We have been serving in Nepal for the last two months and I have learned and grew so much from this experience. We got to experience some rich culture, hear some of the most powerful testimonies I have ever heard! We met people with stories of being persecuted for their faith. We met people who now go to a church they once burnt down! We met orphans that were abandoned and rejected by society now accepted into the kingdom as pastors, who now have big families around them.  We shared the gospel with people who have never heard it. We met old witch doctors who found a greater power and the healing of Jesus! We met people who are in remote villages with many hours to walk then a long bus to receive medical care be healed by a savior that is always near. I saw my own broken toes healed in time to trek for days. We served and played with children in orphanages that now have families and food in their bellies. We helped widows by plowing their fields by hand with rocks. We saw prophecies fulfilled! We saw a revival in Nepal! Nepal is an unreached nation facing extreme poverty and government instability. We saw the flourishing and stable kingdom of God reach the unreached!

We didn’t just make friends in Nepal, we met family who would drop everything for us! Family that would serve us and help us grow, trek through the mountains with us and sit by our hospital beds. 

We experienced God as healer, deliverer, friend, comforter, savior and creator. As I looked out to the tallest mountains I reflected on the promises of the Lord I was living in. A couple of years ago I went to Eswatini in  Africa. It was the first time I ever left the country and it was literally a life changing experience. Well I remember sitting on top of what I called a mountain looking out and reflecting with the Lord. At that point I had come so far from my past and I was just so full of hope, life and love. I felt as if I was sitting on the mountaintop of my whole life. In that moment I clearly heard the Lord tell me “There will be many more mountain tops my child.” I remember not even being able to comprehend how it could get better than that. I didn’t realize that there were much higher mountains. (And in all honesty looking back that may have been a hill I don’t actually know I’m from Ohio and it's flat there. LOL)

Well as I sat looking at the tallest mountain in the world, (If I’m completely honest it probably wasn’t actually Everest but every big mountain in Nepal is Everest to me LOL) But anyways as I sat there I reflected on all of the tall mountains and volcanos I have gotten to see in the last 9 months. All of the low valleys the Lord walked me through, the deep seas I saw him calm and all of the highs I never imagined my life could contain. How could someone like me be so blessed? What a blessing it is to live this life!

And that isn’t to say that this life is easy, no, far from it! My team and I have experienced things that would make a lot of people run home but that’s the character building part. I saw some of the darkest things in the world. The hungry children begging and being sold. And I saw some of the most beautiful landscapes. The brightest smiles and the warmest welcomes. I had some of the best days of my life and some of the hardest. Nepal truly reiterated the notion that the most beautiful views come from the hardest treks.

That's the part that makes the view so beautiful is the satisfaction of the climb it took to get there. All the sweaty nights getting eaten up by mosquitos and bugs bigger than I knew existed in the jungle; all the diarrhea in a dirty squatty potty, all the nights slept on a dirty floor, all the questionable meals and water, all the nights spent in a hospital for severe food poisoning (still owe $700 for that one), all the moments we feel like we never have a second alone, all the pain, all the tears, all the missing loved ones and home, all the wondering if your friends and family even think about you anymore, every sacrifice…IS WORTH IT! Not because of one beautiful mountain view but because of the view we will get in His eternal kingdom.

One beautiful reality is that the creator of all of this beauty wants to help us return to a world with just the beauty and none of the pain. That the same creator lowered Himself to be like us, experience pain like us, worse than us. That the same all powerful creator was rejected, hated, beaten to the point of death and hung on a cross. All for us, because He loves us and never wanted this broken world. It is all worth it because He is coming back for ALL of his children all over the world.

As we continue to travel I get to see more depths of God’s complex character through more of His children. He is the kindness of the Guatemalans, the calm of the Albanians, the joy of the Greeks, the hospitality of the Turkish, the gentleness of the Nepalese. He is before all things and in him are all things. 

I will probably spend the rest of my life unpacking stories from Nepal and from the whole race honestly. I hope to have some time to start unpacking all of the stories of what the Lord is doing all over the world soon but right now I really need to go pack my bag.

Tomorrow we leave for India and I can’t wait to see what the Lord has in store for our team there!

Thank you to all of you who have been praying for me all of these months. I will be back for only 2 weeks in August and I desperately want to see everyone. I will put out more details as the time approaches but please let’s connect while I am back in the states.