Dear Friends,
In my last letter to all of you I wrote about "seasons." And recently I feel like God has brought me into yet another new season in my life here. In August our WMF Nepal community gathered for a week of prayer together. We wanted to spend the majority of the time asking the Lord for fresh unity for our team, as well as for insight as to what direction he was calling us to for the future.
We gathered together 3 times a day for an hour each time just worshipping, praying and seeking the Lord together. By then end of the week I didn't necessarily feel the Lord had spoken specifically to me about anything. Yet as I thought about it later I realized maybe I needed to take a good look back over the week to see if perhaps He had been speaking to me all along and I just hadn't noticed?
So here is the list of things that I had been doing throughout the week that I came up with:
1) I had gone to the police station to help resolve a fight over our sweet baby Mukti. Her birth parents were having some problems and so the police had asked me to come and talk to them to see if we could figure out a "solution" together. During our discussion I discovered that there are zero laws in Nepal for the specific purpose of protecting women or children, and even if there were the police assured me that "it would be difficult to hold to them."
2) I had taken a young friend of mine to the maternity hospital to get a check up. She is due to give birth to her first child any day! I have mixed emotions about the situation because I know that previously this friend had been pregnant and chose to have an abortion rather than to keep the baby. So I am very happy that she has chosen to keep the baby this time.
However, I also know that this young friend of mine is only 15, and that her very young husband recently started using hard drugs. The home situation is very dangerous, and already in their first year of marriage the husband has begun threatening his wife and unborn baby's lives. When I asked this friend if she was excited about the baby she told me, "yo bacchako baremaa haamile kehi pani sojeko chaina!" Which in English means, "we haven't thought anything about this baby!" I was shocked, and yet not so surprised at the same time, knowing the family's desperate situation.
3) As I was walking home from Thamel one day I came to a bridge that I have to cross every day on my way home. Many people use the banks of the river as a place to throw away their garbage, so it has become very polluted and covered in trash. As I neared the bridge I noticed a large crowd of people standing and staring at a pile of garbage bags, as well as several police men. I watched with them for a moment, but couldn't figure out what was going on. Eventually I asked a woman in the crowd what we were staring at, and she pointed to something I hadn't even noticed at first laying on top of the pile. It was the dead body of a tiny infant baby that had been thrown away.
Now I had heard that this was a common occurrence in Nepal; people throwing away babies along the river. I'd even seen it once before but it had been a long time. I just wasn't expecting to see something so horrific on my way home that afternoon.
A few days later I mentioned what I had seen to a Nepali friend and he told me that the same week he had seen exactly the same thing at a place just a bit further down the river, only this time the police were trying to chase away a pack of dogs that were mutilating the baby's body. Again, I was horrified! When mentioning it to a second friend I was surprised to hear her say that even she had known of someone who had abandoned their child under the same bridge, that same week! Only this time it was a pair of twin 6 month old boys that the mother simply couldn't raise any longer because of the depth of her poverty. Fortunately someone had discovered the two boys and had rescued them.
4) During our prayer week we found out that our Nepali staff member Top Magar and his wife are pregnant with their 2nd child, and are thrilled to be welcoming a new baby into their family once again. It reminded me of so many of my friends back home in America that are getting married and giving birth to children for the first time this year as well.
Now if you haven't found the theme that I sensed looking back over this week I will spell it out for you: BABIES.
I was actually shocked because I hadn't even noticed how many times this theme had been popping up around me all week. Only later when I stopped to reflect did I see it so clearly. Even now I don't know what kind of action God is calling us to in this area, but I do know that it is something dear to His heart.
The week after our prayer time was finished I took a first step of simply prayer walking along the river. The first week I could feel that satan was speaking a lot of lies, and trying to frustrate me. As soon as I walked out the door I started to think, "why am I even doing this? is it even going to make a difference?" I walked for just a short time, and couldn't even think of how to pray. The second week went much better and I began to feel the prayers flowing out of my heart on behalf of these children.
Next Kara and I found an orphanage that we had heard of before, but had never had the time to search for. It was opened in 1964, and is the only orphanage that is officially connected to the government of Nepal. Any children who are abandoned at the maternity hospital, or found along the rivers are brought to this place. It houses 200 children, and is ironically run within the walls of an old abandoned King's palace! However the children inside are starved for human touch, and show deep affects of attachment disorders and trust issues. We've started volunteering once a week just going in, holding infants, changing diapers and helping out in any way we can. It feels good to know that God is leading our steps. Please pray that somehow we would be able to bring light and life into the walls of this place, and into the lives of these precious children!
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Learning how to celebrate in mourning,
The loss of yet another friend from Thamel.
Over the past several years here in Nepal, I've learned a lot about death and losing friends to drugs and other drug related diseases; most recently our friend Kamal Shresta, who passed away this past June. If I'm completely honest, Kamal was always a fairly difficult guy to be in relationship with. He had been living in the street and using IV drugs for many years. He was used to the tourist scene and had a very harsh attitude about him that never responded well to attempts at "relational ministry." But I've learned never to judge the work that God is planning to do in someone by outside appearances alone. Sometimes the most difficult people on the outside seem to receive God's grace more fully than anyone else.
After Kripaa Sadan, our rehabilitation home for men, was opened in January of 2006, many of our close friends from the streets of Thamel came to Christ and were set free from drug addiction. Nearly a year later, in February of 2007, Kamal also decided it was his time. Kamal entered the home and fell naturally into the family atmosphere at Kripaa. From the first week you could sense a very dramatic change in him. He had come to know Jesus as his personal savior, and it showed. He was one of the most gentle, considerate men in the en
tire home. After finishing his time there he moved back home and reconnected with his family for another year, living with his mother and younger siblings. I even remember once going to visit him, and being asked to leave because he was "busy helping his young brother with his homework!" I was so proud of Kamal for putting his family first, for the first time in many years. His mother couldn't have been happier.
In June of 2008 Kamal fell ill with complications due to AIDS and went home to be with Jesus three weeks later. Continue to pray for Kamal's family as they deal with the loss of a son and brother. He will be greatly missed.
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Thanks again to each of you as you support me with love and prayers. I appreciate you all more than you know! Please write to me anytime, I would love to know how I can also be praying for you! brook.birch@wordmadeflesh.com