i need help

it's funny i keep hearing from people in America, "molly, i love what you're doing. i want to help people too." and i think, man, if they only knew how little i am doing and how little i know about what i'm doing here. I can only do what i see other people like Brook, Maggie, Kara and Silas do. i can only do what deep down i think Jesus would do. and let me tell you - i'm even hesitant at that. i really didn't come here "to help people" - i came here to see more of God, to meet Jesus in the midst of this desperate world.

i am such a baby when it comes to the streets and knowing how to interact with the drug addicts and beggars. i see these guys' abscesses and wounds from drug use and i freeze. i don't know what to do. but what i do know is that thousands of people walk by these guys every day, thousands of locals and even hundreds of tourists through the week and well, these guys who are addicted to drugs, the names on their lips are Maggie, Brook, Kara, Silas. they approach me with such joy and such humility. I see that one guy is wearing Maggie's pants and the other guy is wearing a sweater that Kara gave him. these guys approach me and these are the names on their lips, they know i am friends with these people and i say "yeah, i'm their friend. how's it going?" and they tell me about their recent ailments and their friends' conditions and maybe i sit with them and maybe we eat rice but maybe we don't and they tell me how they're meeting up with Brook later and she's going to take care of their wounds and she might take them to the hospital and sit with them. and yeah, hopefully while i am here God will soften my heart and i will not be sicked out by the abscesses and i will be willing to take time out and to sit with them and to love them.

our community here is about to start another wave of meetings with these guys. many of them are ready. they are desperate and they want to believe in Jesus more than they believe in drugs. they want to come live at "the mercy house" - which right now houses about 15 guys full of life and love that a year ago were living on the streets themselves. a year ago they could not dream about life beyond their next fix and had never tasted of the freedom that Jesus had to offer them. it's amazing the transformation i see here. i get to hang out with the guys at the mercy house every once in a while and i am always so encouraged by the joy and the redemption covering their lives. ben and i might get to meet with them more regularly - i would offer them guitar/music and ben can teach them about computers - pretty sweet.

but right, i really feel that my life here is less about me "helping people" and more about them blessing me and maybe i do get to pass on some things that have been given to me every once in a while. i think back to my first week with my family here and the only small, tangible gift i brought with me from america - a little decorative cross for the wall and a little book about gratitude in a little, yellow bag. i feel like that exchange was kind of forshadowing of my experience here because really the gift didn't even come from me! my super generous, kind-hearted friend, Nikki, in LA gave me this gift to give to my family because i'm that much of a slacker. i remember Nikki was like, "i even have this cute little yellow bag we could put it in" and i thought that was unnecessary, but we did it anyways and well, now that little yellow bag is hanging on the wall next to the cross. it was just as important to the family. i never would have thought it could be that special to anyone.

yeah, Nouwen points out that Jesus says "blessed are the poor" not "blessed are those who care for the poor." so, yes wanting to help is such a noble desire, full of grace, so beautiful. but i have had to realize that God's blessing to me is coming from the very ones i want to help and that i want to serve. Nouwen says, this is so key i think, "Ministry is first of all, receiving God's blessing from those to whom we minister." yeah, so i am so overwhelmed with goodness and gratefulness to God and to the ones that i came here "to help."

~currently reading: Here and Now by Henri Nouwen - definitely changing my life.

paint me over.

lying on the floor with Maggie
ben in the corner
brook and kara paint their new walls
the perfect brown elludes us again
callouses on their hands, holding up my pants
playin a couple rounds of however many steps to kevin bacon
and we were singing... bye, bye miss american pie...
turns out ben knows all six verses
turns out brook loves the monkeys too,
you know, hey, hey we're the monkeys,
i'm a believer
windows open
crisp air flowin'
neighbors looking in.
sunset sillouetting
the mountains around
maybe we'll make
our own prayer flags.
and maybe we'll paint the wall
brown again.
so beautiful.
so simple.
so vibrant.
so toxic.
maybe it was the paint fumes.
or maybe it was just a good time.
night, fall over kathmandu.

where the rapids have no names

i like this font. it looks like a typewriter.

right, so i went rafting last week. so incredible - mainly because it was the first time i got to get out of the crazyness of the city since i've been here and mainly because Nepal is so beautiful. the mountains outside of the valley (kathmandu is in a huge valley completely surrounded by smaller green mtns) were so amazing. so steep, so vibrant, so tropical, just dripping with color - all different shades of green. the rafting experience was a bit more grass roots than i'm used to, which is so nice.

rafts are great and all but i my favorite part is jumping out and floating in the less rapid parts. i and a couple others were out of the raft for quite a while and the current was pretty strong. it just made me laugh how fast we were floating down the river. i kept thinking the guide will tell us when we need to get back in the boat, you know if there are rapids ahead, but instead he just yelled, not very concerned about liability, in a loud fierce Nepali accent, "swim to the left!" or "swim to the middle!" it was great. slash i was thinking - are you serious? are we in danger? but whatever, it felt great to be in the water - so freeing, i can't even tell you. there's something so beautiful about being in the water in your clothes. it just seems so natural. i think skinny dipping is over-romanticized as being this super-liberating experience. and well, maybe it is, but i feel like the focus is usually "i'm not wearing any clothes." and when i get in the water with my clothes on the focus is usually "i'm in the water!"

ok, right, rafting was great after all the floating. when we got to the big rapids i wasn't as afraid of falling out. there were a couple times when i thought, "this looks more like a wave at the ocean that we're going straight into..." yeah, it was so excellent. amazing scenery. amazing rapids. amazing water.

so, when the trip ended we were all really soaked and really tired. but the bus with our dry clothes hadn't made it yet, something about the Maoists holding up trafic we heard - no big deal. we ate lunch, the clothes came, we went up to the road to catch a bus back to kathmandu. it was hot. i fell asleep on the side of the road. i wake up and there are no cars passing. we find out the Maoists have shut down public transportation in the valley and were burning tires in the villages, blockading the only road back to the valley. hmm, we're not in kansas anymore, eh? well, we hung out at the little river/jungle/cafe for 5 1/2 hours... finally something happened and we were able to catch a bus back to the valley. it was quite an experience. we crammed in the back of the bus. excruciating Hindi music blaring on and off through the speakers, metal seats infront of us crashing into our knees. we laughed. we shifted. we tried to sleep. really it was unforgetable and you know, i wouldn't want it any other way.

i posted photos from rafting and many other things on the photo link.

a bottle of coke

i decided to buy a nice cold beverage - Coca-Cola - for my family last night as a suprise. i knew they'd mentioned liking it and i'd never seen them drink it. mind you, i gave up all carbonated beverages on principle at the age of 7. (sure i make exceptions on occassion for special drinks).

but there are other principles i have too
about celebrating, about life, about love.
so last night we all had a glass.
we were all sitting on the bed.
i taught them how to say "cheers"
and how to toast one another.
we all drank.
we were all smiles.
everyone together.
everyone toasting.
it was priceless.
it was beautiful.
i'll never forget it.
who would have thought...
one little bottle of pop.
could bring so much.
joy.

photo lovin'

when i travel or live in a place where there are lots of tourists - i like to offer to take pictures of couples and/or families. because otherwise they're always like, "ok, you take a picture of me with this in the background and then i'll take one of you with this in the background." and well, someone is always missing from the shot. couples and/or families are supposed to be together. what couple wants to decorate their house with photos of one of the two of them by themselves on vacation?

so today at my favorite-chill-restaurant i took a photo of this Asian couple sitting nearby. They were taking turns taking photos of each other and the exotic food before them. (i've never been much into taking photos of food, i'd rather just eat it - but you know, a lot of folks like to -- Ben, my family in Switzerland).

so, yeah, the couple was really grateful and it makes me smile to think that they might decorate their home with that photo someday. wherever their home is... selfishly, i'm glad that i got to be involved in their lives and unselfishly, i'm glad they got to be in the photo together.

hmm, i went on a sweet rafting trip yesterday. more to come on that...

just etre, let it be.

there's this lovely French documentary called, Etre et Avoir, "to be and to have." it chronicles the life of this quaint little village centered around the one-room school house. sure, call it slow, but there's something beautiful about it. the film captures the children just "being" and growing as opposed to performing or acting.

the Word Made Flesh community here promotes the idea of "being" rather than "doing." which is a relief, because otherwise i would be overwhelmed by all the things i'm not doing... only after we allow ourselves to be can we catch the vision and strength to be people who do. i love this. so liberating. and then i was thinking about this idea of "being" and remembered, oh yeah, Yaweh, the name of God is "I AM" not "I DO." wow. how perfect.

so, yeah, "etre" - i want to tattoo this on my ankle. i'm always thinking of different things to tattoo on my ankle. for the longest time it was a bonsai tree, but then really, what does that even mean? hmm, it was actually Megan from Eagle Lake's nepal-foot-tattoo-testimony that inspired me to want to check this country out. and painting something meaningful on my feet has become even more beautiful here in nepal because the nepali culture holds the feet to be officially at all times "unclean." the hindu caste-culture believes that the upper caste of people were born from the heads of the gods, the next lower caste, from the gods' necks, and so on. they believe that the lowest caste, the untouchables, were born from the feet of the gods, which is completely offensive. ouch, these people are born under such harsh lies. so i think this makes the idea of a foot/ankle tattoo even more beautiful here, scandalously so. so, if you want to know how i'm doing, just ask what i'm currently thinking about tatooing on my ankle.

a few notes on nepal.

fascinating.
the one thing i knew about nepal when i was a kid was that their flag was the only one shaped differently from every other country's flag.
ok, that's cool.
i get here and i find out here in nepal it's the year 2063.
interesting, i've heard of other countries having different calendars.
and today is not september 6th, in nepal it's august 21st.
sweet, i like august.
ok, this one kind of blows my mind.
in nepal right now the minute hand is at 48 past the hour.
every where else in the world it's 33 past the hour.
bizare, why is nepal fifteen minutes off?
in nepal when you are born you are considered to be one year old.
so i know a kid celebrating his 11th birthday tomorrow,
but in america we would say he's turning 10.
hmm.

nepali word of the week = jilli-milli, which means "to twinkle"
the little girl in my host family the other day
said that the sequins on my shirt were twinkling
and i pointed and said that her eyes were jilli-milli.

hmm.

ok, well, funny that i chose to put that last post up because well, like i said i was searching for a creative way to break the ice with my neighbors. i thought about praying about it and thought about asking others to do the same, but i never really did. and as i was thinking about ideas the other day, i was thinking maybe a game of cards or i could borrow a guitar. then the other night i stopped by my room to find this huge, sick spider on my wall. i went into emergency mode and ran out into the hall. i quickly introduced myself to the guys that hang out in the dark hallway, explained my situation in English slash body language and before i knew it my room was full of guys trying to catch this spider (note, i had asked them to kill it but whatever). so one of them caught it and threw it over the balcony. it was all pretty exciting and kind of embarassing, but at least i feel pretty cool with the neighbors now. they're all nice, young arachnophiles just wanting to help.

johnny cash and namaskahr

my friend Brook told me the funniest story yesterday. well, i was telling her how it was kind of wierd, most of my floor mates in the building are young men. here in this culture men and women don't really interact unless they're married. and so she told me about when she and maggie were living together when they first moved here. everyone in their building was from India and they didn't speak any Nepali. all of their neighbors would pound on their door late at night after they were in bed and they wouldn't stop until someone answered the door. and when brook and maggie opened the door there were 10 or so Indian guys and one Indian girl just standing there, staring at them. they didn't say anything, only standing and staring. to break the awkwardness maggie grabbed her guitar and started playing johnny cash songs. they liked that. they smiled. maggie & brook only knew two Hindi words, "chai" and "namaskahr." so she strummed the guitar, hummed a little tune and sang the word chai then namaskahr, and so on. only two little words. but they loved it they were smiling and nodding their heads and repeating the two words to the melody.

so, i feel like there is always a common ground. somehow we all have something in common. with some people it's easy to find this common ground, with others we have to be more creative.

help me find this common ground.
even if it means making a fool of myself.
with the neighbors.
with our friends on the street.
even if it means more white rice.