So, our plane leaves in just a matter of hours and I'm pretty bummed. I haven't updated this in the past few days because we've been incredibly busy visiting sites in Kathmandu, playing with kids, and, well, sleeping - haha.
Two days ago we woke up and went to Badhnath Stupa, the Buddhist hangout in Kathmandu that holds Nepal's largest Buddhist stupa. The area containing the stupa is closed in with buildings, but once you leave, you can still see the Buddhist eyes staring at you from over the shops and restaurants. Being around the Buddhist people was interesting because their attitudes and appearances are very different. Where the Hindu people at Durbar Square were much more aggressive and loud with their worship, the Buddhist monks and followers had a more subdued, peaceful way about them. Many people in Nepal claim to be both Hindu and Buddhist, which is technically impossible, seeing that the two religions completely contradict each other...some even add Christianity into the mix. Religion seemed to be pretty eclectic in Kathmandu. During our time at the stupa, locals would try to snag foreigners and take them on tours. Unfortunately, it was more like a "rent-a-friend" than a tour guide - they'd share information about the stupa every ten minutes or so, in between their questions about life in America. I asked a man to take my picture in front of the stupa, but when I gave him the camera, he looked a little scared while bobbling the device and moving it all over the place before sporadically taking a shot of me. He gave me the picture and said, "Good?' The picture was half of my body and the ground. I said, "Yeah, great" and smiled.
We've also spent a lot of time with children in the past days. We visited a children's home that housed twenty-some orphans (a few of the children were actually birth children). They all introduced themselves and said what year they were in school. After that, there was singing and dancing just as there was in the other home we visited earlier in the week. I have a lot of the performances on tape - you really have to see them, they're pretty adorable. The newest addition to the home was a boy named Rockus (this is definitely not spelled right). He's from a village outside of Kathmandu. His parents were both killed by a cobra in their village one night. Rokus doesn't speak English or Nepali, so it's been difficult for his family to communicate with him. He was very, very shy and scared when he first came in the room, but when I got my camera out to take pictures and video, he turned into a different child. He was grabbing and smiling and laughing and pointing - it was very neat to see him come out of his shell. Like most Nepali children, he loved the camera. His father said he had never seen one in his entire life. He's about four, I think. I would take his picture and show him and he'd giggle and then murmur something to himself in his tribal language. The other children were just as wonderful. They all loved their beanie babies and had us all read their toy's name, which they would then recite for the rest of the evening. One girl, Raquel, wants to be Miss Universe. She's strikingly beautiful and bright. Another boy wants to be a doctor. Two want to be astronauts. And they might actually get the chance to follow their dreams, unlike most children in Nepal, because they're able to attend school and become educated. Their father explained most of their stores to us and it they were heartbreaking. Parents abandoned their children when they remarry because the new husband has no desire to care for a child that's not theirs. A handful of the parents were killed or died from AIDS or some disease. There was one boy's parents who went crazy after a traumatic experience. Knowing all we did about their past, it was astonishing to see them as happy as they were. Yesterday we installed a basketball hoop for them and played a handful of yard games with them as well. They were full of energy. Jason, one of our team members, had experience with balloon animals, so he made all of the kids one...they loved it. Soon the time came to pack everything up and head back to our neck of the woods for dinner. It was definitely hard to leave all the kids behind, not knowing if we'd ever cross paths again. The children taught me about the hope and joy God brings. Regardless of the how their circumstances ranked in the world, the ones with abusive and negligent knew they were in a much better place than they once were.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Day 3
Traveling up a muddy road filled with potholes and water buffalo, we rose into the mountains of Nepal. There were a few gasps as we ascended when our van flirted with the edge of the road, and in doing so, showed us a vast ravine filled with trees and rivers. Traveling continued, and so did the gasps and subsequent laughs from our driver until we reached Anandaban Leprosy Hospital.
We walked inside and met with the hospital's director, who gave us a detailed explanation on how everything got started and how it all works. I was curious about the picture of Princess Diana I saw outside his office, and he smiled with pride as he told me about the day she came to Anandaban. Several royal figures have trekked the winding mountain to visit the hospital, and I can't say I'm surprised; the place is incredible. On our tour, we visited the different wards and medical rooms, and observed that virtually all aspects of the patient's treatment and aid were done at the hospital; men make artificial limbs specially for each patient and medical labs work hard to diagnose and treat them. It makes sense, though, because it's not as if this hospital is located in the middle of a thriving urban center. When one of the men working in the lab told us they had a mouse colony upstairs, we wanted to know more. Since the hospital does not have the funds to do cell culturs, they have to use mice instead. There have to be anywhere from twenty to twenty six mice for a single patient, just to figure out if they have leprosy, and it takes four to six months to know for sure. Nepal has treated 150,000 leprosy patients, and is currently overseeing 4,000 cases today. In Nepal, families will disown their children or relatives if they find out they have leprosy. People that live in remote villages outside of Kathmandu have no way of even knowing what it is they have, let alone that there is treatment for it. Like most things, the faster you catch it, the less severe the consequences. It was evident that the younger patients looked healthier than the old, missing only a few fingers or having minor skin problems. The more elderly people had amputated legs or hands, and sometimes both. Another common defect was what our tour guide called the "claw hand," a large number of the patients had this on both hands. One neat thing about the hospital is that it does not treat only leprosy victims, though that is its main focus. We saw pregnant women and children with broken bones in the hospital. Mixing in people with other medical problems helps lessen the stigma of leprosy patients.
Once the tour was finished and lunch was eaten, we all filed back into a women's ward where we spent about an hour with them. Earlier that day, while on our tour, we would hand out Beanie Babies to any children we saw, even ones that weren't patients. Giving those children a stuffed animal is probably one of the most emotional experiences I've ever undergone. Most of the children had never even seen a stuffed animal before, since they're from places where such luxuries don't exist. They were hesitant to take them, but once they did, the looks on their faces were more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. Anyway, when we entered the women's ward later in the day, it was filled mostly with adult and eldery women. I was unsure what to do beside sit with them at first, but I decided they might like a stuffed animal too. They did. The first women I gave it to lit up so brightly from the haze of her complacent state that she began to shake from side to side while grinning. One by one, we passed out probably twenty Beanie Babies and then we all watched as forty year old and seventy year old women began to trade and swap their toys with loud laughs and pointing everywhere. It was something very special. Later, I went back into a smaller connected room with a very old woman. I sat down next to her and started rummaging through my backpack for something she could look at or that might give us some sort ability to communicate. The only thing I had in there was my Bible, so I took it out. Now, you should know that the hospital is religiously affiliated, but obviously it's more likely that patients check into it because they have leprosy and not because they want to become Christians. So, you can imagine my surprise as she said the word "cross" while outlining the green one on my Bible. She suddenly turned around and grabbed her own Bible that was translated into Nepali. Her eyes were excited and fixed directly on mine. She flipped through pages and pointed at random passages. She finally found a page marked with red pen and began reading to me. She read a whole passage to me in Nepali, and though I hadn't the slightest inclination of what it was she was saying, you can all be assured I felt God speak through her more strongly than I sometimes do when reading verses in English. I asked one of the leaders with us who spoke English which passage she was reading from, and she told me it was Psalm 23. When I sat back down with her, she pointed at my Bible and wanted me to read to her. I read her Psalm 41 to her and she smiled interestedly while I read to her about the Lord sustaining those on their sickbeds and giving them hope.
The experience yesterday afternoon at the hospital reminds me of how simple life is and how complicated it sometimes seems back home. When I'm focusing outwardly instead of inwardly, the day to day experience is much more fulfilling.
This is a little boy with a fractured leg who we gave the first Beanie Babie to. As you can see, it's nearly as big as he is :-)
edit: I'm having picture problems again...I *think* you can click the picture and it'll take you to a full version of it. For some reason it won't all show up.
We walked inside and met with the hospital's director, who gave us a detailed explanation on how everything got started and how it all works. I was curious about the picture of Princess Diana I saw outside his office, and he smiled with pride as he told me about the day she came to Anandaban. Several royal figures have trekked the winding mountain to visit the hospital, and I can't say I'm surprised; the place is incredible. On our tour, we visited the different wards and medical rooms, and observed that virtually all aspects of the patient's treatment and aid were done at the hospital; men make artificial limbs specially for each patient and medical labs work hard to diagnose and treat them. It makes sense, though, because it's not as if this hospital is located in the middle of a thriving urban center. When one of the men working in the lab told us they had a mouse colony upstairs, we wanted to know more. Since the hospital does not have the funds to do cell culturs, they have to use mice instead. There have to be anywhere from twenty to twenty six mice for a single patient, just to figure out if they have leprosy, and it takes four to six months to know for sure. Nepal has treated 150,000 leprosy patients, and is currently overseeing 4,000 cases today. In Nepal, families will disown their children or relatives if they find out they have leprosy. People that live in remote villages outside of Kathmandu have no way of even knowing what it is they have, let alone that there is treatment for it. Like most things, the faster you catch it, the less severe the consequences. It was evident that the younger patients looked healthier than the old, missing only a few fingers or having minor skin problems. The more elderly people had amputated legs or hands, and sometimes both. Another common defect was what our tour guide called the "claw hand," a large number of the patients had this on both hands. One neat thing about the hospital is that it does not treat only leprosy victims, though that is its main focus. We saw pregnant women and children with broken bones in the hospital. Mixing in people with other medical problems helps lessen the stigma of leprosy patients.
Once the tour was finished and lunch was eaten, we all filed back into a women's ward where we spent about an hour with them. Earlier that day, while on our tour, we would hand out Beanie Babies to any children we saw, even ones that weren't patients. Giving those children a stuffed animal is probably one of the most emotional experiences I've ever undergone. Most of the children had never even seen a stuffed animal before, since they're from places where such luxuries don't exist. They were hesitant to take them, but once they did, the looks on their faces were more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. Anyway, when we entered the women's ward later in the day, it was filled mostly with adult and eldery women. I was unsure what to do beside sit with them at first, but I decided they might like a stuffed animal too. They did. The first women I gave it to lit up so brightly from the haze of her complacent state that she began to shake from side to side while grinning. One by one, we passed out probably twenty Beanie Babies and then we all watched as forty year old and seventy year old women began to trade and swap their toys with loud laughs and pointing everywhere. It was something very special. Later, I went back into a smaller connected room with a very old woman. I sat down next to her and started rummaging through my backpack for something she could look at or that might give us some sort ability to communicate. The only thing I had in there was my Bible, so I took it out. Now, you should know that the hospital is religiously affiliated, but obviously it's more likely that patients check into it because they have leprosy and not because they want to become Christians. So, you can imagine my surprise as she said the word "cross" while outlining the green one on my Bible. She suddenly turned around and grabbed her own Bible that was translated into Nepali. Her eyes were excited and fixed directly on mine. She flipped through pages and pointed at random passages. She finally found a page marked with red pen and began reading to me. She read a whole passage to me in Nepali, and though I hadn't the slightest inclination of what it was she was saying, you can all be assured I felt God speak through her more strongly than I sometimes do when reading verses in English. I asked one of the leaders with us who spoke English which passage she was reading from, and she told me it was Psalm 23. When I sat back down with her, she pointed at my Bible and wanted me to read to her. I read her Psalm 41 to her and she smiled interestedly while I read to her about the Lord sustaining those on their sickbeds and giving them hope.
The experience yesterday afternoon at the hospital reminds me of how simple life is and how complicated it sometimes seems back home. When I'm focusing outwardly instead of inwardly, the day to day experience is much more fulfilling.
This is a little boy with a fractured leg who we gave the first Beanie Babie to. As you can see, it's nearly as big as he is :-)
edit: I'm having picture problems again...I *think* you can click the picture and it'll take you to a full version of it. For some reason it won't all show up.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Day 2
Today was absolutely unbelievable in every way.
First of all, I'd like to apologize for the scattered nature of my writing in the previous post. You'll have to forgive me, there's not much time to proof read.
Today began early – 5:15 to be exact. Mark Storm, our ServLife partner in Nepal, took us on ten minute walk to his home. We spent two or three hours there eating breakfast and praying with other missionaries in Nepal. It was incredible to meet people from South Africa, Brazil, and Nepal who are living in Kathmandu to do God's work. The prayer time was something I wish you all could have been with me to experience. Everyone there with us was so confident in their prayers, so profound and genuine with their words. Life in Nepal is far from similar to that of ours in America. The government here is completely corrupt and indifferent to the problems facing its citizens. It was just last month that thousands of dollars worth of equipment for the creation of hydrostatic power was thrown into the river by Maoist extremists and the government did nothing. There are streets are lined with trash and four year old children roam dark alleys at night looking confused and helpless. There is sex trafficking. There is extortion like you wouldn't believe. There is so much that needs prayer in Nepal. But there is also hope. We prayed a lot about that hope, lifting up different people and programs that send church planters to villages all across the country. These men leave all they have to travel to places where they know maybe two people, often living in places where Christianity is unheard of. They do this because people living in remote areas don't have access to churches, so they have to find the nearest one. That can sometimes means a four hour walk and sometimes six. There's so much to say about all I heard today about church planting in Nepal, but one thing I find especially interesting is that about 90 percent of the people who come to know God don't do so because of books or long conversations (there are 49 languages just in Kathmandu), but by the miracles God has performed on their people. Large families of fifty people will become Christians because church planters will come into their village and pray for dying family members and it is not uncommon for these people to be healed within days or even hours. Hearing this was amazing. How can anyone doubt there is a God when miracles like this are happening every single day?
Later in the afternoon we headed to a place called TouchNature. It's a house where single mothers and widowed women work to make soap, candles, and other materials. We toured the house and I was in awe of the amount of materials and stations they had to make all of it. The company hires these women and offers free childcare for their children in the home. I was encouraged by the program and how it incorporates something as simple as soap into a much bigger plan. The women working there are not all Christians, some are Hindu, but many end up finding God as a result of other workers. Every morning women gather at the house for devotional time where they help support one another and share their burdens with those who understand it most. It's so frustrating to me writing this because I wish you could experience seeing all of it. The spirit of the people working there is very different from the average woman on the street. I did buy a ton of stuff there, though, so I suppose some of you can experience it after all.
Right after TouchNature, we took a taxi to a jewelry store that allows men with disabilities to have work. Men with injuries received after birth and several men with polio work there. The men only are paid when the jewelry is bought. Seeing that everyone in our group spent quite a lot of money there today, it was nice knowing that they wouldn't go home empty handed.
Finally it was time for dinner. We trekked to the home of a family that houses seven adopted girls. The girls were quick to introduce themselves and sing songs and dance as well. It is common to do these things when eating with friends or when visitors come into town. We ate on the roof of their house which overlooks Kathmandu, and enjoyed the cool breeze as the sun set. The children played games and competed for Solomon's (Mark and Jennifer's one year old son) attention. I spent time talking to the oldest daughter who is 21. She speaks good English and looked surprised when I pointed at the mounatins behind her and asked if she'd ever been to them. "Our life is not like yours in America," she said. She told me that she and her siblings were not free to wander about the city alone, but they always stayed with their families. Such a life seemed unreal. Once everyone was done talking, we picked up a taxi and headed back to Aloha Inn (our hotel, haha). It just so happened that our taxi ran out of gas and so we were forced to walk the rest of the way back. The city is even more sad at night. Imagine poverty everywhere; dogs and chickens roaming, cars zooming straight at other cars and people just before swerving to miss. The air is putrid at times and the alleys are mostly mud. Life is different here.
Tomorrow we're going to be visiting a Leprosy Hospital and attend a meeting for individual's saved from sexual abuse or trafficking. In the meantime, here are some pictures:
edit: apparently the picture uploading isn't working right now. i'll try and get some visuals in the morning. night, night.
Taylor
First of all, I'd like to apologize for the scattered nature of my writing in the previous post. You'll have to forgive me, there's not much time to proof read.
Today began early – 5:15 to be exact. Mark Storm, our ServLife partner in Nepal, took us on ten minute walk to his home. We spent two or three hours there eating breakfast and praying with other missionaries in Nepal. It was incredible to meet people from South Africa, Brazil, and Nepal who are living in Kathmandu to do God's work. The prayer time was something I wish you all could have been with me to experience. Everyone there with us was so confident in their prayers, so profound and genuine with their words. Life in Nepal is far from similar to that of ours in America. The government here is completely corrupt and indifferent to the problems facing its citizens. It was just last month that thousands of dollars worth of equipment for the creation of hydrostatic power was thrown into the river by Maoist extremists and the government did nothing. There are streets are lined with trash and four year old children roam dark alleys at night looking confused and helpless. There is sex trafficking. There is extortion like you wouldn't believe. There is so much that needs prayer in Nepal. But there is also hope. We prayed a lot about that hope, lifting up different people and programs that send church planters to villages all across the country. These men leave all they have to travel to places where they know maybe two people, often living in places where Christianity is unheard of. They do this because people living in remote areas don't have access to churches, so they have to find the nearest one. That can sometimes means a four hour walk and sometimes six. There's so much to say about all I heard today about church planting in Nepal, but one thing I find especially interesting is that about 90 percent of the people who come to know God don't do so because of books or long conversations (there are 49 languages just in Kathmandu), but by the miracles God has performed on their people. Large families of fifty people will become Christians because church planters will come into their village and pray for dying family members and it is not uncommon for these people to be healed within days or even hours. Hearing this was amazing. How can anyone doubt there is a God when miracles like this are happening every single day?
Later in the afternoon we headed to a place called TouchNature. It's a house where single mothers and widowed women work to make soap, candles, and other materials. We toured the house and I was in awe of the amount of materials and stations they had to make all of it. The company hires these women and offers free childcare for their children in the home. I was encouraged by the program and how it incorporates something as simple as soap into a much bigger plan. The women working there are not all Christians, some are Hindu, but many end up finding God as a result of other workers. Every morning women gather at the house for devotional time where they help support one another and share their burdens with those who understand it most. It's so frustrating to me writing this because I wish you could experience seeing all of it. The spirit of the people working there is very different from the average woman on the street. I did buy a ton of stuff there, though, so I suppose some of you can experience it after all.
Right after TouchNature, we took a taxi to a jewelry store that allows men with disabilities to have work. Men with injuries received after birth and several men with polio work there. The men only are paid when the jewelry is bought. Seeing that everyone in our group spent quite a lot of money there today, it was nice knowing that they wouldn't go home empty handed.
Finally it was time for dinner. We trekked to the home of a family that houses seven adopted girls. The girls were quick to introduce themselves and sing songs and dance as well. It is common to do these things when eating with friends or when visitors come into town. We ate on the roof of their house which overlooks Kathmandu, and enjoyed the cool breeze as the sun set. The children played games and competed for Solomon's (Mark and Jennifer's one year old son) attention. I spent time talking to the oldest daughter who is 21. She speaks good English and looked surprised when I pointed at the mounatins behind her and asked if she'd ever been to them. "Our life is not like yours in America," she said. She told me that she and her siblings were not free to wander about the city alone, but they always stayed with their families. Such a life seemed unreal. Once everyone was done talking, we picked up a taxi and headed back to Aloha Inn (our hotel, haha). It just so happened that our taxi ran out of gas and so we were forced to walk the rest of the way back. The city is even more sad at night. Imagine poverty everywhere; dogs and chickens roaming, cars zooming straight at other cars and people just before swerving to miss. The air is putrid at times and the alleys are mostly mud. Life is different here.
Tomorrow we're going to be visiting a Leprosy Hospital and attend a meeting for individual's saved from sexual abuse or trafficking. In the meantime, here are some pictures:
edit: apparently the picture uploading isn't working right now. i'll try and get some visuals in the morning. night, night.
Taylor
Monday, July 21, 2008
Travel/First Day
It's just about ten o'clock and our team is getting ready to board the our plane to Kathmandu. Yes, it's true, we're still traveling. It's been quite the experience. We left Indy on Saturday (11:30 a.m.) and flew into Detroit. From there we flew twelve and a half hours to Tokyo. The flight wasn't as terrible as I had envisioned it, but I was ready to land just as we flew over Alaska and my legs started getting cramped. I was lucky enough to get a window seat next to two people who slept the entire flight. In fact, as the plane lifted off, the women sitting between some man and myself mummified herself with a blanket and stayed that way for the majority of our journey west. My 12 hour flight consisted of four episodes of Lost (I think the end of the finale was predictable) and several attempts at sleep, all of which ended in vain. Finally, after what seemed like two days, we landed in Japan. It was surreal for me – touching down on a on a place that seemed so foreign and untouchable to me as a kid. The airport accommodating, especially if you happened to be an alcoholic or makeup artist. There had to be at least thirty Duty Free stores between Detroit, Tokyo, and Bangkok that sold mostly expensive liquor and foundation. Anyway, Tokyo was nice. I ate from the cleanest McDonald's I've ever seen and looked around in Japan's own Origami Museum, both helped lessen the drowsiness I was feeling from the long flight. Overall, Tokyo was very enjoyable, even considering how tired we all were. The next stop was a Bangkok (only a six hour flight this time, thankfully). I could hardly stay awake from the moment I sat down in the last row, corner seat of that plane. I somehow managed to make it through, though. I started watching Erin Brokovich and fell in love with Julia Robert's title character. What a good movie. The important thing is that we made it to Thailand safe and sound. Once we got off our plane, we went through immigration and claimed our bags. Someone (I'm not naming any names) thought it would be a good idea to pack nine hundred Beanie Babies in one of my checked suitcases for the kids in Nepal, and consequently I had to carry three items of luggage that weighed the same I did. Needless to say, my back still hurts. We spent the night in Bangkok and got little sleep with howling dogs and clucking chickens only ten paces outside our windows. The following morning we returned to the Bangkok International Airport and boarded our plane heading to Kathmandu.
And to make this long travel story short – we got there. We got here and it's now nine o'clock Nepal time (11:08 Indiana time).
It was a long, long first day. We met up with our ServLife guides at the airport and headed to our hotel. After settling in, we took a van to the most holy place for Hindus in all of Nepal: Pashupati. Pashupati is the home to some really big temples, hundreds of monkeys, and some bearded men who make you pay money for a picture with them. Being in this part of the city is hard to describe. There were people chanting and singing, swimming in a contaminated river (one that is supposed to be holy...), and cremating other people – burning them for all the world to see. It was intense, and not necessarily a good intense. Between the countless children asking for money (always wondering but never knowing where their parents might be), the sadness that seeped from the eyes of most people we walked past, and the overall spiritual darkness that loomed over all of us in the Pashupati, it was evident that this was a city longing to be free. I counted five people who smiled earlier today and four of them were children, everything else was a frown ---- While I'd like to finish this entry, I am about to pass out on the keyboard. The power just went out in our hotel, which is probably God telling me it's time to go to bed. I'll upload pictures tomorrow, add some captions, and finish this entry. Good night.
And to make this long travel story short – we got there. We got here and it's now nine o'clock Nepal time (11:08 Indiana time).
It was a long, long first day. We met up with our ServLife guides at the airport and headed to our hotel. After settling in, we took a van to the most holy place for Hindus in all of Nepal: Pashupati. Pashupati is the home to some really big temples, hundreds of monkeys, and some bearded men who make you pay money for a picture with them. Being in this part of the city is hard to describe. There were people chanting and singing, swimming in a contaminated river (one that is supposed to be holy...), and cremating other people – burning them for all the world to see. It was intense, and not necessarily a good intense. Between the countless children asking for money (always wondering but never knowing where their parents might be), the sadness that seeped from the eyes of most people we walked past, and the overall spiritual darkness that loomed over all of us in the Pashupati, it was evident that this was a city longing to be free. I counted five people who smiled earlier today and four of them were children, everything else was a frown ---- While I'd like to finish this entry, I am about to pass out on the keyboard. The power just went out in our hotel, which is probably God telling me it's time to go to bed. I'll upload pictures tomorrow, add some captions, and finish this entry. Good night.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Testing!
I'll be leaving tomorrow morning around 11:30, so you can all think of me as I fly for 25 1/2 hours across the world. I'm a little nervous about the length of the plane ride, but I'm sure it'll work out fine. I'll do my best to update after we arrive in Nepal when time permits.
Taylor
Taylor
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