Sitting in the gate area of the Istanbul airport, waiting for my flight to Kathmandu airport, I looked around at the other passengers and wondered what their stories were, why they were on this flight 7 days after a major earthquake that has killed more than 6,000 people in Nepal.
Then the woman next to me asked me a question, and I found out why she was going.
She is from Spain, and is going as a volunteer with Doctors without Borders to assist in developing a psychological response to the trauma of April 25th's 7.8-magnitude earthquake. While she has done some counseling and trauma response in war zones, she had never worked in the wake of a natural disaster. She asked me if it was my first time in a disaster zone, and I nodded.
"How do you feel? Are you afraid?" she asked me.
"Afraid of what?" I asked.
"Aftershocks."
I admitted that I hadn't thought much about aftershocks, that my big fear was being required to ride a motorcycle in order to get outside Kathmandu or to more distant places for gathering stories. I don't like motorcycles.
Just three days ago I found out about this trip. I received the phone call at 11 p.m. my time in Manchester, UK, that the Church of the Nazarene needed a journalist to accompany a videographer to help connect the global church with the local church in Nepal, and to tell the stories of how the church is responding to the needs for shelter, food and water around the country. Just two days ago I agreed to come and Friday was the first I knew about the details. I was on a plane by Saturday morning.
I had a daytime flight from Manchester to Istanbul, then laid over for about 3 hours before catching my overnight flight to Kathmandu. I watched a couple movies, slept for a couple of hours. When I awoke and got restless, I slid open the window shade and realized that it was dawn. The sun would be up soon. Above the grey nothingness below poked the razor-sharp teeth of the Himalayas, chewing up the horizon. There was a molten orange glow along the edges of a few of the peaks. I grabbed my mobile phone and as I snapped a few pictures, suddenly the glow turned into a blinding blaze, and the sun triumphantly climbed above the edge into view. It was magnificent. I couldn't help but think about the metaphors.
We have more than 100 organized churches and more than as many church plants, attended by over 8,000 Nazarenes in Nepal. The country's district superintendent, Rev. Dilli, in collaboration with the Eurasia Region's compassionate ministries coordinator, Jörg Eich, and in partnership with other NGOs, is mobilizing the Nepali church to gather food such as rice and sugar and distribute it to the villages which have been hit hard by the earthquake. They are also developing a plan to ensure people have clean water and shelter.
I arrived on the same flight with Steve, an American videographer who also dropped everything to come and help capture the stories on video. We've had breakfast, grabbed a short nap, and after lunch our first order of business is to interview Rev. Dilli and Jörg on camera to talk about the situation as it stands right now. Then Rev. Dilli said he would take us to visit the Nazarene church where he was preaching when the earthquake struck, show us where the congregation fled outside and began praying as the ground rolled beneath them, and also to another Nazarene church which was gathered for worship and came through the earthquake undamaged.
I am sitting at an unused desk, eavesdropping on Dilli and Jörg in the next office talking about how many thousand bags of rice they need, how much sugar, oil and salt -- they're talking about tons of food staples. Dilli says they're going out to distribute food tomorrow about 70 km from Kathmandu and it sounds like we'll go with them to interview people and capture the stories in that location. I really hope there won't be motorcycles involved.
Having posted news about this sudden trip on social media, and seeing the amazingly swift and positive response of friends and colleagues around the world who are praying for Nepal, praying for the church here, and praying for me and Steve (and my husband Andrew who is supporting me from Manchester), I feel surrounded and lifted up in prayer.
Pray that I won't have to ride a motorcycle. :-)
Then the woman next to me asked me a question, and I found out why she was going.
"How do you feel? Are you afraid?" she asked me.
"Afraid of what?" I asked.
"Aftershocks."
I admitted that I hadn't thought much about aftershocks, that my big fear was being required to ride a motorcycle in order to get outside Kathmandu or to more distant places for gathering stories. I don't like motorcycles.
Just three days ago I found out about this trip. I received the phone call at 11 p.m. my time in Manchester, UK, that the Church of the Nazarene needed a journalist to accompany a videographer to help connect the global church with the local church in Nepal, and to tell the stories of how the church is responding to the needs for shelter, food and water around the country. Just two days ago I agreed to come and Friday was the first I knew about the details. I was on a plane by Saturday morning.
I had a daytime flight from Manchester to Istanbul, then laid over for about 3 hours before catching my overnight flight to Kathmandu. I watched a couple movies, slept for a couple of hours. When I awoke and got restless, I slid open the window shade and realized that it was dawn. The sun would be up soon. Above the grey nothingness below poked the razor-sharp teeth of the Himalayas, chewing up the horizon. There was a molten orange glow along the edges of a few of the peaks. I grabbed my mobile phone and as I snapped a few pictures, suddenly the glow turned into a blinding blaze, and the sun triumphantly climbed above the edge into view. It was magnificent. I couldn't help but think about the metaphors.We have more than 100 organized churches and more than as many church plants, attended by over 8,000 Nazarenes in Nepal. The country's district superintendent, Rev. Dilli, in collaboration with the Eurasia Region's compassionate ministries coordinator, Jörg Eich, and in partnership with other NGOs, is mobilizing the Nepali church to gather food such as rice and sugar and distribute it to the villages which have been hit hard by the earthquake. They are also developing a plan to ensure people have clean water and shelter.
I am sitting at an unused desk, eavesdropping on Dilli and Jörg in the next office talking about how many thousand bags of rice they need, how much sugar, oil and salt -- they're talking about tons of food staples. Dilli says they're going out to distribute food tomorrow about 70 km from Kathmandu and it sounds like we'll go with them to interview people and capture the stories in that location. I really hope there won't be motorcycles involved.
Having posted news about this sudden trip on social media, and seeing the amazingly swift and positive response of friends and colleagues around the world who are praying for Nepal, praying for the church here, and praying for me and Steve (and my husband Andrew who is supporting me from Manchester), I feel surrounded and lifted up in prayer.
Pray that I won't have to ride a motorcycle. :-)
Praying for you, Gina!
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