Tony Danza is truly Nepali

For the past couple of weeks, we have attended a Nepali church service on the mainland of Penang. This service has been interesting to say the least. All of the attendees are men due to the fact that the women in Nepal don't come here to make the money for their families back home, which is pretty legitimate if you ask me. Many Nepalis have come to know Christ through this ministry and it is constantly growing. All of the men are so accepting of us and love to have a time of fellowship after the service to ask questions about where we are from. I wrote down in my journal last night that it is a really incredible thing when you realize you are in a room full of people who are the epitome of a cultural antithesis and you cannot understand a single word being said, but you can feel the presence of God. These men worship with their own drums that get passed around when arms get tired and they worship without boundaries. If I came home and tried to do similar dance motions with my arms I would have a pretty steady string of insults hurled at me most likely regarding a preference of mine, but it is beautiful when these men dance and sing with a reckless abandon to God.

The title of this has a little to do with "the boss." Last night, we not only attended the aforementioned service, but added a completely separate service to our list of things to do on Sunday afternoons. A service that begins an hour and a half after the first is finished. As Jared was sharing his testimony, via a translator of course, there was a very disruptive Nepali man who felt it necessary to correct the translator and "help her out." The translator, Kai Lee's face seemed to blush red with embarrassment, she is after all trying her best as a Chinese lady who heads up the ministry that is in 100% Nepali. I began to feel bad for her and glanced at the man and realized that he was a dead-on carbon copy of Mr. Danza himself. Kai Lee's potential embarrassment was tossed out the window as I was enthralled with this man's appearance. I began to question myself.

"How did I miss this guy in the introductions?"

"Was Tony Danza a fraud?"

"Is Tony Danza really Nepali?"

The second two questions are a bit ad libbed, but this occurrence did spur several quiet impressions of Tony Danza from my floor spot in the back of the room. We do, after all, find ways of entertaining ourselves during 45 minutes of a foreign tongue. It ended up being a brilliant night capped off with some tandoori chicken, which I am totally convinced that God himself invented in India somewhere.

Other than the Nepali service we have spent a lot of time as a team worshiping. As a matter of fact, in a 24 hour period, 8 hours were spent in a room worshiping in two separate 4 hour sessions. In all honesty it became somewhat of a burden after a while. I am glad we had the experience, but if you ever find yourself with a songbook that people are considering flipping back to the first page to continue, let me say good luck.