At our fourth church in as many days, Paige gets up after worship and the welcome time to introduce our team. She has done this many times by now, and she always starts by telling them we call ourselves The Sisterhood because we are sisters in Christ.
Our host and his group of young friends start calling themselves The Brotherhood in response, and we decide that together we are The Siblinghood.
Our Nepali Papa and Amma call us “churi,” which means daughter in Nepali. Their daughters call us “didi,” which means older sister. And we call the boys “bhai,” or little brother. Every night before dinner we play with the youngest of our little sisters and ask how her day at school went. Sometimes Papa teaches us from the Bible, but we always read scripture before we eat. And there are nights when we get the special treat of hearing Papa play his sarangi!
We live with a Hindu family whose eldest daughter is married to Papa’s eldest son. Auntie and Uncle take great care of us, and their three other children are dear siblings as well.
We visit a church with a woman who runs an orphanage with nineteen children, all of whom she considers her own, just like us. She serves us and encourages us and teaches us how we were sitting in ways not considered culturally acceptable during meals, just as a mother teaches her daughters.
We meet a pastor who walks over an hour one way to reach his church. After worshiping with him and his congregation, he leads us back to his house where his wife has prepared us a meal. We learn that she is so thankful for our visit because her older daughter got married, and we remind her of the daughter she misses dearly.
We visit a church with a “lady pastor.” She shares her testimony of how she overcame serious cultural obstacles to pastor this church and carry out specific sacraments such as baptism, weddings, and funerals. She encourages us as women, her daughters in the faith, to keep loving people, to keep sharing the love of God, and not to allow anyone to stop us.
We travel six hours to Pokhara to meet up with other teams in the area and celebrate Thanksgiving with them. At times all-squad month as our first month presented serious challenges, but now I see it for the gift it was. Meeting up with our squad mates feels like a reunion. And having our squad mate’s mother there to make the meal and love on us reminded us of our own families back home.
After recovering from food poisoning, my first day back at ministry is our last with the network of churches we’ve been visiting. Pastors from several of our visits throughout the month are crowded into the small church. We worship and dance and take pictures together, enjoying the familiar faces of another reunion.
I was born into a family with a father, a mother, and a brother. In college, I joined a sorority and gained sisters. Last month in India I added a squad of sixty. I leave Nepal in a few short days with a family much bigger than when I came, and that is a beautiful thing.
