The Mrs. and the Mustache: Nepal (Part 4)

We left Jiri on a Sunday and headed to Banepa. It was about a 9 hour bus ride back down the mountain. Banepa was less village and more city. And to be truthful, it wasn't my favorite place.

Maybe it because it was so dirt. In some areas the streets were so littered with trash it was hard to see the sidewalk.

Maybe it was because it wasn't safe for us to walk around as females without a male with us, especially after dark.

Maybe it was because it rained the first 2 days we were there. And our hotel room was 4 cinder block walks and everything was damp from the rain.

Maybe it was the shared bathroom with the too short door that we hit our heads on in the middle of the night.

Maybe it was because of the screaming monkeys at 2 am that kept me awake.

The city in and of itself was not enjoyable, but the conference was.

This is the building our room was in.

We didn't get to explore much of this city because of the weather and safety. We spent most of our free time in the restaurant/lobby of the hotel we stayed at. One night while in the lobby we saw 2 guys get into a fight on the street outside. We were told to say in groups of 3 or more and we had to have a male with us. Our room here was basic, a bed and a coffee table. That was it, and everything was moist from the rain. We had to wash clothes while we were there and hang them up in our room. So, lets just say it took them a while to dry... Above our room was some apartments and someone had a dog, that barked at everything. Our bathroom was shared with 2 other rooms. There was no shower head, just a faucet, and no hot water. Not even a knob. One morning I had to wash my hair in ice cold water. The bathroom was so small that I actually stood outside the bathroom and leaned into the room to wash. All Matthew and I could do was laugh. He told me I had had it easy so far and this was more like what he was used to staying at in Nepal.

This conference followed the same format as the one in Jiri. It started around 2:00-ish on the first day and ended when the sun went down. The first conference had around 500 people, and they were expecting the one in Banepa to be bigger. But then in rained for 3 days (our travel day and then 2 days after). And since some of the kids would be traveling by foot, it kept them from coming. I think we ended up with around 350 kids. Matthew and I spoke on the 2nd day (the first full day). I told my testimony again, and this time it went much smoother. I seemed to be less nervous and didn't shake nearly as bad. Matthew spoke about prayer and how to be specific and steadfast in our prayers. He did really well. I was told that the Christians in Nepal we very charismatic. Which is not something I was used to seeing. In Jiri we had a few girls "fall out" on us, but not to many and only at the end. ("Fall out" means they collapsed from the Holy Spirit overwhelming them.) In Banepa we had whole sections of girl go down on the first day. We also had several speak in tongues. I have to be honest when I say I didn't know how to react. I was raised going to a Catholic church, and then spent years in a Baptist church. So this experience was a bit overwhelming for me. It was definitely an experience to watch this happen.

This conference was held at a church in the city that also has a house attached to it. In this house they have some older people from the community that live there and the church helps to take care of them. There was a sweet older man that came to the conference every day that had had leprosy. He has been cured of the disease, but you can still see the effects it had on his body.

I felt more comfortable at this conference in some ways, but stretched in others. I was exposed to a different way of worship that I had never experienced before. Jiri holds a special place in my heart, but Banepa was beautiful and fun in its own way.

Some more pictures from Banepa: