big big BIG praise report!!

Fall Conference this weekend was beyond words. Simply left me in awe of how GREAT of a God we serve. I went in excited, and pretty hungry for God’s word. But I was distracted by everything and everyone.. I know I have a control problem.. always want to control the hearts of people and getting super frustrated when nothing happens. So throughout the first half, I was feeling so burdened. bad news bears.

And God really really showed me up this weekend. I wholeheartedly believe I saw God move (prayer answered). Hearts were changed (prayer answered), eyes were opened, Koinonia was united (prayer answered). I just kept thinking, THIS is what a Christ-centered community is, and THIS is the type of God we serve. He ANSWERS prayers, He is SO powerful, and He is MIGHTY to save. And I KNEW people were praying for Koinonia this weekend because seriously, awesome awesome things happened this weekend. All I can say is Hallelujah!!

So for everyone who prayed, THANK YOU.
and in summary, PRAISE GOD.

how i procrastinate

http://www.givesmehope.com/

to feel deeply, think deeply

these past couple weeks, i’ve been reminded again and again of the social injustices of this world and the many worldly blessings i have. this has always been on my heart, but it takes a certain level of passion to care enough to actually do something about it. at this moment, i am no different than any other person. we are all able watch and sympathize, but then we simply continue on with the lives we have. even when i feel super convicted, and try to make an effort to really take these perspectives as a part of my life (as i tried twice last week), this “passion” quickly dissipates as i fall back into my comfortable way of thinking.

what does it take to have truly changed heart?
why is transformation so difficult?

these are probably the two questions that have been eating away at me this entire semester, when i think of friends who aren’t Christian, or Christians who have a limited view of God. it’s a painful and unhealthy cycle, but it has been convicting when i take a hard look at my own inability to change. but thinking back on my own little transformations, this has led me to two thoughts..

1) it is only when we submit to God that we can have total transformation (2Cor 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!). we must have faith, and abide in Christ, so that His grace will transform our hearts and our minds.
2) we must think. deeply. question everything. i never valued meditating on God’s word much, but i have realized how we can be transformed so much when we do. when we meditate, we think deeply. when we think deeply, we feel deeply. and whether it is about God or about poverty, lasting passion arises.

this might not have made sense. hope it did though.

hi

Hoping to get back into the blogging realm…soon.

http://philwickham.com/singalong/
-download his free album! woo!

today’s random event

[Yesterday night I watched the movie Taken, which is a movie where this man's daughter goes abroad and gets kidnapped and forced into the sex trade. I thought it was a pretty good movie.

These past two weeks I have been taking the bus to the hospital by myself because the dental clinic is open at 1pm, and all the other students go either in a morning or night shift and I don't feel like waiting around. I don't mind it, and it's during the day so I never worry about things happening.]

Anyways, today, as I was about to leave for the bus, it started storming heavily. I do the usual, standing on the street and flagging down a bus. The bus had about 5 people on it, which is super rare because usually it is PACKED. Anyways, five minutes into the bus ride (takes about 10-15 min to get to the hospital), the bus turns into a corner and driver says its raining too hard and stops. So I get off, on my way to walk the rest of the way to the hospital.

One of the passengers on the bus calls out and asks me if I can help him. He says he needs to get to the hospital and wants to get under my umbrella for the walk. I say sure, and we start walking down the road together.

I told him the place I was heading, and he said that’s perfect for him, so I thought he was going there too. We were literately walking on the road with all the traffic, so he grabs onto my shoulder and umbrella and is pushing me along. Then he turns into a corner alley. Turns out he is going to a different hospital, but he says it’s right around corner. I hesitated at first, but then said okay. The whole time walking with him down the alley I thought of Taken.. haha.. I ended up walking him all the way to the hospital, and walking back to the main road to my hospital.

Am I just naive? I wouldn’t say that I’m particularly gullible, or trusting of strangers, but I have never been scared of being kidnapped/mugged/etc. At school, I never thought twice about walking home by myself at night. I always figured that if it happened, it would be God’s call. I can’t say that this experience has changed me, but I guess it’s interesting…

By the time I got to the hospital, I was drenched and an hour late. I go to the dental clinic….and it turns out Dr. Bimala (dentist) took the day off. I washed my feet, covered in mud, then walked back and took a microbus home..

C’est la vie.

A bajillion quick thoughts

JESS, STOP THINKING!!!!!

Today was an odd day. I spent the entire day in my host family’s house. I was waiting on a phone call so I couldn’t go anywhere, and the dentist wasn’t going in anyway. It was nice in that I had A LOT of downtime.. after months of being busy and feeling like everything is crammed together, it felt good to not have anything to do. I talked with my roommate, tried learning some nepali, read, watched a movie, and when the power went out, had a nice looooong quiet time via flashlight.

The downside to downtime is that you have lots of time for thinking. And I can’t sleep!! I’m actually writing this post without contacts on, because I went to bed, 2.5 hours ago. Yes, my eyes are probably 2 cm from the computer screen right now.

Anyway, when your mind is full of thoughts and you can’t sleep, you want to write them all out in the hope that the thoughts will then be emptied from your mind. I’m so weird. Ok whatever.

-i can’t believe i’m leaving in less than a week
-there’s so much more i want to do here!
-i’m hungry
-should i get a gorkha knife?
-i want clarity. now.
-how do you make decisions not based on feelings?
-i’m so confused on what to do!!!!
-i should call dad when i’m at the airport in US
-i wish she would stop pretending
-i wish she would stop lying about me
-i want to go to ann’s fish n’ chips restaurant in liverpool
=in his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps, proverbs 16:9
-i want to go to the orphanage again
-summer is almost over
-i can be so mean sometimes
=i really, really, really, really, really wish I could have gone to Dang… [Dang is one of the rural valleys in the Dang Deokhuri District of Nepal. Two American dental students are going there tomorrow and setting up a dental camp for 4 days. They said I should come and it would have been perfect with my flight back. After days of trying to get ahold of the right people and arranging everything, I found out I would have to drop another $250 for the flight and accommodation. Any. other. time. and I would have dropped that amount in a heartbeat. But with CFW dues and dental school app fees waiting for me to pay when I get back...I didn't want to risk it. siigh, i'm so bummed.]

Whew that was long and probably unnecessary.
good night :]

I found me some Koinonia!

This past sunday I rode a bus to a church about an hour away and guess what the name was?

Koinonia Patan Church!

Woohoo! I enjoyed it a lot. =) The community is about 30-40 people and is really diverse. It was really encouraging to see and hear the work of Christ when they are so outnumbered. Two weeks before I came, a catholic church was bombed and recently all the churches have been receiving threatening letters. I didn’t realize how real church persecution is until now. Must must pray.
——
on another note,
I SAW THE ECLIPSE TODAY!
woke up at 4am and traveled to a nearby monastery to watch it from a hill. the longest one of the century
it wasn’t as cool because it was a little cloudy..but still really awesome

10 quick thoughts

5 things i’ve done:
1-flew around the Himalayas and EVEREST
2-sutured up an orange
3-saw a c-section in the operating room (& the baby!)
4-SHOPPED =)
5-tried nepalese korean food

5 things i miss:
1-eating w.o worrying about getting sick
2-air conditioning..
3-family. BABY.
4-KOINONIA
5-steak!

faith in nepal

“What you and I might rate as an absolute disaster, God may rate as a pimple-level problem that will pass. He views your life the way you view a movie after you’ve read the book. When something bad happens, you feel the air sucked out of the theater. Everyone else gasps at the crisis on the screen. Not you. Why? You’ve read the book. You know how the good guy gets out of the tight spot. God views your life with the same confidence. He’s not only read your story…he wrote it. “
— Max Lucado

i was approached by a kid yesterday (he looked maybe 5-7 years old) for 1 ruppee (which is 1/77th of a US dollar). i was tempted, but told not to because the majority of the kids here are addicted to glue. the skinnier they are, the more addicted they are because they spend all their money on glue.

the country’s national symbol is the buddhist eye. the symbol is everywhere, on clothes and walls and roads. Most of the population here are either buddhist or hindu.

it’s hard to have faith in God, more specifically, Jesus here. thinking, and actually seeing the injustice, poverty, and the enormous population worshipping idols here is really a test for me and i can feel my faith dampering.

but i must harvest the little faith that i have. it’s not faith that God will do what i think is right, and what i want to happen. it’s faith that God will do what is He knows is right when the time is right. it’s faith that God is the all-mighty, powerful God He says He is, and His wisdom and plans are far greater than any human mind can understand.

Faith that God knows what He is doing. He is GOD, anyway. it’s so easy for me to just look what’s around me and ask God, why can’t you just fix everything NOW. but like the quote above, if God is who he says He is, He has control. it may seem bleak and hopeless now, but in the grand scheme of all things, God’s with us. God already knows what will happen, He wrote it. And we’re in good hands. This country, this world is in good hands.

NEPAL (edited with pics!!)

-pics from the orphanage and monkey temple

Namaste! I’m here!!

Yesterday was my first full day in Nepal. My host family is really nice, they have two kids, Bibu and Kretan. They haven’t had school in a long time because the teachers went on strike. So they sit around and watch Harry Potter. They’re cute

I hope to start work today. I went to the clinic yesterday but because it rained the night before, hardly everyone was there. If it rains, people usually go to the fields and don’t go to the hospital. The hospital is pretty nice, it has all the essential rooms and about 3-4 doctors there. After the hospital, we took a taxi to an orphanage in one of the neighboring villages. There were about 50 kids there and we played with them and watched a movie. It was seriously, such an amazing experience.

This morning I went to the Swayanbhu Monkey temple. It was really cool, they monkeys just roam everywhere. There were so many.. it was sweet.

One thing continues to blow my mind here: the roads. The roads are seriously insane. Drivers are in every direction and people walk everywhere.

Things are pretty run down and unorganized. The food is good. Some of the people here scared me with their stories about the food in the beginning so I haven’t been that risky. Tonight I’m going to go an area that apparently has amazing food meant for tourists. I’m excited!

I think I’m adjusting pretty well to the life here. But dude, it’s so incredibly hot. I cannot emphasize that enough. I sweat profusely, always. Bah.

Okay, that’s my short update.