Home Life

Bidan here is my unofficial sidekick: he follows me everywhere I go, offering to carry my backpack,throw away my trash, chew my food for me, etc. We constantly play this game where we make angry faces and ask each other, "Brother, why are you looking so serious?" The first person to crack a smile or laugh gets bodyslammed, or in my case, bearhugged. I like this picture because a) I was actually able to catch the ping pong ball in flight for once, and b) because Bidan's facial expression gives the impression that his life is in mortal danger if he doesn't complete this serve. Bidan, I love you little buddy!


Om Prakesh seems to have descended from one of two ethnic backgrounds: elvish, of the North Pole variety, or Marvin the Martian. He is the most excitable child I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Om Prakesh goes wild over just about anything and everything: Power Rangers, Rey Mysterio Jr., Nepal, America, global warming, giraffes, Noam Chomsky...you get the point. At first, I thought that Om might suffer from ADD, but I quickly realized that God has seen fit to award him with an overabundance of joy. He is in love with life! It's such a great feeling to play with Om, because his spirit forces you to come alive: I'm almost 25 years old, but Om makes me believe that there is a good possibility that I am, in fact, the Green Ranger.


Sushil and I got the opportunity to bond over an afternoon spent in town getting his glasses fixed: he had a run-in with a school bus that cracked one of the lenses, and I took him into Patan to see about getting it replaced after my ankle finally healed. Sushil and I both share the same prescription, so we've now taken to sharing the glasses whenever he's at home so that I can see the Himalayan mountains when it's clear in the morning. Sushil became a Christian seven years ago and was nearly disowned by his family in the process. Soon after Sushil's conversion, his sister accepted Jesus as well, and the two began to pray that their parents would recant their Hindu culture and join them as brothers and sisters in the Lord. After six years of constant prayer and tearful visits to home, Sushil's parents received Christ this last spring and have begun to share the gospel with the rest of their small village. CWC's ministry reaches outside the walls and the Kathmandu valley, all because Sushil remained faithful in his hope for the salvation of his family.

P.S. I'm really proud of how cool this picture turned out. In light of my pride post, feel free to e-buke for bragging about my l33t B&W photography skills. Rawr.


Look, I know how to hold a baby! We've been taking care of Rita here for the last month as she awaits the finalization of her adoption by a Spanish couple. I had honestly never held a baby before until this moment, but in the last few weeks, I've become somewhat of a professional. Rita almost never cries, and is always smiling and laughing; she sticks her tongue out a lot, which is a good sign, unless that tongue waggle is followed thereafter by a cascade of baby throw-up. I haven't mustered the courage to change a diaper yet, but there's hope for the future: Rina's baby is due in mid-February, meaning that I'll plenty of opportunities to practice my poo-wiping skills in the months to come. 

Boys Night Out II: The Revenge

OK, so these pictures are a little outdated, i.e. third week of November, but I could hoarde them all for myself, right? So I'm opening my heart, and my hard drive, and sharing some a little Nepali joy. Jason and I have taken two groups of the older boys out to dinner: Jason posted photos from our first Boys Night Out (the imfamous Lips Dance Restaurant Incident), so it's my duty and pleasure to bring you Boys Night Out Part Deux.

This time around, we hit up a little place called Jazoo's in Jalwalkhel, which is basically referred to as the "Whitie District" by the Nepali locals: the vast majority of the neighborhood's population is comprised of Westerners working for national NGOs, or Westerners pretending to work for national NGOs. I love meeting fellow crackers who refuse to tell what they're doing in Nepal or who they're here with, especially the ones who glance back and forth nervously when I engage them in personal conversation.

Anyway, Jazoo's right? Most of the boys, aged 13 to 15 this time around, spent more time in the bathroom trying to spike their hair up with water for Glamour Shots than they did around the table with Jason and I, but we had fun anyway. I was nursing my ankle pilo at the time, but a Coke and 4 extra-strength Tylenols gave me back my precious, precious smile. I tried to teach the boys how to play the Sculpture Game (if you've ever been a camp counselor before, well, you get the idea...), but alas, my puny mind games were no match for the Hindi music videos playing on TV. Jason smuggled in some brownies from the German bakery downstairs (it's called Makoo's...what's the deal with all the restaurants ending in -oo?) for dessert to satiate his sweettooth. Dinner for 15 guys was AGAIN under $50, so for those of you who are in need of financial planning, send me an email; we'll work a budget out for you.


From left to right, this is Sagar (a.k.a. Big Sugar), the Bear (complete with short-lived Ben Casey facial hair), Kumar, and Surya. Keep Sagar in your prayers: shortly after Jason and I arrived in Nepal, Sagar developed a nervous disorder in his right hand that kept him from being able to completely straighten out his fingers. When Rina took him to see a doctor, tests revealed that he is in the early stages of leprosy. He's received treatment that is impeding the spread of the disease, but leprosy is highly contagious via contact of skin or bodily fluids, so literally everybody in CWC (Jason and I included) could potentially contract it. I'm determined not to treat Sagar any differently, mainly because I still can't beat him at ping pong after three months, but it's scary to think of what could potentially happen to Sagar or any of the other orphans, and the question of quarantining a child in a leper colony is not one I'm ready to face.


Once again, left to right: Ghalsang, Prokash, and Roshan. Ghalsang, is without a doubt, the funniest kid in the hostel; he and Jason engage each other in rap battles on the walk to school, and he's mastered the art of competitive name-calling (Chimpanzee Brother is my favorite). Prokash is relatively quiet, but very physically affectionate when he's not busy at the dart board Jason and I bought at the Kathmandu Mall. On this particular night, I was really impressed with Prokash's kind spirit: he could've had anything off the menu, but he chose to eat momos (a really cheap Nepali snack--fried dumplings with meat inside them), and when they finally came, Prokash ate one and shared the rest with his friends. I got him another order and he did the same thing, refusing to eat part of anybody else's meal; what a servant's heart... As for Roshan, well, this is the most animated you'll ever see him, as he normally sleeps for 16 hours a day.


See, I told you Ghalsang was a goofball. Here, he unwittingly does his best "offensive Jerry Lewis" impression. The glasses were formerly filled with banana lassis, a sweet foamy drink that's really similar to a milkshake, save for the fact that it's made from curd. Mmmmm, sweet sweet curd... Just like mom used to never make. Ever.


Everybody wanted their picture taken with this fish tank, though I'm not really sure why. Ishor, pictured here, is actually 17, but missed out on the meal last time we took the older boys out, so Jason and I invited him along and let him order basically one of everything on the menu. Well, actually, Jason just told him that as a joke, but Ishor took him seriously and ate four plates of food. Ishor comes from a small village in the countryside, and according to what he told Jason, became a Christian after missionaries visiting his home cast out demons that had been wailing in the countryside. 

Sleeping Bear, Sault Saint Marie

Hibernation and honeymoons, like all good things that include massive amounts of sleeping and the appropriate gruntings, must come to an end. And thus, I break my three week silence.

Shocked to see an update? I’m rather shocked to be typing it, personally. I’ll give you a moment to still the beating of your hearts, waiting for the color to return to your cheeks while you curse me for the burning hot mocha you just spilled on your blouse (Dad, you wear blouses?). More than likely, many of you have been eagerly awaiting some sort of eulogy by Jason commemorating my life and times, a video montage of my greatest moments with the proper Boyz II Men accompaniment. Alas, I've disappointed you. My return marks the release of the Playstation 3, heralds peace with Maoists, and boasts of an end to the massive amounts of Nepali illnesses I've been battling throughout the last three weeks.

In all truth, it’s been a struggle to coerce myself into sitting at my laptop long enough to write anything worth reading; November has been a constant battle with my physical health, my heart, and my pride. Don't worry, all will hopefully be explained by the end of this post, but it may take some time. Fortunately, that's a luxury that I have in plenty.

Let me preface this update with a pretty obvious, but recent and penetrating truth that has been revealed to me: I am a prideful, arrogant, cocky, willful lover of self. I've always had, as Chris Thile sings, "an appetite for my own myth." This "mythos of Jordan," if you will, was something I worked hard to establish as a college student, and even harder to perpetuate as I entered the adult world. My exploits, from being pulled over by four cop cars for allegedly robbing Casa Taco, to a near-death experience giving plasma, were offered up to my tiny immediate world in such a way that it became my hope that I would become important enough to enter the realm of urban legend. I allowed this, and of course preferred it, because it gave me the opportunity to be known by my stories rather than my character. It is, after all, much easier to cultivate a story than a relationship (and a lot less stressful). So, I circulated my life as opposed to sharing it with people, and in the process, I fell in love with myself.

Pride is the wellspring of all sorts of other forms of personal desolation, and as I'm finding out, it’s the source of a vast amount of various forms of sin in my life. In my flawed thinking, I'm too strong, too smart, too witty, too cultured, too pious, too good to succumb to the pettiness of sin. I’m above lust, deception, idolatry, bigotism, prejudice, and condemnation. I know better than my parents, better than my friends, better than you who read these words of mine, better than God himself, in matters of decisions to be made about the direction of my life, how to spend my money, how to live, how to love, matters of politics, popular culture, and classical Russian architecture.... You name it, and in my mind and my heart, I secretly believe that I'm better than you at it. And even if I'm not better than you, there's something about me that makes me conveniently more interesting or exciting than you. And the truth of it is? I'm nothing, aside from what God chooses to make of me, other than skilled at the careful elaboration of clever adjectives, and lucky enough to get attacked with bricks in a mini-bus.

Part of the reason I came to Nepal was that I wanted desperately to distance myself from the sickness in my heart; I was tired of trying to be liked by everyone and known by no one. I can count my good friends on one hand, and I've hated myself for being unsatisfied with that. I was tired of finding my identity in the contents of my iPod and my wall of DVDs, tired of living through stories about me rather than living in fellowship with the people they were told to, and tired of feeling that I had to invoke the guise of somebody I only happened to be in random situations in order to feel like I mattered to anybody. Sound familiar? That's because it’s the basic premise of Saved by the Bell: ordinary kids who only matter because of the fantastical events taking place around them. Seriously, who ever went to a high school where oil well sprung up on the football field? I graduated with Amy Lee from Evanescence, but she at least had the talent and presence of mind not to write something as awful as “Friends Forever (Friends Until the End).” Zak Attack, may you rest in peace.

So here I am in Nepal, my net worth held within the fabric of a massive backpack that doesn't even belong to me (thanks again Twood!), hoping and believing that I will no longer suffer under the weight of the sin of pride. And wouldn't you know it, the forces set against me know exactly how to spring that trap again. When I stepped off the plane in Kathmandu, I found my strength in the wellspring of support and love given to me by my family, friends, my church, former co-workers, and even complete strangers. I relied on this blog to give me a creative outlet, a source of sharing and a "little" (ahem) venting, and a means of staying at least somewhat American for nine months. I was in desperate need of the grace of children, and so I also relied on the orphans of CWC to help my heart heal and my mind mature. And in my reliance on these things, instead of God, pride didn't just keep its foothold; it gained strength and momentum.

I started receiving emails from both friends and strangers that, while meaning to be encouraging in nature, mainly communicated a solitary message: "I heard about what you're doing, and I just wanted you to know that that's awesome, and you are so good for doing it." Sounds ridiculous...just emails, right? Well, what if you start getting 30 of them a week? What if 50 orphans lavish you with compliments about how attractive you are in your sunglasses and Puma jacket ("Ohhhhh Jordan brother, you are soooooo handsome today!") for 24 hours a day? What if the rather large local newspaper in your home state publishes an editorial about orphanages and quotes a portion of an article you'd written in the same paragraph as some info about Madonna? What if you notice that your blog gets 400 hits in a week, with multiple compliments about how great of a writer you are (by the way, you don't have to stop telling me that)? What if you start believing all these messages about yourself? I did.

If anything else, it becomes easier to orchestrate popular belief about yourself if the only way anybody can keep up with you is by reading your Internet rantings; you simply share the good parts and omit the bad. I tried to avoid this by sharing both successes and failures, but in doing so, I mainly just found myself repeating a refrain of, "I'm so honest about my mistakes, I'm so good at being transparent with you, please just love me anyway" So I become either so prideful that I omit my failures, or so prideful that I practice false humility. Hence my struggle in being an unbiased journalist: the topic of me is the one in which I am the most biased! How can I not have an opinion about myself? Everything I write, everything I offer to you, is then both truth and a desired and fostered belief that I wish for you to hold about me. And if I don't like part of it...well, I control what falls under the backspace guillotine.

My struggle is then twofold: the yearning to tell you what’s happening with us here in Nepal so that you’ll pray for me (and admire me), versus keeping goings on to myself and depriving you of information, and in the process both starving my insatiable thirst for recognition and stifling my need for spiritual support from across the Pacific. So pray for my heart right now; I’m healing, but it’s a lengthy process. I stare at Microsoft Word and yearn to spew out multiple articles because I love to write and I love you, but I can’t will myself to do it when the subject of Jordan keeps supplanting the subject of God and His glory. I’m tired of inserting myself as the main character in a meta-narrative that isn’t about me, and I’m tired of dumping all my problems onto Blogger and letting you sort through them for me whilst assorted Nepali orphans yank on my bhoka dhari (goatee).

I'm not the first missionary to struggle with the aspect of loving myself for and because of the work I'm doing, and I most assuredly won't be the last; but missions is not an occupation for the prideful, and it is not the glamorous trench fight that we envision it to be. This life is hard, the stakes are heavy, and the environment is hostile. If you watch war movies even semi-regularly, you’ll notice that soldiers rarely stop in the middle of an intense battle to admire their medals or count out on their fingers how many of the opposition they’ve gunned down; most of them are too busy crawling on their bellies, praying against shrapnel wounds, gunfire, and the occasional leech bite. I’ve lived with two Marines, and I think both of them would agree that if you have time to stop and admire the battlefield, you’re either a megalomaniac or eager to get shot in the head.

I'm learning one of those lessons that you assume to know, but don't understand until you're in the field, getting your teeth kicked in: ministry, like an orchard, takes more than effort to produce fruit. Apple trees need years to mature until they reach a fruit-producing stage, and likewise, nine months, much less two, on foreign soil is barely grazing the top layer. This doesn't mean that there's no work to be done during those early seasons leading up to the initial harvest, but I, in the futility of my thinking, honestly believed in the depths of my heart that I would step off the plane in Kathmandu and be horded by a throng of wailing, garment-rending Nepalis desperate for a young American to tell them "'bout that Jesus!" With my mouth, I profess wanting to be a forgotten but God-fearing laborer, but in my heart, I yearn to be a John Elliot or a Hudson Taylor; nobody publishes the journals or writings of a forgotten soul in a forgotten orphanage in an unknown country. So shame on me...

So, you’re thinking, “Great, I appreciate all of what you’ve shared Mr. Bear, but in spite of that, where the heck have you been for the last three weeks? Why haven’t you at least posted a quick update letting us know what’s going on in the orphanage? Why can’t you communicate more succinctly?” Well, I really can’t inform you as to what’s been going on in the orphanage because I’ve barely been involved in it for the majority of November. I’ve been either bedridden or temporarily crippled for nearly all of the last three weeks. So much for “no news is good news,” right?

The first weekend of the month (Nov. 3-5), I was sidelined with a stomach flu that kept me in bed with a fever and minor delusions, due in part to the fact that I fell asleep watching A Scanner Darkly. I took some meds, got some rest, and by mid-week was feeling good enough to resume normal life. No worries, right? Flu is seasonal, and I usually get it bad enough once a year to stick me in bed for a day or two. So while I was terribly frustrated that I couldn’t spend any time with the kids in their first weekend back from holiday, I made do with the situation.

The following Saturday morning (Nov. 11), I got really nauseated while eating breakfast, enough that I trashed my peanut butter toast and wandered around on the roof for a half-hour to get some fresh air in my lungs. I went back downstairs to read in my room for a couple minutes, but the nausea came back even worse, and I was overwhelmed with the urge to poop. To spare you the details, I literally spent the entire day in the bathroom; I counted 17 trips to the beloved squattie potty. I fought diarrhea up until about five in the evening, when my temperature shot up to 102 and I passed out in my sleeping bag. I woke up a few times to throw up, and I recall watching the Scooby Doo movie on my laptop; in my weakest moment, I cried at the scene where Shaggy gives Scoob the “you’re my best friend in the whole wide world and I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, so let’s run away before the gigantic Scrappy Doo monster devours our souls” speech. I get emotional when I’m sick.

I stayed in bed all of Sunday, hiding from the sun and from food; for some reason, whenever I get sick, I adhere to a “starve a fever, and while you’re at it, starve everything else just to make certain” philosophy. When Rina found out that I hadn’t eaten in 48 hours the following morning, I discovered exactly what a furious and irrational pregnant woman looks and sounds like. She tossed me in the car and made me go to the international hospital in Thammel. For those who know me well, this is a drastic measure: I HATE going to the doctor, partially out of a fear of being naked in front of a stranger, and partially because I always expect to find out that I’ve somehow contracted HIV or bubonic plague via impossible means. At this point, I was too weak and too tired to argue, though Rina did enjoy scaring me with AIDS stories on the way into the city. (“No Jordan, seriously, my friend, I know this guy, and he got a note on an airplane that said ‘Welcome to the World of AIDS.’ And he died. Of AIDS.”)

The hospital visit turned out to be fine; in fact, the only difficulty I had to endure was providing a stool sample for the hospital lab with no food in my stomach. My doctor, an endearing Israeli pilgrim, told me I had a bacterial infection in my small intestine that had probably come from eating undercooked food (gasp! Here? In Nepal?). Her prescription: take Ciprofloxacin, which I had already stocked up before leaving Arkinsaw, to counteract the infection. The only unnerving news she had for me was that my weight had dropped to 156 lbs—meaning that I’ve lost 20 lbs since I boarded a flight out of Fayetteville, 12 lbs of which had been shed over the course of two days. I don’t mind a shrinking waistline, but hearing of rapid weight loss like that scared the crap out of me.

Thus far, pretty standard stuff right? Go to East Asia, eat the private parts of a goat, get a stomach illness; seems pretty straightforward to me. So one would assume that pooping out a dozen pounds is punishment enough for one week, and anything above and beyond that would fall into the range of cruel and unusual (but humorous) punishment. And I am such a glutton for the cruel and unusual…

The morning after my hospital visit, I woke up with little bites all over my butt, and two big ones on the inside of my right thigh and my right ankle. They were a little itchy, and the bigger ones had a little red “eye” in their respective centers, leading me to believe that they were spider bites. Believe it or not, I was actually excited to think that I had been ravaged in my sleeping bag by a crab spider in my sleep, as it gave me the opportunity to write about the continuation of our battle with the wretched beasts. By Friday morning, my ankle had swollen up to the size of a golf ball and was oozing like…like…like something gross and oozy. I bought some medicine from a pharmacy in Kathmandu for spider bites, skeptical of its plausibility as a cure given that the pharmacy was run by a 13-year-old boy—no changes by Sunday night, and the swelling was even bigger, now nearly the size of a tennis ball. It is at this point that I am beginning to think that I may not have run afoul of some sinister arachnid after all, but by no means am I willing to make a second hospital trip in one week.

I asked around to all the kids in the orphanage, and sure enough, they knew what I had: pilo, popularly referred to in the U.S. as an abscess. For those who don’t what an abscess is, it happens to be yet another bacterial infection, this type being of the skin—circulated by unclean drinking water, utterly preventable and utterly painful. I popped the pilo on my thigh and doused it in antibiotic cream, but my ankle refused to respond to medicines and hurt so badly that I couldn’t walk come Monday morning (Nov. 20). I took some pictures, but most of them are too gross to post on here, plus I’d prefer to keep the few readers I still have. See, I do have a heart!

So here I am, physically weakened from one bacteria in my stomach, and crippled by another in my ankle. Leave it to Nepali orphans to save my foot. Birendra told me he’d had a pilo in each of his knees right before Jason and I arrived in Nepal, and he offered to make me a special local medicine that he swore would heal it overnight. I wasn’t in much of a position to refuse treatment, so I told Birendra to bring it on. And his solution? A poultice made out of a black mountain spice that is commonly ground up and mixed with fermented rice to make Nepali whiskey. We fixed up a little bandage out of our whiskey cream and some toilet paper, and behold! Within hours, my foot was rapidly shrinking, and my pilo turned into the Mt. Vesuvius of skin wounds. The little bacterial eye is still in my ankle, but it’s on the verge of popping out, and more importantly, I can run and jump and kick and dance and skydive again. Praise Jesus! Praise Nepali whiskey!

Thus is the end of my battle with mysterious Nepali diseases. I ask you to pray for my health and my immune system fervently, as it seems to be the main nature of the spiritual attack against my person here. Jason has routinely struggled with financial concerns (email him at jboxhayes@gmail.com and ask him what he thinks of Nepali bicycles for a good laugh), and I’ve been stuck in bed for three of the last four weeks. I find myself frustrated with God a lot, questioning why I’ve been brought here if it’s just to lie in bed, watching bits of DVDs on my computer in-between trips to the bathroom. I have honestly considered caving in and rebooking my plane tickets to come back home, but the fear of failure and the expectation that God has greater plans in store if I remain faithful have kept me in line.

It is difficult to justify calling myself a missionary when I can’t even get of my sleeping bag to visit with the children I was called to this country to minister to, but in my darkest of times, I remember my discipler and spiritual father, “Pedro.” Pedro and his family moved to another East Asian country several years ago to faithfully follow a calling that had been tugging on their hearts for nearly 10 years, and it did not go smoothly. Life was dark, painful, and lonely for Pedro and his family for their first two years abroad, filled to excess with struggles against the forces set against them. In the spring of 2005, Pedro was stricken with a mystery disease that went undiagnosed by multiple doctors in multiple hospitals in multiple cities.

Pedro and his wife were terrified that his life was in danger, and no specialist they visited could give them any answers as to the sickness that thrived within his body. Their prayer letters were heartfelt and moving, crying out for prayer support from friends and family, but they were lacking in fear: Pedro and his wife had supreme confidence that God was their savior, their comfort, and their sovereign protector, and they would never be forsaken by Him. I was both shocked and overjoyed then on the day that I received an email update proclaiming that Pedro had been healed completely, almost as quickly as he had taken sick. God has since honored Pedro’s faithfulness, as he continued to minister even in the midst of his search for treatment, and today, his ministry in East Asia has begun to thrive—I receive weekly updates of multiple brothers and sisters being born into faith in Christ through the ministry team he now leads.

So I end all the crap in this post with joy and peace. I am imperfect, I am impatient, and I am incapable, but God has brought me to Nepal in spite of, and perhaps because of these things. My heart is mending, my body is healing, and I am maturing in my faith despite my struggles and my complaints. With Thanksgiving behind us (and I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday!), we have begun preparations for Christmas: putting up decorations and lights in the orphanage, teaching carols during devotional time each evening, writing letters to Santa, and so forth. Jason helped set up an Angel Tree collection with his family back in Arkansas, and through the help of his church and family, we’ve managed to raise nearly $3000 to spend on winter coats and Christmas gifts for the children! Praise be to God, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual (and financial) blessing in Christ! The kids have asked me to help them organize a nativity drama for them to perform at their church on Christmas morning, so I’ve got my hands full finding a way to fit 50 kids into a manger, though the movie Love Actually did give me some ideas—apparently both Spiderman and an octopus were present at the birth of Christ.

I apologize if the nature of this article seemed to be a downer, but please don’t take it as such; I’ve had a hard month, but God has remained merciful to me in the midst of my weakness. As my strength is returning, so too is a larger measure of faith, and I will not cease to proclaim the goodness and glory of God the Father, even with pilo peeking out of my ankle. I’ll give a more cheerful and in-depth update of goings-on within the next few days, as well as a response to those of you who emailed me to celebrate the Nepali government signing a peace treaty with the Maoists last week. Thanks for reading, for sticking with me, and for not emailing me trivial Razorback updates. I leave you with your final Nepali language lesson for the week: Jai Masih, which means “Praise the Lord.” Impress your friends…

And yet again...

This is my backyard...impressive huh?


Durbar Square (Patan) at dusk


A villager, having trekked to Kathmandu for Desai,
appeasing the monkey deity, Hanuman


Jason posing with a "holy man"
(quotes added for sarcastic effect)
Notice who's skulking in the background...

 

Look mom, I've lost weight!

And yet more photos, mainly for the sake of taking up what was formerly black space...

A big hug for Rajesh, who is either camera shy or comatose

Top: Manesh (Muh-neese), Rohan
Middle:The Bear, Porkash (Pork-oss)
Bottom: Ishor (Eee-sore), Dinesh (Dee-ness), Nabin, Lokendra

Rina and her husband Santosh,
posing while I ignorantly sort through shooting modes

Birendra, doing his impression of Mos Def
(Jason doesn't see it, but c'mon, the resemblance is there)

 

"And Shadowfax shall show her the meaning of haste"

Ok, so admittedly, the title has nothing to do with today's post, but I just finished reading Return of the King, and that's positively one of my favorite quotes from the entire series. Maybe a good song title for Sufjan as well, if he ever finishes with all 50 states and moves onto mythical realms. Regardless, since I have at last finished the series for the umpteenth time, I make you this vow: no more LOTR (ROTK? Twood?) references for at least a month. My apologies to Kent Hodskins.

I'm still trying to figure out the best means of posting pics with our incredibly slow Internet here, contemplating the joys of Flickr and trying unsuccessfully to download Picasa, which I hear gives you a quicker upload time here on Blogger. As it is, it takes nearly 20 minutes to upload one teeny photo of anything on here, so bear with me (not a bear pun again, I know...sorry). Anybody with any suggestions should email me at jordan.greenwald@gmail.com; your input is most appreciated.

Business side of things over and done with!

I had a great weekend, as is usually the case unless I am hunched, weepy-eyed and shuddering, over my beloved squattie potty. No such disaster as of recently however. Having at last gotten over my third Nepali cold, I took Saturday morning off from wading in my velvet orphaned sea to go on a prayer jaunt/stroll/trek through some of the local villages. Before leaving the States, Mike Compton (my Barnes and Noble Elijah) happened to give me a metallic prayer guide that has taken up permanent residency in my wallet; as I sauntered through unfamiliar territory, I spent some time praying over the spiritual darkness that I had been encountering in its various aspects.

Prayer walking in Godavari and Budhakel, the composite villages that comprise CWC’s locale here in the southern Kathmandu Valley, is no easy task, what with my being a rather auspicious white American. Having been in town for nearly two months now, one would presuppose that Jason and I would at last no longer be cultural oddities here, but such thinking is only pseudo-true. There are those in Godavari that view us as having become part of the local community, such as Shavir, a café owner who supplies me with Mountain Dew, and “Uncle Sam,” an older man who stops Jason at least once a week to recruit him to come aid in the building of a hospital. I must not look physically imposing enough, as Uncle Sam has never asked me much of anything other than, “Where is your tall friend?” As if I wanted to build a hospital anyway. Jerk…

However, most of the locals still view us with curiosity and a certain measure of contempt: interesting enough to mock and laugh at, but not so much that they will bother to pursue conversation beyond casual greetings, which are often followed by a joke at our expense and a roar of Nepali laughter. Factor in our being followed by throngs of schoolchildren who yell “Hello!” only to giggle and run away when you respond (I know Hirschy, you warned me, you warned me…), and getting some time alone becomes next to impossible. I’ve toyed with the idea of pepper spray, but then I’d be a mean stupid fat American. The Brett Harkey Game remains a good diversionary tactic, so Brett, I apologize in advance if you in fact decide to visit Nepal, and find that you already have a reputation of being an elusive scamp here. I promise not to mangle anybody in your name, scout dropout’s honor.

Anyway, I wandered about 5 miles away from home along a road running southwest parallel to the river until at last my patience and the pavement ran out. I crept off the pathway and through some brush, discovered a small stream where many of the Budhakel villagers go to bathe and do laundry. I took a seat on the bank and spent a good hour in some much-needed prayer, contemplating the nature of my ministry here and lamenting my failures in a broken relationship with someone I miss dearly (Alex Trebek, if you’re going to get that nosy). I thought I was alone, so I spent some time singing praise songs, the lyrics of old worship favorites from high school such as “Refuge” and “Use Me” seeping back into my heart, and finding that I really meant the lyrics. So I cried, a lot, and kept singing. And then noticed the four naked children who had been bathing around the bend of the stream the entire time I’d been sitting there. Awk-ward.

Public nudity is a perfect catalyst for the cessation of vocal worship (and this may very well be the funniest sentence I’ve ever taken the pleasure of writing, so cherish it). Thus, I wiped my face, pulled out my journal, and spent some more good time putting my thoughts for the morning down on paper. A woman and her two daughters approached while I was writing, settling further upstream to wash their clothes in a shallow pool, and I took the liberty of snapping a few photos while I prayed over them. This one just happened to be my favorite:


So why is this the first photo I’ve posted here in my blog? Because this tiny family was beautiful to me. Because they broke my heart. And because they are a perfect representation of the entirety of Nepal’s people to the American Church: small, poor, oppressed by government and political extremists, fragile, compassionate, graceful, fearful, and utterly lost. My being at that stream may have been the only opportunity this woman and her tiny precious daughters may ever have to hear the message of salvation set forth in the gospel, and I lacked the language skills to communicate how much the God of Jesus Christ loves them. It was the first time the sheer inadequacy of my ability to share the gospel via anything other than actions was really made clear to me, and I do the moment no justice in saying that I wept bitterly over my circumstances. So do be so kind as to pray for Jason and I in our feeble attempts at language acquisition, so that the children whom God chooses to change through our ministry here in Nepal would mature into bold, passionate believers who pursue evangelism without ceasing. Because I happen to suck at it.

Jason spent the afternoon being tutored in the ways of rice harvestry with some of the old boys, and in turn taught them how to throw knives in the style of Indiana Jones. Granted, I don’t really recall ever seeing Indy throw a knife at anybody, but c’mon…if anybody would, it’s him, right? The entire process is a tiring one, as the entire field has to be cut at the root via scythe, after which the individual grains of rice must be separated from the husk (is that what rice grows on?). Most farms in America have a big threshing machine to do the work for them, but not the Nepali: they throw all the rice stalks onto a tarp and then beat the living crap out of them with a big flat rock. Since the vast majority of Nepali don’t own vehicles, transportation of the rice back home is a back-breaker, in the literal sense, as well; the rice is filtered into 50 pound bags and then carried on the back with a contraption resembling a papoose (remember 3rd grade history class come Thanksgiving time?) that is held in place by a strap bound around the forehead. So imagine carrying 150 pounds of rice held in place by leather wrapped around your precious face, and say a little pray for the Nepali farmer next time to you enjoy Uncle Ben’s.

The boys finished the entire field in the span of two afternoons, so as you can imagine, they were completely physically spent by the end of the day. So what better way to celebrate than a feast? Jason and I had been rudimentarily planning a means of getting to hang out one-on-one with the older boys outside of the orphanage for a few weeks, so we decided to honor their hard work by taking them out to dinner and a Saturday night on the town. Rina agreed to take us into Kathmandu for the night, so we miraculously crammed 10 grown men into the beloved Gypsy, which seats four comfortably, and headed into Thammel.

Jason has graciously permitted me to tell this portion of the evening’s story for myself, and for that, I give him a massive praise of thanksgiving. Why? Very well, I shall tell you: I accidentally took our boys into a strip club. Not like a Hooters or anything, but a freaking strip club. Hear me out in my entirety before canceling your subscription to my blog. Please?

Rina took us to King’s Road, a strip of high-priced (for Nepal) shops and international restaurants aptly named for its proximity to the royal palace. Driving down the street, I saw a sign for “Lips Dancing Restaurant and Bar,” and knowing that a lot of the older guys really like dancing, I assumed that it was a restaurant with a dance floor. Being an Arkansan, whenever I see a billboard with a big set of lips on it, I think of country-western radio stations that sport “Trisha Yearwood Power Hours”; this is not the case in Nepal. Jason and I climbed the stairs up to the third story of the building as signs directed us, but a dark entranceway with a strobe effect coming from deeper inside threw us off; surely this could be it… The sign said it was a restaurant…

There were three Nepali women dressed nicely at the door beckoning us to come in, and when it was obvious that Jason and I were a little perturbed by the look of the exterior of the place, they goaded the guys to come in and take a seat. The guys had no qualms about going inside, so I figured things were safe and I followed them in. Whereupon I saw a woman in a bikini dancing next to a pole on a stage raised up above darkened tables covered in cloth napkins and fancy menus. Gurgle. Hard swallow. Burning of bile from a forthcoming vurp in the back of my throat. I have made a horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad mistake.

The guys all ran eagerly to a table in the front of a restaurant, thinking that I had revealed my true lecherous self. I made an effort to shield my eyes, running up front and grabbing everybody by their respective collars and doing my best to punt them back in the direction of the front door. The manager of the “dance restaurant” followed me out, yelling at me in broken Nepali and English, apparently upset that I am easily offended by half naked women who do not answer to Mrs. Jordan Greenwald. I fail to respond, as I am too busy following the boys and Jason, who is laughing hysterically at my ignorance, with my face in my hands, burning the neon red of a Budweiser sign.

We roam the block looking for a better place for another ten minutes, and I refuse to take part in the decision-making process due to my apparent tendency for choosing dining establishments of ill repute. And Nabin makes certain to make jokes at my expense for the rest of the evening, all the while planting subtle seeds that I should take him back to Lips in the near future. I officially hate Nabin at this point. But seriously, what kind of country allows a gentleman’s club to be built within a 30 second walk of the front gates of its royal palace?!?!

The night gets better, don’t worry. Jason and Umesh (CWC’s resident poet and cheater at cards) find a really sweet restaurant built around a massive tree that rises up out of the center of the building, providing a towering canopy and partial balcony. Half of the boys order pizza for the first time, and I end up giving impromptu lessons on the dos and don’ts of how to eat that first slice (“Do not dip your pizza in your glass of water like Rajesh here”). I settle for the same order as Sisan and Sushil: a half chicken smothered in Nepali barbecue sauce with steamed vegetables, homemade bread, and the obligatory side of fried rice. Birendra goes for the steak sizzler, as he has never tasted beef before; how this place sells such a meal in a country where eating a cow is punishable by a 20-year prison sentence, I do not know. We order a round of lassis, which are milkshakes made with curd, and the ever popular momos, dumplings filled with spices and meat or vegetables. For dessert, a few boys have milkshakes, while the majority order ice cream for the first time; Jason and I split a German cake resembling tiramisu and some sort of “pyramid cake,” both amazingly satisfying.

Umesh entertains us for the night with jokes, which he refuses to translate into English for the benefit of myself and the Jason. We fake our best rich American laughs, purposefully timing them before the jokes have reached their conclusion so we look like idiots, and before long, the entire table is in tears. This is easily the biggest meal I have had in nearly two months, and Sushil and I take the opportunity to puff our bellies out and impersonate pregnant sumo wrestlers. Dinesh spends the rest of the night asking me how my “chicken baby” is doing, and this apparently becomes the funniest thing CWC has ever heard, since I am still being pestered about it a week later. When the bill comes, Jason pulls the old “I don’t have my wallet, so I guess the meal is on Rajesh” gag, but forgets that this is the first time most of these guys have been taken out to a restaurant; Rajesh’s eyes get huge, and he starts sweating, innocently believing that he has just been made into an indentured servant by the empty plate of fried fish sitting in front of him.

Total cost for ten guys to eat a full course dinner, complete with appetizers and dessert, at one of Nepal’s finest restaurants? Fifty bucks. Unbelievable. So if you’re curious where your support money is going, eight orphaned teenagers got to go out and dine like kings (literally, I saw King Gyanendra’s photo and endorsement of the place on the wall), honored for their hard work and leadership. Money well spent, and easily the most enjoyable dinner I have been given the honor of hosting in a long time. The boys spent the entire car ride home thanking us profusely, save for the silent moments where we tried unsuccessfully to frighten a sleeping Birendra (think of that part in Out Cold when they put the drunk guy in the car and spin it around).

Life this week has returned to normalcy, as I can best place it. All of the children have returned from the holiday break at last, and school has officially reconvened; this of course means that Jason and I have to relearn faces and names, and I am besieged by an army of young boys who all want to wrestle with me and give me the infamous “Nepali Lock” (a swift crunch of the male reproductive organ…imagine my joy). With the kids being back in school, we get a lot more free time during the day that was formerly spent entertaining bored orphans. As a result, I’ve managed to read all the way through the copy of Superfudge I found in the CWC library, and halfway through Catch-22, which is turning out to be the funniest book I’ve never read. I’m listening to a lot of Wilco, a lot of Caedmon’s Call, and a smidgen of Red House Painters. I try to invest my free time in language studies and writing letters, but mostly just end up missing Fayetteville fall, family, and friends.

And this is where I leave you. Do be so kind as to email me and tell me about your Halloween costumes and/or parties; Jason and I dressed as American aid workers, but I don’t think anybody noticed. Pray for our hearts and for winter, which is quickly descending upon us. Pray for swift acquisition of the Nepali language, and that the younger boys would stop falsely teaching me cuss words as the names of plants and animals. Pray for the salvation of our 55 orphans, and for clarity of message as Jason and I begin to teach them a series on the creation of the earth in our evening devotions.

That’s it, the end. Stay classy America. I’m the bear? 

The Bear Crumbles Under Pressure

Due to the frequent demands of many a visitor to my blog, Gennie Davis in particular, I have indeed caved in and purchased a digital camera: the HP IXUS 65 to be exact. So for those of you who have continually addressed a desire to see what Nepal, and my emergent jawline, look like, I'll just be expecting a sizable donation of financial support in the near future. Or a nice email telling me how r0x0r5 I am.

You have my sincerest apology for the lack of photos over the last month. I "accidentally" packed my digital camera and left it in a box in storage befure leaving the States, electing to let Jason be my cub reporter/photographer for the duration of our international journey (get it? I'm the bear. Jason's the "cub? Get it? No, you suck). I'd be the mouth, and Jason would be the eyes. However, despite my totally 1337 writing skills (and complete lack of bias or journalistic integrity), sheer flair with language pales in comparison to visual stimuli. Or some such. Add to that Jason's camera being stolen by a former CWC orphan, and the posting of photos becomes an impossibility. Thus, we both purchased cameras just to err on the safe side; well, and I really wanted a nice one. In all honesty though, Jason, being the better bargainer given his past travels in Russia, probably got a better deal. Bah...

So coming in the very near future: photos, photos, and even longer, wordier posts. That's right. If I must be forced to empty my checking account for the sake of your living vicariously through my traipsing halfway across the world (how many verbs was that in one sentence), then I'm gonna make you pay for it with your lunch break. Imagine your own maniacal laughter here, as my throat hurts from tuk-tuk exhaust too much to provide sound effects at the moment. If my wordiness and prolonged Eggers-ian sentence structure was difficult to keep pace with before, then you best get yourself some Xanex. I'm going James Joyce from here on out: we're talking epic status, if in fact a visit to the Patan hospital for hepatitis innoculations can be described as such. Plan on seeing consistent and constant use of my favorite piece of punctuation, the ellipsis, in the near future...

Enjoy your respective mornings, afternoons, teatimes. I miss you all, but our separation is a pleasant one, in the eternal perspective. No Maoist attacks yet, but I doubt they've forgotten us, even though calendars are in short supply in their little forest shanties. Continue praying brothers, sisters, and assorted household pets. Bear out.

"You Can't Hide, Standing Under These Stars"

With the spirit of October beginning to wane, it has become official: I am pining for the oaken halls of Cain’s Ballroom. Apples, pumpkins, the trees of I-540, and the inevitable costume party at which my costume will fail to be recognized (Ashton Kutcher and Richie Tennenbaum both failed to register with anybody but the Twood the last two years): these are all but afterthoughts in light of how I yearn to hear Martin Sexton in person once again. For now, the hills of Godavari must continue to suffer under the anxiety that accompanies my off-key wailing of “When Paula Sparks Up,” the piano melodies of Billy Joel and Death Cab for Cutie echoing throughout a forgotten valley.

So it is that with falsetto somberness that I begin what is in fact my most joyous of updates since arriving in East Asia. No, Jason has not been devoured by a komodo dragon, though I do thank those of you who have in fact been praying fervently for just such an occurrence (I can think of one Dallas seminary student in particular). No outrageous events for the most part, at least in my opinion. No miraculous recovery of my beloved iPod, though it has started to drift in and out of lucidity now and again, reviving long enough to spurt bits and pieces of Counting Crows during the longer bus rides before slipping back into a comatose state.

No, my joy has been made complete because Jason and I have at last discovered a church here in Nepal; not just any church mind you, but one that has a service in English! I won’t lie, I was bored to tears in the Nepali church the children attend here. Sitting through a worship service given in a foreign tongue is fascinating enough as long as it remains an isolated event; prolonged exposure to hour-long sermons in routine fashion becomes an exercise in tedium. I found myself harkening back to my elementary days in the back of the First Baptist sanctuary with my parents, chewing on my sweater collar and reading “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” while the adults nodded along with Brother John. In my confusion over whether the pastor was teaching out of Zechariah or Redbook, a desire to play with my mother’s car keys or watch band began to simmer in the depths of my soul. After several weeks of not attending a worship service, period, and living my community out through isolated rooftop worship sessions and a library worth of mp3 sermons, I was about read to admit defeat, resigned to being an isolated Christian in a subversively hostile country.

Thus, Jason and I nearly danced (I’m not allowed to, as per the aforementioned Baptist background kept me from learning such skills as a child) when Rina told us that she had at last discovered the location of the international church Jason had been pestering her over without ceasing for the last month. While I’m not at liberty to share the name of our newfound body, I can assure you that it is a beautiful representation of the menagerie that is God’s character: the service we attended included Nepalis, Indians, Americans, a British couple, Malaysians, Australians, Phillipinos, Turks, Canadians, Chinese, Tibetans, a group of tourists from Singapore, and even a South African. I'm now of the impression that looking upon God is much like looking through a kaleidoscope, if'n that makes any sense. The pastoral staff is completely comprised of Nepali men, though there is an American who serves as an associate pastor over the English services.

Following the worship and the message, we were immediately approached by said associate pastor, a New Yorker, and a Mississippian aide worker; naturally, the first subject of conversation, as is always in America, was Bill Clinton (dear God, NO, I do not know him personally). “Flintstone,” as I will refer to my new congregational shepherd, invited Jason and I to accompany him and his wife (“Wilma” shall be her new name) to a local coffee shop for lunch. Flintstone and Wilma shared that they have been living in Nepal as missionaries for over five years now, astounding considering how difficult it is to get a long-term visa in this country! However, with Wilma’s nursing background and Flintstone’s experience in the alternate universe that is professional engineering (he looks like Eric Dacus’ father, eerily enough), the two found it simple to get jobs in the city: God at rather obvious work.

Oh, and what a coffee shop we found! Wireless Internet (soon), big comfy chairs, cinnamon rolls the size of Jason’s torso, and a honest to God WESTERN TOILET. Oh, oh, and the best part? Aside from an amazing menu that includes banana pancakes, beef sausage that doesn't leave a displeasing yak aftertaste, and cheesecake, these guys make freaking MEXICAN FOOD! Holy intercessory prayer of the American saints Batman! Salsa! Jason and I returned the following afternoon for breakfast burritos that rivaled the birth weight of most newborn infants, fresh-made pico de gallo, and a sit-down visit to the restroom. I wept on that toilet seat, and I am not ashamed to admit to it. The real treasure of the afternoon was the browniecino: a frappucino mixed with brownie mix, with a $1.25 price tag to rival the Arsegas and Starbucks dominion. I support local business, but I just happen to now be in a new locale.

Aside from the utter shock of finding a menu that is seemingly tailored to serve every food I miss from America, I received another surprise in our fellowship for the afternoon. Flintstone and Wilma introduced us to a group of about 10 other American missionaries, all of whom have been working in Nepal for prolonged periods of service. We received more warnings, councils of spirit, and sage advice than one lunch provides room for the absorption of, not that it mattered as I was too shocked by having a clear conversation in my own tongue to notice. The bacon in my sandwich didn’t help any either.

Jason, as is per his routine, sized up our sisters with the inevitable wedding ring glances that single 25-year-old men are prone to, I being far too mature to submit myself to such frivolities (I have the involuntary spiritual gift of celibacy). “BLT” was particularly helpful, beautiful, Canadian, and married, much to the Jason’s dismay. BLT spent eight years working as a volunteer in children’s homes in Nepal and India, and her experience has and will continue to be indispensable to us in our time here. Particularly, she was persistent in advising us avoid seeking the introduction of changes into the pattern of leadership at CWC, and to take care that we don’t undermine Rina and Mommy’s authority in our attempts to help improve the children’s lifestyle.

BLT told us about the growing horrors of the children’s hostel business here in Nepal that she had witnessed firsthand: crooked businessmen starting orphanages to gain government grant money, and then erecting shoddy prisons under the guise of children’s homes and staffing them with bitter and abusive employees. Just days before, she told us, a group of 35 orphans had been dropped off at a local hospital by the police, nearly beaten to death and suffering horrible burns: they had been horribly abused and locked inside their hostel by the owner, who then torched the building (children still inside mind you) to collect the insurance on it. Absolutely sickening, and according to BLT, its becoming a fairly common practice.

The subject of being burned alive was quickly picked up on by the lone Nepali believer who had joined us for lunch; forgive me for failing to remember his name. “Teacher” shared with our table how he had formerly been the principal of a private school in a remote village in the western half of the country. Teacher was approached one afternoon by a group of Maoists (see previous post, or http://www.bbc.com/ for info) who demanded that he pay them tribute for protection. Teacher refused, so the Maoists Rock Bottomed him into unconsciousness and torched his office with the 25 gallons of gasoline they’d conveniently left in the hallway. Teacher came to and managed to escape, while on fire, through an uncovered ventilation shaft in the ceiling. The school was burned to the ground, and Teacher spent nearly two years recovering from burns that covered 35% of his body. He showed us his scarred, tattered legs to drive the point home. No sad ending to this story though. Teacher is wildly optimistic about his future working in the city as a tutor and mentor for at-risk youth, in spite of his quiet demeanor, and he’s also a fellow believer, so you, oh reader, will get to share a pint with him sometime throughout the course of eternity.

After dessert and coffee, Flintstone gave me directions to two local Christian bookstores and invited Jason and I to join him this Thursday morning for a men’s discipleship time. In the meantime, he promised to find us some local contacts to build shelving for the art room Jason and I are casting vision for, as well as for blankets and comforters for our children. Flintstone, thou art the connection to inner Kathmandu that I have been praying for.

Jason and I visited the bookstores that afternoon, finding enough bibles at an incredibly cheap price to personally give one to each of our orphans. The other bookshop primarily houses educational fare, but I grabbed a copy of Catch 22 and 12th Night; Jason salivated over the massive library of Sweet Valley Twins and Nancy Drew, but settled for Freakonomics (at my suggestion) and To Kill a Mockingbird, amongst others. This place has everything by the way: I've got future plans to back and pick up some science and geography texts, as well as a collection of classical literature, Shakespeare, and R.L. Stine (I'm sorry, but I loved those stupid Goosebumps books as a 6th grader). And if any of you have a copy of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing or Superfudge sitting at home, please, please send them!

So there you have it: a multitude of casual prayer requests, and one rather massive spiritual need, answered in the course of one afternoon. However, despite all the goodness, we still need continued prayer. I'm sick with my third Nepali cold, and the exhaust fumes from the city are starting to give me massive headaches every time I come into town. Rina has been sick with the flu for the last 2 weeks herself, and because she's only three months from her delivery date, her doctor refuses to allow her to take any meds, so pray for swift and full recovery. Jason has been struggling with irritability with some of the younger children, so pray for healing of his heart and mind. The rest of our children return from holiday this weekend and return to school next Monday, so pray for their safe return to us, and our renewed efforts to care for them with respect and compassion.

Our biggest priority at the moment however is the Maoists. There was an armed conflict in the city this morning, or so went local rumors, that held up traffic for 2 hours. On top of that, Maoists have been visiting all the local children's homes to announce that they will be stopping by to sing and dance in return for sizable "donations" in the near future; I'm not making this up, its apparently tradition within yet another of the Hindu festivals that ends today. We thought that CWC had been overlooked after receiving no word for several days from any Maoist messengers, but a letter was delivered Sunday while Jason and I were at church announcing that they would be stopping by in the very near future.

In light of the story I heard from Teacher, this stirs a new fear within me: what happens when the Maoists find out that there are Americans working within CWC? They have been demanding tributes from trekkers in the mountains of upwards of $300 per person, and I will not, and cannot afford to, pay them anything. Will we be harrassed, terrorised, or burned to the ground? Please remember us in your prayers, and like the Passover angel, pray that the Maoists conveniently forget to visit us again, or are transformed by the message of the gospel of our salvation if we must come face to face.

More news to come in the near future...

Godavari (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)

Well, great. Thus far, my time in Nepal had been relativly uneventful, at least from the perspective of a white soccer mom in Northwest Arkansas. Well, save for the whole goat slaughter thing. So much for safety. This’ll be the blog where you guys start telling me to come home.

I’m pretty foolish when it comes to seeking out adventure. I’m the one who always wants to see the Ozark Spook Light on a school night or break into the abandoned insane asylum in Conway (if it in fact exists), the one who wants to collect road kill around Lake Wedington for the purpose of prank retribution, the idiot who is actively seeking out the gang members in inner-city Chicago to tell them about Jesus. I don’t have much foresight when it comes to determining what could and could not cause me bodily harm. I refuse to go sky-diving, but I’ll eat the private parts of a freshly killed farm animal or give my testimony to a subway car full of strangers on their way to a Cubs game. And even if I don’t go looking for trouble, it seems to find me out anyway, in the form of neighborhood meth labs, police busts on Casa Taco robbers (ask Eric Dacus if you don’t believe me), and elderly neighbors with broken hips. All this to say, I’m a magnet for outlandishness, which wouldn’t be as much of a problem if I wasn’t also prone to exaggerations. And somewhere, Hunter Goff is rejoicing at my admission.

Ahem. Now that you’re adequately prepared for the ridiculousness that is myself, its storytime. Again.

Tale #1: Say Yes! To Mao!sts!

So, a quick recap on the events of the last week, or at least the parts that don’t involve me sitting on the roof reading a book or sleeping in the TV room to the lullaby of Hindi soap operas. Friday, I ventured into town to email the church and attempt to begin answering the 100+ emails that littered my inbox. Making my way through the marketplace of Lahgunkel, playing the iPod Commercial Game for what would be the final time, I noticed that there was a lot of tension in the air; not that Kathmandu or Patan are places of relative calm or anything mind you. Eventually, I discerned that something was rotten in East Asia, as a loud voice shouting frantic repeated statements in a foreign language drowned out Conor Oberst in my earbuds. Curiousity got the better of the bear, and I changed course to see what was going down.

Now normally, I would call a vehicle armed with massive dual loudspeakers spewing political jargon out of place, but being that Nepal is a country that just underwent massive political upheaval, I’m willing to call an insurgency a spade. Or whatever. The motorized voice weaved through the crowd, never slowing, never ceasing with repeating lines of Hindi chatter. I nudged an elderly man at a kitchen supplies store, pointing toward the commotion with a raised eyebrow: the international sign for “I’m a scared foreigner, please explain what the heck is going on.” I got a tired shrug in response, followed shortly thereafter by a sentence in which I could only understand one word: “Maoists.” Great…

For those of you who are ignorant of the socio-political structure of Nepal, or current affairs that don’t involve Kevin Federline and Jessica Simpson, let me break down the recent history of the country. Starting I believe in 1995, a group of political dissidents from the former Communist Party of Nepal united under the leadership of a man known as Prachandra to form the Maoist Rebellion. Over the last 11 years, the Maoists have pledged themselves to a “people’s war” against whatever Nepali government system happens to be in power, claiming to be fighting on behalf of the people; in reality, the Maoists conscript their soldiers from frightened villagers in the countryside, burning farms and destroying the homes of those who don’t support their anarchist agenda. If that weren’t enough, political instability, including a drunken murder-suicide by the crown prince in 2001 that wiped out most of the royal family, the rulership and deposing of a wicked king, and a chaotic fledgling democratic parliamentary system have weakened Nepal’s international presence and crippled attempts to improve the lives of its people in spite of the conflict. Nearly 30,000 Nepalis have been killed in fighting over the last decade, numbers that while seemingly innocuous compared to crises in Darfur, Sudan, and Uganda, have gone widely unnoticed in the Western news media. And…breathe Jordan, breathe….

So, Maoists. Bad news, right? Well, I’m never one to let a political rebellion get me down, so I continued on my merry and Jason-less (at home playing with orphans) way to the Internet café. After spending an hour unsuccessfully trying to catch up on baseball play-offs, life within the Grove, and several failed attempts to call my folks on Skype, I happened to notice that the buzz outside was growing. I popped my head out the window to check to see if Durbar Square was on fire yet, and to my delight, a political demonstration had broken out. There was a crowd of around 500 people (how’d I miss that?) gathered in the square around a makeshift stage, upon which were several men dressed in camouflage engaging in a roundtable debate with what appeared to be bureaucrats. The Internet, for once, had lost its interest.

I packed up my laptop and ran outside, assuming that I was the only one in the area praying fervently for a riot to break out (just so I’d have something to tell you about). I pushed my way through the crowd a bit, straining to see what was going on; our friends in camo (I always refer to people in fatigues as friends in person, mainly because I enjoy being not ridden with bullet holes) were shouting in the faces of who I was now sure were government officials. In America, we call this civil disobedience; in Nepal, its referred to as Friday. I bumped into a Nepali student fluent in English, who explained that a) the conference was a scheduled debate between city officials and Maoist spokespersons regarding disarmament and city council representation, b) the crowd was frighteningly pro-Maoist, and c) as an American, this was a pretty stupid place for me to be. I agreed, and moved through the crowd to get a little closer to the action. Mistake.

As I was pulling off my patented “swim” maneuver, as taught to me by my former discipler and mentor, Warren Sapp, a guy in green/black fatigues (topped off with a Kurt Cobain t-shirt, nice touch) stopped me and asked if I was from America. I nodded, not really paying attention, and he continued to explain that he was a freedom fighter, just like America. Oh. Piss. I looked around, hoping that I could find a friendly face in the crowd to duck away from this guy, my first flesh and blood Maoist, but most of the people nearby were more interested in seeing me work this out for myself than the debate taking place onstage. The guy said something about blood and mispronounced the word “tyranny,” and suddenly, I was being asked for a donation to “support the people’s revolution.”

As I make it a point not to support international terrorism (save for sending Texans overseas as international students), I assured my new communist friend that “I’d love to give you money, but I’m not in the habit of committing treason.” Not the first time I’ve uttered that sentence in my life either. Maoists don’t like being told no (unless “no” is immediately followed by “more government that serves the needs of its people”), so my friend asked me again politely. He was kind enough to give me a friendly squeeze of the shoulder as well, just in case I misunderstood his request as a, you know, demand for money. I am now scared.

Unfortunately for you and your co-workers, and fortunately for myself, there’s no real resolution to this story. Maoist stooge #1 and I stared at each other for all of about 10 seconds before somebody onstage said something incendiary, and he lost all interest in me as he turned to yell back in response. I squeezed back through the crowd, who were now seemed rather provoked and a bit closer to riot stage, and literally ran all the way back to the bus park. For those of you that are sticklers for details, I must admit: while terrified, I did have the presence of mind to stop and by a Fanta. It cost 11 rupees, the equivalent of 15 cents. There’s that lack of common sense I mentioned rearing its ugly head.

Ok, so that was pseudo-interesting, right up until it tapered off there at the end, right? I mean, you were expecting something exciting, like that knife fight from the Beat It video, or a Brad Pitt cameo. No such luck, not even snake dancing. No twist ending, no Jordan taking his shirt off, not even really all that funny. Stay seated and open another Nutri-Grain bar. This one gets violent…

Tale #2: To the Workers of the Katmandu Valley Region, I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament

Nepali transportation will be the subject of a post in the near future, as its something that I’m dying to write about, but it plays a vital role in our story today. There are multiple ways of getting around Nepal, but the most common are via tuk-tuk (think of a motorized tricycle with a covered pick-up bed on the back) and mini-bus (Jason most accurately described these as “that big white van that gunned down Doc in Back to the Future”). Jason and I take a mini-bus any time we need to get into town, as it’s the only means of transport if Rina isn’t taking our car, the beloved Gypsy, into the city that day. Ten rupees gets me crammed into a vehicle that should comfortably seat 15 people, but is instead packed with about 24, all of whom believe that I am the biggest, fattest, stupidest American that has ever lived; I know, because they tell each other these things and laugh at me. Joy.

Occasionally, as in every two weeks or so, there is a labor union strike by drivers of the Kathmandu Valley taxis that shuts the city down completely. Taxi drivers blockade all the streets leading in or out of the main urban areas, turning away all vehicles that try to get by via force. When this happens, its like a national holiday; businesses don’t open because the owners can’t get to work, schools are closed because the teachers are trapped at home, and fat, lazy American volunteers sleep a little later than usual. Even the rumor of a labor strike can shut the city down, forcing me to pause and wonder if somewhere, there’s a very bright 12-year-old pulling the strings so he can stay home and watch Power Rangers with his younger brother all day.

Tuesday morning, I awoke with plans to run into town and catch up on my emails, as I’d found several unread messages in my inbox the day before that were over 2 weeks old (Shaun and Erin, so, sooooo sorry!!!). Rajesh stopped by our room to announce that his college classes were cancelled that day because of a possible impending strike; thus, plans for the day were changed. Jason was particularly frustrated, as he’d been planning to go to Thammel to shop for a new camera (his was stolen several weeks ago by a former CWC child with a penchant for kleptomania). After eating breakfast and sullenly revising our plans for the day (I really wanted to eat a meal in town that wasn’t dhal baat), Rajesh visited again to tell us that the tv was now announcing the strike had been called off. Jason immediately grabbed his wallet and ran out the door to catch a ride into town, leaving me behind to some personal business (I always use the restroom before going into town, because home is where the toilet paper is).

I ran all the way to the bus stop, which is over a mile away and up a huge hill, but Jason was gone, and no running mini-buses in sight. Now, I should’ve picked up right away that something was up: two of the MBs, as I’ll now be referring to them, were parked up the street, the drivers playing soccer inbetween the lanes, with a large crowd of riders watching the traffic coming from town anxiously. Two passengerless MBs rumbled by without even slowing to pick up new fares: this is NOT normal, as there is usually a kid hanging out the window hunting down people who need a ride on the “sidewalk.” One bus finally slows long enough to allow about 30 of us onboard, but the diver refuses to talk to or look at his passengers, whom I notice seem agitated, but not with the long wait or with sitting in each other’s laps. Worry is brewing in my stomach like coffee.

Driving into town is normally similar to a Grand Theft Auto joyride: swerving around motorbikes and dogs, weaving inbetween tankers and fullsize buses to gain those extra seconds needed to pass up another MB and get more fares in the city when the current passengers are kicked to the curb. Today, there is hardly any traffic on the road, and a ton of pedestrians. Something is wrong here…

We’re about 5 blocks from the Lahgunkel drop-off point, when the driver slows the MB to a crawl and turns back to us at last, shouting some orders as the doors open. Since I have yet to get a grasp on most of the language here, I’m clueless, but my fellow pilgrims are officially pissed. The people in the front row of the MB are physically escorted off by a firm grip of the shoulders, yelling and cursing (I’m assuming here) the whole way. As for the rest of our merry crew? Mutiny. Refusals to pay, angry shouting, and an attempted swing at the young boy working as the driver’s assistant: we’re getting close to small-scale riot here. The driver suddenly becomes more concerned with getting reimbursed for the 25 people still in his vehicle, and agrees to continue on into the city.

Now at this point, you’re thinking, Jordan, why are you still in that bus? I am wondering that myself as we start to move forward again, gripping the seat in front of me enough that I tear the stitching on the seat cover a little. In my defense, I honestly thought this had all been a dispute over several people not having money to pay the driver, as the protocol for such a grievous offense is to open the door and boot the sod out in the middle of nowheres at full speed. This is not the case today, but I don’t find that out for another 12 seconds.

The driver speeds up considerably more than is necessary, and as we round a corner at 45 (breakneck speed for Nepali traffic), I see the reason for all of our troubles: a picket line. Fantastic, the strike is on. A group of eight angry men are strung across the street, armed with clubs and sour faces; red dust pockmarks the street between our slowing vehicle and what will be our final destination, suggesting some earlier violence. Unbeknownst to me, Jason had been turned around before he got to this point and was taken back up to the orphanage. I am not so lucky.

Our driver slows to a crawl, and an eventual stop 10 feet from the armed labor union members, leaning his head out the window to shout at them; they comply with what I can once again only assume is more cursing, slowly advancing on our idling coffin. The driver is squirming in his chair, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, and keeps looking up into the rearview mirror at us in the back. Something is going to happen, and I have a very bad feeling about it.

The man who seems to be the leader of the union strikers reaches the MB and places his hand on the driver’s rearview mirror (right side of the vehicle mind you), leaning up to have some words with our coachman. Surprise! Our driver, in a decision that proves to be his undoing, has been playing possum; as the strike leader leans up, Steve McQueen up front floors the accelerator and we pull away, the mirror nearly getting wrenched off in the striker’s clenched brown fist. Several of the passengers cheer, thinking we are going to pull away and make it into the city. We are free!!! We are Jason and his Argonauts, besting the Cyclops! We are unstoppable, unswayable, rulers of the Nepali highway! We are…being attacked with bricks.

I am sitting in the very back corner of the bus when the first brick hits the front side panel, immediately follow by a second that nails the windshield dead center, caving it in without shattering it, cracked into a thousand shards reflecting the coming onslaught into a kaleidoscopic barrage. Bricks begin hammering us from all sides, and one smashes into the rear fender on the other side of my knee; I can feel it reverberate through my chair. The seats are too close together for me to kneel down, so I scrunch my chin into my chest and lean my forehead against the seat frame in front of me; I am not praying, I am cursing, and very loud at that. The burnt red hailstorm continues, miraculously without another broken window, and for some reason, all I can think about it how badly I want Mexican food right now. Other passengers are screaming, a little girl is crying, and I am meditating silently on Flying Burrito Company and pico de gallo.

Just as the attack is reaching its crescendo, it stops; our driver has admitted defeat, stopping the MB and jumping out of the driver’s seat with his hands in the air. He is immediately grabbed by three of the labor union members and dragged off the street, never to be seen by Arkansan eyes again. The rest of us are physically pulled off the bus , myself almost getting grabbed by the hair before the angry striker realizes I’m an American and gives me a polite bow. He winks and says something in Nepali which I now roughly understand to have been, “Enjoy your stay in Kathmandu.” I am not amused, and I’m officially stranded in town.

Its another 15 minute walk to Lahgunkel from our MB, which is officially smoking from under the hood, looking like a defeated Autobot. I hike it into town, hoping I can still find an Internet hub that happens to be open in the tourist attraction that has become a warzone. And nothing is open. Every shop, every restaurant, every fruit stand is vacant; even the street vendors and trekking guides are thankfully absent. I make the most of my opportunity and wander around the square, admiring the ancient architecture without the teeming sea of market traffic swarming underneath temple archways and thatched roofs. I inform the few wandering British and German tourists, who are ignorant of the day’s events, having stayed in a nearby hotel, to which they mostly reply “Bullocks!” and snap photos. I watch bronze workers crafting a metal statue of a six-armed pig god, which looks nothing like Tusk. And I get hungry.

Fortunately, as I begin the six mile hike back to the orphanage, I find an Internet cafe. However, I fail to accomplish anything as an Indian girl named Rachel (I know, I didn't know it was an Indian name either) introduces herself as a Christian; she invites me to come to her church the following weekend and teach their high school ministry. Great. About the time I leave the cafe, I discover that traffic is moving again, so I board another MB with about 30 schoolchildren. I ride the rest of the way back with them asking me my name and whether or not I have a girlfriend, eventually falling asleep on the shoulder of a young boy, and as I drift off, I realize that I never sent the emails I came to town in the first place for. I dream of Mexican food and bricks.

Games Nepali Bears Play

I'd like to lighten the mood (given my somber closure yesterday) and offer some levity by enlightening you as to what exactly it is I do for fun here in Nepal. Ahem. Those who know me pseudo-well would be wise to refer to me as mischiveous, and that is no different in international territory, though I'm not prone to pranking houses because I don't like being chased by foaming wild mutts. Hence, here are several of the games that I've invented to primarily amuse myself since arriving here:

1. Scaring Jason: This game can take several forms, the lamest of which involve pretending I don't have the key to our room or moving something of Jason's around in order to stimulate fury at the thought of Prakash, our resident orphan packrat, rifling through Jason's possessions. A more subtle and humorous "Scare the Jason" tactic is to mention creepy things before we go to bed, involving, in no particular order: crab spiders, the girl from The Ring, Bill Engvall, Edward Loveless' chest hair, Bono in a Superman costume, and myself marrying Jason's sister, Krystal. Last night however, I discovered the most satisfying method of "Scaring the Jason." Are you ready? Sure? Ok, here goes...

Jason, as do most human beings, has to go to the bathroom regularly. Surprised? I know I was. So, one must wait until Jason, in a half-sleep stupor and clad in his mighty boxer-briefs, wanders down the hall to the restroom with his headlamp. The scarer, myself, must then hop out of bed and crawl underneath Jason's bed, pushing his guitar case as far back against the wall as possible to make room. The scarer then waits eagerly for Jason to return, still half-asleep and now surprised that his ministry partner is no longer in bed asleep. Jason will routinely look back down the hall and shine his light around, thinking that said roommate must have gone downstairs to pee or make a rice sandwich or something, and then re-enter the room, deadbolting the door for no apparent reason. The Jason will saunter back over to his bed, pausing for a moment before his conscience gets the better of him, and he kneels down to check underneath.... At which point I yell "Mehhh!" in the voice of that scary little Japanese boy from The Grudge and grab Jason's leg, leading to him mentioning once again how much he hates me.

2. The Hook Count: This one may seem irrelevant, but I enjoy it. Two weeks into our Nepal stay, I began to notice that Jason is a frequent quoter of Hook, the "What-if-Peter-Pan-grew-up-into-the-Genie-from-Alladin?" movie beloved by nearly every kid born between 1981 and 1985. So I started counting on Sunday, October 1. In two weeks, Jason has quoted Hook 12 times, not quite once a day, but pretty close to it, usually in spurts of three quotes. His favorite? "Play...play!" which I believe comes from the part where the twins on skateboards keep throwing basketballs and Robin Williams' gut. Ah, to be a child again, believing that this movie was real... By the way, is there any point in this movie when Julia Roberts is on-camera that she doesn't burst out into that "Bwa-ha-ha!" cackle of hers? Creepy...

3. The Cheap Orphan Scare: Who amongst you, oh loyal 7 readers, doesn't know what a cheap scare is? Very well then, I shall tell you. In a horror movie, when Sarah Michelle Gellar is cautiously sneaking through an abandoned Snickers factory, hiding from bad scriptwriters, and she opens a closet door, only to have a cat jump straight out at the camera (complete with loud cat "rawr" noise) for no apparent reason: that friends, is a cheap scare. The main character turning and bumping into her boyfriend, who shouts menacingly, "HEEEEEYYYYY...who wants licorice?" Also a cheap scare. You get the idea, I hope (though one wonders how all those cats keep getting locked into pantrys and airtight secret vaults...). Anyway, I enjoy hiding around corners and jumping out to scare orphans as they walk through the Welfare Centre's halls in the evenings: the sun is setting, and the interior lighting is just right, having reached a Hitchcockian dimness that just begs for a stupid American to do something absurdly mean and pointless. I am going to be a horrible father some day.

4. My Big, Fat, Nepali iPod Comercial: First off, I can no longer play this game as my iPod has given me the big iFinger and decided to leave me to myself while out of the States. I have my suspicions that foul orphan play was involved in Grizzlepod's death (Prakash again), but no evidence means this will remain an unsolved mystery. Robert Stack, where are you?!?!

Regardless, though this game is on hiatus until I find a way to get a new music device or just up and steal Jason's, it remains my favorite. And before I go any further, I though of this before Jessica Gudondo mentioned it in her blog. So no comparisions or claims of idea theft, 'kay? Ok, so, the makings of my own iPod commercial... Rather simple really...

I hop off the mini-bus in Lahgunkel and pop in my headphones, turning on a danceable song such as Josh Rouse's "Its the Nighttime," Ryan Adam's "Dance All Night," or "The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar" by Bob Dylan. "Last Goodbye" by Jeff Buckley gets an honorable mention only because its commonplace to namedrop Buckley to sound cool these days (I'm looking at you Liv Tyler, you dirty liar...) Anyway, crank the volume on iPod nearly all the way up, and then dance like a maniac down the street between chamberpot salesmen and banana vendors, singing the lyrics at the top of your lungs. If you want to really make a scene, as I often do, you can hop up on the steps of a building, kicking your legs until a group of young women walk by, jumping down to take one by the hand and spin her around while her friends laugh (and secretly wish that the handsome, fat American had chosen them). Jason denies that any of this has happened, but I maintain that its one of the specific purposes for my often coming into Kathmandu or Patan alone. Its fun, its hilarious, and it can often be an ace in the hole when it comes to bartering for a better price with shop owners. Love me, hate me, I'm leaving my mark on this country.

5. The Brett Harkey Game: This one is relativistically simple. Though I'm currently sporting the infamous "Greenwald Chinstrap," when I wear my hair teased up in the front, I bear a striking resemblance to my favorite worship pastor. Brett and I dress similarly (mainly brown plaids I think) according to Jason, and we share that "he looks kind've chubby, but I know he isn't" physique. Or at least that what I hope we look like... Anyway, this game involves me introducing myself to people I don't want to talk to, i.e. trekking guides and kazoo salesmen, as Brett Harkey. I listen to their schpeil and then just wander away, yelling "Chris Tomlin!" at the top of my lungs. Please note that this game is in its trial stages and is subject to change. Other candidates for this game include Matthew Perry, whom I've already been mistaken for once, that guy from Third Day, and Tyler Durden.

Ru-fee-ohhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

The Post Where I Catch Up on a Lost Week and Mention Jesus a Lot

I'm quickly finding that if I don't visit town often, my inbox fills up (especially after making a massive request for coats and magice markers) and people begin to believe that I either a) hate them, b) ignore them, c) am using my support money to purchase drugs and Johnny Cash bootlegs, or d) have been kidnapped and devoured by Maoist insurgents. I am more than pleased to assure you that none of these elements are entirely true (I purchased sleeping pills to counteract the lip-smacking and sleep mumbles of one Jason Hayes), though I did have my first run-in with the Maoists last week. But more on that later...

So I received my first e-buke this week from a dear friend who expressed his frustration that Jason and I didn't take advantage of the goat sacrifice as an opportunity to share the gospel. Old Jordan would've gotten defensive and angry, and launched an offensive about "how much I talk about Jesus, and jeez, I mean, I'm freaking here in Nepal, aren't I?" However, it appears Old Jordan is dead, officially. Instead, I felt the warm pangs of conviction that are quickly becoming daily occurences as commonplace as, oh, say, emitting carbon dioxide. Funny how quickly spiritual arrogance breaks down under the weight of isolation and the discipline of washing your boxers in a stream inbetween grazing cattle.

So Broken Jordan examined his heart and his ministry and found both to be lacking. Not non-existent, just not intentional; like, I should be cleaning up the kitchen and putting out that grease fire I started, but Greys Anatomy is just sooooo good this week unintentional. Jason and I talked it up a bit, having both received the same email, and came to the conclusion that while the work of our hands and the speech of our lips are full of grace and compassion, they're lacking the desperation of the need for the healing touch of the Holy Spirit in a dying land. Not that much different from being in America of course: for comfort's sake, I'd rather talk about politics or baseball or breast feeding, anything other than confronting somebody with frank talk about Jesus. Blegghh... I suck as a missionary.

So we're changing things up a little bit, getting more intensive with biblical disciplines and sharing the gospel instead of ancient Jordanic wisdom (which for the record, has proved to be pretty rife with errors anyway). Most of the kids from CWC are still away visiting what family they have for the remainder of the Desai holiday, so its been a blessing to have that much more time both to ourselves (boring though) and to spend with some of the older boys we're honing in on. These specifically being the ones you can pray for:

Nabin: My little Nepali playboy... Nabin is 17, and acts it to a point. He is highly intelligent and speaks English pretty fluently, to the extent that he's actually been tutoring me at night as I study Nepali. He's athletic, a purty swell dancer, and much like Augustine, he likes the ladies. His father is dead, and his mother is very sick, leaving him with little family save for extended relatives, and no male mentor in his life.

During the course of our studying together, we've gotten to engage in a lot of good personal conversation; Nabin has a lot of questions about women and dating, two subjects in which I am an utter failure, but he enjoys hearing about all of my mistakes (and Jason's near marriage). Regardless, I sprinkle our conversations with a heavy dosage of Paul and Peter. Nabin is very open to hearing about Christ, and agrees with a lot of what the bible has to say, but he's very hesitant to respond because his grandfather, who is just about the only blood relative he has left, has threatened to exile him from the family if he becomes a Christian. Exile is bad in Nepal, to the "You're dead to me!" extent. So pray for Nabin and his family, that God would will Nabin to himself and work through him to change the hearts of his grandfather and their village; that Nabin's fears would be abolished in the peace of the blood of Christ, and that the longings of his heart for purpose and family would be met in the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation.

Rajesh: Rajesh is 19, a pre-med student at one of the local colleges, and one of the pillars of leadership in the Welfare Centre. According to Rina, he'd been shy and reclusive during the time that he's lived at the Centre (11 years) until Jason and I arrived. Rajesh's parents abandoned him and his brother and sister when they were all very young, and the three were placed in separate orphanages in the Kathmandu valley shortly thereafter.

Rajesh was the first guy to open up to Jason and I, stopping by our room to talk and ask for guitar lessons, cracking jokes while cooking dinner with us upstairs, and mispronouncing the word "fish" (fissssss). Rajesh has some obvious wounds, but he quickly latched on us as men of peace and a source of friendship. He translates for us when we lead devotionals for the younger children, even though he has serious doubts about the validity of the Christian bible. In talking with Rajesh, I've learned that his biology and physics classes have led to him having some distorted and wary views on the interaction between science and the bible, and that a lot of things he's been taught have been biased and uneducated opinions passed off as fact (flies did not come from snakes). However, Rajesh hasa confidence in him that leads me to believe and hope that he will be my brother in Christ before I leave this country: he's so anxious to hear about God, and he actively seeks out and challenges my knowledge of the bible and its historical and scientific accuracy. I love a skeptic, as I used to be one myself, so pray that the resources and wisdom that God has granted me would lead to the joy of salvation in Rajesh's life. Pray also that as Rajesh considers medical schools, that God would provide a sponsor and a visa so that he can receive an education in America or England; Jason and I long to bring him home with us. And that he would learn to say fish correctly, as its driving me insane.

Birendra: I love this guy; looooooooooove him. Like the Mouth of Sauron, Birendra is often the physical embodiment of the words of Rupa and Rina at CWC: they speak, and Birendra gathers up the orphans and directs traffic to ensure that things happen. He's quiet, trustworthy, dependable (both his parents abandoned him, so he took up a job to support his incapacitated grandparents, often giving up his meals so they could eat), articulate, and compassionate. In other words, he's Eric Dacus, minus the Eric face and accompanying Eric noise which consonants and vowels fail to capture.

Nepali guys are very physically affectionate with each other, holding hands in public and occaissionally kissing each other on the cheek, and so it is a blessing to me that years of friendship with Ben Casey and interlocked toe love with Hirschy prepared me for Birendra. Birendra is always, always touching me somehow: falling asleep on me in a mini-bus, holding on to my thigh while we watch Mr. Bean, rubbing my shoulders while I eat dinner. This wouldn't be so odd if he wasn't 18, but I'm getting over my aversion to physical touch (I'm a hermit, remember?).

Birendra has a beautiful innocence to him, to the extent that I nearly convinced him that the book The Indian In the Cupboard was a true story the other night. He has a heart for children, and does more to look after the younger orphans than Jason and I are willing to do. He's a leader in CWC, a voice of comfort to the younger and lonely children, and a reminder of my need to embrace peace rather than wrath. Pray for CWC to find the money to send Birendra to college, possibly in America, for biblical perspective to aid Birendra's compassion, and for our conversations to be teeming with the presence of the Holy Spirit. I desperately want to enjoy heaven with this guy, and I want you to meet him there.

As for me? Spiritually, I'm doing well, as the free time has allowed me to invest a lot of myself into the Word. I've been working on memorizing the book of Ephesians and portions of Colossians, and Jason and I are about to embark on an inductive study of Romans. Which means this will probably be the last coherent blog you see for a while. I've been listening to a sermon series on church history by Tom Nelson and taking notes...fascinating to see where you and I that are brothers and sisters in Christ have come from, and I highly recommend you engage in such a study yourselves. And I started reading Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy again, a book which I almost insist on every believer I know owning, which I believe Mike Harper would agree with me on since its the only thing he and I talked about for nearly a year.

Pray for my health: I've been sick nearly half the time I've spent here in Nepal thus far, and I'm really suffering under the strain of insomnia (I don't like hating Jason because he can sleep and I can't). For that matter, pray for the health of my parents. A good friend informed me of how he was attacked while in China last year through the physical health of his family, and I fear the same for myself; my mother has already been to the hospital once since I got here, and I have recurring nightmares about my father having another heart attack. I can't handle the strain of a sick parent, despite my levity with the subject of death in regards to my beloved iPod.

Pray for my heart: I've been really burdened with loneliness here in the last week, as well as grief over some dead relationships. I miss the Grove, I miss sandwiches, I miss Guster, and I miss Jake Newell. This is not an easy life here, and I don't mean the living in poverty and being covered in sniffling, giggling orphans 24 hours a day. I came to the realize this weekend that life at home is changing without me: people are getting married, moving away, buying waverunners, having twins, etc. And I'm here, isolated in a foreign country and reduced to words on your laptop monitor, the blatherings of a post-modern madman lost in the Nepali wilderness. I feel loved, immersed in prayer, and supported by every living being I know that's not in a coma, but I also feel so alone at the same time. Pray for me to get over myself and focus on having an eternal perspective, enjoy deep fellowship with God through the workings and the groanings of the Spirit who lives in me, and to stop listening to the Heartbreaker album so much (Call Me On Your Way Back Home is killing me right now).

I love you all, I miss my family, and I have a craving for salsa. They have this incredibly spicy condiment here made out of Nepali tomatoes, chillis, and gram marsala, and its close in texture, but really salty and so hot it chokes you. I can seriously only eat a teaspoon of it on my rotis (baked tortillas) at a time. Anyway, I've lovingly nicknamed this concoction "Nepalsa," just for future reference, but its a poor substitute for La Huercha. So take your community group or your wife or your roommates, or for that matter, an international UA student, out for chips, salsa, and a margarita (non-alcoholic for those of you who still have issues with my love for beer) on me. I'm good for it.

P.S. Jason still hasn't shaved. Gross...