Talitha Koom: Dream of Life Beyond the Slums
Nepal is indescribable. The culture is similar to India yet distinct in every way. The multicultural presence in Kathmandu is unexpected and the entrepreneurial spirit, inspiring. Nepali people are uniquely beautiful but cloth masks cover many faces to protect from thick polluted air. Public buses all have dashboards laced with festival flowers and pictures of Hindu gods. Chicken momos are dumpling like delights and appear on every menu; milk tea is spiced to perfection.
The streets are lined with multicolour four-story buildings where spiral staircases lead to open rooftops and colourful clotheslines sway in the wind. The hills are layered with tiers of luscious green rice fields and the most diverse collection of trees I have ever seen. Both gravel roads and foothill peaks are home to sacred Hindu temples where one of 33 million gods await their turn to be worshiped. Buddha was born in Nepal.
Snow covered Himalayans hide behind opaque clouds and every time they reveal their beauty, I feel the Alberta Rockies wrap around me like a hug. Dusk settles in before our days are through and the stiff chill in the air reminds me that snow will soon start to fall back home; this year will be my first ever reprieve from Canadian winter.
Nepal is all squad month; our family of forty-six all living under the same roof, where close quarters is an understatement and true community is redefined. Being an introvert, I expected to feel claustrophobic but instead, God has opened my eyes to the blessing of receiving grace and the beauty of letting him fill me with love for people I may have otherwise overlooked.
Ministry looks different day-to-day but everyday I come home with a story to tell, it’s hard to pick just one. There’s the story of the foreign refugee who calls herself “Christ’s daughter” because everything else that defined her was left behind when her family fled to Nepal to escape violent persecution in her home country. Or there’s the heartbreaking testimony of the man who witnessed his wife and children get shot before his very eyes before fleeing to Nepal, where He met Jesus. On Sunday, we got to celebrate the announcement of his engagement to a local Nepali woman and meet his newly adopted daughter, a 6-year-old Nepali orphan girl.
This month I have heard painful stories that make me want to cry and redemptive stories that make me want to sing. But the most memorable moments this month have been in the stillness of the mornings. While the majority of my housemates are still asleep, I go up to the terrace with a cup of coffee, looking for personal space and finding Jesus. It was on the rooftop that God whispered to me the Hebrew words from Mark 5: “Talitha Koom“, which means, “Little girl, I say to you, Arise“. A word for me in season and a word for the girl who stole my heart in the slums. Immediately my heart loved her as I saw my reflection in her face.
Our team spent the morning asking God to give us a picture to draw to give to a child at one of the slum communities. I got a picture of two hearts; the first was a black and broken heart, the other was a red heart with a yellow sun glowing from the centre.
The moment I saw this girl, I knew the picture was for her. Her smile reminded me of the childlike freedom I felt when I was little girl. We grew up worlds apart and have nothing in common but that I, too, was once a girl her age. My heart burst with the tension of being devastated by her daily reality and yet identifying with the innocent sweet little girl inside of her. I sensed her tenacious spirit and desire to dream. I was filled with hope for her future yet powerless in that moment to do anything for her but pray. Unable to communicate with words, I made a heart with my hands and placed it on her chest, then on my chest. She did the same back to me and the rest of the day she smiled at me through her heart shaped hands.
I may never see her again but I will never forget her. She became a visual inspiration of what God has been speaking to me. My whole life I was given permission to dream big, go after the impossible, take the limits off, yet somewhere along the way those dreams were put to sleep, buried in fear before they had a chance to come to life. God is reawakening the childlike faith in me to dream beyond what I can see. He is calling me to arise and dream of life beyond the slums, beyond the limits of my own circumstances; to rise up and enter into the fullness of His Kingdom purposes.
“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or imagine, according to the power at work within us” ~ Ephesians 3:20
