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.

Day Three - And Then There Was Bhaktapur

My first full day in Kathmandu has been an incredible roller coaster. Beginning with the assembly of the final two tents for the orphans in our ServLife homes. The older boys rallied around to help clear and level the ground for the tents. The tents went up quickly and many people from the neighborhood came to see and ask where these tents came from. The need for good shelter is so great here.

Then it came time to talk about other needs. ServLife Director of A.S. Nepal, Udaya, invited Pastor Padam to come share with me. He has been helping Udaya distribute food to families in Kathmandu and in nearby rural areas where aid has not yet reached. Pastor Padam shared with me pictures of his family’s church before and after the earthquake. It collapsed totally during the first quake on April 25. Sixteen people died inside the church under the weight of the concrete roof. One small boy died at the hospital from injuries sustained from a piece of steel rebar. Padam, Udaya and I discussed the hundreds of families still not reached with basic food supplies and considered a plan to visit there next week delivering food to 150 families.

Then came Bhaktapur. During lunch with ServLife Himalayan Development Director, Lazarus Thulung, he suggested I meet a pastor supported through his ministry whose congregation is in the Bhaktapur region of Kathmandu. There the scope of this disaster began to make its impact on me. I was again reminded of the capricious and random nature of disasters. Until Bhaktapur the damage in Kathmandu did not seem as catastrophic as had been reported. But as I walked the narrow winding streets and passed the many temples and monuments of this area I realized no reporting could capture the horror of what happened here.

More than 500 people died in Bhaktapur alone. Buildings severely damaged by the quakes hung perilously over the streets propped up by large wooden timbers. I couldn’t help but think that in the United States not a single person would be allowed in this area and nearly every building would be torn down. Yet here we were walking between the support beams, part of a crowd of people, passing shops that are open for business. And tucked away all around the area are tent cities, and parks covered in makeshift tarp structures that do nothing to keep out the rains when they come. And with monsoon season only a month away, come they will. Five thousand people in Bhaktapur are living outside. Pastor Ram, who led the way through this ancient city, introduced us to a family that belongs to his church. Their house was utterly destroyed, as were the homes of thirty-one other church members from a congregation of just about one hundred.

The immediate need for better temporary housing is pressing. The process of getting approval to rebuild permanently will take a very long time. Perhaps years! So the people of Bhaktapur are looking for help building temporary metal buildings at a cost of $500 per building. The church has raised about a thousand to begin building a temporary replacement for their building, but need about two thousand more to complete the job.

The immensity of this disaster in Nepal is beginning to take shape in my awareness and is full of the faces of people I met today. Tomorrow I head to the rural areas where I’m told the real devastation occurred. The plan is to sleep in a makeshift village that has moved because what is left of their original village sits precariously under a gigantic boulder loosened by the quakes and ready to tumble down at any moment. I will join the new tent village for the night where there is no electricity, no bathrooms and no running water. And no way of knowing when all the help they need will reach them.