Outreach to the mountains

My experience in Gatlang was very refreshing. In almost every aspect: physically, spiritually and mentally. I found that I had a lot of spare time to myself to spend walking through the fields or up mountain paths in the mornings and evenings, just thinking, praying or singing and admiring the beauty surrounding me. It was very much like living a few hundred years ago… life there is very simple. We slept on the wood floor in the church room, with a fire hole in the middle, and the guys stayed outside in tents. Every morning, we would wake at the crack of dawn… no, it was before dawn because the sun was definitely not awake yet. Gatlang is a small village in the middle of a mountain which is somewhere in the Himalayas, so when the sun would come out you could just see it peaking over the top of the highest mountain and a couple minutes later, the rays would flood the whole area, very beautiful. We put up some pictures on facebook.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner were all cooked over the fire and we would occasionally get milk from one of the farmer's yaks, so we could have some nice white tea for breakfast. The people from the village were very attentive to everything that we did, so we would occasionally have a group of either kids or adults gathered together watching us cook and eat. There was one occasion when I was playing the guitar out behind the church on the ledge, and about 5 kids came and sat down- listening very intently. There's no TV or radio of any kind way out in Gatlang, they live very secluded lives, so I'm sure that listening to worship in another language was a new experience for all of them. I saw the potential in a young boy sitting beside me trying to copy my strumming as he watched and listened. Who knows but that God had His hand on this boy's life to mould him into a future worship leader. As I played I sung out a prayer over the boy's life. It excited me to see God's hand moving through the village.

A bunch of the youth gals and we three went into the village to visit a few of the believers' homes, for encouragement and fellowship. One of our youth, who was from the village, translated from Nepali and English into their native tongue, Tamang, they shared needs for prayer (ie. Sickness and we found out that many of the children with distended bellies had worms). We prayed in and outside peoples' homes, often in the view of non-believers. And let me tell you, praying with other Nepalis is not a mutter-under-your-breath kind of prayer…quite the opposite actually. This loud, passionate group of prayer warriors attracted a lot of attention in the middle of the village homes, many of whom then asked us to pray for them. We snatched up this opportunity to also witness to them and invite them to come up to the church- which ended up being a jam-packed final service on our last day there. It seemed like the entire village had come. After talking with Shem Dai, we found out that they had been praying about this mission's trip to Gatlang for 4 years. How exciting that we got to partner with them in furthering God's kingdom into Gatlang!
(posted by Alana)