Sarita is nine years old and lives in a remote village two days’ bus ride from Kathmandu. She is the youngest, and also the only girl, in a family of nine children. She was at the top of her class at the local government school. One day when climbing a tree she fell and broke her arm. There was no health clinic in the area to take her to, so a villager did what he thought best: he tied her arm tightly to a bamboo stick – so tightly that he cut off her blood circulation.
Her arm, naturally, got worse, so the next place they took her to was the witch doctor. The witch doctor would have gone into a trance, killed a chicken that the family had provided, and then rubbed the dead chicken on the affected arm. Ten days after simply breaking her arm, her family brought her into Patan Hospital for treatment. Her arm was so badly infected they had to amputate it at the elbow. What pointless pain and suffering she has been through.
Making things better After several weeks, Sarita was feeling quite at home in hospital, and was always there to greet me when I arrive on the ward. We wanted to sort out two things in particular for Sarita: a false arm and her education. Sarita’s parents are very poor and they will be unable to send her to school once she goes to secondary school. (Primary school is free at the government schools.) We talked to her father about the possibility of finding a children’s home here in Kathmandu so that she could continue her education. He was very happy, knowing that his bright daughter needs an education now more than ever. Sarita was delighted at the news and told her father, ‘Go: I’m staying here and going to school.’
But plans changed. It was arranged for Sarita to go to a good Christian boarding school in Hetauda, which is on the Terai. From Hetauda, her home, also on the Terai, is perhaps four hours away, so her parents would be able to visit her regularly.
We tried to take Sarita to Hetauda, but we were unable to go because of the travel strikes.
In the meantime I went with Sarita to an orthopaedic clinic to see about having a false arm fitted for her. A real blessing is that her amputation was below her elbow, and there is just enough arm to fix a new forearm. The doctor examined and measured, and said she would have a new arm in ten days.
Sarita’s father had been keen to return home, having been here in Kathmandu for over two months. He left Sarita with her uncle who lives here. I went with Sarita and her uncle back to the clinic to have a cast made. Her uncle was a very nice young man. When he was ten years old he fell and broke his arm very badly. He almost had his arm amputated above the elbow, but they managed to save his arm, although it is badly deformed and he has no movement in the lower arm and hand.
We planned to take Sarita to Hetauda once her arm had been fitted.
Changing plans Plans changed again. Sarita is not at the Christian boarding school. The school director thought it would be best for her to live with her parents, and everyone was very happy with this arrangement. It was also agreed that it would be best for Sarita not to use an artificial arm at the moment: with the unhygienic conditions in her poor home village, the arm could cause more harm than good. Sarita’s school fees are now being fully paid for her to go to a good school in her area.
The best plans aren’t always the plans we think of first, nor even the plans which appear best to us. The Lord has done so much in Sarita’s life, and we know that he has a wonderful plan for this bright young girl. What a blessing it is to be a part of Sarita’s and other people’s lives as we see God at work daily.
Sarita is nine years old and lives in a remote village two days' bus ride from Kathmandu. She is the youngest, and also the only girl, in a family of nine children. She was at the top of her class at the local government school. One day when climbing a tree she fell and broke her arm. There was no health clinic in the area to take her to, so a villager did what he thought best: he tied her arm tightly to a bamboo stick – so tightly that he cut off her blood circulation.
Her arm, naturally, got worse, so the next place they took her to was the witch doctor. The witch doctor would have gone into a trance, killed a chicken that the family had provided, and then rubbed the dead chicken on the affected arm. Ten days after simply breaking her arm, her family brought her into Patan Hospital for treatment. Her arm was so badly infected they had to amputate it at the elbow. What pointless pain and suffering she has been through.
Making things better After several weeks, Sarita was feeling quite at home in hospital, and was always there to greet me when I arrive on the ward. We wanted to sort out two things in particular for Sarita: a false arm and her education. Sarita's parents are very poor and they will be unable to send her to school once she goes to secondary school. (Primary school is free at the government schools.) We talked to her father about the possibility of finding a children's home here in Kathmandu so that she could continue her education. He was very happy, knowing that his bright daughter needs an education now more than ever. Sarita was delighted at the news and told her father, 'Go: I'm staying here and going to school.'
But plans changed. It was arranged for Sarita to go to a good Christian boarding school in Hetauda, which is on the Terai. From Hetauda, her home, also on the Terai, is perhaps four hours away, so her parents would be able to visit her regularly.
We tried to take Sarita to Hetauda, but we were unable to go because of the travel strikes.
In the meantime I went with Sarita to an orthopaedic clinic to see about having a false arm fitted for her. A real blessing is that her amputation was below her elbow, and there is just enough arm to fix a new forearm. The doctor examined and measured, and said she would have a new arm in ten days.
Sarita's father had been keen to return home, having been here in Kathmandu for over two months. He left Sarita with her uncle who lives here. I went with Sarita and her uncle back to the clinic to have a cast made. Her uncle was a very nice young man. When he was ten years old he fell and broke his arm very badly. He almost had his arm amputated above the elbow, but they managed to save his arm, although it is badly deformed and he has no movement in the lower arm and hand.
We planned to take Sarita to Hetauda once her arm had been fitted.
Changing plans Plans changed again. Sarita is not at the Christian boarding school. The school director thought it would be best for her to live with her parents, and everyone was very happy with this arrangement. It was also agreed that it would be best for Sarita not to use an artificial arm at the moment: with the unhygienic conditions in her poor home village, the arm could cause more harm than good. Sarita's school fees are now being fully paid for her to go to a good school in her area.
The best plans aren't always the plans we think of first, nor even the plans which appear best to us. The Lord has done so much in Sarita's life, and we know that he has a wonderful plan for this bright young girl. What a blessing it is to be a part of Sarita's and other people's lives as we see God at work daily.
My flight to Nepal was quiet because a month earlier, on 1 February, the King of Nepal had taken special measures, dissolving parliament. The cut in communications (including a news blackout) combined with uncertain advice from Western embassies had knocked the bottom out of what was left of this year’s tourist season. The king’s action was in response to the Maoist insurrection which has been simmering away for almost a decade. During this time eleven thousand Nepalis have lost their lives.
A Maoist-sponsored transport strike soon followed, until 1 March. In a transport strike, travelling by road is simply not possible in areas not protected by the government; anyone doing so faces the displeasure of and penalties imposed by whoever is in control of the area. In practice, it means that no travel is possible between the major cities except by air.
What is the effect of such a strike upon Interserve Partners? For those in cities like Pokhara and Kathmandu, life goes on pretty much as usual, apart from the inconvenience of having to stockpile commodities that become scarce due to supply problems. But for those in more rural areas it is more difficult. Partners involved in community projects cannot get to them; the number of patients coming to Tansen Hospital decreases by half, and after the novelty wears off, that isn’t good! But for ordinary people in Nepal it is much worse. How can you sell your stuff in the nearby town if you cannot get there; how do you get treatment if you’re sick?
Fear and intimidation are part of the scene: neither side is particularly bothered about keeping to the Geneva Convention. One Partner woke to witness the authorities dealing with a suspected Maoist in the street below – being shot as he hid in a pit. There had been three murders in Butwal the week before I visited, and there was a prevailing sense of fear and uncertainty. Curfews come and go, soldiers appear at nights on the streets, even in the tourist area of Pokhara. ‘This place runs on rumours,’ said one Partner. So Nepal is hardly stable just at the moment.
The church in Nepal But there is one stable factor, or so it seems. The continuing presence and growth of the Nepali church is one of the most exciting realities to be seen in Nepal. One Partner told me that the church had doubled in the last five years (which of course means that half are under five years old in the faith). The thirty churches in Pokhara held a peace march and rally at Christmas (pictured). Over a thousand people marching through the streets made a big impression. I asked my friend, Grishma, a Nepali pastor, what the reaction had been. The most common response, he said, was, ‘We didn’t know there were so many Christians in Pokhara.’ You see light in the darkest places: we met someone who told us how he and his wife found faith after surviving a Maoist attack. ‘Save me, Jesus,’ the man had cried as his attackers left him to bleed to death. His prayer was answered.
And there’s something new. The church has always been committed to evangelism and discipleship, but I think has tended to see meeting the needs of the whole person as something that perhaps the foreign agencies could get on with. This is changing: the Nepali church has a growing desire not just to proclaim the good news, but also to demonstrate the kingdom in works of service to those in need, and to be salt and light at a troubled time. Nepali Christians are forming agencies to do just that, and the results are impressive. As the leader of one of these groups put it, ‘we face real challenges just now, but we prefer to see them as opportunities’. He went on to talk of the need for Interserve Partners to continue serving alongside their Nepali brothers and sisters, sharing Christ across cultures.
Like its people, Nepal’s crisis is quiet – the news blackout and special measures have seen to that. But all the time there is another hidden and secret process going on, as the yeast of the kingdom of God does its own quiet work.
Abdullah, 28, got married about a year ago, and he and his wife are expecting their first baby. They still live in his family home, as Abdullah hasn’t got a hope of scraping enough money together to rent a place of their own. They live in a small flat with Omar – Abdullah’s brother – and his wife, who might also be expecting.
Not that Abdullah experiences the inside of the flat that much. He has two full-time jobs – mornings 8 until 2 and evenings 5 until 10 – and he is trying to fit in English classes in the afternoons in the hope that one day he’ll get a better job. Like most of his countrymen, neither of his current jobs pays enough to cover the bills.
He’s a nice guy; he doesn’t smoke or chew, which saves a lot, but he’s up to his neck in debt to relatives who helped pay for his wedding, and has to give back a little each month.
Abdullah prays five times a day. He visits the graves of his parents every Friday to pray for them – to make sure that they are allowed into heaven. He greets people as he walks along – there is a tradition that each greeting earns him extra blessing. He is always kind to children, and gives as much as he can to beggars. Yet despite all this good work, God still feels distant and life is still hard.
In need of blessing, Abdullah decided to go on the Hajj to Mecca this year. His evening job is at a travel firm, and they gave him a very generous discount. It felt good to be doing what the prophet commanded. Praying in that esteemed place, he could almost feel God to be close.
But life is still hard. Abdullah believes that all of life is a test and then we face judgement. All his efforts to earn God’s blessings seem to be falling on deaf ears.
Fatima Fatima was worried to death about Faaris – her 15-month-old. He hadn’t been putting on weight properly since he was born. His twin sister seemed able to feed all right, but Faaris just wouldn’t suck properly. She’d tried all the food options: her own mother had told her to give him water to drink instead of breast milk; her neighbour had suggested mixing water and baby rusks and giving these to Faaris in his bottle.
He had become so weak that whatever he did eat he vomited. And then there was the constant diarrhoea. The stress was beginning to affect her other children too.
When he was six months old she had taken Faaris to see an old midwife who advised heat treatment – multiple small burns on his abdomen and buttocks to release the evil. It didn’t work.
The foreign doctor had been useless – he just gave advice. She would have taken Faaris to see the real witch-doctor, only he was too expensive. Perhaps he was being affected by Genies. Perhaps someone had cast the evil-eye on him when he was born – the power of the jealousy of an aunt or neighbour could inflict this sort of problem. Perhaps Umm asSubyan, queen of the Genies, or some other controlling spirit was involved. A good witchdoctor could solve these problems.
Fatima was doing all she could. She had started praying five times a day and she would fast once a month – perhaps this would earn her God’s favour. She hung a tiny copy of the Qur’an around Faaris’ neck to protect him from evil spirits, and recited the bits of it that she had memorised whenever she was with Faaris. She would lie him down so that he was facing Mecca – if he should die, at least he would be facing the right way.
How difficult it felt. If only she had some way of controlling her destiny, and his.
Address
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A-1206, 1, Jeongjail-ro, Bundang-gu,
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Contact
interservekorea@gmail.com
Tel +82 031 778 7931
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