From Lady June, in her own words from June 5

I will keep this brief, as I have another busy week ahead of me.

Today was my first day of rest in two weeks, and I can whole-heartedly say that it was needed. This past week, we went to the most prominent Hindu temple in the area to worship and proclaim God's name. To give you an idea of the esteem this temple is held in, many villages in this area have poorly maintained or non-paved roads leading to them, while the temple had a nice (by US standards) asphalt road leading up to it. At least, nice underneath layers of cow dung. I went into the innermost sanctuary, a foul, closed room that reeked with the stench of decaying offerings thinly masked by the heavy clouds of incense. Carpets of flies covered everything. I was praying and interceding in the chamber when three Hindu priests walked in. Fortunately, they did not appear to speak English - the awkward encounter would have been worse had they known what I was actually saying. As it was, they rang their worship bells and then left.

I also have helped build two houses - one I was actually carving into the mountain's rocks to clear an area for the foundation of the second floor - home schooled some missionary's children, learned how to cook a Nepali delicacy, and visited an entirely self-sufficient village to fellowship with new believers. The hike down took two hours, and we didn't eat lunch that day.

There is an amazing couple who came to Dadeldhura with us. Chelsea cooks, and Ashok (ahh-shook) translates. They are amazing people, and it absolutely hilarious to hear Chelsea speaking Nepali in a fake English accent.

My team is weird, God is good, I love my life, and miss you all.

Arrival at Dadeldhura

While it may have been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone, such has not been the case on the road from Kathmandu to Dadeldhura, Nepal (shown on the map here as Dandeldhura).  After a 23-hour drive (which was originally estimated at 16 hours), a forced stop at night in an area thick with rabies-infected monkeys to allow the bus engine to cool down, her team made it to their destination. 

Since A. Turtle is at the outer edges of access and unable to update her blog, she has asked me (Dad) to fill in for a bit.

Having come to Kathmandu, Nepal with the full Compassion outreach contingent from YWAM’s Perth, Australia campus, the G24 has broken into three smaller outreach teams.  A. Turtle is now in Dadeldhura, on the western edges of Nepal for about three weeks.  The other teams have gone on to outreach in India and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

While in Dadeldhura, Sarabeth and the rest of her cohort will be assisting with medical and arts outreach in the local area in addition to helping with some community development projects.  The area is very rugged and she says that about 10% of the view out of her window is of the Himalayas.  That ruggedness is typical of the places they’ll be getting to – and all on foot.  Lots of walking and hiking wherever they go.  Sarabeth would like prayer for this as she’s been suffering from sore feet already and even with a good pair of shoes, it takes its toll on the tootsies.

She has already noticed a difference in the people – although they are still friendly, they are more reserved than in Kathmandu and usually just want to practice their English.  It would be great to break through this reticence and establish friendships with the people in the area so they will listen and hear the Gospel.

Although this area of Nepal is high mountain desert with elevations around 5600 feet, the area is right at the beginning of the monsoon season.  This has the potential of washing out roads and making travel all the more dangerous.  Sarabeth told us that the roads were paved at their best and washboard gravel at their worst.  Our prayer is that the return to Kathmandu is safe and without incident.

The Turtle has been enjoying the work they are doing and the opportunity to get to know the people and understand their needs.  They visited a temple earlier this week and spent time praying there, asking the Lord to break down strongholds and open the hearts of the people.

The hospital where they will be helping is operated under a contract with the government of Nepal by TEAM, a medical missions group.  That contract has not been renewed, but TEAM has been asked to continue operations until someone else can be found to operate the facility.  There have been complaints of proselytizing and financial mismanagement.  Please pray for the entire medical staff and people supporting them that these issues will dissolve and they will be able to continue their work in this area.  With the government focused on writing a constitution, it is difficult for them to focus on providing health care for this area; it is one of the only hospitals and clinics in the area and is currently doubling the size of the hospital in an effort to provide more services.

That’s about it for now.  Thank you for your prayers and support!

Kathmandu, Nepal

I am sitting in a building smaller than my room in Seattle. Outside, the sun is baking a half-cement, half-dirt street paved with garbage. Six computers cluster along the walls, and a young teenager controls the internet access from behind a small desk in this airless room.

I've been here in Nepal for six days. The rational part of my mind reminds me this is 12.5% of my time in Nepal, but time is not so linear here. A day contains a lifetime in a moment, and frankly, I'm in love. If every nation has a gift for the world, Nepal may have gone overboard in preparing for this global Secret Santa.

But before I go off in raptures of ecstasy, let me tell you about it.

Kathmandu's international airport is underwhelming. When I arrived off the plane, we stepped on a bus which drove us to a brick building with a sign boldly proclaiming "Welcome To Nepal." This sign, coincidentally, was an advertisement for an outdoor supply company. Inside, Tibetan monks jostled with Hindu gurus, Western hippies, Korean tourists and returning Nepali nationals as we filled out visa forms and slowly inched our way toward the immigration desk. Although we had been required to fill out customs forms declaring if we carried more than one camera, cell phone, 200 cigarettes, or clothes beyond what we were personally using, there was not any attempt to check those forms as we staggered out of the airport.

Outside, rows of taxi drivers waited a chance to "help us" by carrying our luggage. Fortunately, we were all able to keep a hold of our belongings - if one of the taxi drivers was able to hold a bag, we would have had to pay in order to get it back. We tumbled into two large vans which drove us to our hostel, Applie Pie Expeditions (APEX Inn).

 I share a room with Emilly, the amazing girl from Brazil. It's quite cozy - two small beds are located only a foot apart, with a small set of shelves to contain two image-concious women's clothing, makeup, and accessories. Kathmandu sprawls outside our window, and on the more clear days, we can see the mountains just a few miles away.

Kathmandu, in case you didn't know, is a very polluted city. While the sky often looks like an overcast Seattle day, it is, in fact, the haze of dust and emissions from this bustling, lively city. Officially, the rule of the road is to keep left. In practicality, the one with the loudest horn, least fear and heaviest pedal-foot gets there the fastest. Streams of mopeds and motorcycles clog the road, rushing through every possible break in the traffic, and pedestrians bravely face this madness just to cross the other side.

"Why did the chicken cross the road" was never a more pressing question than here and now.

In our first day, Christians in the city organized a scavenger hunt for the team. We ran through a city with a list of objectives - get a picture praying with a Tibetan priest, find a Hindu temple, find a place where Hindus offer sacrifices, barter for something in Jawalakhel's open bazaar, catch a micro to Thamel, get a picture eating lunch. This list would have been fun and challenging under ideal circumstances, but add in language and cultural barriers, and the ensuing day was more fun than a micro full of YWAMers.

In terms of the actual reason I'm here, it's been super exciting to see God at work. On Friday, we invaded an athletic field and Hindu festival to do an open air. I ended up sharing a testimony in front of 200 men who had gathered to watch a volleyball game.  In the course of the four days we've bee engaging in active spiritual warfare, we've seen 10-12 people accept Christ, including a young Hindu girl who brought all her friends to us the next day to hear our message for themselves. It's really neat to see how open people are to hearing about Christ - there's been a few instances where they don't even know the name!

During intercession, we've had some amazing promises from God about His plans for Nepal - that it will be a beacon to India and China, a city on a hill, His footstool and that Nepal will be a nation known for Him. If you all could be praying for Nepal as we work, we would all really appreciate it.

There is a great deal of spiritual darkness here. Some of the girls have come down with sicknesses and feel a lot of attack from the Enemy.Please pray for our team to have confidence in our identities in Christ and for a release of the pressure. It has been a struggle at times to connect with God and hear His voice.


I need to be going now - I have some shopping to do and I need to hang out with these awesome people :

Peace, love and keep rocking,
Whimsy

So long, Houston!

My next post will be from Nepal. :)

Here's my last video update from Oz.

Watch "On the Flip Side" on YouTube

The Metaphorical Resonances

I'm sitting here in the dining room on base while waiting to start the day. I'm listening to the wonderful Bruce Cockburn on my iPod, but I can hear the cafe blasting Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor in the background. The conflict of musicality is surprisingly appropriate to my mood this week.

I feel like this week has been a week of conflicting duality. On the one hand, I've experienced such incredible things as getting my prayer language, God giving me the physical hugs I'd been asking for, and being healed of something after prayer for the first time. But on the other hand, I'm feeling dry. I think this is mostly due to the fact that I am pretty much a zombie at this point. (Walk, watch me walk like a zombie ...)

So the contrast between what may be the most famous organ piece written and an obscure artist's album inspired by St. Augustine is a pretty good metaphor for my topsy-turvy, mixed up mindset.

Speaking of metaphors, it has not been lost on me the accidental symbology of my imminent departure date.  The school will be flying out of Perth in two Sundays, leaving on the afternoon of Easter Sunday. My school is primarily female (only one male student, poor chap!), and will be leaving to spread the gospel on the anniversary of Christ sending the women to spread the news that He had risen.

Coincidence? I think not!

Outreach is quickly approaching, and my excitement is growing. Over this last weekend, $9,000 came in so that ALL our school will be able to go! My current problem is locating a place I can put a bag of clothes on outreach. Because we will be dressing like the people in Nepal and Cambodia, I will have no use for my tank tops, shorts, and most of my tee shirts. I'm sure you can understand why I'm not too keen to backpack with absolutely useless items as a result. I want room for sanitary wipes. ;)

This week is focusing on missions, and I hope to tell you more later.

She speaks to conquer!

The title comes from the fact that I was fasting words this week. ;)

Watch "She speaks!" on YouTube

System Overload

A Note of Explanation: Despite the rather ominous title, this is quite the positive post. However, I tend to imagine my brain as capable to handle only a certain amount of crazy busy before it starts dreaming of electric sheep. Thus, I also imagine it giving me status reports in a polite, electronic voice - "all systems go," " system overload," "low fuel," "system failure," etc.

Well, this week is pretty much jam-packed with craziness. In addition to all my funds being due in two days' time, I have a group research project to work on (read: start) and a militant atheist to follow up with, not to mention the fact that I won't be speaking until Saturday except for evangelism and keeping up with supporters from home.

But I do need to tell you the cool things God has been doing around here. We'll go chronologically.

Week 8 was all about evangelism, and is my favorite week so far. The speaker somehow managed to combine all my passions and experiences in speech and debate in his teaching of how to share the Gospel. I'm telling you, it's majorly exciting to realize that your background in analyzing strangers to persuade them to your side can actually be used for good! And yes, I know I was told that inside the league at almost every opportunity. Some people are just slow learners.

For application that week, we did street preaching. All American prejudices against showing my hand aside, it was an incredible time. We were in Northbridge on Thursday night as usual, and just had a whole lot of personal testimonies and presentation of the good news. That night, two people prayed to repair their relationships with God! That was a first for our team!

The next day, Ian resurfaced. Remember the false prophet I mentioned a while ago? Yeah. So one of the girls in my school, Nicole, is from Germany. She was sitting in the city centre, reading a book, when she happened to over hear the conversation of two women near her. It dealt with one of the women's children, and Nicole felt she was supposed to talk to them about Jesus. This was not on any base evangelism day, just on her own.

Anyway, as soon as she decided to talk with them, Ian walked up to her and started staring at her intensely. Nicole tried to ignore him, but the second time she made eye contact, he started speaking about how she and her country had killed so many people, and how she had to come Australia to kill more. Nicole told him that Satan had told him that, at which point Ian walked away.

Nicole was then able to share with the women, who asked her for prayer into the situation.

On a side note, I really like the philosophy of evangelism here in YWAM. It can essentially be summed up as "effective evangelism ends up bringing the subject closer to Jesus than when the conversation started." It definitely takes the pressure off, as I am no longer expected to hit people over the head with a pre-canned "turn or burn" speech, and can instead focus on actually getting to know and care for that person.

On the same note, I still suck at starting conversations with complete strangers.

That weekend, I started emailing with a young man I had encountered on outreach with the drug kids of Perth. This particular gent was not part of the gang, but because he was on break from working in the mines and his best friend ran with that group, he was out with them too. Bonus points for run on sentences, OK?

When I first met him, we spent a while arguing about the Bible and the difference between absolute Biblical truth (do not kill) and cultural Biblical truth (don't wear anklets with bells on them). The weekend after week 8, I discovered a Facebook message from him, wanting to continue the argument in person sometime. Granted, this request was phrased in terms of the "intellectual challenge" I presented, but I figure any opportunity to talk about God while using the skills I learned in debate should be seized upon.

Piled on top of that lot, I became very I'll during week nine. It didn't become apparent until that Wednesday, and I still don't know what it was. It involved a fever, sensitivity to light and noise, lethargy, dizziness, and a hoarse voice. I'm pleased to report that I didn't miss a single class, but don't assume that I was present for them. I sat in the back of the room, alternatively bundled up and not, trying not to fall asleep or fall over while the teacher taught.

I'm very glad that I wasn't incapacitated until Wednesday. Tuesday was my shift for Hands-On Compassion, and it seemed like my team would finally be able to visit the detention centre, which had opened up for the first time for the previous group. It was not to happen.

However, I think God never actually wanted me in the detention centre. I'm almost 100% certain I joined the Priceless group to give me a greater heart for city people. Every week we haven't been allowed in the jail, we've gone to the city instead.

Last Tuesday was pretty incredible. That morning I'd dressed as closely to my Northwest normal as I could, complete with hair, make up, and matching weather. The fact that it was overcast seemed enough to make my day pretty awesome (it is the simple things in life), but when we went into the city, we ran into a group of cybergoths and punks who were just chilling on a corner.

It was my first time having someone try to sell me drugs - pot and speed - and it was really heart-breaking to hear a 17 year old state calmly that drugs are the only reason people like me talk to people like them. It was a great time - I had a conversation about Bach and classical music theory with an older punk man who called himself "Vomit," but the thing I really was impressed by that week was how diverse and wonderful city people are.

I have another update to write, so I'll let this one die now.

Thank you for your prayers!
Whimsy