black friday is when the roads are blocked by men with guns

It has been a wild Decem­ber on the way up to now. I have crossed the val­ley of Nepal to the City of Pokhora in a two day jour­ney by cycle. It was gru­el­ing and yet non stop beauty. I got a lit­tle lost…go fig­ure… but thank­fully i learned to read and fol­lowed the buses that said pokhora! (the maps that i shot with my dig­i­tal cam­era were blurry in the area that i was turned around… gotta love fog) Ive been stay­ing at James Het­her­ing­tons hotel and mak­ing a paint­ing for the foyer in trade. The Nepali staff feel like fam­ily. I have eaten at many of their homes and am con­stantly mak­ing jokes… mainly about mis­un­der­stand­ings and cul­tural slips. A few days ago I went for a bike ride with a new friend at the local bike shop that turned into an all day event to the top of a moun­tain and to his vil­lage to meet his father for cheeya. on the way back I ate some river fish whole and tried not to choke on the bones. also had a nice spill over the han­dle­bars near a cliff edge… looked cooler than it felt.. im sure. Rex and Susan just arrived with their church group… and it is so good to see some famil­iar faces… though i feel much more com­fort­able with the nepalis than most of the folk from Olathe. I will try to con them into car­ry­ing a few let­ters back.. or topis or cof­fee or what­ever i can. An Indian group of chris­t­ian med stu­dents met last week in the after­noon to sing car­ols together(and have pizza)and as we were singing silent night i was trans­ported to the dark snow­cov­ered foun­tains in the plaza with the lights flash­ing in the periph­ery. beau­ti­ful. I went to Parme­las house for din­ner a few days ago and was served fish curry and daal bhat… only i received the head!… as well as a pink nepali scarf for the cold. I have been given a great trea­sure to visit this place and these people.

Merry Christ­mas. im like a child scram­bling with antic­i­pa­tion stir­ring for a cel­e­bra­tion. ..Jesus was born to bring good news of for­give­ness and redemp­tive new lives for the oppressed and those oppress­ing… break­ing the human cycle of despair and hope­less­ness. may we sing and shout with great joy in view of his mercy and love.

Liv­ing light in the dark­ness, color in the dull­ness, salt in the taste­less­ness… form­ing the shape­less end­less king­dom com­ing into being.