Jonathan, Elephants, and Pillows and Christmas with the Trudingers: Tales from the Mountain Tops and Valleys Below, #4

Work continued on the house, slowly, and we were settling in. Jonathan loved it there. He had a natural charm and had fun leading the village kids all over, as seen below. What you don't see in this picture is the elephant that they were trying to catch. Elephants often went up and down our village path, from the King's Elephant Camp in to the local bazaar town. Sometimes they would stop to eat grass in our backyard. During this time Jonathan was a joy and comfort to us, and a connection with our new village friends.

He loved all the animals. In our front yard were ducks, chickens and a baby cow plus 3 buffalo. To the right were 7 cows and to the left a small herd of sheep, which Jonathan especially loved to run through. Then there were all the pigeons on our roof nesting and 2 new goats out front, soon to be slaughtered. There were always dogs, but they were never pets.

When the house was still incomplete, with no walls, wet floors, little privacy, I became discouraged and full of self-pity, but somehow confident that God would redeem it all. I wrote later that week that I knew people were praying for us. One night our landlord was having a big puja—worship feast—and we were told to lock our doors. That night even Sita slept upstairs with us in our small sleeping area. Even so, the puja party was so loud all night, we finally left and went down to Kissan’s house to sleep. II Timothy 2:10: “Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.”

Meanwhile Bill continued daily language work with Kissan, and supervised the work on the house. Along with language work, I began to get to know the village women. Our heart was to share the joy of following Jesus with these who had never heard of Him. We knew it was not going to be an easy task.

One day we heard that the King Mahendra had died of a heart attack. His son Birendra would later be installed as the new king. All men shaved their heads and everyone mourned.

We finally were ready to leave for a rest in Kathmandu after almost two months of our first village stay, leaving many workmen still working on the house. Our landlord’s wife, who we later learned was more aggressive than most others, and the village kids have begun to beg for my shoes, Jon’s clothes, even Sita’s things.” And the Lord said to me, “These people are mine and I love them. They too were created for my glory.”

On our return, all of us were sick with various illnesses from amoeba to a liver abscess. Our bodies were taking a toll, and needed time to adjust to this new home environment. I wrote “How much must we protect ourselves? At all? I wish to know the reality of Paul’s words in II Cor. 4:8-10: “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”

Pillows of Comfort from my journal:

"One night I awoke, very strangely wide awake. One by one all my fears came to me. This was followed by a vision where there was a large room and Jesus at the door. The room was full of pillows and Jesus said that these were the pillows of His love and comfort, and for every fear there was a pillow. So as each fear came to me, I took it and laid it on a pillow and left it there with Jesus. As soon as the fear was with Jesus, it was no longer a fear. And a great rest and joy filled me, and the verse, “Casting all your cares on Him, for He cares for you” came to my mind and heart with real poignancy."

After three weeks, we returned to the village. Workmen were STILL working on our house. We knew I needed help with washing clothes, and watching Jonathan, and doing language study. This was solved when both our landlord’s family and Kissan’s each wanted one of their teen daughters to work for us. They finally decided to take turns week by week.

This village stay has been a good one, with much language work done. The people have been great with gifts of food like squash, cabbage and bananas. Our director brought his family with 5 kids to stay with us for a few days, and of course go elephant riding."

We took more than one elephant ride in our years living there. We typically saw rhinos, deer, wild boar. Jonathan loved the "hati" most of all (Tharu & Nepali word for elephant). He still, and collects elephant items. We had many visitors over the years who came to see us ... and ride the elephants into the jungles of southern Nepal!

But more good things happened too. We lived next door to Ron and Sue Trudinger in downtown Kathmandu. The first Christmas we were there is remembered by Sue here, with a photo below:

"Christmas celebrated on the roof of the world in Kathmandu was certainly different. We collected the roast piglet on a spit from a nearby Chinese restaurant and, joined by our Wycliffe friends from next door, we ate this delicious fare on the small square roof top of our little concrete home. Ron read the scriptures as we crunched our way through the delicious crackling. However an event that really impacted me was when we walked the dark, dirty alleyways of this city singing of the love of Jesus and we were joined by some guests from the big hotel we passed. They spoke of their emptiness celebrating Christmas alone. They were in luxury and yet that was not enough – deep inside they longed for the fellowship that Christ created us to have one with the other. The carols we sang of Jesus reached out to them and they joined us for more singing and delicious freshly made cinnamon rolls at the American Embassy."