New in Nepal: New Friends, New Perspectives & a New Brother

My first days in Kathmandu: bewildering traffic, unexpected kindness and a SIM card with an unusually generous family plan.

A rainforest in the middle of Doha Airport. Not your average stopover.

Well, here I am. Nepal!

After 14 hours of travelling, including a rather surreal stopover at Doha Airport with its very own 6,000 m² indoor tropical forest, I finally landed in Kathmandu.

Dinesh, one of the founders of Volunteers Initiative Nepal (VIN), picked me up and introduced me to what would be my home for the next four weeks.

The view from my room at the VIN Centre. A surprisingly green corner of Kathmandu.

My first impressions? Traffic that appears to operate without any recognisable rules, yet somehow keeps moving. Street dogs that seem to have mastered the art of inner peace. And people who have already managed to surprise me more than anything else.

When I asked Dinesh if I had to worry about being mugged or robbed in the Thamel area of Kathmandu, he replied:

“No, not really. That’s not in our nature.”

What a statement! And honestly, it feels very safe walking through the streets of Thamel, day and night. The people keep surprising me with their authentic friendliness and genuine curiosity.

Kathmandu’s streets: a little bit of everything, all at once.

The evening traffic has its own ideas about right of way.

On my first day, I was wandering through Kathmandu when a shopkeeper invited me to look at his merchandise. I politely declined. Instead of trying harder to sell me something, he asked whether he could help me with anything else.

“Actually, I’m looking for a café.”

He started giving directions, quickly realised how hopeless that was in Kathmandu’s maze of little streets, left his shop without locking up and simply walked me there himself. Then he wished me a lovely stay in Nepal and went back to work.

No sales pitch. No expectations. Just kindness.

And it happened again!

Another shopkeeper asked whether I wanted to buy something. When I declined, he asked what I was looking for instead.

“A SIM card.”

He called a friend, then personally escorted me about seven streets away to a tiny shop selling cashmere shawls and SIM cards. The owner was sharing apples and mandarins with a friend, and naturally, we were invited to join them.

A shop bursting with colour.

An ordinary Kathmandu evening, with everything you could possibly need.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten my passport, so I promised to return the next day.

Now, normally I might have used that as a convenient excuse to disappear. Too many experiences elsewhere have taught me to be suspicious of strangers being unusually helpful. Surely there must be a catch somewhere?

But this time, something felt different.

I’m slowly learning that not everything has to be tested to be the cheapest deal or the most efficient solution. Sometimes it simply has to feel right.

So I returned the following day, just as promised.

The shopkeeper was so delighted that I, as a foreigner, had kept my word that he immediately declared me his sister.

A neighbourhood shop after dark.

Fresh fish, fresh conversations.

These street dogs have mastered the art of doing absolutely nothing.

My new brother. I went out for a SIM card and came back with family.

Three days in Nepal, and I’ve already acquired a new brother.
Oh, and a SIM card.

Not bad!

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On a new journey... Hello Namibia!!

Wow, it's been a long time since I have added anything to this blog.
And so much has happened since... But I will try to keep it short and sweet.

Morning Hike in Daan Viljoen Park

I have now been to Windhoek, Namibia for almost 5 weeks. Why am I here?
1. At some point, my dad was teaching at one of the public schools here in Windhoek and therefore my family lived here for 5 years - before I was born. Now it's my time to follow their footsteps.
2. I will be teaching German students at the University of Namibia (UNAM) for one year as an part-time lecturer.
3. I will be involved in different community development opportunities throughout the year to continue my mission of making this world a better place - one step at a time :)
4. The weather here is just so much better than in Germany ;)

Since my arrival, I have stayed with the sweetest family, who has contributed so much to the fact that I already feel at home in this new country. I have to smile at the fact of how creative God is in connecting people: The mother of the family I am staying with was one of my dad's students over 30 years ago, when my family lived here!

Katutura - the name of this township means
"The place where people don't want to live"

I am teaching 3 classes at the university here and, unfortunately, the students here show very little motivation in anything. They rather stay at home watching TV than engaging in activities. They rather turn in articles they find on wikipedia than learning from their mistakes. They only show up twice a week because they know, they only have to fulfill the 80% attendance rule. Barely anyone showed up to class throughout the first week of school. As a very enthusiastic teacher, this fact is hard for me to cope with. However, thanks to my education at Calvin College, I introduced the idea of "Kulturpunkte" (culture points) to the German Department at UNAM: Throughout the semester, the German students can participate in weekly cultural events (like German movie nights, dance lessons, board game afternoons...). Each of the events is worth 20 points and at the end of the semester, they have to have collected 100 points. So they can pick and choose which events they would like to go to. The fascinating thing is that last year, only up to 2 students showed up to the cultural events that were offered. This semester with the new structure, I had up to 50 students show up to each of our 4 events so far!!! Let's hope the enthusiasm won't die out too quickly, once the first people have collected their 100 culture points ;)

Evening hike at Avis Dam

In my freetime, I LOVE spending as much of my time out in nature. Going on hour-long hikes through the hills, sitting on top of a mountain watching the sun go down (which is called "a sundowner" here) and I have even been in a bike race - cycling is a big thing here in Namibia :)

Next Wednesday, I will move to my new appartment - which is fortunately very close to the university, so I don't have to spend as much time in this crazy Namibian left-side traffic anymore...
May you all have a blessed Sunday.

Yours,
Kat

Sitting in a dry river bed

Sundowner at Heinitzburg, Windhoek

Christmas Letter 2012

Thank you for your ongoing support and I wish you all a good start into a happy new year! You might have already received this letter in case you are on my email list but I wanted to post it to my blog as well. Once again, thank you for being part of my life - in whatever way you are :) 

My Christmas together with the wonderful VanDyken family in Lynden, WA

Dear family and friends!

Another year has gone by and the end – as always – has caught me by surprise… hence the belated Christmas card! I want to start of my letter by apologizing for not having been able to stay in touch with everyone of you individually, but please know that this does not mean that I have forgotten about you or that I don’t think of you often. Life just keeps me busy and I am always so thankful to receive updates, emails or phone calls from you J

This year, I have continued to pursue my Master’s degree in Teaching German as a Foreign Language at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. I love the program and I have become close friends with several of my classmates. Throughout several internships, I realized how much I enjoy teaching and I feel incredibly blessed that God has opened up this opportunity for me to become a teacher at last.

This past semester, I was supposed to teach and study abroad as part of my Master’s degree. And even though there were great possibilities to complete this semester almost anywhere in the world, I decided to go back to my “abroad home”: Calvin College in Michigan. What a blessing to once again be part of the college where I became a Christian, where I fell in love with teaching, where I met my wonderful boyfriend and so many of my closest friends, and where I have my church home!

I will be returning to Berlin in February to finish my Master’s degree by the end of July. I have also been hoping and praying to be able to go on another mission trip during spring break but along with my parents’ fluctuating health and the heavy work load that is required to complete my degree in time, I feel like God calls me to stay closer to my home at this point. However, I am curious and intrigued to find out what He has in store for me after the end of July…

I wish you and your family & loved ones the opportunity to spend some quality time together, as well as a healthy and well-rested start into a new year, full of laughter and unforeseen possibilities!

Thank you for your ongoing prayers and support.

May God bless you in this season,

Kat

YWAM 2011 Kat Stahl

Dear friends, family, and supporters,

This clip can only give you a short glimpse of the wonders I've seen during my mission trip with YWAM in 2011. After our lecture phase in Hawaii, our team went to South Africa and Swaziland for three months to share God's love that we have all been blessed with.
Thanks to everyone for supporting me - because I could not have done this trip without the spiritual and financial support that I have been given.
May God bless you,
Kat

God is Still in Control

This will be the last blog post I will be able to upload before we are finishing up our 2 1/2 amazing months of ministry in South Africa. These last couple of weeks that our team lived in Masi have been absolutely incredible. Our Bible studies, for example, have outgrown all of our expectations: 15 to 20 young people from Masi came to our house EVERY DAY right after school for some coffee, cookies and Jesus time :) All of them gave their lives to the Lord, several committed to completely stay away from drugs and alcohol and one of them was released from an evil spirit. Honestly, in these past months I have been part of stories that I would have otherwise only listened to in disbelief. Some of those crazy missionary stories that could only be made up... unless God REALLY was at work. And at this point I would doubt several of my own stories had I not been part of them ;) God is truly more amazing than we can fathom when we really encounter His presence.

Our last big ministry event was last weekend. We put on a Masi Talent Show in Masiphumelele. Our intention was to give the people of Masi a better alternative for hanging out on a Saturday night than to go out drinking. And our hopes came true. We had about 30 artists who performed either a rap, song, dance or drama and over 100 people in the audience! At the end, we gave out prizes for the first three winning groups: gift certificates to local restaurants within Masi. These gift certificates were all funded by our fishing pole fund (remember the money Josiah and I raised with the dance lessons we led back in Hawaii?). The great thing about these certificates was that instead of giving the winners the money, we had someone of the long-term ComTrans team take the group out for lunch. This way, they could work on building a closer relationship with them. It's great to see that the ComTrans team is taking over the work that we had started: they just got back from taking some of the Masi youth to a worship event - because THEY had asked for it!

Unfortunately, I now need to share about one very sad event that happened to us just 4 days ago. We had finished our ministry in Masi and started our time of debriefing. For that we moved into a lodge in a VERY SAFE area outside of Masi... and we had a break-in the very first night. They broke the window and stole two laptops and one iPhone. One of the laptops and the iPhone were mine. I have lost a significant amount of my pictures that I hoped to use to raise funds with after I got back to the Western culture. At this point I am also not sure how to come up with the money for a new laptop and iPhone in case my insurance won't cover everything. This has definitely put a dent into our basically perfect time here in South Africa but I have also learned an important lesson that God has convicted me of: when I sing songs like "Lord, take all of me" or "there is nothing I hold on to besides you, Lord," etc. - do I ACTUALLY mean it? Is it not more like: "I give it all to you, except for..."

I am learning a new lesson on how to let go of things that seemed SO NECESSARY to me but that in the grand scheme of things are of such little value. It has been very hard for me to loose my equipment but at the same time I am so thankful for God's faithfulness of keeping us safe all of this time. After hearing about this story, one of my friends commented on facebook that "God is STILL in control." What a wonderful reassurance and lesson to understand.

And I know it will be very hard for me to leave South Africa because God has touched my heart through the people I have met here in a way I had never expected. I want to thank God for all the lessons I have learned and all the joy I was able to bring to other people and they were able to bring to me. And I also want to thank my supporters once again for helping me make all of this possible. I cannot wait to see many of you during my stop-over in Michigan on my way home to Germany. I simply ask for your continued prayers for financial provision (so that the stolen equipment can be replaced) and for safety during our travels as we will be flying out of Johannesburg back to Hawaii tomorrow.

Living in Masiphumelele

What an experience that God has invited us to! For about 3 weeks, our team has now been living in Masiphumelele, a township of about 30000 to 40000 inhabitants (the number changes constantly because of people moving away from or to Masi - legally or illegally - and because of the high number of people who die for different reasons). Estimates are that there is about 80% unemployment and about 30-40% of the community is infected with HIV/AIDS and/or TB. The house we are living in is in the heart of Masi and belongs to the infamous drug lord Small, one of the two richest and influential people in the township. How did we get to live in his house? The long-term missionary team (Community Transformations) we are working with, who live just up the hill from Masi, have been praying over this house for years, hoping for Small to stop his shady business as well as to open the door for the team to be able to live in a safe house within the community. And God answered their prayers: a few months ago, one of the ComTrans team members took heart and asked Small for the house. He answered that he had actually been thinking of renting or even selling his house - to a Christian organization! So here we are, our PhotogenX team came just at the right time and are now the first Western team that has ever lived in Masi.Take a look at this LINK so you can see our big green house (left hand side).

And we enjoy it! It feels like we are already making a difference by simply living our normal lives within the community. Many times when we have talked to people on the street in the beginning, they were absolutely stunned when they heard we were actually LIVING among them. We have heard things like "There must be some truth in your words about love, if you actually come LIVE with us." The people in Masi are used to missionaries who come and work with them during the day - but never stay after sunset. And it gets pretty crazy around here - there is ONE legal tavern in the township... and about 100 illegal ones. However, God has sent many angels to protect us and most people know us by now as the "Mulungus" (White People) who are not too proud or scared to live with them and actually watch out over us. Today, I heard a lady tell me that she has asked the police to drive around our house at least once or twice a day just to make sure everything is ok.

Yes, I absolutely love Masi. Our team has seen so many healings (physical and spiritual), people coming to the Lord and turning away from drugs and alcohol, as well as developed close friendships with one another. On a daily basis, our team first walks the streets of Masi, in order to meet old friends and make new ones :). Then we often have some kind of program, especially on the weekends, such as a "Women's Beauty Day," "Kids Ministry" or simply a time of worship. At around 5pm, we host a growing number of people from the community for a Bible Study - which blows my mind because of the honesty and hunger that lies within the people's questions. After the Bible Study (which often lasts for about 3-4 hours), our team has family time. I have to admit, these are some of my favorite moments of the day - our team really has become like a family over the past couple of month that we have spent together :)


And with all the wonders that God has revealed to us during our time here, there are - once again - also hard times. Even though it is such a blessing to be living within Masi, it is sometimes hard to minister to people 24/7. Since we are quite an attraction within the community, we have especially a lot of kids visit our house at all times. Most of them are so needy for love that they want to never leave; which is flattering, challenging, and most of all very sad. Since the first couple of days, our team has been struggling with fleas (and potentially scabies, we are still not quite sure). We have washed all of our clothes and sprayed our rooms - but some things just have to be accepted as they are. When I tried counting my bites at some point reached the number 278...
 

Please continue to pray for our team as we are entering our last weeks of ministry. One of the greatest things  is that ComTrans, the long-term team, will be able to nurture the relationships and the seeds we have just sowed even after we have left!

Homestays in Mbonisweni and Dangers along the Way

For four days, our team was able to live with families within the community of Mbonisweni, one of the communities where we were helping out with the orphan feedings. Our team split up in groups of two and really became part of the African lifestyle. Evelyne and I were placed in the household of Gratitude, a 19-year old girl who had lost her parents and is now running the family of 7 together with her grandma. Our time with them was wonderful and even though communication was not always easy (since the family only spoke broken English), we learned how to communicate non-verbally and how to fit in to the family's everyday life.

We got up in the mornings to take a bucket-shower (people are considered dirty if they don't), helped out with the housework throughout the day, learned how to make pap (African maize meal that is frequently used instead of rice) and participated in the community life. The grandfather, who was only at the house for half of the time because he has two wives and two households, and Evelyne and I had long conversations about God, life in Europe vs. Africa and politics. We realized that our short stay with the family actually made a great impact on the family: by choosing to stay at their house, we, as white people coming from a different part of the world, brought public honor to the family.

After the home stays, our time in White River had come to an end. Before we left the Ten Thousand Homes ministry, we decided to leave the families we stayed with and also the children at the orphan feedings with pictures that we took of them during our time here. How wonderful to see their eyes light up by finding their picture on the wall! The importance of a picture within these communities is amazing because to them a portrait of themselves means "I am somebody. I am seen and not overlooked." However, once again, our team realized that we did not only bring something to the community but most of all, we learned from them. Our motto has become "seek to understand before you seek to be understood."


Even though we all have been so blessed by our time here in White River, there have also been downsides and dangers. One day at the base, we found a snake in the girls' room - a Green Mamba! The locals told us that, if it had bitten us, we would have probably had time to scream before we had died...
Another time, robbers came to the base at night and stole all of our toiletries out of the bathroom building - including jewelry and medications. However, up to that point Kristina and I had needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of every single night... just this particular night, we did not wake up and thus did not end up accidentally running into the robbers!
Once again, we are aware that God is with us and has kept us protected all this time. This realization is not for us to start feeling invincible and make naive decisions - but only to realize how much we depend on God and how much we are to worship and praise him.

Please keep us in our prayers as we leave Ten Thousand Homes now and are about to start our ministry in Capetown with Community Transformations (http://www.followthereids.com/about/community-transformations/).