What now?

Well, our 4-month 'adventure' is over and we arrived back safe and sound, even though one of us took the opposite route home through Thailand, while the rest of us travelled through Bahrain and London transporting our Nepali 'street' dog, Maya, who has now become part of our family.


To tell you the truth, none of us really wanted to leave Nepal and return home to Canada, even with the sporadic water supply, frequent power outages, garbage-strewn streets and permeating pollution in the air. It's the people whom we grew to love that we missed already even before we left. They became part of us and we them as our lives inter-twined, suffering the lack of water with them, rejoicing when the rain came or when God filled the well, as well as seeing His regular answers to prayer - and learning from THEM how to really pray! What can we say? We left part of us back in Kathmandu.

But here we are back in Canada where it was so good to breathe fresh air, turn on the tap and get not only readily accessible water but HOT at that, enjoy the clean streets and see stop signs, street lights and lane markings! And no constant honking!

But alas, when I entered my super-clean house (thank-you, Kurt & Heather!) and went into our bedroom, the sight that greeted me actually made me somewhat angry. Even after all the yard sales we had last fall to raise money, my room is still full of stuff - stuff that requires my attention whether to clean it, dust under it, arrange it, find a place to put it. How is it that I managed to live without all this stuff over there? How come I never even missed it? And now I have to deal with it all. I felt annoyed and angry. My first thought was, "Okay, maybe we can do another yard sale and get rid of it." I mentioned it to the girls and their response was, "Yeah, I have stuff I want to get rid of, too." What, did we miss it last fall in the yard sales? Or have we learned to live with less? We are so rich here, so full, there is hardly room for God to move. In fact, my own spiritual walk took a tumble when we came back. Nobody's fault but my own. There just isn't room for God here, since our every need is taken care of by our efficient society. I need Him to help me re-focus, make time for Him in my busy-ness (you know the old adage: I owe, I owe, so off to work I go!'). We're thinking of having a Nepal night where we turn off our electricity (and maybe water?) and pray for our brothers and sisters over there. We never want to forget. May God keep changing us so that we don't regress here in our satiated country, and keep our other family close to our hearts as they live their simple lives. Who is really richer?