Day Four – Sindhupalchok: The Thousand-Yard Stare

Our original intent for today, Lazarus and I, was that Buddha would take me out to a remote village where one of our church planters lived. Actually the village is now a cluster of tents moved some distance away from their original location because the quakes have dislodged an enormous boulder that is now perched above the former village ready to fall at the least provocation. I was to take the six or seven hour Jeep ride and spend the night in a tent alongside the villagers.

Upon greeting Lazarus this morning I discovered the village was unreachable today. Heavy rains had caused mudslides to block the only road there. People were unable to get in or out today. It’s a disaster zone and if there’s anything I’ve learned it’s that things change quickly. So Buddha, the driver, another church planting pastor and his wife, and I loaded into the Jeep and headed to the Sindhupalchok District located about 60 kilometers north and east of Kathmandu. There we would visit the pastor’s village and see the damage wrought by the earthquakes.

It was a long trip up winding, mountainous roads with stunning views of terraced hillsides and deep valleys. Yes, it was indescribably gorgeous…but for all the piles of rubble and bright orange tarps that kept reminding me of the terror that has happened here. And all along the road in pairs and clusters of three or four or six, sat mothers and fathers, children, siblings, and friends. Some picked through the piles that used to be their homes. Some were even open for business inside structures zig zagged with the crazy fracture lines that have become all too familiar in buildings all over this country.

And many of the people we saw today had that unmistakable thousand-yard stare.

The thousand-yard stare happens after a disaster. Not always right away, but here about a month in, when the reality of this new life starts to sink in, the stare inevitably happens. It’s the look of people who can’t even begin to know where to start or how to make sense of all this. Living in tents, waiting on aid from strangers, everyday making a little more progress in digging their lives out from under a pile of stone, mortar, bricks and wood that used to represent the security of home. And now they question whether security of any sort is real or just a myth. And when the ground shakes as it has done over 250 times since that first quake on April 25, they run to open ground and wait for this disaster to get worse.

In the midst of all this there is hope, too. A truckload of food being distributed in an orderly way on a debris littered street. A pastor who speaks about building a church on a ten-meter by ten-meter plot he hopes to acquire. A family living under a tarp with a story of miraculous escape as the quake crumbled every building in their village. And telling that story with smiles and a glass of Sprite offered to a stranger who’s come to visit.

The glimpses of recovery are here. The hope of the human heart encouraged by God’s Holy Spirit is alive. The needs are real and the resources are coming slowly. The smiles of those I meet and the playful laughter of children running behind our Jeep down the quake fractured road remind me that people are resilient. And that I am here to tell the story and bring the help of Christians in the United States who realize these are our brothers and sisters. And family takes care of family.