Nepal – Day 5

This morning we headed out for a 2 hrs drive to Thakre which is one of the most affected villages in Dhading District. According to a report by Raksha Nepal: over 700 people died, 1500 are severely injured and thousands others are directly affected including pregnant women, children and old age people. There is massive loss of property, houses, animals and other infrastructures which not only made villagers miserable but also made it difficult to replenish essentials for their normal lives. (abridged)

One of the first things that struck me again was the friendliness of those that we met and the appreciation that they had for any assistance that we were providing. In this instance it was 285 quilts for those in the worst affected ward. While Ralph & Shahzad helped with the distribution, MJ & I headed up into the hills to see first hand the devastation, ably assisted by Kumar who is a local social worker & Razan who helped with translation.

I was amazed once more by the resourcefulness of the local people and their resilience as they had started rebuilding their homes with anything and everything that they had available. In some cases they had just shored up the sides of houses or covered them with a tarpaulin and were still living in part of the room. While others had chopped down some trees and were using the trunks for framing and then suspending corrugated iron and or tarps across as a roof.

Now just to set the record straight when I say a home they are little more than a room approx. 3 meters X 4 meters if you are lucky / in effect no bigger than my daughters bedroom and this allows space for a sitting area, bed and in some cases kitchen facilities. I’m not sure how Christina would cope if she was also sharing her space with in some cases 5 or more people in her room.

After spending quite some time looking around the various family encampments / settlements that make up the village MJ & I came across a scene which literally knocked the stuffing out of us. We were told of this elderly couple who had lived in the area their whole lives and had lost absolutely everything. (He was 106 yrs old and his wife was 95). And when I say everything I include their dignity as can be seen in the next image. All they had was in what I call a bivouac, the clothes they were sitting and lying in and a pallet on the ground. Other family members were doing all they could to ensure that they could continue leasing the family plot of land and feed their aging relatives.

Even as I write this and post this image it brings tears to my eyes. To think of all that I have sitting idly in my drawers or in my cupboards, as far as food and clothing, and theses guys have next to nothing. But with what they do have they make do. What’s more they seem content and smile and greet us affectionately as if we were part of the family.

One question and only one springs to mind: Where is the justice in this?

To make matters worse this is one of hundreds of families here in Nepal that are struggling just to survive and I know that there are many more places in this fallen world in which these kinds of images are repeated over and over again.

After a prolonged trip back up the mountain pass which in some places is no wider than 6″ wide if you’re lucky (which for those of you that only know metric is about 15cm wide) we headed off to see how the school was affected. As can be seen in the following images they had lost the second story of pretty much 2/3rds of the school and even though they had in place some temporary learning centres were struggling to house just over 600 children that studied there.

MJ lightened the mood considerably by teaching the students in two of the classes a song and as we were leaving we could hear students from other classes singing the song as some of the children had come to peer in windows and doors to see what was going on. With everything that these children had been through they were smiling and genuinely happy, and you could see in their faces the joy that one simple song could bring.

Around the school they had quotes such as; “Plants are developed by cultivation and men by education“, “The child is a book which the teacher has to learn from page to page“, and for all those school teachers out there I’m sure you will love this one “My Favorite House: School is Temple, Teacher is god, Friend is Friend, Not enemies.”

After catching up with Ralph & Shahzad at the distribution point we headed to one of the local eating places “truck stops” and had a beautiful lunch that was laid out for us as a thank you for our contribution to the community. My dear wife would be struggling with most of the food as it consists mostly of vegetables, rice and is spicy.

By the time we got back to Sisters Cafe & Beauty it was early afternoon and we all crashed for most of the remainder of the afternoon until it was time to go out for dinner as a farewell to Dave who leaves on the 2nd and Ralph who leaves on the 3rd.

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The Leadership Challenge…

It has been quite some time since the last ‘Leadership Challenge’ but as I sit here in Kathmandu after spending some time contemplating the first few days of my International Emergency Services Deployment I’m reminded of the resilience of people when faced by adversity and what they are prepared to do to help those around them, forgetting at times the risks and just doing what they can to survive and help others to do likewise.

John Ortberg in his book Soul Keeping: Caring for the most important part of you says; “Sin is not just the wrong stuff we do; it’s the good we don’t do. It’s the starving children we don’t want to look at, the volunteering we avoid, the poor we don’t want to serve, and the money we don’t want to give. How can good church folk turn their backs on the people Jesus called ‘the least of these’?”

Hiding behind man made rules and regulations that sometimes prevent us from doing the stuff that we know is right is no excuse either. Just because we might get a bad wrap or even have to work through the risks, doesn’t mean we should attempt to make a difference in the lives of others. Accepting that by doing nothing is safer than doing something and that we don’t have to be held accountable for something that may just be difficult is a far cry from what Christ is going to be holding us accountable for.

The thing is rules and regulations are put in place to protect US, yes in some form they also protect those that we are trying to help but all too often they end up preventing us from doing what we know we should do until we have ticked all the boxes.

We need to do whatever we can whenever we can to provide the kind of love that Jesus expects of us and that may even mean opening up our own houses to those that don’t deserve it. Risks yes, but it may just save a soul. What I have experienced thus far shows that as humans we are very resilient and we will do whatever we can to survive. At times putting ourselves at risk to help others.

Sin is not just the wrong stuff we do; it’s the good we don’t do.

So lets not get bound up by the rules and be afraid of what may happen because we haven’t quite got everything worked out, instead lets look at the lost soul that needs a bed for the night or the hungry blighter that needs some food in their belly and do what we can to lift them in their situation but more importantly in the spirit, sharing with them why it is we do what we do.

But the question for us especially in the western world is how do we overcome the fear of retribution for doing good?

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Nepal – Day 4

Early this morning Dave & I headed to the airport so that we could catch a helicopter to Runchet, which is a remote village in the Gorkha District. The Salvation Army has organised for the delivery food and tarpaulins which are being transported into the remote village by 158 mules as it is inaccessible by truck.

We were met at the airport by Mark & Helen from Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), Mark is also involved with Helimission in Madagascar and Helen is involved in MAF in Norway and has family connections to Nepal. Helen interviewed predominately Dave to get an understanding of what The Salvation Army is doing in Nepal while we were waiting for confirmation that the flights were getting off of the ground due to the changeable weather. Upon getting clearance we set off over the city of Kathmandu and up one of the many valleys to Runchet for approximately 40 mins.

As we approached the village we could see the devastation caused not only by the earthquakes, but also the subsequent landslides. The school toilets we found out had ended up down the bottom of a cliff. Meanwhile at the bottom of the cliff a couple of homes had been destroyed and the remaining two homes standing were occupied.

The school had temporary toilets that were more like a hole in the ground covered by a small platform (no larger than a pallet) and were open on all sides bar one to provide some sort of privacy.

We were given a tour of the classrooms and were greeted warmly. The school caters for about 250 children aged 4 – 15 and the village has around 255 families. You could see among the faces of the children behind the smiles and the laughter signs of anxiety and worry. Like other communities and camps I have seen thus far the Nepalese people are extremely resourceful using anything and everything that they can get their hands on to build shelters for themselves and their livestock.

Helen with one of the villagers Bishnu, who assisted us.

Upon our departure we were given a fond farewell and each person was given a scarf of the villagers appreciation of what assistance we can and have offered. This was quite a moving scene and as I contemplated this on the way back to the airport I couldn’t stop thinking how lucky I am…

As I thought of all the things that I have, and what these people live with, I realised that this trip although is about helping those less fortunate than I, it is also a trip in which I will gain a greater understanding of who I am and what I can do to make a difference in the lives of others…

In the afternoon, we headed into the city to get some supplies and later that evening we had a meeting to welcome me into the team officially and to share information about the roles that the others had. This also gave Andrew an opportunity to let MJ & I know what we would more than likely be doing as Ralph & Dave head back to New Zealand this week. Dave then led a devotional group discussion around the calling of Noah to build the ark and how we would respond if we were in his shoes…

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