My team and I spent the last week in Pokhara, Nepal. To say it is a beautiful place would be an understatement!!! With green all around, lakes, and a view of the Himalayas, it is a site to see! We got paired up with a ministry there through one of our squad leaders. It was a school, Lekhnath Memorial English Boarding School, preschool through 10th grade. This school was purchased by a man named Titus about a year ago who has a vision to turn it into a christian school which provides a quality education to the children in that community. This is however Nepal, and there has been some push back and persecution. Many parents pulled their kids from the school. That however has not stopped their progress or vision! Proverbs 22:6 Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
There is a church in Korea that helps support this school and sends teams there for five month trips. Currently there are 3 Koreans there volunteering at the school. We got to join them in their guest house for the week and do life with them. Only God can orchestrate something like this, Christians from America joining Christians from Korea to support, encourage, and volunteer at a school in Nepal!!! But it was awesome!!! We lived together, worked together, cooked for each other, ate together, and prayed together.
Thankfully our team came equipped with a math teacher and a PE teacher, so they fit right in and got to work using their God given gifts. Victoria volunteered to take on science. That left art and ESL (English as a Second Language)… as you may know I am not the most creative person on the planet so Kailey took that one (although I did fill in twice), leaving me English. Im not a teacher but I do speak English!!! So with lots of prayer I jumped right in. Thankfully my classes started with the younger kids and progressed to the older kids later in the week which helped give me time to plan. God provided ideas through teammates, google, and good ole winging it! The kids were truly amazing which made it easy and fun… but I will probably stick to nursing!!! As for Alyssa (our resident videographer) she got to help make a promotional video for the school and a video telling Titus’ story.
My typical day would start around 7:30am with coffee and quite time, usually outside with the view and the nice weather. 8:30 was breakfast which they prepared for us each morning and was always amazing!!! Especially the pancakes! We would leave for school at 9:50 (it was a short walk). School began at 10:00 with morning assembly. There the kids all lined up in straight and super orderly lines. They would sing their national anthem. After that they would call one of the kids up to lead the prayer which all the kids would repeat. They would call another kid up to show talent (dictate something they had learned to the assembly). Then off to class.
I didn’t have ESL every period so I usually found myself assisting in either Math or Science. We participated in school lunch. And the day would end at 3:40. Once returning home we would try to get in a workout… when we had the motivation. As for dinner we would rotate who cooked, sometimes it was American, sometimes Korean, and one time it was Nepalese! After dinner we would have some team time and then head to bed fairly early. It was awesome to be able to support this school and love on the kids!!
Saturday we got to go to church. We led Sunday school for about 30 kids. They sang songs from my childhood such as This is the day, and be careful little eyes what you see, but in Nepalese. Side note: this is one of my favorite things when you know the song they are singing in church and you get to sing along in English while they sing in their language and just thinking about how God hears, understands, and is glorified by them both. Megan told the story of David and Goliath while she, Erin, and myself acted it out. We ended with a coloring page and of course SNACK!!!
Soon we will be headed to our second debrief… Crazy!!! But I will be keeping this school in my thoughts and prayer and I ask that you would join me in that. God is moving and good things are going to happen! If you would like more information about this school or would like to donate please look them up online or facebook.
Matthew 19:14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
