Blessed

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

Psalm 139:17

Praise the L-rd for His continued faithfulness! His love is refreshing. This has been an incredible week full of G-d's blessings and grace. One that has not gone by without making new friends, experiencing more culture, and celebrating the relationships that have been bonded through J-sus Chr-st.

As I sit here and reflect over the past four months that we have spent in this nation I can think of nothing to do but give praise to our Father for His presence, blessings, and grace. Today was a day for celebrating despite the mixed feelings of saying goodbye to people that have greatly impacted our lives over the short time we have been here. We leave in less than 36 hours and yet we are still being invited to homes to fellowship with them one last time.

On Sunday, Shane, Natasha, and I had the opportunity to make new friends from Maryland and Northern Ireland, and share with them about our experiences. Who knew that we would be able to invest in the lives of new people during our last week here? It was such a blessing to be able to do that.

As the week went on we began to have requests to fellowship with believers over meals. Before we knew it, we were packed, so many invitations to spend time with individual families. It was such a blessing to hear their stories, see their photos and learn more about them. We even discovered the Menn. game of Npl. among the Tamang tribe. Great memories.

We visited two temples with uncle. One famous buddhist temple commonly called the monkey temple and another temple with the idol of kali where hindus come to make sacrifices. We witnessed the prayer time of the buddhist monks and had opportunity to say our own prayers for them. At the hindu temple we witnessed a goat sacrifice and was also able to offer silent prayers for those who come and go through rituals for the sake of the ritual. During those days uncle shared with us his passion for prayer and the ways in which we can pray for these people. It was a powerful time spent with him, learning from him and being a witness to the anointing he has. It was an encouraging time.

Finally on Saturday we had the opportunity to share during fellowship. It was a blessed time, enjoyed by all. We each shared from our experiences over the last four months, Austin and I sang a Npali song, and I had the opportunity to give the message. I really enjoyed the stories that the team shared with the congregation - such unique and inspiring experiences. We have really been blessed by the people here. That evening we hosted a drop-in fellowship at the ch-rch. We enjoyed it immensely.

God has really blessed us with these opportunities this week and for that, we give him praise!

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;

Isaiah 55:12a

Praises:

Fellowship with our friends

Safety in travels to various locations

Austins' 20th birthday

Time spent with our host family

Celebration of G-d's work in this nation

Requests:

For those who do not know the truth, that walls will be broken down and that when they hear the truth that they may come to believe

For our flight and travels on Monday - returning to India

For final farewells - both here and in India

Team unity

Continued desire for each of us to spend time with our Father - to not become distracted in these busy days

May you be richly blessed!

Jess

End of June Beginning of July

Indipali Y_S Team newsletter #30

Kush Lengacher

July 4, 2009

Dear family and friends,

Here are some adventures we had this past week. I just finished ten days in the village and enjoyed the time to think about my life, it was good to see the people we had met again and spend time getting to know them better. I had fun carrying water from the tap to people’s houses, and harvesting rice by hand-I didn’t know all the work it takes to make rice.

Then we had team time-it was good to be back together and share about the last ten days together, reading the Word together, praying together, worshiping together. It was a good time of fellowship. You can learn so much from each other.

One morning we had pancakes-a great way to start the day. Later that day we walked to a place with lots of tourist shops-like a town, and had some things to do. The 1^st was to sell shane’s speakers, we went to couple of stores and they said to much money we were asking. So us three were walking down the sidewalk and shane saw some young guys and asked if they want speakers and he sold them, and shane got the price he wanted, what a blessing.

Then us guys went to a café-it was nice to talk and eat a chocolate chip cookie and a mango smoothie. Then in the evening we had a house fellowship, I enjoy listening to locals signing. Another night some of us watched the Passion of the Christ, it is an awesome movie-a good reminder of all He did for us.

One day we had to renew our visas, so we went to the place around 8:30 and they don’t open till 10, there was a couple there from Australia, it was so much fun talking with him about life and what he believes. Then as a team went somewhere to eat for lunch-had Chinese, then after 1pm got our passports. Us guys decided to go see a movie, it took us awhile to find the cinema-had to ask lots of people on the way, found the place but then had to go to another one. We found it and watched Transformers 2-an awesome movie. When you watch a movie in another country-it makes you feel like you are in another world, then you go outside and reality comes back.

Another day we went into the same town and went to a music concert-with rock music from believers. It is awesome to see how good clean music bands are rising here-to help young people. Here is how we celebrated july 4^th, we were burning the trash, and decided to put in an aerosol can into the fire-it was an amazing fire and sound. This made our july 4^th awesome, and it brought back lots of memories of the past.

I hope you got a glimpse of some of the adventures we had this week. Here are some things to keep in mind as you think of us.

Praises:

Travel safety, visa renewal

Request:

Stay focused these last weeks, draw closer to Him,

Time Marches On

Wow time is flying by! I can't believe it is the end of the week already. It has been another great week. Austin and Jess continue to teach their computer and music classes. They have also began learning N_pali songs. Shane continues to paint for Uncle. I still go to the children's home in the mornings, which I love. I walk the children to school, and then go back the the children's home and do whatever work I can there to help out. It is mostly cleaning. I really enjoyed it. Kush has been traveling with Uncle. He comes back tomorrow.

Last Sunday we took G_pal bungee jumping. He seemed to really enjoy it. Friday we did the scanvanger hunt that we did in our team, with the youth here. They all had a lot of fun.

We continue to go to the children's home in the evenings and and play with the children. It is so much fun! One evening we joined them for their house fellowship. There is so much to learn from children. These children amaze me. They love the Father with all their hearts. They are not living at home with their families ; they do not have the kind of life that other children have. Yet, they are not bitter or angry at G_D. Instead of saying that life is not fair or asking "why me?" they are praising G_d and thanking Him. They have things going against them, yet they are still remaining thankful and faithful to Him.

Today we all had some neat opportunities. Shane gave the message at a ch_rch he visited last week. Austin is spending the day and night at the YWAM base. Jess and I went to a concert with some of the youth/young adults from Binay Ch_rch. It was a Chr_stian battle of the bands competition. It was a lot of fun and it was really nice spending time with them.

I am sure that this coming week will be full of many more blessings!

Natasha

Praises:
opportunities
blessings

Requests:
we would remain focused
rain

Routine and Adventures

The week of the 15^th was filled with both routine and adventures. Our routines include, Jess teaching music class and me teaching computer class in the morning. The number of students, who show up, varies each day. Sometimes I will have ten students and not enough computers, while other times I have one student and teach one on one. I like this better because I feel like I can actually teach to their level. I have a wide variety of students, some know a good bit about computers and others are still mastering the use of a mouse.

Another routine is going over to the Kids Home each evening. There are two homes and about 14 “kids” in each. I say “kids” because not all of them are that young. There are a few in their mid to late teens, while most are a bit younger. I enjoy sitting on the top of the roof and talking with the older guys. One is training for the British military so he goes running for around two hours each day. Since they are older they have responsibilities around the house like cooking, cleaning and going to the hospital when a younger brother gets sick. They live in such community. Most of them are not blood related yet they treat each other like brothers and sisters. It’s encouraging to see how they care for each other when they are in need.

Some adventures include, going on a picture scavenger hunt, visiting a slum area and carrying water. Jess put together a picture scavenger for the rest of us. She sent us all over the surrounding area to get pictures of things such as; us drinking tea with two new friends, us riding on the back of bicycles and many other interesting things.

One afternoon our host Mom took us to a slum area down by the river. It’s hard to believe how people live in such grimy conditions even when you see it with your own eyes. We stopped at a fruit market and bought 40 pounds of mangoes. We had to carry it back so Shane, Kush and I took turns carrying it on the walk back. We had fun sharing them with the kids that evening and eating some ourselves.

Our outreach coordinator had a baby and invited us and many other people over for a party. Since there is water shortage right now in Kat-mandu he asked us to help him carry water from the tap about a mile away. Going to a tap is an experience in its own. People come to it to; bathe, wash clothes, get water for household needs, and what ever else you can think of. We had to wait while one man scrubbed himself down under the water before we could fill our bottles. There are many people and every body wants to use it at the same time so you just have to weasel your way in there to get your turn.

Praises:

good health

plenty to be involved with

Requests:

Focus for the last weeks

Austin Showalter

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New Beginnings

Indipali Y_S Team Newsletter #27

Shane Martin

June 12, 2009

Blog: Old Newsletters (Pics of Npl are trying to get put up each day)

Well this week consisted of a few new things. First new thing was cooking. Kush has not cooked many times ever in his life, until now. But the good L/rd helped him greatly and the food was editable. Went to an English service with one of our new friends. It was really great being able to sing and listen to an English service again! Most likely we will be going there every week because it is on Sunday in stead of our normal Saturday services. We still go to both service though. We also have a schedule that is planned and we know the expectations for us for the rest of our days here.

During the days we have things to do, like... Jess is teaching a music class to some of the youth from the ch/rch we attend an Austin is teaching a computer class after her class to mainly the same youth or some people that want to learn how to use the Microsoft office programs such as, Excel, PowerPoint, and Publisher. Both are really enjoying there jobs although it becomes frustrating when they don't pay attention or understand something after 5 times. But the students are really great. Natasha goes to the children's home during the day time and helps them clean around the house and do other chores that they would like to be accomplished. Kush goes around to different homes of people from the ch/rch and visits them and fellowships with them (to the best of their English) or goes with others to see what they do during the days. As for myself (Shane) I have the responsiblity of painting. I am to paint the outside of the wall upstairs on the 4th floor. I love it because I got 4 (1 liter) paint cans. All the same brand and "color". Well in each of the colors I had 4 different shades. How does that work?? Either way I did my best in trying not to make a noticeable color change. If you look hard you can see the difference, but you have to look very hard. I also have to paint a few doors and railings in the house. The house will smell a little funky the next weeks. We all have a packed day, but a free afternoon to do whatever you feel like doing.

Now with our free times the sisters like to read or visit some people that come to the house or will go somewhere else. Us brothers go to the gym. Trying to get back into shape a little so that people will once again recognize who we are. The first week of lifting really hurts, but now our bodies are feeling better. Since there is a water shortage here we take showers at the gym, so that we don't use up our water. So uncle gets something good out of it as well as us guys! All are winners.

In the evenings we usually go to the children's home and play with the kids. The kids are so cute and they are so much fun to be with. They now a good amount of English and the older the kid the better the English. The kids love giving us hugs especially the younger ones. I am not much of a kid person, but I do enjoy being with these kids and loving them like G/d loves them.

Wednesday and Thursday nights we were unable to go to the children's home because dinner got to late. We spent time with Uncle and Family. From now on we are having dinner together a couple times a week so that we can learn how to cook Nepali food better and so we can fellowship. We made pizza one night. We were teaching them how to make it, because they enjoy pizza too now. We have a little oven that can make 2 pizzas at a time but they are not the biggest pizzas. So we made 8 but only could eat 6. Oh well now we had leftovers so we didn't have to make lunch the next day, yay!! The next night we made momo's. Both veg and buffalo, momo's fried and steamed. To help us make them we invited some friends so they could help and get a dinner and fellowship time with us. Both meals were super amazing!!

So know you can see a little bit of what we do here in the final weeks and some of the fun times we are doing here as the time goes down.

"The g/d of this age has blinded the minds of the unbeliever,

so that they cannot see the light of the g/sp/l that displays the glory of Chr/st,

who is the image of G/d"

2 Corinthians 4:4

Blessings to all!!

Shane

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