Winds of the Himalaya – Part 16 – Coffee, Tea, and Reverie

Reminiscings from the Roof of the World

“The Most Wonderful Day of the Year”*

Christmas Eve dawned hot with cloudless, cobalt skies and excitement my heart for the day ahead. Immediately after breakfast we headed out to Khundunabari for our fourth Bhutanese camp visit where we would minister in the small, thatched-roofed bamboo church located just off camp property. Our team participated in Sunday morning worship and it was delightful but the local atmosphere was dark and oppressive. Looking around at the people gathered I thought they were blind; their eyes were totally blank. After a while I noticed their eyes moving as they looked around so I concluded that perhaps the heavy oppression over them caused the void in their eyes. At the end of the service we had the opportunity for one-on-one ministry and thankfully saw some breakthrough.

As we ate lunch with the congregation Robby told us the story of their pastor. She was an elderly lady and extraordinarily dedicated to the Lord and to the work to which God had called her. The previous year she defied the no-outreach law and went into town. While talking about Jesus to those who would listen she was arrested. Her crime? Witnessing outside the camp. After serving eleven months in prison and just before our arrival, she was released and already was back to pastoring her flock. She was relentless in serving though the job was tough and even now as I type her story I feel humbled to tears and I honor her perseverance.

After lunch we did an outdoor program with the children. I do not remember the topic but I do remember that five-year-old Abbie wore a sheep costume for her part in it. I remember for two reasons. It was scorching hot and Abbie complained about being miserable in the wooly costume–it may have been the only time she complained on the entire trip. And, when I think of Kundunabari and the people there, in my mind I see them literally as sheep.

We returned to Damak drained from the heat and from the spiritual struggle. But even so in the evening we went out into the town and did a program on the street for the children we could gather up from the neighborhood. Oddly that program was much easier that the earlier one at the church.

On return to our guest house that night there was a message for Katie. The headmaster from the large school where we had presented yesterday phoned while we were out. His message was the most wonderfully perfect ending to an already amazing Christmas Eve. The headmaster wanted to know Jesus. He had read from the Bible that Katie gave him and said that it is the most amazing thing he had ever encountered. He also shared that he had two dreams about Jesus that night. Being a teacher he was eager to teach the Truth to the 98,000 Bhutanese for whom he was responsible. Wow.

Christmas Day also broke hot and sunny and we traveled to a nearby town for Christmas worship with a church pastored by Bala’s brother. Bala, one of the Nepali team with us, has several brothers. Their mother is a widow who raised all of her boys to love God and all of them serve in full-time ministry. When I think of her I think of Susanna Wesley. Our team again participated in the meeting and it was refreshing to worship with the vibrant congregation. At the end of the meeting we celebrated Pasne, a “Rice Feeding Ceremony”, at which a baby receives their first solid food. The pastor prayed for the baby and then every adult in the room including we foreigners fed the baby a tiny spoonful of rice.

After the service we did a presentation outside with the children and had barrels of fun playing with the kids. The highlight was, perhaps, Levi’s demonstration of how to put a chicken to sleep. While we all watched in amazement, Levi picked up one free-range chicken after another, gently tucked its head under its wing, bent over, and while holding the chicken around its torso gently swayed it from side to side for a minute or two. Then gently placing each chicken on the ground, to our astonishment every single one was asleep. Christmas dinner was shared together and consisted of roasted goat, chicken, curried vegetables, bread, and aachar (South Asian pickle which bears absolutely no resemblance to American pickles). For the first time we were served food with no utensils and the sight of that group of Americans learning to eat Asian style with their right hand must have been hilarious.

In the late afternoon we headed back and visited our fifth refugee camp, Timai. Timai was much sparser that the previous four camps we had visited, bleak and dusty with no gardens and no shrubbery or vegetation growing around the bamboo huts. As we were arriving we were greeted by the astonishing sight of festive Christians joyfully returning from a Christmas Day picnic along with a wagon pulled by two cows. Atop the wagon was a loudspeaker blaring Christian music.

The pastor was away but we were able to talk with John, the youth pastor. He was twenty-five and had recently earned a Bachelor of Divinity in India. While in India studying he was jailed for fourteen months. His crime? Practicing his Christian faith. John shared with us that they had just conducted an outreach on December 9 and that it had gone very well. After the outreach he had a dream that a team from America was coming; we were that team he said. We prayed over many from the camp and when we prayed for Pastor John, Miss Emma prophesied that there would soon be a move of the Holy Spirit among their people. He invited us to come back and do a children’s program for them. I was heartbroken when he was told that it was not possible; we would be leaving in the morning for our next engagement.

Back at the tea house in Damak we concluded “the most wonderful day of the year”, Christmas Day, with a birthday party for Robby. Robby, as many South Asians, didn’t know the day of his birth; he knew the season and the moon but not the day or year. So after choosing to follow Jesus he chose to celebrate his birth on the day that we celebrate the birth of our Lord, and not knowing his exact age he supposed that he was about fifty. And so that Christmas evening we celebrated with Robby his fiftieth birthday with a chocolate cake that Leona, his wife, had sent all the way from Kathmandu.