Nepal has been on my list of places to visit for as long as I can remember. Having grown up hiking and exploring the Canadian Rocky Mountains – Nepal’s Himalayas feel much like visiting a familiar yet distant relative. Ever since the earthquake devastated the country a year ago, it has been on my heart to get on the ground and see how they are doing. I was so encouraged to see the rebuilding and resilience of these gentle and friendly people. Nepal is truly in a time of transformation. The ruling authorities may say this is a very poor country that is under oppressive weight from neighbouring India and doesn’t have much of a voice – but there is such an interwoven beauty within this country; I can’t help but believe there is something very special about to explode from this place.
I spent the majority of the month trekking with D.F.S. (Dragon Fish Storm) and my team (Food Truck) which we lovingly re-named Fish Food for the duration.
Over many kilometres of steep dusty trail, mud-huts, and jungle we were introduced to the people of Nepal’s remote hill country – many having never met North Americans before. Through translators we shared our stories and slowly began to grasp what day-to-day life in drought and poverty looks like.
For me, one of our more heartbreaking front-porch visits was with a man who sat holding his young daughter in his lap. With his family gathered around him, we learned that his wife had up and left with a neighbour just four days earlier and no one knew where she had gone. Though I did not speak directly to the man myself, I could see the all-too familiar pain of betrayal, confusion, and rejection shining in his eyes. He explained that the nights were the hardest because that’s when his little girl would cry for her mother.
My reaction wasn’t anger towards the mother or any assumptions that the husband had done something to make her leave. No – we all make bad choices out of unmet needs we either don’t understand how to meet, or selfishly decide to take the “easy” way out. This was a man and a daughter in need comfort and my only prayer was that the Comforter would come and walk with this little family into a place of forgiveness. It has been my personal experience that without forgiveness, I’d have simply rotted away internally and never fully discovered the path to peace and freedom from rejection and loss. So I chose to grieve with this man instead of passing judgement, thankful for the gift of community that surrounded him.
The Comforter is in Nepal, of that I am sure.
