Nepal 2007

Jiri, Thursday, 15.03.07
I left home at 6.30am on Tuesday morning. At the airport I had lots of time before my plane left. The flight was uneventful. I arrived in Qatar on time and had an eight hour wait for my next aeroplane.
That time past, even if it was so very slowly. It was 11am on Wednesday, when I had finally got my luggage and left the airport.
Beki was waiting to pick me up.
We spent the day visiting a few places and people.
I stayed the night in the Marco Polo Guest House, which is alright, although it was quite noisy.

We left this morning at 6.30am to get a bus that left at 7.30. Beki introduced me to his friend, who, he informed me, was going to be with us. As the time came for us to leave came - we couldn’t find Beki´s friend anywhere. He had disappeared! We had to leave without him.
The journey was long and tiring and we did suffer a number of delays. But we did drive through some roads, where the scenery was no less than spectacular. The valleys and gorges were very steep. At one point we could see the majestic Himalayas, with there majestic snow-clad peaks.
In one small town, they told me that we were less than 2 1/2 hours from the Tibetan border. However, we turned off the main road to travel in direction of Mt Everest. We encountered snow on the road and I must admit I had a funny feeling seeing the very steep drop at one side of the road.
We arrived safely though, in the small town of Jiri.
Jiri is located in a valley and had used to have been the starting point for the Everest expeditions. Mt Everest base camp only being 14 days walking away.
Since the Maoist insurgency, tourists had stopped coming there. Jiri was controlled by Maoists, however now the place was safe.
We spent the night in a travellers´ lodge. The advert declaring there to be a hot shower waiting for the guests, turned out to be a myth. There was though, a clean western toilet, which is always a joy to me.
As the sun went down, it got cold. Although my room was also the place where the blankets were kept, still with three thick blankets, I froze! It took quite a while for me to get warm and I slept with my cap on.

Friday, 16.03.2007
We had a very good breakfast. I took porridge and vegetable soup with noodles. Both were hot and helped to warm me up after the cold night.
We took a bus at 7.30 hrs to take to the top of the hill. I guess saved us an hour’s waking.
We arrived in a village and were told that we would get lunch before we could proceed.
I would have rather liked to have started to get it behind us.
We started at 11.25am with the very steep descent. I did wonder how we were - how I was going to get back up that hill. The descent took about 45 minutes. On the way down, we had a wonderful view of the valleys and hills, with there terraces. I took a lot of photos, but am sure they will be a disappointment after seeing the real thing.
At the bottom of our fist hill, we crossed over a bridge and went through a village. I was attacked here by a horde of geese. They snapped at me and bit me a couple of times. Although I laughed, it did hurt quite a bit!
Our hard work was well rewarded in with the beautiful scenery and the friendly greetings of the villagers, whose villages we past through.
I had got in mind that we needed seven hours to get to our destination. However it took us five. We arrived at 4.30 pm at our destination. We had taken a hours´ rest too. I was so glad to have arrived. The last kilometre or more had really taken me to the brink of my strength.
Within minutes of us arriving and being served with tea, the porters arrived too one after another. They hadn’t left until 2pm! Some of them carried 40kg rice.
We have a nice clean room, with a wonderful view. I can’t describe how magnificent and picturesque it is. During the daytime we were very warm. I guess the temperatures were in the 20´s. My vest, t-shirt, shirt and even pullover were wet though with my sweat. They haven’t dried either although I needed my pullover tomorrow.
Its night as I write this and the temperatures have plummeted. I am using a very thin sleeping bag, which guarantees to keep you warm by-30*. I guess its about 0 and the sleeping bag is doing a good job.

Saturday, 17.03.2007
During the night, I got used to the hard bed. I wasn’t cold either. The view is once more magnificent. The sun is shining, but there’s a cold wind blowing.
Church starts at about 10am, its closer to 10.30 though. They tell me that some have walked around 3 hours to be here. Considering that the ground is not level here, that is remarkable.
Church goes on for about 3 hours. I preached about the 10 lepers in Lk 17. We had communion with coke. That was a first-timer.
Just before lunch, I found a vantage point in the village from where I could see some snow-capped mountains. After lunch, I went back to take a photo, but evening mist had already started coming down and it wasn’t possible to see anything.
In the afternoon, I met with the pastor and others members of the leadership. He told me the story of his church. It started in 1996. The church has grown to about 500 members, but they have also planted 13 other churches, with a membership of 1500.There are many needs here. The Maoist insurgency was especially bad here many were kidnapped and killed. There are many widows and orphans to be looked after.

Sunday, 18th March 2007
It doesn’t feel like Sunday!
We got t
E schedule at about 6, 40 this morning - I was still in bed - apparently, the programme started at 7am!
As I hurried over to the public wash place, I was once more overwhelmed by the beauty of the valley. It is majestic, huge, and so beautiful - but the people are so poor. Everything has to be carried to the place.
Tithe start at 7am - well is 7.20 by the time I am ready, is a welcome session. Towards the end of the session, I am greeted and get a rosette pinned on by pullover, declaring that I am the CHEEPA Guest!
By this time about 60 people are present for the leaders´ and pastors´ conference. Beki and I unveil the well used banner, declaring the conference open and then its time for breakfast and after the first point on the agenda, we are already 45 minutes behind schedule!
My session started only 15 minutes late, so we made up time.
I speak about "Who we are" Who we were" and where we are going.
I try to explain to them the concept of our SHAPE
S - Spiritual gifts
H - Heart (passion)
A - Ability
P - Personality
E - Experience
During the lunch break I have the opportunity of speaking to two senior pastors.
They tell me how they became Christians. It was a very moving story. Ps Gan told me that he was really in slavery in Hinduism. They had many wild feasts at the place where the church now stands. Being a Hindu didn’t bring him any peace though. Many times he thought about committing suicide. In Kathmandu, he was given a tract. This pointed him to Jesus. He did become a Christian and started a small fellowship at his home. After they killed a cow, he was arrested and charged with this "crime". However the charge wouldn’t stick, so they decided to charge him with changing his religion, which was illegal in the Hindu Kingdom of Nepal. He spent 11 months in jail before he was finally released. Now his small fellowship has 500 members and they have planted 13 other churches.
Ps Lok had also a very moving testimony. The thing that sticks out in my mind is that he started a church and they locked him and the other believers in the church for 3 days without food or water. They finally let them out, giving the pastor a beating and throwing him in a river.
That didn’t deter him. He is now responsible of more than 100 (newly planted) churches.
In the afternoon session, I had planned just to say a few words about being a son of God, but went on to speak about rejection. I then taught about the baptism in the spirit. The people were very open and we had a good time of ministry at the end of the session.

Tuesday, 20th March 2007
The seminar yesterday went well. People were filled with the Spirit and there was a general sense of encouragement.
Besides talking about the baptism in the spirit - which they all seemed to understand - I spoke about the need of having fathers and mothers in the church.
I finished off with a word about stirring up the gift of God that is within you.
At the moment I am writing this, we are preparing to leave (walking). However it seems we won’t be leaving for another couple of hours, as they want to give us something substantial to eat for the journey.

We left at 10.30am and were back at our night accommodation at 2.30pm. I did it in just under 4 hours!
The views were magnificent on the way. As we proceeded down the first mountain, my legs were very shaky, but as we continued, they got used to the hard work. We went up and down. Coming back there seemed to be much more up than down!
Actually, I am sure it was doing me good. After resting a little while at our destination, my legs would hardly move, so I went to have a lie down. After that, I went to wash my feet! That was something I hadn’t been able to do for the past four days.