This is real. What happened on Tuesday is real. What I am feeling is real. These tears are real. The destruction around us is real. This life is real.
Just a few of the thoughts that I constantly have to replay in my head to actually understand that what we experienced five days ago was real; and as much as I don’t want to admit this to myself or anyone else, it was traumatic. It wasn’t just another day on the race. Although somehow it felt like it…as a racer it doesn’t take long to learn that days on the race are often crazy. Things happen, plans change. In these moments you learn to adjust, you learn to pull yourself together, you become flexible, you roll with the punches, you put one foot in front of the other and you go. You don’t question. You just go.
And that’s what we did.
I’ve come to realize that sometimes this go, go, go mentality allows events such as a 7.4 earthquake in Nepal to not seem real. It’s easy to forget that you may need time to sit and think about what you just went through, what you just witnessed, or how it really affected you. I feel like I am strong, that I am not shaken, that I have come to terms with everything…[ish]. And then all of the sudden I find myself sitting on a bed with a squadmate and tears burst out of me like a fire hydrant that just exploded. I don’t know where they came from…well I do…but I don’t.
I was fully prepared to come back from Sindhupalchok and write a blog about the time we spent rebuilding a church for the local village. What an amazing experience it was and how we were able to complete a job and have a tangible image of how our time here in Nepal is benefitting others.
But clearly God had other plans. Because on Tuesday May 12 around 1 o’clock in the afternoon, another earthquake shook Nepal.
We had just finished our work for that morning. A morning that consisted of clearing all the rocks and rubble from where a church had fallen in the earthquake two weeks prior. The ladies in the village had prepared a delicious Nepali meal for us to enjoy before finding some shade to get a little rest until work began again later that afternoon.
I had just crawled into a hammock with my squadmate and dear friend Eva to enjoy some quality time together and bask in the beauty that was surrounding us. The hammock was perfectly secure between two rather magnificent trees, on a lower terrace that overlooked the entire mountain valley. It was a picture perfect moment. One that I remember wishing I could gather with my two hands and put into my pocket.
And that’s when my world got rocked. Quite literally.
I looked up too see the trees starting to sway and for a split second I thought it was a big gust of wind, fully ready to enjoy the breeze that came with it. However, just as I was turning my head to see my teammate Amber walking towards us, she suddenly lost balance and fell to her knees. Eva and I looked at one another; we saw the fear in each other’s eyes and immediately jumped from the hammock onto the ground. This was an earthquake. The earth was [literally] jolting back and forth beneath us, in a way that I can’t explain other than to say it felt like trying to stand in a canoe and having waves reluctantly crash beneath you. It’s hard to remember all that happened in those 15 seconds [give or take, I’m still not sure how long it lasted], but I do remember how helpless I felt. There was no steady ground to run to, no stable pole to wrap my arms around, all I could do was stay where I was and pray that the Lord would protect us in that moment.
Then, in the same way that the earth began to shake, it stopped. There I sat trying to comprehend what had just happened. My heart was beating faster than it ever has before, and my entire body was shaking. But I wasn’t shaken. Or so I thought. This is when it all became real. I looked out into this valley below me to see clouds of dust forming in the air. Instantly realizing that these dust clouds were a product of buildings collapsing, homes crumbling, and landslides thundering down the mountain taking anything in its path with it. And behind these clouds of dust were the screams and cries of the Nepali people who lived there. My head spun as I thought about how they had just survived one of the world’s most devastating earthquakes, only to lose everything two weeks later to another one. And again I felt helpless.
Without any time for fear or panic to set in, we were given word to pack up all of our belongings as quickly as possible. That we would be hiking to the top of the mountain where it was safe. This was heart wrenching. What about the people here in this village? The ones who we were so eager to help? We were leaving because our life can be stuffed in a backpack, but what about them? This was their home.
That day we were strong. P-squad was so strong. We were covered by angels and we were anxious to do anything we could to help. Some of us went to a village where 2 people were already reported dead and 100 injured, some [including myself] stopped to help a family with kids desperate to be loved on and adults doing everything they could to just keep going, some stayed back to pray for people, and others took time to themselves to process everything that had just happened.
It’s moments like these when it becomes easy to feel like your time here is wasted. You look around and there’s so much that needs to be done, so many people with missing homes, so many people who have lost family members, so many people who don’t know Jesus. And you think, what exactly is handing out a water bottle going to do? Say hello to Satan everyone! Our selfish pride wanting to feel important and wanting to feel better about the time that we’ve spent here, to be the superhero, to get credit. But how dare us. We don’t know what God is doing in the heart of that person we prayed over, or that child we hugged and laughed with, or that old woman we gave a water bottle to that day, or our cab driver who lost his sister and home in the earthquake so we blessed him with a little extra money and told him that we would be praying for him and his family. Aren’t all of those lives just as important? Might it be possible that the Lord brought us here to touch other people’s hearts, and in the process soften our own? To give us more of a perspective of what his children are going through around the world because we are so often caught up in our own. To break our hearts for what breaks His? Isn’t that what we asked for?
It wasn’t a coincidence that an earthquake hit Nepal two days before we were scheduled to arrive, it wasn’t a coincidence that temples upon temples were destroyed that day, it wasn’t a coincidence that there was another earthquake when we were on the side of the mountain in Sindhupalchok, and it’s most definitely no coincidence that we are still here now. My heart may beat faster each time there is the smallest aftershock, it may feel like the earth is still moving under my feet [even when it’s not], I may be physically shaken, I may be emotionally shaken, but spiritually I am sound. I know that God IS here, He IS with us, and He IS protecting us. Jesus will bring restoration to this country; all we have to do is trust that He has us right where he wants us, doing exactly what He asks of us. To share his love with the people who don’t know him, but so desperately need him.
“…And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” Romans 5:2-4
