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