Regrets

It had been a long day of registering students for the new school year and my mind was practicing the steps for the dance me and a few other staff were preparing for the “Welcome Back” program that was nearing all too soon. It was Friday afternoon and the Program was Sunday. My mind began to quickly wander from the Welcome back program to the Vesper program that I wasn’t prepared to play piano for, and again to my lesson plans I hadn’t done yet, and still again I realized we needed to prepare for the group from Maranatha coming in a few short weeks. I finally came to the end of my wandering when I realized my 6 months was coming close and I hadn’t exited the country. I left my place at the registration table, where I had been assigning students to their sport teams, and went to the principal’s office. After much debate we concluded that the best time to leave was Sunday morning. It was a last minute plan to visit Nepal in four days and there were far too many details missing. But as I’ve learned from traveling over Christmas, what’s the fun of an adventure if all the details have been worked out?

So we left on a train Sunday morning, missing our dance for the Welcome Back program, and headed for Scheer Memorial Hospital just outside Kathmandu, Nepal. We had no contact information for the hospital, but I had emailed Shannon Gibb, the SM located at Scheer from Walla Walla, and told her we would be coming. We made a quick stop at one of the Adventist schools on our way to Nepal to get some advice on how we should get to Kathmandu. The principal at the school knew one pastor who was going to Kathmandu the next day, and so we left the next day with the pastor and his family. The bus ride to Kathmandu takes 12 hours from the border but after 7 hours in the bus we came to a solid halt. It was dark outside and we couldn’t see anything but rumor was the bridge had been washed away and they were using a barge to haul busses across the river. We got out and walked to the river side and counted almost 100 busses in front of ours. They said we should plan on being there for 3 nights because they can only take 40 busses across in one day. We found a map to see how far we were and we hadn’t even made it half way. “Do we turn back or stay over night? Who had given this bus driver these directions anyways? Will this trip be something I end up regretting?” These questions plagued my mind all night long as I tried to sleep in an uncomfortable bus seat with a smelly old man sleeping at my feet and no fresh air because the Himalayan air was too cold to open a window.

Somehow the next morning we caught a bus at the beginning of the line and crossed the river in a matter of hours and began moving forward on our trek to Kathmandu. It was a long day in the bus and it was starting to get dark again when our bus stopped a second time. We lined up with the other busses and couldn’t move forward due to a strike. In Nepal if someone important dies or if someone dies in a car accident they have a strike and no vehicles can move. So we waited for the strike and after several hours we began to move again. What a disaster, the 12 hour trip had more than doubled and I kept questioning if we had made the right decision. We reached Kathmandu early morning the next day and headed for the Scheer Memorial Hospital.

The Scheer Memorial Hospital was where I had applied to be a Student Missionary with Shannon. I had been sure that was where God wanted me to go so I had waited for months before I chose another location being India and the school I am located at now. The thought kept returning to my mind, “What if I regret going to India? What if I got to Scheer and realize that God really did want me here but I was just too impatient to wait for the reply?” All of these “What ifs” kept filling my mind and I wondered if this whole trip was just a bad idea.

When we finally reached the hospital they showed us to our room and we cleaned up then I went out to find Shannon. It was so exciting to see her and then to find out that there were two other Student Missionaries staying at Scheer the same week as us to lengthen their visas as well.

In all there was a total of 6 SM’s, Steven from Andrews located in Southern India, Mindy from Southern located in Northern India, Kara and me located in Northeastern India, and Brandon and Shannon from Union and Walla Walla located at Scheer. We spent the rest of the week touring the near cities and laughing at all the common culture differences among India and Nepal we had all acquired over the last 5 months, we even did some roof riding on the busses and found out later that it’s illegal. It was the easiest thing to form bonds between each other because we all had experienced huge changes in our lives that we could all relate to. What a blessing, I had no regrets in that area.
But this place, Banepa, Nepal, was beautiful. Kathmandu was 15 miles away and had everything and more you could find at a city in the states. The area was heavily populated with foreigners and after hearing Shannon’s trekking stories and all of her experiences I began to wish I too had been there to experience all these things. I started to think I could easily live here. With all the luxuries life would be fun and easy to be an SM here. Then it hit me. Being an SM would be “fun” and “easy”? Is that what life is all about? What would I have learned from my year abroad if life was “fun” and “easy”? One of the hardest things I’ve learned is that I don’t need all of the luxurious “fun” and “easy” things to make life fun and easy. I wouldn’t have learned this if I would have been 15 miles from a huge metropolitan city where I could find anything and everything I need. I’ve learned to live without a lot of things because they are impossible to find where I’m at. One night Shannon and I were talking and we both agreed that we were put in the perfect places, and learned more than we may have anywhere else. Definitely no regrets this time!