First Days in Nepal

It amazes me how doing the same trip in the same country, with the same interpreters, doing the same ministry since 2018, can be so awesomely different, with each team’s individualistic flavor. Then, within the team's flavor, you have each individual’s different personality that makes youth ministry amazing.

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This team is shaping up well already, and we have finally started to get into ministry in the past two days, as the travel here and the first couple of days were slow due to recovery from the two days of travel. In the first two days, we visited some local temples that enabled us to have chill days to recover from the two days of travel to get here. The first day, we visited the Monkey Temple, which is a Buddhist temple. The hill it is on has many elements of Buddhism, but it is also sprinkled with some Hinduism, as both religions can be interchangeable in spite of their differences. However, there is also an art gallery (term used loosely) that is owned by a Christian couple. The students loved her, and to support them, they bought some paintings for gifts. Oops, I may have given away a secret, but oh well.

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We also visited the Hindu temple, Pashupatinath, usually called Pashupathi or, as I like to call it, pashu-potty. It is a temple for Shiva, and Hindus are cremated there, with their ashes dumped into the terribly polluted Ashupatinath River, which they believe is Holy, with the hope that their ashes make it to the Ganges River in India and onto some version of "heaven."

The next day, we visit the church here, and the students see the vast difference between sites that are dark and disgusting and the church that is alive and vibrant. We heard a great message from a Nepali pastor who's now pastoring a church in Chicago. After that service, we did the youth service with all our skills groups, getting a chance to perform. We also had our newest version of our boy band (Wrong Direction) take center stage in their first performance ever! JJ Upp, Orion Carter, Cade Pryde, Ty Haveman, Joshua Pumphry, and Pierre St. Fleur rocked the house. Pierre then gave a wonderful testimony that held the Nepalis' attention. It was a great first day of ministry and set us up for a full week of ministry this upcoming week.

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