Over the course of this year, I’ve met lots and lots of incredible people from incredible places with incredible stories. I want to introduce you to one of my favorite people from my first 9 months on the World Race. He goes by “Papa” and he resides at Asha Nepal, home to our ministry during our month in Nepal.
Papa spends each and every day sitting out on the front porch of the main building watching and observing whatever is happening or whoever happens to be about. He only leaves his seat to eat meals and when it is time to call it a night. Most conversations with him were brief, due mainly to his hard of hearing and limited use/understanding of English. We’d both greet each other with a “good morning” and “how are you?/I’m fine” and that’d be about it.
Before continuing from there, here’s a little background on Papa. Years ago his daughter was sold into sex trafficking in India by a relative and was eventually rescued by Asha Nepal. She has since returned to India to help rescue other women who are serving as sex slaves. In order for her to do this however, she needed help in caring for her father, so Asha Nepal stepped in and lets him stay at their safe house, watching over him as his daughter works to change lives.
About 3 or 4 days into Nepal, God let me know that he wanted me to spend time reading to Papa. So that next morning I went up and tried to communicate that I wanted to read to him and was trying to ask if it’d be okay. In turn he let me know that he couldn’t read because of his eyesight. Not quite what I asked, but that was close enough to a “yes.” So I grabbed a chair from inside and started reading the Psalms.
Reading from the book of Psalms became part of Papa and I’s morning routine. This quickly turned into one of my favorite parts of the day and just seemed to be the right way to begin everything. Each time after I finished reading, we’d end in prayer and he’d give me a big smile and a “thank you.”
As our month began to wrap up, he began asking when were leaving and where we were going. Each day he’d check in to see how much longer our team would be there in Nepal. Finally on our last day, I spent a little extra time with him. He let me know that he’d “keep praying for our future journey.” As our bus left the compound later that day, we had quite a gathering of women and some of the kids who decided to skip out on school that day to see us off. Then there was Papa, up from his usual spot, standing on the edge of the porch and waving goodbye to all of us.
I’m certainly thankful that God impressed upon me the desire to spend time reading to Papa. Memories with him are going to be some of my favorites from this entire year.
God bless you Papa!
