And its all coming to an end

wow has it really been 5 months already? Their is lots going on over here. On Wednesday me and a lady i met from Norway took all the boys rafting. that was SO much fun. The boys all had a blast. we went 25km down a the river, some of it was white water. at the end of it they gave us a decent lunch. Unfortunately due to it being on water i couldn't take my camera.
We had a funeral for an older lady. got a call in the morning to come pray for a sick lady then only moments later we had a funeral for her. We sent a couple of the boys to dig the grave. they did happen to hit a skull half way down. most graves arnt well marked as you can guess
this Saturday i'm going to be speaking at church for about 10 min I'm giving my testimony and a little of what it means to be born again.
so we got a conference coming up and a lot of prep and cleaning going on
and i guess this is going to be my last blog. so i guess you want to know what I've learned.
well one ting I've continually been thinking is
what ever happened to give us today our daily bread
also and i think this runs along the same lines is that this has been quite a stretching experience and i've really learned that God's looking after me through the times that suck and the good ones anyway its quite late here and their is so much i've got to do even in the last couple weeks that i havent typed out here so ask me about it. anyway i'm shure i'll see all of you who are reading this quite soon anyway goodnight and god bless

Interesting Things in Nepal

"Their is a saying here in Nepal... husband is like god" just part of a conversation i had with one of my friends here. This is coming from a 35ish married man talking to me about well you can figure out what about. Keeping in mind that it is coming out of the framework of a polythiestic society and their gods not carrying as much power and reverence as the christian God but still, pretty impressive.
I met a YWAM (youth with a mission) team from Brazil the other day. They were super good musicians and had a team of dancers and jugglers and fire breathers that was very much carnival and a lot of fun. I got to know one guy pretty well who hooked me up with some brazilian punk and hardcore music and a CASEY JONES CD and though this isnt excitiong news to any of you not know or caring about casey jones it is pretty awesome. Any way they taught me how to samba dance.

And so life in Kathmandu goes on and I'm getting to the point where living here feels a little less like an adventure and a little more of just living in Nepal, not in a bad way. Even wrighting this blog i'm thinking what to wright, I'm just doing my normal Kathmandu routine

Yeah so i'm still going to house fellowships mon, tues, thurs, friday sometimes leading them and at the fasting prayer Wednesday and hanging out with the former street boys in the evenings. I started running in the mornings, I'm waking up at about 5:30-6:00 and going to bed at around 10:30 sometimes a little earlier. Its been nice getting to spend a lot more time reading. Their is a missionary couple at the church and I've got some books off them. I'm starting to really look forward to coming home though i know I'm gunna miss a lot of the people out here and some of the culture though.
I'll be going sometime within the next few days to visit a jail here in Kathmandu. jails here sound a little different than back at home having talked to some of the boys who have been in them. Actuality the boys here were pretty jealous of Canadian prisoners when i told them that they get to eat meat every day. Here its usually just a once a week. Nepali people like to eat a small mountain of rice for every meal. Its not just thats thats all they have they actuality need to eat huge amounts of rice. almost always served with lentils and some curry. Usually no utensils are used to eat you just use your right hand, and only your right hand for obvious reasons.

The High Life, the Good, the Strange and the Ugly About Living on a Mountan

I'm back from what was quite a different world as life live in a village on the side of a mountain does breed some strange experiences. We visited 4 rural villages in a total of 10 days. Met a lot of villagers and did a lot of hiking, my estimation is about 32 hours of hiking total. It was Me and Shem (ex-trek guide who has evagalized the areas we were going into). In 2 of the villages we stayed in the church. 2 of the villages we stayed in peoples homes.
The Good
The best thing for sure was the people we were visiting. Mostly very poor and very hospitable. Having almost nothing but sharing everything they got. Most of our travels were with 2 of the young men looking after one of the churches out their. I Spoke at the church during the Saturday service we had their. We went visiting and praying with most of the believers in the villages we were at. Though their were a lot of clouds the scenery was amazing. Overall the trip went really great i was really encouraged and i think a lot of the people were as well.
The Strange
The women get married very young out there, 13 or 14 years old. It was strange as i was speeking at the church and their was a girl who could not have been older than 15 breast feeding her kid who looked about 1 1/2 years old. Average is about 6 kids per house hold.
One man we visited had 13 kids, here is the crazy part about the guy. His first first 4 kids have "normal" names. Kid 5 on onward are named for there number born. Child five is names Five and so on all the way up to 13.
The food was strange, pictured is a typical sting needle and corn mush with berrys that numbed the mouth (we would later use the same berry to rub on our shoes to fight land leaches) meal . They eat a lot of potatoes and corn. Millet was a strange food i ate, its a seed that they make into a powder then add water and make into a much much like the corn mush. Though at several of the homes they did kill a chicken for us which really is a pretty big sacrifice for them. They said i was the only white man to ever eat eat mountain food with them most people from urban Nepal dont even want to eat their food. I think we were all happy to eat together.
The Ugly
So this is monsoon season in Nepal and it did rain everyday we were on the mountain. Many times as we were hiking. There were so many land leaches. They hang off of branches and grass and grab on you as you walk by as well as fall out of trees onto you. Their like big inch worms. I pulled probably about 60 off of my clothes and about 8 that started sucking my blood. The leaches were bad but the worst by far were the fleas. Most of the places we went had fleas. Their were not many good nights of sleep on the mountain due to fleas. By the end of the trip most of my body especially torso looks like it got a really bad outbreak of acne, flea bites all over and their still itchy.

Their are more things i could put in all these category's but there are the main things. And its nice to be back in Kathmandu and be flea free.

Rural Nepal

So tomorrow me and Shem will embark on our voyage into 4 rural Nepali villages. One of which i, tatangchi i will be the first white boy to visit. Due to land slides we will have a very long walk as the road is blocked along the way. but thats to be expected as we are going their in monsoon season. we got the bus tickets yesterday and the ticket person said its going to be a very packed but ride so i might be traveling their on the roof, i hope its not raining. Its kinda hard to know what to expect, Shem thinks their is a good chance i will cry when i see the conditions of the people. I'm sure its going to be quite an experience. I've prepared a few messages 2 of the villages have churches 2 do not (depending on your definition of church i guess I'm talking about buildings). So I'll be speaking on Saturday at the church service in Nessing (remember Saturday services here not Sunday) and a few more time at some prayer gatherings.
In other new i started making my own coffee here. When Nathan, Ben, and Bryn(poncho) were here last week we spent some time in Gorkha at pastor Raju's parents home they have a coffee tree and ended up hooking me up with some beans. Its quite a lengthy project for a cup of coffee, deshelling the beans trying to roast them in a frying pan, burning them in a frying pan and starting over eventually getting a half decent roasted bean cutting it up with a knife and eventually brewing a cup in Shem's peculator. not a bad cup of coffee but the love i put into it made it taste pretty sweet, no need for sugar.
Anyway you'll hear from me again in a couple weeks when I'm back

Back home, well kinda?

So I'm back in Katmandu and its nice to be back. Nathan, Ben, and Bryn from the Winnipeg center vineyard are here now too. Though sikkim was really nice it was exciting to get back to this dirty city. Before i left i went to the Nepal immigration office and talked to some not so helpful staff and kinda figured out how i'd only be able to get a 30 day max visa at the boarder then have to try to get another 60 days at immigration. When i got to the boarder on July 16 that day they just changed the visa rules at the boarder. They with no problem but some time as they were still figureing out how to give it to me gave me a 90 day visa at the boarder. thanks GOD.
We had a momo party here the other day that was pretty awesome. momos are like a meat pirogies and probably the favorite new food from this side of the world. The boys here know how to make them and so we spent pretty much the whole day making a huge amount of them then a good part of the night eating them. and so i'm back here in Kathmandu happy to be a part of house groups through the week and hanging out with Shem, the boys and for the next week the other winnipegers. I'm so excited now to be planing a trip around rural nepal to some remote villages probably leaving on aug. 10 we'll be visiting 4 villages one of whitch i'll be the first white man ever to go to (fact i cant actually prove). 2 of the villages have a church the other 2 have some belivers. Its been great talking to Shem about the villages. When he first went to the villages to preach about Jesus their were no believers. They threatened to beat him and thretined to kill him but hes still alive and now they got christians their and some of them have churches. So I'm going to try my hand again with speaking to some of the villages. so please pray for me, Shem and the villages as we plan the trek.

INDIA!

So i've been in Sikkim, and West Bangel India for about 3 weeks now. I met up with 4 Others from my church (Robb, Bob, Mark, and Bryn A.K.A. Poncho) and along with pastor Selas who oversees the vinyard chuches in this area and 2 translators Ramesh and his wife Salva and their daughter Brehana visited Mucrung who our church is thinking of partnering with and some of the other churches in sikkim. I made really good friends with Ramesh who is 26 and acouple years ago won gold in a national Boxing championchip. and was scrdulaed to go start fighting internationaly but had a daughter so he quit. every chuch we went to we chalanged to a Soccer match. We ended with a 2-1 record, not bad though most of our goald were scored by the indian players in our team. and most of the other team were just wearing sandals. I got one goal, not to shabby. All of our games were played on the side of mountans and 2 of 3 were in the rain, as sikkim is made up of mountans and its rainy season. It Really is such a beautiful place. and so after everybody 3 of the team left back to winnipeg on July 6 me and Bryn went to pedong where we stayed 3 nights at and orphanage run by the church. and now i'm in namchi staying with pastor Selas and spending time with Ramesh and Salva. I gave my second sermon here in Namchi on sunday. I've got to go to several diffrent peoples homes around here for dinner. anyway things have been goin really great over here and i'm excited to go back to Kathmandu on July 16

OFF TO SIKKIM

So looks like the trip so Sikkim India is a go afterall. Thats a big answer to prayer. Yeah is a 40 day strike as part of sikkim wats to seperate into its oun state. The roads are blocked off but turns out that the church got a pass to go through the road blocks. To tommorow i fly with Noel to meet the group from my church and we weill make our way Mucrung, Sikkim, India from their.
AFTER THAT I WILL BE RETURNING TO NEPAL UNTIL OCT.12 WOOOOOOO!

My first sermon

So today was the day. Shem had asked me to give the message In a rural town outside the city. I had spent a lot of time preparing the last few days for my first sermon. Shem told me to keep it simple, most of the people i was preaching to had never been to school. And they were mostly new christians. I settled on the topic of love. And so their was a transportaion strike in the city to day so we had to walk. It was about a two and a half hour walk. The view was nice on the way. We decided to take a short cut but part way into it their was a trnch dug on and the mud thrown onto the trail. It was very slipery and shem fell into the trench. All up one of his legs and his shoes were covered in mud. Anyway a little heat and a lot of mud later we arived at the church in Chumpy, well it wasnt regularly a church it was a house that we were having church at. So about 30 people came about half being under 15. We sung some nepali songs ala acapella . I gave my message and shem translated. It was nice to have a translator, as Shem spoke i could figure out my next thought. I'm very happy to anounce that it went well. Shem said he thought it was good. And he's not the kind of guy who would just say that to be nice, unlike most of you people. No offence. Yeah so afterwords we went over to one of the peoples houses for tea, well i guess its 10 of the peoples houses because it was the husband and wife the their 8 kids. Anyway I feel very blessed that things went well, I'm not much of a public speaker so I do really give the all of the credit to God. He is very good to his people you know.

THIS IS IT

So here they have saturday church survases not sunday. Last saturday I was suposed to go to a rural church and speak. Kinda scary being that i've never preached before. But they had a goodbye for the Lewises last week so it was moved to this coming saturday. Pastor Shem will be translating for me. I'm not gunna lie i'm kinda nervous.
So the team from my church in winnipeg was gunna be going out to sikkim on the 25 of this month but theirs a lot of demonstrations going on their now as part of sikkim trys to seperate into its own state. so as it stand it sounds like i ant get over their and it sounds like they wont be able to either. so it souns like we got some work to to do praying. But all the other things here are going good so i'm very tankfull for that except we still have a huge water shortage and fuel shortage so costs are going up around here. Taking the bus around here went up from about 15 cents to about 20 cents. it doesnt sound like a lot but it does affect the people here.

Tony the Baptist...well kinda

So our chuch had a baptism this saturday. We do have a water shortage so we didnt have any water in the baptism tank to me and 13 others piled into a landcruser and went to a diffrent church that had some water and a baptism tank. The man getting baptised was pretty old so then said he needed some help with the baptism. I had shorts and sandals so i went in the tank with the man and pastor Shem and we dunked him, though their wasnt a lot of water in the tank so went he went down part of his back was out for the water so Shem said dunk him again. Finaly in the third dunk complete submergin. definitly an experince.
some have asked how my health has been over here. fot the most part really good. I had some diareha acouple times and i was sick and barfing one day but for the most part good

New Things

OK so Nepal is now a republic and the king has about 10 days to leave his palace. That took place when i was in polkera. Nepal is in the middle of a big political shift, we the church have been praying a lot for the country. The mouists are in power due to corruption at the polls. They are communist, not to happy about that, neither is india whitch is causing the fuel shortage. though thats kinda old news. The days are so HOT. Polkera was awsome spent a lot of time alone hiking and enjoying the view. BIG NEWS me and some of the boys started a new ministry,

well kinda. Old ministry for the church new ministry for us I'm going with 5 of the former street boys (oldest being 23 same age as me the others are in high school) now living at the church out into the street so minister to street boys. all the boys from the chuch speek good english though none of the boys from the street do just nepali. but we went out and found a group of about 4 who didnt want to talk to us then we found another group of about 6 who one of the bays new from when he lived on the street so we talked to them and visited for about and hour or so i couldnt really speak to them that well but one of the street boys started teachig me some nepali st that was cool. anyway it was an absolutly amazing night last night were going back tonight so i'm super excited.
Oh so i got to spend some time with David Ruse. Most of you have probably sung some of his songs at chuch, he flew in from LA for a few days. His leg started so swell a LOT so he was in the hospital for a few days, I got to spend a good chunk of time visiting him in the hospital whitch was pretty cool. The doctors said he almost certinly had a blood clot that caused the swelling but the gave him some meds and the swelling went down then the did ultra sound to find the blood clot and the couldnt find one. The doctors were very suprised they couldnt find a blood clot but and so he's out of the hospital and onto india.

So i'm in polkera for acouple days

So Rasu one of the pastors on the Kathmandu vineyard hooked me up with great deal on a hotel (about $6 a night) in Polkera about 6 hours away from Kathmandu everybody told me its beautiful here and it is theirs mountains and lakes and hills and forests its pretty amazing. i got here Tuesday and I'll be back in Kathmandu on Friday. I'm just gunna be doing some hiking wheal I'm here i did some today and it was sweet. And so yes its nice to get away for a bit (haha) anyway i'd rather not spend my time here on a computer bye.

Still going awsome

So things here are going really well. Internet is still pretty rough but power is getting more consistant. i've got to see some of the sights of the city and fix some things around the church with some of the young men here. definitly a diffrent world over here. one of the big diffrences of the christians here and their is how many here have left other religions and in turn their familys to follow christ. I've got to go to some pretty awsome house fellowships here visiting one family here living in the slum river bed area they have their 4th child on the way and live in a house made of corrigated steel and bamboo siding about 7'*12' the people are all amzing and so happy to pray and visit with us. we also visited a 60 year old widdow living in goverment provided housing that is pretty much a hole in the wall big enough for a bed and a gad hot plate she told us how she used to be big but when her husband died she lost a lot of weight and how the others in the building want to kick her out because she is a christian buts she doesnt worry because she has Jesus. Very humbuling and awsome stuff.

What I'll be doing

So i came here without knowing exactly what I'll be doing here. Now with the help of pastor Nole I've figured it out. I'm gunna be working with the young men here fixing some things and doing life with them helping them anyway i can anyway i got to go practice with the band I'm playing guitar this morning at church.

What Up in Nepal

Its a different world over here thats for sure. so when i got here Thursday i met up with the new boys here. The new boys live at the church, they were street kids that pastor Nole pick up off the street from Kathmandu. They formed a band called the new boys and i cant believe how good they are. They all have amazing ears for music. They were having a practice very soon after i got here so they threw me an electric guitar and we jammed. The first morning i woke up very early due to jet lag and took a walk outside a couple minuets outside the church i saw a goat with its head tied to a post about 5' off to the side of the road and one guy grabbed the back legs and pulled and the other raised his blade and cut its head off. It cough me a little off guard but hey "this is Nepal".
Their having a water and gas shortage here in Nepal. The lineup for gas is about 3 blocks long and showering is gonna be about once a week. The driving here is crazy so many motorcycles no traffic lights or stop signs just and your constantly missing people and cars by inches. Most people at the church eat all their food with their right hand and wipe with their left. The bathrooms at the church have squattie potties (which are pretty much holes in the ground) and urinals though their are a couple toilets at the church
I really like most of the food here I've been eating much of my meals with pastor Shem and his family and some with the new boys its pretty much always rice with curry vegetables a sometime some meat. The leaders at the church are amazing. They completely welcome me as a family member into their homes and share with me everything they have. Their was a group from Hong Kong that came and a medical team from Hawaii. The Hawaii team is going to a small village with Shem. Their going to heal and He's gonna preach. I've been meeting with people from the church for house fellowship. And i went to a arranged wedding at the church on Sunday.
OK so their is so much i could type here but i wont reveal it all to you now. But you should know pastor Shem and Pastor Razu are trying to hook me up with an arranged marriage, Crazy Stuff!

I MADE IT!!!

OK so I'm here in Kathmandu and things are going really well although i really shouldn't have made it over here. When i got to the Chicago airport to fly to Delhi, India I got up to the counter to get my boarding pass i gave them all my passport information, the lady at the counter told me she was in denial about needing glasses and so i read her my passport information. So she asked me for my India visa info i told her i didn't have a India visa because I'm just going on a connecting flight to Kathmandu "it doesn't matter to fly to India you need a Indian visa" so right after that i got that feeling of my heart sinking about three inches deeper into my chest. I talked to her for a bit and she ended up giving my my boarding ticket and telling my that if their was a problem they would call me up again. I was super stressed out and praying as hard as i could and and then they called "A. Marco to the desk for passport information". It seemed a little queer how close that sounded to "A. Mark to the front desk for passport information" but soon after they called everybody board the plane so i got on as soon as i could and flew to Delhi.
I got off the plane In Delhi and went to the counter. I got to the counter and went through the same thing i went through in Chicago "what do you mean you don't have your India visa". (I didnt have my tickets yet for Kathmandu,i was told i could get them a little cheaper in India) Yeah so they sent me a few places and i had to talk to about 4 diffrent airport staff, they were pretty nice about it but i was getting pretty worried because i could tell it was turning into a pretty big deal. They ended up telling me that if somebody else bought the ticket for me i would be able to get on my flight. I couldn't go buy them myself because i couldn't go through the airport without a visa. I made a few calls, I couldn't get a ticket bought that night but it sounded like i could get one for tommorow morning. They told me they had a lounge i could go to with a buffet, open bar, and nice couches i could sleep on. So i went to the ITC welcome group port lounge. It was very nice their. Their was one main indian guy who was probably early 20's coming and talking to me about my situation about every 15 min. he then brought an older woman to come talk to me and enplane my situation she wasn't quite as nice. They brought me over to a quiet corner for the questioning. I was worried at this point and the next time the guy came back he was only whispering "you shouldn't have been able to come here from America" he listed some people and said if they found out i would be deported back to Chicago. He asked if i had cash on me, I said i did. He told me he could talk to some people from the airline and probably get me on the flight. I them bought my ticket on the internet in the lounge and told him to do what he had to do. He was gone for a very long 3 hours. When he came back he told me not to talked to anybody else about my situation no matter what. He gave me a piece of paper and told me to put the money in the paper fold it up and give it back i did then he gave me a piece of paper with my flight info on it and said that i somebody would come to the lounge before the flight and give me my boarding pass and get me on the plane. That was a the longest 8 hours of my life i really didn't know it that guy just took my money and ran. I was praying so hard for this to work out. At the proper time one of the airport staff came and got me on the flight.
So I'm thinking GOD really wanted me to be here. Right after i got here i was told not long ago a team of 8 doctors from Hawaii had the same situation and were deported back to Hawaii . so thanks everybody that was praying for me and I'm so thankful to be here. The internet and power is pretty sketchy so getting to blog is not that easy.

P.S. i was told by the pastor that there are 3 girls from one of the other churches here looking for an arranged marriage

I'm leavin today!!!

At 2:50 today a flight will leave Winnipeg, a flight with me aboard, a flight going to Chicago, then another flight to Delhi then to Kathmandu where i will stay for 6 weeks before going back to Delhi to meet up with others from my church and spend 2 more weeks just east of Nepal in India on the side of a mountain , yeah its awesome . And so today i said goodbye to showers and toilets as sponges and buckets can take over for that. I've been asked a few times now if I'm scared or nervous about going but really I'm so pumped up and excited and i totaly beleave that GOD has some amazing things in store for this trip.
Also yesterday i got to pick up my brothers mustang from Dragmart they had just fixed the supercharger and yeah... IT'S WORKIN GOOD.

Scotty's Hardhat Blast

So it was my last day of work today for a couple months. We decided to celebrate my leaving with a firecracker and we decided to punish Scotty for not coming in today by lighting the firecracker in some banana mush under his hard hat, quite standard Duncalfe Mech. punishment really. If their's a better note to leave work on I haven't heard of it. Anyway the excitement for the trip continues to grow as my flight gets closer and I'm so thankful all the pre trip things have gone so smooth so far. Enjoy the Video!

7 DAYS TILL I LEAVE

to whom it may concern,
if spelling and gramour is important to you this may not be the blog for you, but for all those who read it anyway thanks for checkin it out and i hope you enjoy reading about my journeys in nepal


So i can now count the days left on my fingers, i leave may 7th. Its very exciting even though it still barley seems real and so much of what I'm doing their is still up in the air but i kinda like it like that. I'm been thinking a lot of a definition of missionary work i heard a while ago that pretty much sums up the agenda find where GOD is working and joining him in that.