please don’t forget Nepal—my family’s there.

It was going on 8 o’clock and we hadn’t eaten dinner yet. But when the food’s this fresh, and you’re watching it being slow cooked over a dirt hole in the ground…you realize it’s worth the wait. And when I say fresh, I mean fresh. I’m talking five-hours-ago-I-carried-that-chicken-home-alive-in-my-arms-and-now-it-looks-like-little-chicken-nuggets fresh.

As good as it tasted, eating on the floor by candlelight, it’s not the food I remember about that night—it’s cooking it together.

Rewind. It was month six of my World Race and my squad found ourselves in Nepal. We’d begun our journey in the beautiful, ancient city of Kathmandu. It was the first time on the Race that I’d looked out the taxi window and felt true wonderment: “Where am I?”

I saw city squares guarding delicate temples like closely kept secrets, gray streets made of stone, the tiniest doors of every color, the smell of curry, ruby gems and golden strands of flowers—all set to the royal backdrop of the snowcapped Himalayan mountains. Everything absolutely took my breath away.

We met up with our guide, Pastor Bippin, and began the long journey to his village. I began to witness firsthand the statistic that “less than 10 percent of Nepal is accessible by road.” We took by bus, what I found out later, is one of the most dangerous roads in the entire country. We twisted and turned and nearly tipped over the whole way up the mountain. At one point we looked out the window; we were so high up we saw a falcon gliding in the open air—the falcon, we realized, was below us.

For the greater part of February we lived up in those mountains with Pastor Bippin and his family. We planned on cooking for ourselves, but night after night the family insisted on fixing us a meal—chicken cooked on the spot, and dal baht, the Nepalese national dish of lentils and rice.

The kitchen was outback, a patch of dirt where the pots and pans were kept, a few logs to sit down on and some wood to make a fire. It was perfect. Cooking out there together quickly became a time of fellowship. We learned how to pluck the feathers, skin, and gut a live chicken, and under the stars one night we learned about Pastor Bippin’s story.

He and his wife had been married for quite some time. Both Christians, they’d fallen in love and committed their lives together to serving the Lord. But there was one great, human-sized error to their love story: they came from different castes.

In Nepalese culture you don’t define yourself—the caste system does. It regulates who you associate with, the community you live in, and ultimately, how far you can go in society. Sunita and Bippin had done the unthinkable. They turned to Jesus. They fell in love. They married out of caste.

And they were excommunicated from their Hindu families.

(Pastor Bippin waving goodbye the last time I saw him in Pohkara, Nepal.)

As we sat outside that night, laughing, joking, and telling stories, you could feel the happiness filling up the air. Suddenly, without warning, Pastor Bippin stood up and walked away from the fire. He was wiping his eyes and we realized he was in tears.

What Pastor told us next, I’ll never forget.

“We are always missing our families,” he said. “We never see our real families. But you all filling up our house like this? It feels like our family is here again.”

He spoke slowly. Every word full of meaning. I looked around and saw other teammates wiping tears from their eyes.

“You people,” Pastor Bippin said, “are our family now.”

My heart.

For this family, filling up their home with 14 young men and women was more than just volunteering to host an American missions team—it was a vessel for their beloved Savior, the One they’d given up everything for, to speak directly to them.

Bippin. Sunita. These brothers and sisters are your family. The church is your family. When the world throws you out. I take you in. Son, Daughter. I AM all the family you need.

How incredible that he would spur this husband and wife on with such a sweet reminder…

Bippin. Sunita. Fix your eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, and what is unseen is eternal.

How beautifully the Lord provides for our deepest needs. How sweet that in meeting those needs, He gives us more than we would even think to ask Him for.

Bippin, Sunita. You can’t see it now, but We’re waiting for you. Your forever family is right here. Hearts leaping. Arms open. You do have a family. I have adopted you into My Own.

So, here’s to my family in Nepal. To midnight dance parties. To morning chai tea. To sleepovers and cuddling up every night next to 13-year-old Presomsa, my Nepalese sister whose very name means “Praise the Lord.” She gifted me the very bracelet off her wrist, and used her last bit of pink glitter nail polish to make my fingers nails pretty.

I know the earthquake was more than a week ago. I know there’s a lot on the news, and a lot on your to-do list.

But these very people, people I adore, are suffering now.

I’m begging you, please don’t forget about Nepal—my family’s there.

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I need you to understand that Nepal needs our help. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal affected an estimated 6.6 million people. Do you know how many of those people lived in fragile mountain villages that got pummeled by landslides and are only accessible by foot? Can you imagine what it looked like dealing with mass injuries when you can’t even access the injured?

By God’s grace, Pastor Bippin and his family are all okay. To our knowledge, all our Nepalese contacts survived, and are busy now helping others in the streets.

I received this message days after the quake from our friend, Bi Tu, in Kathmandu.

“hi katy we are good here. yea the earthquake is really worst here. please pray for our church since is is already affected by it and also most of our church members houses are destroyed, they don’t have foods, nor clothes to wear not even place to live.. so please please kindly pray for them for they can have homes to live.”

We can do something to help.

First and foremost, we can pray. I believe God has something big on His heart for our brothers and sisters in Nepal. Just after our squad left in February, the Nepalese government was set to vote on an anti-conversion law that would make sharing the Gospel akin to criminal activity. 

My prayer now is that the entire nation of Nepal would be rocked to its core by an overwhelming outpour of the love of Christ. Not only from Christian relief going in, but from our Nepalese brothers and sisters on the ground who are caring for the suffering in their own homes.

Just a few days ago, a World Race team has already entered to begin relief efforts on the ground, to be the hands and feet of Jesus. 

I chose to donate through Samaritan’s Purse. An astounding organization that does disaster relief to show the suffering they are loved by Jesus.

What will you do? Will you pray? Will you go? Will you give?

Donate with me at Samaritan’s Purse, click here to give any amount.