alien

We had been walking for five hours through humidity that was thicker than jell-o. The amount of sweat that was pouring off of my face could have provided a fresh tank of salt water for Shamu. I was hot. And gross. And hot. And gross. But not too grumpy, actually. I just really wanted to be doing anything in the world other than be walking through a thick fog of meeeeh.

I changed my mind as soon as we arrived, however. Once we arrived, I would have gladly walked back through the semi-gelatinous sub-tropical atmosphere rather than go through what I was about to experience. It was that bad. 

I had gone back to Nuwakot for the weekend to pray and explore. Some friends and I want to see that district redeemed, so we loaded the bus for Nuwakot. We just wanted to walk around and see what was going on. We left for the weekend with half-full backpacks and no expectations. That's all I can say about that. This is the internet, so I can only talk about semi-important things like aliens. 

You heard me. Aliens.   

When we got into town we called up a friend to see if we could stay at his parent's house. Of course we could- this is Nepal. People are super hospitable. 

We arrived at his parent's house. It was a shell of a building that even the homeless on San Pedro Street would have turned their noses up at. It wasn't bad because it had no glass in the windows and it wasn't because the roof was missing part of the roof. It wasn't even because the door was, well.... I'm sure it was around there somewhere. It was bad because of the aliens.

It was terrible, you guys. I know that I've told you guys before that things were bad, but I didn't believe in aliens back then. This time it was for reals bad.

No glass in those windows! 

Remember how I was just saying that the humidity thicker than jell-o? Do you remember that jell-o that the cafeteria ladies gave us in third grade? The kind with the fruit floating in it? That's exactly what it was like in the house I stayed at. Only instead of strawberries and grape halves the humidity was sprinkled with moths and mosquitoes and other floaty fly-ey creatures. 

We arrived tired and sweaty and just wanting to sleep, but because of the saturation of bugs in the atmosphere, we spent a good 40 minutes with Grandpa  trying to jimmy-rig mosquito nets between the wall and the "windows" and the "door." 

               Then it happened....

                                           ...and I will never be the same. 

                                                                                           I encountered an alien. 

I was preparing my little sleeping area on the floor by flicking all of the bugs away so that I could spread my net over my blanket. Flick. Flick. Fliohmygoshwhatisthat?!

Just as I reached over to  flick the giant moth off of my blanket, the moth spread it's giant grey wings and a larvae the size of my pinky finger slowly erected itself from the moth's back.  

The larvae that tried to eat me.

Let me repeat that in case you missed it. A. LARVAE. the. size. of. a. rhinoceros. was. attached. to. the. moth. If there is one thing in the world that I hate, it is larvae.

 I ran out of the room screaming at the top of my lungs in broken Nepali for Grandpa to come and get that bug off of the blanket.

We took the larvae into the local science lab and they did some tests to confirm that the larvae was in fact an alien.


After that Grandpa threw the alien-bug out the window and we all slept safely in our nets (only it wasn't really that effective because one, the windows had no glass, so it could have flown right back inside and two, my blanket had bed bugs so I woke up in the morning looking like a sixteen-year-old with acne all over my arms and shoulders. So much for having a bug net.).

So yah, we went to Nuwakot to explore options for helping the community, but maybe we will just open up an alien observation deck instead. I can see the line of tourists already...

Note: Cynthia was not with me, so she cannot verify this information. I do, however, have other eyewitness accounts of these occurrences. I promise you, I have been searching google to try to figure out what I saw, and the only explanation is that it was an alien.

Tuesday Photos

Can somebody please explain to me how it is already Tuesday again?! Here you go. A few glimpses of the past few days (that seemed like only a few hours).

Really missing these ladies this week.

I got to skype with most of them this weekend and it was such a pleasure!

The other day on my morning walk I was walking down this hill. I looked to my left and made eye contact with a little girl who was on her way to school. As I looked up from my ipod to smile at her, I lost my concentration and face planted straight into that ditch. Luckily my shoulder hit before my face, and soon as the rest of my body stopped skidding downhill, I scrambled to my feet and turned around to see the little girl standing in shock. I assured her in Nepali, "It's ok. It's ok. I'm fine." and then I scurried away and as soon as I was out of earshot I started cracking up. You guys, it was so funny! 

Apparently there are two peach seasons in Nepal. 

The first one was a couple of weeks ago and it was like American peach season, only the peaches were smaller. Now the peaches that grace the fruit stands are green and hard- yuck! We have one of those green-hard peach trees in our front yard and the kids looooove those peaches. They work so hard every day to convince us that those peaches are like, the best thing ever. Here is Sundesh enjoying his sour peach. Just look at his face- pretty convincing, right? Don't you just want to take a bite? 

And here is Sundesh again. This time, with his "fox" mask. 

These kids are psycho. Sour peaches and "fox" donkey masks. Only in Nepal. 

Oh, and this is a monkey. I'm just throwing him in for good measure. 

Stories are the new statistic.

I've mentioned it before, and I'm in the same rut again.

I wouldn't say that I am at a loss for words. It's actually just the opposite. I have so many words and so many stories, but I don't know how to share them. Some of my friends have been exploited, and the last thing that I want to do is take their stories and exploit their exploitation.

You know how you get all of those e-mails with stories of slum girls who struggled and found hope through ______ organization? Or how you go to that conference and hear the stories of how ________ organization rescued seven slaves from forced labor and now their oppressors are being brought to justice? Those organizations are awesome. I am so thankful for them and for the work that they are doing in the most desperate parts of the world.

But.

I'll be honest.

I don't even read those e-mails anymore.

They used to tell us so many statistics. Then that got old. So they switched to telling stories. Let's be honest, it's getting old. It's not that we don't care, its just that the same thing always happens: Person is in desperation, person comes in contact with organization, organization saves the day, now please send money.

But, well, I am not an organization, I don't know how to save the day, and give your money to your single-mom neighbor who can't pay her gas bill this month.

I do want to share this stuff with you guys. I do. I think that you need to know. The world needs to know. People really are being mistreated, and if you are a Christian, it is your job to stop it.

But alas, I am in a bit of a pickle, so until I figure out how to share these things with you, please pray for me and my friends. That's a pretty good first step anyways.

Tuesday photos

Happy Tuesday! Here's a glimpse into last week.

In case you couldn't tell, this is a portrait of me. 

One of the kids outside drew it with sidewalk chalk.

Usually during monsoon season (now) it is too cloudy to see the mountains, 

but God gave me a special sunrise last Thursday!

 

One of the chickens laid a very small egg during a thunderstorm. 

Alay and Pria were so excited about it!

My roommate grew this basil and gave it to me!

I went on a trip to Nuwakot this weekend. 

That giant building is an ancient palace. The king that lived there unified Nepal in the 1700's.

A little tea shop near the palace. 

Tuesday photos.

I have a bunch of stray photos in my phone that don't really have a story to go with them. I used to post them on instagram, but since my instagram won't update, they are just kinda chillin' in my phone's memory.

I can't just leave these little guys all alone in my phone forever, so I am going to start dumping them onto my blog every Tuesday night. I think you guys can handle that, right?

So here ya go. The product of a broken instagram.  

Wooooo... PIG SOOIE!

I found this gem along a random road out towards a village.

Shout out to my Arkansas people!  

I saw this bad boy down town. 

The fabric here is out of control (AKA: awesome!).

Peach season. 

Meh. This is a super important Hindu rain-god shrine that they build every 12 years.

I saw this on my walk this morning. 

Someone in Kathmandu knows what's up! 

Happy Tuesday!

I want to be like that prostitute.

How many of us tell our daughters to look up to prostitutes as role models?

Maybe we should.

Remember when I was talking about crying in language class and wanting to be like that sinful woman at Jesus' feet? Remember how I was all like, "Oh, Jesus loves me no matter what. I don't have to be perfect because Jesus loves to clean up little messes. He loves to have pity on little ole me, so I should be all broken and stuff so he can comfort me." Remember when I was talking about that?

Well...

I cried again in class.

But not because I was all broken at Jesus' feet and wanted him to comfort me. 

I did not wipe Jesus' feet with my tears. I cried because I was frustrated at not being perfect- not because I was broken and humble in heart. Pride flowed out of my eyes.

I hate being weak and I hate hate hate being wrong.

So to avoid those things which I hate (being weak and wrong) I live my life in oblivion trying to convince myself that I am the perfect specimen of a Jesus-follower. I tell you guys all the good stuff about myself on my blog, but um, I would never ever tell you if I was like, super grouchy the entire day yesterday, or if I didn't pray at the prayer meeting this morning, or if I cheated on my fast. 

Ok, fine. Want me to tell you the truth?

I did all of those things. 

And I felt really guilty after all three of those incidents. I didn't feel guilty because I thought that Jesus was going to love me less, but because I feared what everyone else would think about me when my imperfections were exposed.  

And that's exactly why I want to be like that "sinful woman." I want to be like her because, well, nobody expected her to be perfect.

She was free to anoint Jesus' feet in front of all the really cool pastors because it didn't matter if it was the right or wrong thing to do. She didn't care if she was about to get kicked out of the party. She didn't care that people were going to misunderstand her when she was trying to share the gospel with that guy that turned out to be a creeper. She didn't care because she knew that Jesus didn't care. Jesus knew her heart. 

She knew that Jesus had a double-wink-secret-handshake kind of love for her and that was enough. She didn't need her friends to see her fasting and giving 10% of her paycheck to Jesus. She understood that He understood. He approved. He was proud of her actions. 

That's why the flicker of her friends' (and enemies') approval did not even catch her eye compared to the fire of God's love for her. In the light of that fire, she was free to worship and free to love her Savior. Who wants to dance in the light of a match when you can dance in the light of a forrest fire? 

*******

So, I am going to start telling girls to look up to this prostitute. Because she gets it. She gets how God's love works. 


And She has taught me like twelve other things about life and love, but those lessons all deserve their own posts. 

monks in movies

So, I know that I am supposed to be suffering and saving the world and all that stuff, but a few weeks ago we went to the movies! Judge me if you want, but it's only like the third thing that we have done "just for fun." Can you believe that there is a 3-D movie theatre in Kathmandu? 

We went with our friend, Santoshi. Check out the monks behind us who were sipping on coffee and soda. Ha! Even monks take a break sometimes.

Anyways, this post really has no point other than to remind myself that there is life outside of my brain. I have been having a tough time lately just feeling discouraged and dry and waaaaay over-thinking everything. This is just a public declaration that God is good- even when I don't feel like he is good.