“For the Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us
grace and glory. The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who walk
uprightly.”
- Psalm 84:11
“And we know that God causes everything to work together for
the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for
them.”
- Romans 8:28
“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for
good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people
alive.”
-Genesis 50:20
Today I felt the overwhelming urge to blog. I felt a deep
desire down inside of me to inform my followers and supporters on what is
happening here in Nepal. The issue is I am still finding myself at a loss of
words, and if you know me this is quite unusual.
This place amazes me day after day after day. There is not a
moment that goes by that God isn’t speaking and revealing himself. Due to the
overload of his voice and presence I am finding it hard to capture everything
in a simple blog post, so please bear with me as I go through the things I’ve
been doing and the depths of God’s heart that He is revealing to me in this
season. It is truly a season of refreshment and saturation and I don’t think
it’s a coincidence that it happens to be monsoon season in Nepal – for I see
how God is pouring out his everlasting, eternal waters into my dry riverbeds of
life that need revival each day. Again, this is not coincidence this is divine
timing of our good and sovereign King, Jesus Christ.
I will start out with our adventures in Chitwan, Nepal.
After the border of India and Nepal my team and I headed for the vast and
luscious jungle of Chitwan, Nepal. Here we lodged up in some safari bungalows
for 3 days and enjoyed every bit of God’s creation. The place we stayed was called
the Gaida Lodge and it had a baby rhino that would sleep in the courtyard, talk
about exotic. Chitwan is home to many many national parks and some of Nepal’s
most beautiful landscapes. If you haven’t yet please check out the pictures I
posted on facebook – God did a good job when he created Chitwan. Amidst the
glory of God’s creation in Chitwan, THI also has a couple of street children’s
homes tucked away as well. So while we enjoyed venturing out to sight see and
go on a 3 hour walking safari, bathed with elephants and slept with rhinos we
also got to serve and love on many children who belong to our awesome Father.
I think one of my favorite nights in Chitwan was the night
we invited the children from one of the homes with their parents to come to our
lodge for family dinner. About 15 kids and their house parents joined us in the
small kitchen at our lodge where the chefs cooked up a mass amount of dal baht
– which is the most common and traditional Nepali meal – for all of us to dive
into. As we all gathered around the tables to share this meal I began to get
teary eyed and really believe that God was giving us a glimpse of heaven. The
children are so beautiful y’all – I don’t know how else to put it. It’s
absolutely insane how clear God’s goodness and faithfulness and love is when
you look into the eyes of these kids. God in his goodness and sovereignty loves
these kiddos who were once on the street so much that he placed the vision of
Tiny Hands into John, the president’s heart, and then God pursued these kids
and found them homes and provided for them in every way. Do you know this
Father that we belong to? Do you know his love that never fails? His love that
sees the lost and chases after his lost sheep – even just one? I do and I thank
Jesus for revealing it to me through these precious little ones. We played
games with these kids and we shared laughs and pictures and stories. This is
the kingdom y’all and the keys are in the hands of God’s children.
Other than the beautiful night of fellowship with the
children in Chitwan another one of my favorite things was getting to bathe with
the elephants!! If you didn’t know – elephants are my one and only favorite
animal and have been all my life. I adore them and it was truly a dream come
true to ride one and be drenched in the water from one’s trunk. I know this
doesn’t have profound spiritual meaning behind it, but I do think our Father in
heaven is sweet to us and knows the desires of our hearts and He loves to give
us good gifts and this was simply just that. In the heat of Nepal and the heat
of this battle for the oppressed that we are learning about God gave his
children, me and my team mates, a break from it all, a sweet moment to laugh
and have fun and fill his joy and presence through his creation. Praise God,
yeah?!
Lastly while we were in Chitwan we finished up the section
about the goodness of God in the book we are reading as a group called “God as
He longs for you to see him” by Chip Ingram. Y’all this book and Bible study
with my teammates is literally rocking my world, my mind and my heart. Over
time as a believer it’s just true that my perceptions of God have been altered
by things that have happened to me and my inaccurate feelings. When this
happens it is dangerous. Why you may ask? Because I can at least humbly admit
that it has lead me to create God into someone he is not and some one he will
never be – someone other than the truth that the Bible states about him. This
book, which is laced with scripture upon scripture, is rebuilding the foundation
of God and his character for me in a most pure way. Also the fellowship that
has been birthed between me and my teammates during our small group/Bible study
time has been completely a gift of God and lead by his spirit. This chapter on
God’s goodness has reminded me that despite my circumstances and despite my
feelings – God is good all the time. Not because of what he does, but because
it is his nature. And if God’s nature is good then I can trust him because his
goodness is inclined towards me as his child.
After such a moving three days in Chitwan we headed on to
Pokhara – this is probably my fav part of Nepal so far out of the 4 places we
have stayed. It is drenched in God’s beauty every corner you turn. I will leave
the next blog post for all the deets on my adventures and lessons learned while
spending 7 days in Pokhara. Until next time here are my prayer requests.
- Pray for our 3 wk focus projects that we just defined and
are getting started on tomorrow here back in the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu
- Pray for unity and fellowship among me and my team mates
as we continue to work together and grow together
- Pray for my heart to be at peace with what God has for me
here and to be present and not worried about jobs and the future when I return
home, I really want to surrender it into his hands completely
- Pray for the people of Nepal and the children in the homes
who have left imprints on my heart for life
- Pray for protection as we continue to travel and safety
- Pray for God to reveal himself to me more deeply, I want
to fall more deeply in love with who God truly is
Blessings and Love,
Kaity
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