Riding with the Goats

Left: At Family Camp with some of the girls.

Right: A ping, a gigantic 15" tall swing made out of bamboo and rope.

Colorful lights put out for the Tihar festivities.

Saraswati and I at the lake teeming with Koi and cheesy puffs.

At the Korean Bakery, enjoying my cup of tea, shortly after realizing that they painted it on the wall.

Reminiscing over the good old days of the MN State Fair where you can find everything on a stick. 

Enjoying some traditional Nepali food with my new friend Tara.

Dashain Tip #1: If you see a goat tied to a pole outside a home in October, it's NOT their pet goat. Dashain Tip #2: If you don't see the goat the next day tied to the pole, they did NOT set it free. That is what I learned during Dashain, one of the main Hindu holidays. Dashain is their celebration of good over evil. Unfortunately it's not a good holiday for goats. After Dashain comes Tihar, their festival of lights, which is 2-3 weeks later. It's not so much the festival of lights though, when they have their electricity blackouts from the 1.5 trillion lights that are hung up. When the electricity is on though, almost every house is decked out with lights and it looks very beautiful, or as you would say in Nepalese it's all jilly milly (my new favorite phrase).

During Dashain we had Family Camp at our church, so our church and four others got together for three days and had some amazing fellowship and worship. One of the most precious moments for me involved a twelve year old boy, Isaac. During the last night, two of the kids snuck out of the service and got into a fight, which ended up with one of them on the ground unconscious and shaking. The pastor, who is a doctor, felt his jaw and told us it was dislocated, so he took the child to the hospital. All the kids then gathered in the room and prayed for the boy. After some time the children left and ate dinner, but this one boy Isaac stayed and continued to pray. He came up to me and asked me to keep praying with him, so we prayed. As he continued to pray for the next two hours I watched as tears ran down his face as he was praying for his friend to be healed. The joyful part comes next. When the pastor reached the hospital the boy's jaw was miraculously back in place and he was fully conscious! Triple gazillion points God. I know it may sound like crazy talk to some of you, but when you think of a God who created our entire bodies in the first place, it's not that hard to believe that God has the power to heal, so that was one of the most precious moments for me.

As for other updates, I guess I didn't miss out on the MN State Fair corn dogs, they sold the leftovers to Nepal! Well not really, but I ate a surprisingly similar replica of a MN State Fair corn dog with Saraswati (the daughter of the family I'm staying with) at a food stall. It was love at first bite, because not only was it like a corn dog, but it was spicy! That was the cherry on top of our fabulous day together. It started with driving up the hillside to a lake that had more Koi than water and feeding them essentially cheesy puffs and tofu. Then I got to practice driving a scooter in a field of goats. After I passed my driving lesson, by successfully not knocking down any goats, we scootied on over to a Korean bakery (no, I did not drive), where we enjoyed a white chocolate donut and banana cupcake. Yum, yum.

Also I did purchase my airplane ticket for coming home, so I'll be home for Christmas. I'll fly in on Sunday December 15th and stay in the Twin Cities/Menomonie area for exactly a month then fly on back over the ocean. I'm looking forward to hopefully getting to see a bunch of you when I get back. I'm also looking forward to French Silk pie, bacon and hot showers.

If you think of it in your quiet times, I would love your prayers. There are a couple things in specific I would love prayer for:

1. My visa status. I don't think I'll be able to stay at the Montessori and get a work visa, so I'm thinking about pursuing a masters in English online with an emphasis in Teaching English as a Second Language. I am considering coming back on a student visa and enrolling in classes at a University to continue my language studies in Nepalese. A lot of things to finalize and figure out.

2. My Nepali family. They are so great and I care for them so much. Pray that God will bless them and that they will truly and fully come to know him.

3. The elections. Let's just say Nepal's political situation isn't the greatest. Between the communist president, the prime minister and being a federal republic, there's a bit of chaos. Elections are coming up in the next couple of weeks, so there will most likely be a lot of strikes and bandhs (where everything is closed).

Anything I  can be praying for you about I would love to, so just send me an email.

Lastly, I have seen a lot of things while staying here in Nepal, so I made a list for you called: 

10 Things you can see on the streets of Nepal that you can't see in the U.S.

1. A family of six on a motorcycle.

2. A man biking with two love seats and a coffee table fastened to the the back of his bike.

3. A goat strapped on to the top of a public bus.

4. Taxis driving in reverse at 20mph against traffic on a main road.

5. A passenger on a motorcycle holding on to a 15 foot ladder.

6. Taxi drivers driving into the river to get a free car wash.
7. A man with silk roses attached to the rear view mirrors of his motorcycle.
8. Kids biking with propane tanks strapped to both sides of their bikes.
9. A passenger on a motorcycle holding 10-15 plastic chairs above his head.
10. A goat riding on a motorcycle.