My first two weeks here were pretty hard, I’m not gonna lie.
I was homesick, I was actually sick and I just didn’t have a lot going for me.
Ministry changes from week to week, the first couple weeks we were here we did a lot of slum ministry. We did a lot of getting to know Kathmandu- the place and the people. The next couple weeks we went into a lot of cabin restaurants, attempting to become friends with the women who work there. Then to dance bars. Sitting and buying time to talk to the women. To be their friends. To get their numbers and get coffee with them.
Cabin restaurant: Basically where men go to eat and, as long as they have the money, do whatever they want to the woman sitting across from them.
Dance bar: Basically where women where skimpy outfits and dance on a stage.
This, my friends, is why I did the world race.
To carry hope into these dark places. I know full well that when I walk into a room the first thing they see in me is a walking dollar sign. But I stay. You stick out those awkward first few seconds until they realize the thing about you that’s different isn’t the color of your skin. It’s love that doesn’t make sense. It’s Jesus.
The hope of the foundation we’re working with is that the women we hang out with will quit there job and accept a new one with them.
*Spoiler alert*
None of these women like their jobs. The attention they get is so temporary, leaving them empty and unsatisfied.
I started hanging out with two girls I met at the dance bar and immediately fell in love with them. Seventeen and eighteen years old, they had stolen my heart. We met for lunch one day where we talked about their lives, things they loved to do, family, where they live, and then eventually talked about their jobs. We asked about their dreams and if they could do anything what would it be? Both of them have dreams outside of the dance bar, one loves singing and the other wants to be a beautician, doing peoples hair and make up.
We hung out a few more times and I felt so deeply for them.
These girls deserve so much more than this.
One day we went to the mall and window shopped, we ate street food, we got honey lattes from Himalayan Java (the Starbucks of Nepal) and then we went to the park around sunset. They went crazy! They looked at all the beautiful flowers and ran to the swings then to the slide and went down a hundred times. They took probably a thousand selfies and laughed really big really genuine belly laughs. My heart for them only grew!
One of my favorite things about summer camp is that it takes kids out of whatever situation they’re in and lets them be kids. And that’s just what we got to be for those girls that day. I loved every second of it. Both of them now talking about how it would really look to quit there jobs and live with the woman who mentors girls and helps them with who they want to be.
My heart beats for this ministry.
Things changed again and we started being English teachers! Which only lasted a week but was so fun to sing the alphabet song with women more than twice my age. Then they changed again for our final week in Kathmandu. Back to where we started, the slums.
The slums were hard for me since day one. It took large chunks of my heart to see people living this way. Living next to a river of poop in houses that you would think could fall down if a heavy enough breeze came along. Cracks filled with dirt on the little hands of children. All fighting for my attention.
We take a bus for about 45 minutes each morning to hangout in a little room and play with those kiddos before school.
*Something hard*
We don’t get to spend a lot of time with them. And that time is cut even shorter by our translators who insist on stopping for tea each morning. Frustrating. And all I’m thinking is that there has to be more we can do. There has to be.
But slowly I remembered that I cannot save these kids. I can only love them. I have no idea what happens to them throughout the day or where they are sleeping that night. But I do know what happens to them in the minutes we play together in that small dusty room. That’s 30 minutes of my full attention. 30 minutes of constant love and constant caring. And when I leave Nepal another team is coming right behind me to spend their mornings with those same kids with their arms open wide. I don’t know what the future holds for them but I know fully that those kids will grow up knowing what love is. Despite everything else, they will know love. And that makes me more than happy to be a small part of a really big picture for those sweet faces.
In the afternoon we go to a different slum where we spend time singing, dancing, playing games, and doing skits with lots of kids. Chaos sometimes seems inevitable and an hour will never be long enough but they are singing in love that doesn’t make sense. They will fall asleep with a peace that surpasses all understanding.
Thank you for this opportunity, Nepal. I already cannot wait to come back.
Emma
