Starting the youth camp

On January 2nd, we started the youth camp at Tansen Church. Pastor Durga had invited many other churches in the area to come, and six churches in and around Tansen sent representatives. We also had a missionary group of kids from India, led by a pastor who was born in Nepal but has lived and ministered in India since he was 13. He spoke English extremely well, and I really enjoyed talking with him. 

We started off with Nepali worship. I recognized some of the songs and sang along in English. It was kind of surreal to hear familiar worship songs I had heard growing up sung in a different language; I think hearing that opened up some level of understanding in me, that my upbringing and experiences were not as isolated to my culture as they seemed. Not that I thought that consciously, but I didn't travel much at all as a kid, and so I didn't have those kinds of experiences to really understand what it was like to grow up in another country, and especially to be a Christian in another country.

After worship, the Indian group did a choreographed dance - they actually did several throughout the camp, and they were pretty awesome at it. I was impressed. Their style of dancing seemed American-influenced, even when dancing to Indian songs.

James gave the morning message. He focused on the fact that God does not lie, recounting His promises and the prophecies and fulfillment of the Messiah, and then gave his testimony of walking from Texas to Arizona. I had heard the story from him before, but it was no less amazing to hear it again. His testimony included many instances of God giving him specific numbers that led him to his destination, even when he didn't know where or why he was walking, (and originally planned on making his way up to Washington) - for example, he originally cut his walking stick to match the date he set out (73 inches/July 3rd), but felt the Lord tell him to shorten it to 61 inches. He did, and ended up finding the number 61 come up several times when he reached AZ (the address of the house he was led to, the year the house was built, etc.) I wish I had all the details; if you know him, you should ask him about it sometime!

After he spoke, Robert spoke briefly, and then we broke for lunch, which was, of course, dal bhat.