First Day in Tansen

We met at the hotel restaurant for breakfast at 8. Shailesh had stayed in my room, because his hotel room was much smaller and was extremely crowded with his three daughters (it wouldn't be the last time he "escaped" to sleep on the extra bed in my room, haha.) That morning began the first (and thankfully, only) day I had...er...digestion issues. I had a sip of non-bottled water the night before, thinking it had been boiled - just a SIP - and that's probably what did me in.

At breakfast, we met two Americans - they were a married couple working with YWAM who lived in India and were hanging out in Nepal for a week or two. YWAM is Youth With A Mission, a worldwide mission organization that's involved with all kinds of different Christian ministries; we know several people from our church who work with YWAM in various parts of the world, so we were excited to meet them. Their names were Daniel and Rachel, although Daniel went by "Deepak," since the locals had trouble saying his name.

After breakfast, we went to a small conference room at the hotel to meet with some of the Tansen church leaders before heading out for the day. Daniel and Rachel came with us. Robert gave a brief testimony, and then Seta, who, along with his role in the church, was on staff at the Mission Hospital we were about to visit,  gave his salvation testimony, which was very powerful:

Before he was born, his father was a witch doctor in a Nepali village. Everyone came to him for healing, etc., and he was actually able to heal some of them - but when he started having sons, they all fell sick and died at a young age (a few months old, 1, 2); they would just faint one day and then never wake up. When Seta was born, he also fainted at age 2, and both his father and the local priest could not heal or wake him. Desperate, they went into a town to search for help. There were two Christians in the whole town, and when they heard about it they said, "We can heal your son with a power that is greater than yours, but you must believe." His father agreed, and within 20 minutes, Seta woke up, and was completely healthy. Seta's father believed in Jesus from that moment on, and converted the rest of his family; soon after, the priest and the rest of the village also came to know Christ. What an amazing story - the very fact that Seta is alive is a testimony of God's power and of the salvation of an entire Nepali village!

After the testimony, we ended the meeting with prayer and then went to drop off luggage at the various houses people were staying at. Kristen and James were in pea-green house with Pushpa, a woman who helped led the worship team at church. Kelly, Myriah, and Lauren stayed with Pastor Durgha, who was the head pastor there. We had met him briefly before our trip; he came to America for a few months last summer, staying mostly in Texas. He drove to Arizona to meet with us, having been connected through a mutual friend, Pastor Bishnu, who had formerly led the church in Tansen but now pastored a church near us in Phoenix. Shailesh, Aimee, their kids, and Melissa all stayed with Pastor Bishnu's family - his mother and brother lived above a Christian primary school called "Little Lamb School." We saw it briefly, and then went on to tour the hospital.

I'll describe all of these people in more detail soon!