My close friends know this story well already, but it is such a great summary of our whole trip, that I have to share it.
In the early mornings of the second half of the trip, a couple of us had the joy of waking up real early, walking through the quiet city streets, boarding a microbus to Jawalakhel, and taking another bus to a slum across from the Kathmandu Airport. There, we taught in a slum school from 8:30 til 10, for children who have never been, and never will go, to a proper school.
The children are anywhere from three to twelve years of age, so teaching was a struggle at times. But no matter their age, they have a hunger to learn unlike any children I have ever met. They all had been either born into that slum, or moved there from India by their parents. The children don't speak Nepali, in a country that speaks solely Nepali, but instead speak Urdu, a dialect of Hindi. Our goal as teachers, or "TEACH-AHHHH" as they called us, was to teach them a little English every day, just the basic stuff that they would be putting into use as kids.
It was rewarding beyond comprehension. Those mornings forever changed my perspective on education, and what is required with me when it comes to schooling.
Education is a responsibility that the Lord has placed in the hands of only parts of the world. What am I doing with that gift? More on that later.
The above picture is one of the days at slum school. Those two little girls in the front, Loxima and Timula, were little firecrackers. The only girls in the class, they kept the boys on their toes. We had a lot of sass in common... ;)
It was Fridays at the slum school that really bore a hole deep into me, one that will likely never be filled in, and I am thankful for it.
Fridays were shower days. We'd walk the kids over to a water pump in the corner of the slum, atop this huge concrete slab. We'd fill buckets with water, and scrub the kids down from head to toe with bars of soap and kitchen scrubbers. The water was freezing, the kids were squirmy, and the laughter abounded. It was the only shower/bathing they would get all week, as they spend their whole day after school, from 10 til around 6, begging in the temples and tourist areas of Kathmandu.
That first Friday, we had just finished washing the last of the kids, our two little girls shown above, and Kristina and I were picking up the pieces of soap and the torn apart kitchen scrubbers. We stood there for a minute in that water pump, soaked from the splashing kids, and relishing in the quiet that followed over an hour of scrubbing. From where we stood, we could see out over the entire slum, with stacked cinderblocks for walls, slanted tin roofs, and clothes hung to dry all over.
This trip to Nepal was my first experience with slums, and I was amazed by them and how they function. Or don't function. A few weeks before we took off for Nepal, the government had just bulldozed a huge slum on the river in Lalitpur, displacing over a thousand people.
It was standing there with Kristina, looking out over a place so foreign to me, that housed children I had come to love hugging, kissing, and teaching, that I drew important connections between my actions and the purpose of our trip.
Those Fridays were a physical manifestation of the Gospel message.
Scrubbing the caked-on dirt off of Hindi children in a slum of Nepal, who can't understand a word I say, before they head off to beg in Buddhist temples, is the Gospel.
Teaching English, even for an hour and a half, to Urdu-speaking children whose parents see no need to send them to school because they are more "useful" begging, is the Gospel.
It is what we are instructed to do. To care for the children, especially those who have no inheritance and no one to speak on behalf of them.
It is simple, and it is what I must do throughout the rest of this life.
Because God plucked me out of despair and scrubbed me with cold water, bars of soap, and kitchen scrubbers, even when I had no desire to know Him.
Even when I strayed far from Him, seeking my own plans and putting myself first, He took me back with grace-filled arms, bathing me in mercy and forgiveness.
I miss the Fridays. I miss them a lot.
But there are Fridays here, or the equivalent of them.
Let's find them, friends.
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