Reminiscings from the Roof of the World
The Shout
March 19 – 20, Sunday – Monday. Team devotion began at 8:00 am, brunch would be at 10:00, and we world face those 100 gazillion stairs at noon. We spent the morning praying around the area and relaxing. I met the cutest and quite precocious little girl as I was sitting on a rock by the trail. We had no spoken language in common but that did’t prevent a delightful interaction during which I prayed silently for her and her family. After brunch I relaxed on a patio behind the tea house savoring a gentle breeze and the calming melody of the rushing river just behind me while chatting with Robby, our Nepali leader. Across the patio an elderly Tibetan man was spinning a hand-held prayer wheel while chanting a mantra. Prayer wheels come in many sizes. They are filled with written mantras and it is believed that with every clockwise spin all the prayers ascend up into the atmosphere both creating a safe space from calamity and from demons and earning merit for the spinner. The merit earned is exponential according to the number of mantras in the prayer wheel and is part of a Tibetan Buddhist’s quest to attain nirvana, the end of the karmic cycle when it is believed that one ceases to exist as an individual and is absorbed into the cosmos. As I watched him Robby explained to me that Hindus worship at the rivers and Buddhists worship on the mountains.
On this second round there were many connections awaiting us on the trail. Just above Syauli Bazar was a restaurant. The woman attending it was open to conversation and after a bit Julie was able to pray with her. Just a little farther up the trail we met the headmaster for a school in Gandruk, different from the one we visited the week before. We learned that he had attended a Christian school in India and had become a believer but was no longer following Jesus. After some conversation Mark was able to pray with him. We offered him a Nepali language Bible but he preferred an English one so Julie gifted him with hers. The headmaster also invited our team to visit his school as we passed through Gandruk.
The group walking with Daniel G. found the father of the shop owner we prayed with the previous week. He was still adorned with signs of Hinduism but after some sharing prayed again to receive Jesus. (My observations through the years is that coming to Christ in a South Asian context is more of a process than an immediate experience. Perhaps that is the norm for everyone but it seems much more obvious there.) His daughter, the shop owner, was excited about her new relationship with Jesus and had made some cross earrings for her sister with whom she was sharing truth. We also passed children carrying goods in baskets hanging on their backs supported by a strap across their heads. Children almost always come to greet travelers usually with the word chocolate (pronounced cho-koh-lah-tay) their word for any kind of candy (chocolate is actually not a common sweet in Nepal).
After climbing many, many stairs, meeting many mule trains, and taking in an abundance of breathtakingly stunning vistas of mountains terraced with Kelly-green rice fields we finally arrived at Ghandruk. Exhausted as I was I was weirdly excited to see Michael, the goat, again. Settled down on the patio and savoring a wonderfully comforting Nepali milk tea and biscuit (cookie) I realized that Michael was nowhere to be seen. I asked the British tea house owner about him. “Ah, we had him for dinner the other night,” he responded (which would explain why he had been tied up by the kitchen, lol). I was weirdly heart broken at that news. Dinner would again be the exotic (for Nepal) treat of pasta. And since it was Julie‘s birthday, dessert was a still warm, chocolate cake with chocolate icing. As there are no ovens I cannot say fresh-out-of-the-oven but I can attest that it was fresh off the wood-fired, clay stove of the tea house. And it was extraordinarily delicious.
Since there was an abundance of water at Sakura Tea House some of the team washed out clothes in a bucket and hung them to dry overnight. Three German girls were also staying at the tea house and were open to conversation with the two Daniels. After dinner they joined us in a worship time.
Monday morning several of our Alaskan team woke up sickish, weak and foggy brained, in a way that sounded to me like the feeling that comes with heavy spiritual oppression. Even though no one felt much like shouting, and definitely not like singing, I was positive that that was the Lord’s directive from last week and so was determined that we would shout. (See 100 Gazillion Stairs, Part 7: /https://jackietallent.com/2023/05/16/winds-of-the-himalaya-part-7/) To my dismay neither Chris nor Katie knew Shout to the North (Delirious) but I felt that was part of what we needed to do. So Chris suggested Shout to the Lord (Darlene Zschech) which as it turned out worked just fine. So as we headed out of Gandruk we found a place overlooking the valley with a majestic panorama of the Himalayas and we gathered in close together. Chris led us into a sadly feeble singing of “Shout to the Lord all the Earth, let us sing – Power and majesty, praise to the King – Mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of Your name.” And then in possibly the feeblest shout ever heard we yelled out the Names of God over the Gurung villages surrounding us. As we were shouting there were two enormous avalanches across the valley on different mountainsides, one a couple of minutes after the other (we saw a total of three separate avalanches that morning). I knew with all my heart and being that God was showing us that the heavenlies were shaken, something was broken in the spirit realm, the mountains were bowing down, the mountains trembled (Delirious). It just goes to show that it was not our strength or power because we didn’t have much, but that God responded in His Power when we were faithful to obey.
After a short trek we found the school of the headmaster we had met on the trail yesterday. When we arrived it was 10:00 am and the kids were all lined up and beginning their opening ceremonies. Then they handed it over to us to give a school assembly. We led them in some action songs. Jennifer shared from the Word and I told a story using Kasi from the Alaska team and Puchanga from the Nepali team as actors.
After many, many more stairs we arrived in Tadapani in the afternoon. Everyone passed the afternoon playing games and resting. After dinner we spent an extended time talking, sharing our stories, and worshipping together. I noticed that a few people had slipped out but didn’t think much of it until someone came to get me and took me upstairs to the room of one of our girls. She had become very, very sick after dinner and was shaking violently and crying, clearly frightened. A small group was praying with her but she was not improving. I sat on the bed beside hers, watched for a bit, and silently prayed. I strongly felt that it was a spiritual attack. We continued to pray, sang some choruses, and then I felt led to read a Psalm (I don’t remember which one, perhaps it was Psalm 121). As I read and spoke the words of the Psalm over her and directly to her the trembling stopped and she slowly settled into a more peaceful state. I explained to her and the others that this attack was not a sign of weakness; that it was possibly the opposite, like a form of retaliation from the enemy for the strength she had exercised earlier in the day, a tactic of intimidation. She didn’t want to sleep alone so we moved her to the bed next to mine for the night.
Downstairs in the dining room there was a cultural show. After the show our Nepali team began singing and then there was a time of worship in English. Everything could be heard clearly in our room and it brought a wonderful, peaceful atmosphere to us as we drifted off to sleep in Jesus’s Presence.
“I look up to the mountains—
does my help come from there?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth!
He will not let you stumble;
the one who watches over you
will not slumber.
Indeed, he who watches over Israel
never slumbers or sleeps.
The Lord himself watches over you!
The Lord stands beside you
as your protective shade.
The sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon at night.
The Lord keeps you from all harm
and watches over your life.
The Lord keeps watch over you
as you come and go,
both now and forever.”
Psalms 121:1-8 NLT
Coffee, Tea, and Reverie 