what a crazy day.

as usual in Nepal,

anything can and will happen very unexpectedly.

so today I found out that I live 2 minutes

away from Kathmandu Vineyard,

which is a sister church to the one I go to Belfast!

so yay it was a Nepali service but really nice.

a lot of the songs were actually the Vineyard

english songs that have been translated and

the worship team were made up of street kids that

were rescued and now live in a home run by the church.

so that was pretty cool and they were asking if

anyone had this particular illness or health problem

to come up to be prayed for- and pretty much the whole

church went up to the front and cause the prayer

ministry team was so overwhelmed they called

us by name to go up and be part of the prayer team!

it was weird praying for Nepali people who

prolly had no clue what I was saying!

but oh well, God understands and that's all that matters (:

so we went on to Pashapati after,

which is this group of temples and this is where

the Hindus cremate their dead family members and

wash their ashes into the Bagmati river,

which as a result is terribly horribly dirty.

we arrived right at the time where this family just

laid their dead grandfather by the river

and started the ritual so we sat down and watched

for an hour or so, it was really sad seeing the family

say their last goodbyes and torch the body.

I've never been to a funeral before so I've

never really experienced firsthand just that emotion

and atmosphere of grief ):

it actually felt like i was intruding but it was just this

big open space next to the river and there were

random people just sitting about while the

family were mourning and it seemed like such a private moment.

it must be so hard to see the face you're so familiar

with being consumed by flames.

so yeah, weird long hot day.

i'm visiting a Newari village tomorrow,

which is apparently going to be really Nepal-like

cause everyone says Kathmandu is too westernised.

i'm trying to upload photos, we'll see how that goes!