Nepal and the Himalayas

Dear family and friends,

I just want to first off thank you for all of your prayers while I was on my last trip to Nepal. There were many times things were about to go wrong but went right because we had people praying for us.

One example would be our flight to and from Lukla. That is a village you fly to from Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, to start your trek to Mount Everest. Two days before our team was suppose to fly, no plane had taken off or landed in Lukla because of the weather. But the morning we were supposed to fly, it cleared just long enough for our plane to fly and land safely. One of only two planes to make it that morning. The same thing happened when we were flying back too!
Without that plane taking off, we wouldn’t have even been able to reach the mountains.
While in the Himalaya mountains we trekked over 24 miles (up and down mountains and valleys) and were able to help 300 patients receive free medical care and medicine. We joined pastors who are trying to plant churches in the Buddhist villages to help share the love of Jesus to the people.
We also ministered to another village in the lower valleys of Nepal. To get there we had to ride 5 hours in 4-wheel drive on dusty roads over and around mountains. It was one crazy ride. But we went, where no team has really been before. We walked 30 minutes to a village in the middle of nowhere, slept on the floor of a church that was just built, and ran the clinic outside for two days where we saw over 130 more patients. The village, that was first unsure of our presence, was waving goodbye with big smiles and helping us carry our things back to the road.

Trips like this, and in general, are very hard to put into words. So many small details make up the whole story and it’s impossible to explain it all on paper. But to those of you reading this, just know that you were as much a part of the team as I was. Without your prayers and support, none of that would have been possible. I wouldn’t have even made it to Nepal. We wouldn’t have been able to fly to the mountains or been healthy enough to trek to the high villages where people needed doctors. It took us two days to get to them; and some of them walked for hours to get to us.

It is crazy to think that this trail to Everest, that has thousands and thousands of people walk on it each year from all over the world, and you know some have been Christians; yet these people they walk right by have never even heard the name of Jesus. One of the tea houses we stayed at and did a clinic outside of said they have never had visitors before that came to help the people. Everyone always comes for the mountains. And though the mountains are breathtaking, we went for the people. And boy are they beautiful!

I am now back in the Philippines continuing to tutor, teach students English, and helping with local feeding ministries. And I have a small mission trip planned in April to bring food to the poor in a village not too far away.

Thank you for your support, your prayers, and encouraging words!