Surkhet and All The Rest

Apologies for the no-blog! 

Since the last blog we have been to a country village, a village on the plains near the Indian border and a village in the mountains above Pokhara.

It would be far to comprehensive to write all of our experiences, so instead I will give a highlight of each week.

The country village was wonderful.  We were welcomed into the pastors own house for a 5 day stay, receiving God given hospitality and eating the BEST dhal bhat!  This week we worked with the Toilet Project, which we had fund-raised for at Christmastime.  We were able to bless the village with 20 toilets, 5 of which were in construction during the week.  As a team, we were not able to help out as much as we wished, but that meant that the local resources were used a lot more, which is always a good thing.  All in all, we can be extremely happy with what we did in this village, and so can all who supported us!!  We blessed many people with clean places to go to the bathroom, which creates better sanitation for many families.

The village in the plains was another amazing week.  We stayed in a house, which was also the church, and again were served by some of Gods children. The family, who also lived in this house, cooked for us the whole week, making DELICIOUS food, and a delectable treat called "cell rotti" which are the traditional Nepali rotti.  This week we had many highlights; visiting house fellowships and praying for many who were sick.  The best thing that we experienced?  An open air when we preformed our program for 700-1000 people!!! We prayed for at least a hundred, and handed out hundreds of bible tracks to the on lookers.  It was an amazing experience, and one that completely surprised us with the Holy Spirit.  Never before had we experienced so many who wanted prayer, and who got healed from it!!! We have many stories of miracles from this day. 

Lastly, we spent our final week up at the Frontier Mission Center, above Pokhara, with Oyvind, a field worker there.  Oyvind has a beautiful vision of building a resort up in the hills up there.  He has already begun his work, and he hopes to be finished in 2 years.  We spent the week doing practical work at his ranch and doing door to door house meetings in the surrounding village.  The door to doors was our highlight because we were able to share the Good News with so many!  One group lead someone to the lord, while others were able to pray for other residents.  It was a beautiful time of fellowship and sharing. 

Our team is now residing in Lakeside, Pokhara for our debrief time.  Over the next few days we will be looking back and reflecting on out time here, all we have learned, and how we are growing.  We will also be looking forward to the future and creating goals. 

PRAYER POINTS
-for God to continue work through us, even though we are done our ministry
-for God to show up in tangible ways.. for us to see his love and beauty in events and moments
-continued unity in our team
-safe travels back to Norway (we have very close connections on some of our flights.. please pray that nothing will be delayed!)
-keep Nepal and everyone we have met in your prayers, that they will continue to know blessings and Gods love for them!!


Blessings from us,
The YWAM Nordtun Team

Surkhet

Sorry All for the delay in blogging!! We have had a whirlwind time since arriving here a week and a half ago.



We arrived in Surkhet in the predawn morning after a 15 hour overnight bus ride from Pokhara.  We were greeted by some of the base workers and lead on a short walk to the Surkhet Base. 


Soon, we discovered that Pokhara was luxury.  The base here is filled with lovely people, who make the MOST amazing food, however, the amenities here are less than in Pokhara.  But really, who needs western toilets?  Not us!

The first 5 days we spent serving the base and the Surkhet city area.  We spent 3 days scraping paint off the concrete walls of the classroom, only to repaint them.  It was a fun job, but took us 3 times longer than it should have.  We all enjoyed serving the base and making it look beautiful.  In the evenings we also went and did open airs in some slum areas, and visited a youth night at the church.  It is fun to show who God is through songs and dramas, as well as have the chance of talking about him!  The team is loving the chance to Make God Known. 

Last Monday we left to go to the Dailekh district to a small mountain village.  It took us 9 hours of public bus (EXTREMELY bumpy) and a 3 hour hike to get there.  We arrived tired, but ready to work.  In this village we were able to provide the money for a Water Project for the Secondary School.  With our money, 600 students will be benefited with clean water facilities.  Thank you to all who gave for this project! We will have pictures to show you of the work in progress!

Unfortunately, because we are not used to building Nepali-style, we didn't get to help with the actual building of the Water Project.  That was all right because God had other plans for us.  We were able to intercede for the area, holding worship and prayer sessions on the hills surrounding the small village.  Also, we traveled to other nearby villages (walks/hikes ranging from 20 minutes to 2 hours) to hold Open Air meetings.  We found that some people in this region have never heard of God or Jesus!! Back home, this is almost unheard of, so we enjoyed the experience of sharing with people. 

For many in our group this was a dream come true:  Hiking into mountain villages to share the gospel.  It is inspiring to be a part of out teammates dreams coming alive!


On our last day we also were invited to witness baptisms.  What a privilege to see someones spiritual life change forever!



Tomorrow we head to another village, thankfully only a 2 hour bus ride away.  We also get a visit from a base worker from Norway!!! We are so excited!


PRAYER REQUESTS:
-pray for those who heard our message, especially for those with questions, who received a bible, or who accepted Jesus into their hearts.  Please pray for their future, that they would continue to know God and seek him.
- for those who were baptized.
-for the health of our team. A few of us have been sick since arriving in Surkhet.
-for safe travel to and from all the villages
-for unity in the team