I feel it is time for me to share a few words on Nepal. It's as though these words are going to work their way out of my soul whether I want them to or not. They are here in the crevices of my broken heart, rising to the surface and out onto this page.
Most of you know I was in Nepal two weeks ago. That my Dad and I trekked to Everest Base Camp and back. That we walked on paths and streets that are now filled with rubble. Slept in villages that may no longer exist. And it is all somewhat surreal. To be getting multitudes of messages from people giving thanks for my life. Telling me they are oh so happy I'm alive. Just this morning I got an e-mail in my office inbox, wanting to know if I was safe and accounted for. It is sobering to know just how many people care. To know there are that many people who care about your very existence.
There are only a few people in my inner circle who know what it means to see a tragedy on the television and connect it to a name and a face of someone you know. For me this is not the first. I sat back in 2010 and watched as the earth shook in Haiti and I had to sit at home and wonder if all those children I loved were still alive. And then to feel the sweet relief of hearing they were, but my heart tightened when I heard they were sleeping outside for days after, scared and trembling as aftershocks continued to shake the earth. And then I remembered a little girl I had met in church. She came up and took my hand all dressed up in a pretty flowered dress with white bows in her hair and said something to her Mother in Creole. Her Mother then turned to me and said, "My daughter, she wants you to know that she loves you." And there on January 12, 2010 I sat back and saw Carrefour, her neighbourhood, on TV reduced to a pile of rubble and my heart ached because I wanted to know she was safe but I didn't, and I still don't.
And so, this here, seeing Nepal up-heaved and collapsed, it doesn't get easier, the pain of watching all that devastation, perhaps, it just gets a bit more familiar, but not easier. I feel sweet relief as I read that all staff and guides from our trekking company and alive and accounted for. And I see on Facebook that some of the climbers we met who were living at Everest Base Camp are safe and helping in the relief efforts and I am relieved once more.
My Dad and I we visited this amazing organization called
SASANE that provides women rescued out of trafficking with legal education to stop the cycle. I get an e-mail in my inbox this morning that those precious ladies we met are all alive. Homeless and struggling is what they said. But Praise God for life.
I know that things will change for the people of Nepal. That perhaps 12 noon on April 25 will be the moment that changed everything. When I went back to Haiti after the earthquake, everyone I met chopped time in two. Everything was referred to as either before January 12 or after January 12. One Pastor told me that his people would never be the same, would never be able to live without fear again. I hope that for both the people of Haiti and the people of Nepal that this will not be so. That the sun will rise and set on their joy and not their fear.
My prayer for them is for strength to face these struggles. That beauty will rise from these ashes. My heart breaks, but as
Ann says "
It’s the broken hearts that find the
haunting loveliness of a new beat — it’s the broken hearts that make a
song that echoes God’s." I hope that one day those beautiful and resilient people can sing again. That their hearts won't sing with fear, but with joy for the gift of life. But for right now, in the middle of the struggle and the hunger and the chaos, I simply hope and pray that they will find peace and the provisions they need.
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| Being right in the middle of village culture gave a face to all the destruction I see on TV. |
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| I hope this little guy has the opportunity to watch many more trekkers pass through his village |
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| The village of Namche Bazaar |
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| Although these two climbers we met from International Mountain Guides won't get to summit Everest this year, I was so relieved to hear they have been accounted for. |
