Our team received a card on our last day at the Peace Loving Children’s Home in Pokhara, Nepal. In the card was a poem that read
Tea is hot
Life is short
Forget us not
Just beautiful. I want to paint those words on a blue wall someday. It seems appropriate for a blue wall. I want to update you on what’s been going on during our month here in Nepal. The following blog was written on February 12th, but I have been unable to upload any blogs for about two weeks, so my apologies.
Written Saturday, February 12
I’m sitting on my plywood bed on the second day of our stay here in Chitwan, the second stop on our Prison Fellowship tour. We arrived just before lunchtime yesterday, after a long and slightly nauseating drive through the mountains. Apparently, all the rules for driving around here still apply to mountain driving.
- If someone is in front of you, drive around them, even if you’re going around a corner.
- If you pass someone, only to realize there is an oncoming vehicle in the other lane, just make sure you drive fast enough to get around the vehicle you just passed.
- Pedestrians walk at their own risk. Don’t try to avoid them. They should avoid you.
- If you are driving downhill on a mountain road, and no one is in front of you, drive as fast you can. Why wouldn’t you?
After arriving (safely!) at our new home for the week, we were served a lunch of rice and beans and told we would be building a chicken coop while we’re here. A real job! Yay! And they weren’t kidding. No sooner than we had finished our lunch we were out in the yard digging holes and gathering rocks. The holes were about a foot in diameter and about 18 inches deep. There were six of them, and posts will go into them and will be filled with cement. Meanwhile, a backhoe dug a huge hole in the front yard where a fish pond will go. Our job was to collect all the large rocks from the freshly dug soil and put them into a pile. I am still unsure of the purpose of the rocks.
Victory on the rock pile! Our job was to move the large stones you see from one place to another. And sometimes, we had to move them back to where we got them from.
L to R: Suzi, Melanee, me
After a short walk and a trip into town to buy some plywood, we arrived back at the home to find the girls preparing dinner. And by “preparing,” I mean that there were about 10 girls, ages six to twelve or so, knee-deep in the muddy frog/fish pond literally grabbing fish by hand and throwing them in buckets!
We had a devotion time with the kids, followed by dinner, but I missed both due to not feeling well. I woke up yesterday not feeling great, and the drive certainly didn’t help. Neither did digging holes out in the hot sun. No big deal, and I’m fine now, but I turned in early last night.
So that was yesterday. Today we have the morning free, so I’m blogging and will hopefully get some clothes washed. This is our second full week of ministry in Nepal. Before coming to this location, we were just outside the main part of Kathmandu, at a children’s home. There were 11 boys and 3 girls, and a house mother and father with their 2-year old son. The children there all have parents in prison. The heartbreaking part of their stories is that, in Nepal, if a child’s parent(s) go to prison, and there is no one else to take care of them, the child will go to prison with the parents. Part of the role of Prison Fellowship is to rescue children who are in prison. The children in Kathmandu had all been in prison at one point. The youngest girl there was about 5 years old.
Dinesh, our contact and one of the founders of Prison Fellowship Nepal, once worked as a lawyer and saw the conditions of the children of prisoners. This led him to start the ministry, which is now the only religious organization allowed within all of the prisons of Nepal. In fact, up until two years ago, it was illegal to practice Christianity in Nepal. Dinesh has been incarcerated several times for the work he has done through Prison Fellowship. While in Kathmandu, we had the opportunity to visit one of the prisons. We spoke to two Nigerians and one Canadian-American who were there.
On our way to the home in Chitwan, we stopped on the side of the road and picked up two children who would be coming to live at the home. They wore boys’ clothing and had short hair cuts. I was surprised to learn that they were actually girls. Their father had died, and their mother remarried, after which point she abandoned her two children. Girls in Nepal, as in many cultures, are considered burdens to families. Because they do not typically work outside the home, they are seen as worthless, not producing anything. When girls are married off, the family must pay a dowry, so girls are a burden to their families from the start, which is why so many are abandoned.
Since starting this blog a few days ago, we’ve expanded our work into three projects that are going on at once: the chicken coop, a newer and bigger fish pond, and a swimming pool for the kids. We’ve continued to gather rocks, move rocks, collect rocks, and spread rocks. We’ve also painted the poles that I believe will go in the chicken coop and built a stone border around it. We were unable to work yesterday, because it stormed all day, which was a relief to our aching backs.
Update February 26
Today is our last full day of ministry in Nepal. We are back in Kathmandu at the first of the three Peace Loving Children’s Homes we have visited this month. We are leaving tomorrow to spend some fun free time in the Tamil district, and then heading to Romania on Sunday.
The children’s home, where mostly boys lived, near Kathmandu. We spent our first week of ministry here, and then returned for two short days at the end of the month.
Our last week was spent in Pokhara, at a home for girls. Although trekking took up two of our days there, we were able to form relationships with the girls. We watched movies with them (The Jungle Book and Swan Princess – props to our guys for staying awake through both of them!), ate with them, danced and sang Justin Beiber and Shakira. We walked with them to a nearby river, where they washed their clothes and their hair. The house mother at this home, called “Auntie” by the girls, spoke no English, so our main contacts were two precious girls – Rita, 19 and Renu, 15. Rita had been in the care of Prison Fellowship for fourteen years. Her mother has been in prison for that long, and she has no contact with her father. She has a servant’s heart and helps Auntie run the house, cooking and caring for the girls. She has recently returned to school, where she is in the 9th class/grade. Children can remain in the care of Prison Fellowship until they complete the 10th class.
Our team with the beautiful girls at the Peace Loving Children’s Home in Pokhara, Nepal. Rita is the one in the second row from the front wearing the white shirt. They are all precious, and we wished we could have spent more time there (watching more Disney movies, of course!)
Nepal has been an amazing month! I absolutely loved being able to travel around this month to three different cities and homes, building relationships with the children and house families along the way.
In one month, I have
gone to church in a “treehouse” (see the Nepal video when it makes it way here)
met a preacher who literally lives on faith, traveling the world to share the Gospel, relying on those he meets for provision
learned that putting your clothes inside your sleeping bag on a cold night makes them warm in the morning
dug 18-inch holes that will create the foundation of a chicken coop, which will help provide food to four children’s homes
been laughed at by children and field workers as I’ve tried to cut down a corn stalk
talked with children, prisoners, and yoga-religion people about Jesus
ridden on top – yes, on top – of a city bus, dodging power lines and trying to hang on over the bumps in the road
(What? The bus was full!)
checked my teammates’ heads for lice (three words: orphans in India)
watched Melanee and Kristen get their nose pierced, Nepali-style
used a bathroom that had a resident rat and the droppings to prove it
taken a shower over a squatty-potty, only to realize later that there was an actual shower head two stalls down
The squatty-potty stall had a window, though, which sure beat taking a shower in the dark.
I preferred the squatty stall.
laughed alongside little girls and nearly-grown women while watching The Jungle Book
hiked a mountain in the Himalayas (see my next blog)
gotten some weird bumps on my hand, but have not been sick
held a baby goat
prayed over one of the house mothers who suffers from a throat sickness
listened to a rainstorm while sleeping under a tin roof
worshipped by candlelight with boys who used to be in prison
It’s been an incredible month. Namaste!
The girls of TeamSOR11 (L to R: me, Melanee, Suzi, Kristen)
Yeah, this is how we typically spent our afternoons in Nepal.
Um, just kidding. This was at the resort near our home in Pokhara.
Team SOR11 lookin’ like rock stars, as always
L to R: Kristen, me, Suzi, Scott, Melanee, Kelly
