ChiTTo MiTho Fridays

Today was spent working in a Tibetan women's bakery, ChhiTo MiTho, Bekah, Leah and I are working to help develop. The women are beautiful and so much laughter goes on throughout the day! The three ladies you see here are believers and have such a passion for loving and serving people for Christ's cause. Our role in the bakery is not to come along side them and make it foreigner ran! Rather, our role is to encourage and work to help them expand the business so more women can get involved- and hopefully evangelism and discipleship will begin to take place.

Our Fridays consist of working with these women baking cookies for the Saturday and Sunday markets! They begin baking around 10:30 am and it often takes until 5 pm for the cookies to be packaged and the kitchen to be cleaned up.  

Also on Friday, a bible study that two AMAZING girls, Haleigh and Lyndsay, began takes place. Today was our second day to join and the scripture studied was Matthew 8:1-27. Though the women primarily speak Nepali in the study, it was evident that they all had great questions about scripture and its meaning. A portion of scripture that was questioned and really stuck out to me was verse 19-20:

Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, 'Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.' Jesus replied, 'Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.'

Haleigh spoke such truth when she told the women how it is tough to follow Jesus! After the teacher said, "I will follow you" Jesus warned him that it is not easy, even animals have some things better than Him! Following Jesus is not about being comfortable, supported and fickle. It is about surrendering our all and giving Him the first fruits of our lives. 

Scripture I found that related well to the idea of giving up everthing for His cause is Phil 3:7-10:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death...

Paul in his writting, of Phillipians, is always so enouraging to us despite his condition of prision. He really did live for Christ and consider everything else rubbish. The point Jesus brought up of following him, and the point Paul made, seems to be such an unfathomable goal. My head has a hard time wrapping aroung the concept of loss is gain. I admire Paul when I read his stories and his letters. What great example he gives to live life as if everything is loss for the sake of Christ! 

-LauraLBrown

Grace

So, I started this blog and was super excited about writing and keeping it up... Well my computer was getting fixed for three weeks, so I didn't have it; and the last week and a half I have been unable to sit down and post. But this next post is one that has been stirring up in my mind for WEEKS now! This post is what makes me name this blog “Lasting Labors”- I hope this expresses that!

Some different jobs that I have had in my life over the years include working at summer camps, babysitting, life guarding, working on my papaw’s farm, mowing (this one wasn’t by choice ;)) and working at a boutique.

Recently, for the summer break, I started working more often for my papaw. I was working with horses and hauling hay. I would help fix fence and do whatever other odd jobs that were needed at the time.

As I would work alone, or with their other farm hand or with my cousins I had a constant thought… “Is working this job making an eternal significance? Is the work I am doing pleasing the Lord?”

My answer was yes, I am pleasing Him! I know this because I know the work that my grandpa does is pleasing! He has invested his time through the years into his wife, kids and grandkids (soon to be great grandkid!). He has people who work for him all the time, and as an employer he and my memaw go above and beyond. They invite whoever is working in for a homemade, yummy, lunch. Sometimes if you get to work early she cooks up a quick breakfast and other times, if you work late, or even if you don’t, she invites you to stay for dinner. The best part about time spent working with them is the conversation that is always wonderful. My papaw is a man of the Word and a man that I greatly admire! He is a doer of Deuteronomy 6:6-8:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

My grandpa has been sick for some time with cancer but he never complains! His faith and trust in the Lord’s plan is such a great example to me. Let me clarify what I mean when I say “I think I am pleasing the Lord because he is pleasing the Lord”. What I mean is that I am often growing and being stretched when I am with my papaw and memaw. I learn from them and their life stories. I learn things such as hospitality, giving and patience when I watch them live out the gospel. I grow and learn things because they are pleasing the Lord by obeying His Word!


As I work for my papaw I am building relationships and hopefully investing in conversation. This is another way that I think my work is pleasing to the Lord. 2 Corinthians 5:16 tells me that:

we are to no longer regard people from a worldly point of view.

This encourages me greatly to work to have conversations centered on the gospel! So no matter if I’m working at a fancy boutique or on a farm, if my words and actions are pleasing to Him and if I am investing in the lives of the people around me, I know that my work has eternal significance.

In high school when I played sports I would recite the verse Colossians 3:23:

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord and not for man…

That’s a great verse and I used to use that verse to motivate me to do things that I didn’t want to do, such as practice basketball or study for a test. But now that piece of scripture and verse 24 has so much more meaning to me!! Verse 24 tells me:

…since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

With all that said, yes I need motivation… But it is, oh, so much more! I’ve learned that I need to give up everything man thinks about me. I need to abandon the desire to perform well for man. Words just cannot even express the meaning this verse provides for me now. It is the LORD CHRIST I AM SERVING!


Being in Kathmandu, Nepal I have become more thankful that my salvation comes from simply repenting and believing! My heart was turned to the truth of Jesus Christ at a young age, I believed and was saved. I don’t have to go to a specific place at a specific time to bow down and pray. I don’t have to turn a prayer wheel or walk around a temple a certain number of times. I don’t have to cry out to false gods, idols or priests who will never hear me. I don’t even have to do good works. I don’t have to do ANYTHING but repent and believe!!!! My God, Jesus, already died to do the work for the payment of my sin- that truth will never get old!

I'm so thankful to serve The Only God, and works are not what merits my salvation. Instead it’s God’s great grace that he pours out on me!  Heaven is the LAST thing I deserve! But His grace has provided it!
Today someone made the point to me that our grace is equal to the Buddhist’s karma.  

dictionary.com defines GRACE as: mercy; clemency; pardon; love; kindness.
KARMA as: action, seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad, either in this life or in a reincarnation.

With this being said, I am SO THANKFUL that my works are not my hope to heaven. The reason I tell stories about my grandparents and their work for the Lord is because it helps make my point of how we can take Christ with us anywhere we go! I am so thankful that I can work on a farm, in a bakery, in my home or at a store and be doing what it is He wants me to do. What I labor for is not what delivers me. What I labor for is what makes a lasting eternal significance because it is what God desires. Ephesians 2:8-10:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

-LauraLBrown