Mission: Nepal

Yet Greg’s 7-man team from Calvary Church in Downey managed to get through.  Destruction from the quake was huge, as the buildings were vulnerable.  Brick sidings crumbled and fell away, and cleaning up the debris and rubble was the first and biggest challenge the team faced.

 

 

The countryside is lush, with waterfalls tumbling into valleys, and always the inspiring view of the snow-capped Himalayas.   With the monsoon season coming, the mission was to build simple shelters before the weather turned bad.

 

The villagers make their living by farming rice.  For this they build terraces.  The mud walls of the paddies are made by hand, with hand-made tools.   The quake had broken the walls and destroyed the terraces, so they had to be rebuilt.  Where the houses had been shaken on their foundations, a great deal of rubble was piled up.  All that had to be cleared before farming could begin.

 

Everyone on the mission volunteered their services and paid for their trips themselves.  The materials they brought were corrugated tin sheets, to bend into a rudimentary roof, and wire to secure it to poles, which were staked in the earth.  The shelters had no walls on either end and no windows.  The idea was to get the people into shelter before the monsoons came.

 

The same team plans to go back and instruct the villagers on how to build stone side walls and add windows.  They will instruct them in framing and try to make more adequate permanent housing.  The Calvary Chapel raises money for these trips with fund-raisers and contributions.

 

Greg made light of the hazards of the trip, such as leeches, snakes and spiders, which came out at night to pester the workers in their tents.  He also plans to go to the Amazon basin in October to do similar relief work, and fellow club members offered helpful hints about piranhas in the rivers.

 

The Nepalese people, Greg said, were very thankful, but at the same time,

“with the gratitude, at first there was suspicion.”  We didn’t try to convert them from their religion,” which in Nepal is Hinduism.  You could see them thinking, “Who were we, and what did we want.”

 

 Greg Welch described his Downey Chapel’s humanitarian mission to Nepal in  these terms  “They gave us flowers but they wondered, ‘What did these strangers want from us’  Once we showed them by love what we were willing to do, then came more flowers, prayers, kisses, tears.”

 

Thanks, Greg, for showing us “service above self’ in action.