Jesus Purse (Pokhara)

After Birtamod we headed to Pokhara. We actually flew from Birtamod to Kathmandu in a small airplane, the flight took 45min. if we would have taken a bus it would have taken about 17 hours, which should tell you something about the roads here in Nepal (hint: they are the worst roads I have ever been on). The flight was pretty safe, I was able to do some homework, get some complimentary coffee and by happenstance see Mt. Everest from the air, so I was pretty happy. We then took a private van to Pokhara which is about 6 hours to the West of Kathmandu. In Pokhara we worked with another YWAM base and helped out with their slum kids, street kids feeding program and men’s drug rehab center fellowship time as well as general work on the base. One highlight for me was working with the street kids. These were all boys who for various reasons had to live on the street. Once a week a Christian man named Ram would feed them, give them a place to clean up and provide basic health care for them.

These boys are constantly getting in fights with other street gangs and it is good for them to come and have a safe place to hang out. Some of them came to the place high. They sniff glue to forget the bad things that happen to them as well as to get rid of hunger pains. We came to show them love and hang out with them and to give them basic lessons on Christian living, such as how to treat each other with love in the proper ways. I couldn’t help but fall in love with all of them. If it was legal and if I had the money I would have adopted them all in a heartbeat. God really just showed me how to love them as he does.

Later in the week we had a free day. In Pokhara there is a beautiful lake where a bunch of hippies live and tourists go to spend money. We went to look at the lake and get some actual coffee. I walked pass a place where they sold these amazing bags made from water buffalo hide, I gave in and bought one (they were super cheap). I was shopping with two others from my team; Lise and Cody, Lise handed the woman, that we shall call Sandy, a gospel tract as we were leaving she said “oh your Christians?” we all looked at each other, turned around and went back in the store. We ended up talking to Sandy for about an hour about God and Jesus. She had many questions for us and we were only too happy to answer them for her. Some of her last questions centered around how to pray and how can she feel God’s love and joy. We prayed for her and her family and left her with a Nepali New Testament that she immediately started reading. When we left she didn’t become a Christian but I am confident that she will soon as well as her family (she lives next to a Christian!). She assured us that she would practice praying to God and would be reading the bible whenever she could, she also promised to ask her neighbor about God and maybe even go to church with her, we promised to pray for her. As a result I called my new bag the ‘Jesus purse’, as you can imagine the three of us were pretty excited about the day and we all decided it was our best day off so far. That night we thanked God for unexpected opportunities to talk about Him and asked for more like it.