Disciple Makers – April 28 2015 – His Hands and His Feet in Nepal

On Saturday, our plane landed at the Kathmandu international airport.  Upon arrival, we proceeded to immigration.  We had only arrived just 10 minutes prior.  All of the sudden, the lights began to flicker and then, things went dark.  The ground beneath us began to shake at first and then proceeded to sway as if we were aboard a ship in stormy waters. After a couple of minutes of chaos, and several hours of shock, our group was reunited and were all safe.  We praise God that all are alive and well.  We could not communicate with other members of our group who arrived the day before, as cell phone coverage was down.  When we arrived at our hotel, we found the rest of our team were doing well; however, their day was quite different.  They were in the middle of worship when things began to quake.  They left the church building as debris began to fall.  One of the older women in the church was hit in the face with some of that debris and the group took her (along with several others who were injured) to the hospital.  Later we found out that the church building suffered quite a bit of damage.  The pastor’s house was completely destroyed.  Tremors continued through the evening and night.  Our group decided to sleep out on the lawn of the hotel (with the other guests) where it was much safer.  This was just day one!

On day two (Sunday), we had originally planned to travel by plane to a location west of Kathmandu; however, all domestic flights were cancelled.  Therefore, part of our team journeyed back to the airport to claim our luggage left the day before.  Also, I had to go back to immigration to get a visa.  During the mayhem, I bolted out of the airport (with many others) without documentation.  So, as I made a second attempt to obtain a visa, I proceeded to the second floor of the airport with a security officer and was headed to immigration.  As we stepped into the elevator and the doors began to close, I felt the 2nd quake (6.0 magnitude).  I immediately stuck my foot in the elevator doors, pulled them apart and fled out of the airport now a second time without documentation.

Back at the hotel, other team members walked down the street and found people staying in multitudes of makeshift tents.  These were not homeless people, but were residents in the neighborhood who did not want to go back inside their homes. They feared another quake was going to hit due to the constant aftershocks.  Looking at this as an opportunity, the team made their way into this makeshift community of tents and began to befriend the people.  Trying to help take their minds off of the situation, they began made balloon animals for the children, played games and tried to strike up conversations with the people as well as possible.  Tremors continued throughout the evening and, once again, the group camped out on the lawn of the hotel for another night’s sleep.  Unfortunately, this night it began to rain heavily and most of the group migrated to sleeping on the floor of the hotel cafeteria (which is on the ground floor).  This was day two.

Monday (today), we woke to breakfast at the hotel.  This was a real treat as the previous day we (and the hotel) had difficulty getting food (most shops/stores have been closed).  Today, we decided we were going to provide some sort of relief to those in need.  We loaded up our vehicles and scouted the city to find where we could best be of help.  We found ourselves on the outskirts of town where we discovered a community of approximately 5000 residents.  Approximately 15-20% of the homes in this community are either destroyed or severely damaged.  As in the city, many people here made makeshift tents out of fear that another quake might hit; but, many of the people of this community are sleeping in the fields as they have nothing left from the devastation.  With the food and water we purchased from a store we had found open, we began distribution.   The community leader and a local school teacher helped with organization and distribution. Knowing this was only “a drop in the bucket” we went downtown to try and purchase tents and blankets for those who lost their homes within this community.  Unfortunately, most of the shops were closed.  Those shops who were open had already sold out of the needed items. 

This is the end of day three.  We haven’t had a major tremor since early this morning.  Yet, just when you thought things were safe, another tremor rocks the hotel as we are about to get some sleep for the night!  If the Lord permits, we will wake tomorrow and continue our quest to find shops open who will sell us needed supplies so that we might aid those who are touched by this disaster.  Again, thank you for your prayers.  Also, our thanks goes out to those churches and individuals who have already committed to helping us with relief efforts.  Besides the pastor I mentioned earlier who had lost his home and the church building which was partially destroyed, another evangelist of Disciple Makers (outside of Kathmandu) lost his home as did most of the community where he lives.

See below for ways to help!

Blessings, 
Tom