another and stress ourselves out to do it in the most eloquent way possible, but all this boy and I needed to understand each other was a simple pile of rocks. So humbling!
Later, while I was having the most delicious tea you could imagine, a couple people on the team came up to me and told me that they felt that God was saying to take the boy and girl down to the river to wash them and pray there. That sounded like a plan to me. So, after clearing it with our guide and team leader, we set off with the children and a few of the villagers. Being down at that river is one of those moments that I'll never forget, it still feels so fresh and new to me. We dipped them in the river and poured water over their heads and atrophied limbs, our eyes on heaven, hearts calling out to God. The joy on the faces of the children was serene and perfect and the faith of the villagers was a like a rock. Though we did not see a physical healing that day, none of us walked away without a sense of peace and accomplishment. We risked with God and followed His voice. I have no doubt that those kids will one day walk, if they aren't already, and I already know a great emotional and spiritual healing took place that day. It may have just gone to a deeper level down at that river.
I want to stress how much your support has meant to me. If you supported me financially, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for making the dream that God put in my heart possible and for being a catalyst in moving missions forward! Please keep supporting missions. You are making it possible for people who wouldn't otherwise hear to know that they have a saviour and God will bless you for this! To those who supported me through thoughts and prayers, I am incredibly grateful to you for what you've done. Prayer is a powerful thing and I have seen that with my own eyes. I know for a fact that I was held up by prayer through my whole time at YWAM. Keep prayer a priority in your day! It moves the greatest of mountains, believe me.
So this is all there is to say about my six month journey. I can definitely say I have been radically changed. And though I did take the newness inside of me and let it overflow to the ends of the earth, really it's the ends of the earth that made me new. God is there in a big way and my heart wants to join with that great endeavour, so that His name will be on the lips of every tribe and tongue. May I see all my friends from Tibet, India and Nepal in heaven again.
Thanks for Reading,
God Bless!
~Kathleen
