Entire Village Destroyed by Earthquake …. and how they prayed
My journey in Nepal started in 2005 when I visited for a summer and God called me to come back and make this place and these people my home. So I did. I lived here two years and since have visited every year. I LOVE the people of this place.
I believe God put together my love of these people, my fluency in Nepalee language, and my Masters degree in counseling and trauma for such a time as this. For today.
For when I got in a jeep driven by a pastor who built a church– because He wanted the church to stand for Christ in a dark nation. I saw his eyes filled with grief as we began the drive. He told me how the senior pastor, his brother , his brothers children and wife, and more church members were buried underneath the rubble of the church He built.
We continued our drive (I will post photos later, I cannot get them to download from my camera) . We stopped at a shop a few hours into our journey that said in Nepalese over the door, For God’s glory. This shop was run by a Christian pastor. Out of the shop came a girl younger then me carrying a 3 month old baby. She told me how the 3 month old baby had survived the earthquake that flattened their church that day, but her mom had not.
Grief, unspeakable grief. Yet she kept repeating to me, We are in God’s hands.. and He is good.
We continued on the road and met a pastor who told of us His church being flattened during worship and the 7 church members that died there.
Grief, unspeakable grief. Yet with a smile He repeated, God is good.
Then we passed whole villages with EVERY building destroyed. Rubble. Reduced to nothing. A people that already had nothing with now everything gone.
These people were not believers.
Grief, unspeakable grief– but they do not know our God is a good God of hope.
Then we go to the road where the church we were going to visit was. This people had had no visitors, no relief workers, no food…
Grief, unspeakable grief–
The scene took my breath away. A cross buried beneath the rubble, with people buried beneath that.
We sat with them.
We cried with them.
We listened to them.
We asked them to tell us their stories. Those sacred moments I will never forget. They told of worshiping when the ground began to shake.
They told of losing those they loved. Of fear . Of terror. Of confusion.
But over and over they also told of hope. How God was with them.
How He would help them.
How we MUST pray for them.
We reminded them they were not forgotten by God.
The prayer time was the most raw real prayer time I have ever experienced. All of them crying out from the depths to God. Tears streaming, hands lifted, they continued to praise God.
I could hear them continue to thank Him for His goodness and His grace. And to beg Him to come.
He will come.
He has come.
He is there.
He is here.
God changed me forever today. I knelt beside the rubble and learned again..
He is there.
Would you please pray for these people. We are going back to stay next week– to help them remove the rubble of the church as it is considered a shame to the church by the Hindu neighbors. We will do trauma programs and kids clubs.. and mostly we will just be WITH them in the rubble.
Emmanuel.. God .. With.. US..
I will show you their faces as soon as I can upload pictures.
Thank you for sharing! Praying!!!!!!!!! I’m here for you! Glad you obeyed!
hugs!
My prayers of comfort are offered to our great God. I cry. I pray. And God hears. Yes, I know God hears.