Day Fifteen: Worship

Today we began the third week of outreach by enjoying another Sabbath. This morning we rented two canoes and paddled around the lake for a while then hiked up to the World Peace Pagoda on the other side. We walked around the temple praying and then set up right at the entrance and sang worship songs, read scripture and basically ruined the atmosphere for everyone who was looking for enlightenment through Bhuddism. We got the usual amount of odd stares and the older generation was quite curious as to how our little speaker could produce so much sound. Nicki hit it off real well with three young boys and one of them in particular was quite interested in hearing about Jesus. Anthony had one of our backpacker Bibles with him so we gave that to them and they were really excited to go home and read it so that they could pass it on to their friends.
Somehow the focus of our time in Pokhara kept on gravitating towards worship. Meeting Chieran (the hostel manager) was a huge blessing and it turns out that my initial estimates about the small number of believers in Pokhara was a translation error and the church is actually growing quite fast. It's not hard to imagine why when you hear the testimonies that these guys have. We spent New Year's Eve with a small prayer group and got a massive feast out of the deal and then on Saturday we attended a church service with about forty or fifty members. I was fortunate enough to sit next to a guy that spoke pretty good english and he translated a few bits and pieces for me. It's really humbling to see how much faith and passion these little Nepalese guys have. Most of them live very simply (the pastor is a taxi driver) but they all want to work harder so that they will have more money to give to the poor. They are so hospitable towards us and genuinely stoked that we're here. Being able to worship and pray with them will definitely be the thing that I remember most fondly about Pokhara.
In other news, Anthony has fully recovered and we had a great time celebrating his birthday a day late. Keep Petra and Katie in your prayers, they both have colds. Thank God that my health has been tip top so far (and that it will remain so).
We're starting the trek to Varanasi early tomorrow morning. It looks like it will probably be one bus to the border crossing at Sunaili, then one more to Ghorakpur, then probably a night train to Varanasi... or something along those lines. Pray that I will be able to find the quickest and most efficient means of travel without putting everyone through too much tribulation on cheap busses.
Two more people to pray for specifically are Sam from Australia, who will be doing some travelling in India as well, and Frith from New Zealand. Those were probably two of the keenest people that we've met so far. Oh yeah, also Vicki from South Africa, if you're still on your knees. She just got a job at a parahawking company here and she's planning on travelling the world for two years and working as she goes. She had supper with us two nights ago.
I think that's about all for now. Pray that God would prepare the way before us in India. I think we're all ready for some good curry. We've had about as much chowmein and momo as we can take.