The opinions expressed on this blog are the personal views of Andreas Kjernald and do not reflect the positions of either the UMC congregations in Skien or Hvittingfoss or the UMC Norway.

fredag 24 februari 2017

Day 49 - Exploding sugar canes

Tonight is Matashivamatri, a Hindu festival honoring the god Shiva. I'm not sure what it involves except that Shauds, Hindu holy, men smoke weed in the temples and that the women cook a lot of food AND that they light bonfires and throw sugar canes in the fires. This makes them "explode", which is the backdrop for tonight's activities of drinking tea and watching a movie...or something. That, and intoxicated men roaming the streets :)

Today is almost exactly 1/3 of our time in Nepal, 49 days. It seems like a very long time and it seems like we've done and seen A LOT. February is otherwise kind of a slow month here. It's very hazy and cloudy so the trekking and the mountain stuff and sights are not possible. Most days we don't see the mountains at all. Think smog in Beijing, except it's not pollution as much as it is dust. We haven't had rain in months and there is a lot of dust and sand flying around. Not bad enough to notice, just bad enough to not being able to see the mountains or go trekking (or something similar).
Trekking, by the way, is surprisingly expensive at $200 for a five hour trek just around the hills where we live. What?

We are making progress on our goals here in Nepal. As some of you know this trip wasn't all about doing work with our Family Home. It was also, and perhaps mostly, a time for Laurie and I to take some time to get a new (and fresher) perspective on things/life/God. Being an evangelical pastor's family in the United Methodist Church in Scandinavia is no easy feat. It is hard. It is lonely. It is easy to forget where we are coming from and where we are going. It is easy to lose sight of Christ. It is easy to become discouraged and frustrated and cynical. To some extent I think we had done all that.
So, our goal is to get back to our roots and find our purpose and catch up with our Savior once more. Ironically, we are doing it in one of the most pagan countries on earth.

I have started reading again...a sure sign that I am doing better spiritually. My first book, "Union with Christ" is being read slowly. My second, "Simply Jesus" got finished yesterday. That on was written by NT. Wright, a theologian/superstar...and I disagree with him. I am exegeting Scripture for fun (weird, I know) and to get to know its Author more. 2 Corintians is an interesting book to study.

Our days here are pretty uneventful for now. We homeschool Sam and David. We bike around town. We go to church (this past Sunday we tried a "homechurch" that was connected with something called "Calvary Chapel" out of the US and had a service in English. It was good to sing songs we knew and hear the Word.
We try to find fun little adventures for the boys and to teach them about why we are here, why people here do things differently and to ponder why people here seem so happy (without the modern trappings of XBox, HD movies and Gb/s internet).

That is all for today. Continue to pray for us and thanks for reading!

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