Time has flown by, and we haven’t had a chance to do our final updates from Nepal!
Currently, we are home in Tasmania, Australia (where we have been since December) catching up with friends and family. We are getting ready to leave in April for a further 6 months of volunteering with Iris Global, based in Pemba, Mozambique. We will share more about this in a future post – but first I would love to update you on what life looked like in Nepal from September to November, 2016. This will take a few posts! Today’s post will be about our time in Kathmandu and our adventures there. Below are a few of our photos of the beautiful places and people we met there.
We started this trip with my twin sister Erin joining us for the first 2 weeks. We spent time catching up with our beautiful Nepali friends, Hannah & Kumar, celebrating birthdays, exploring the maze of streets and bonding over delicious food. We had the opportunity to help renovate and decorate our friends Guest-house – and had a ball painting and making decorations with our other local sisters.
With tears in my eyes, I waved good-bye to Erin at the end of her two weeks in Nepal. I am so grateful for the fun and adventures we had during her short time there. What a blessing to have shared these memories with her! I knew she would fall in love with Nepal as much as I had. This was our (mine and James’) third time visiting Nepal and to me it feels like home.
In Kathmandu we had the privilege of visiting and learning about Iris Global’s Nepal base. This is the same organisation we had just finished studying with in Pemba, Mozambique and who we will be continuing to volunteer with as Media Missionaries this year. This base was outstanding. I was so inspired by the team – their surrendered lives and the compassion and love that they walk in. They have a children’s home, a Primary & High school, a ‘banquet house’ where they feed the homeless and poor and they also run many other programs to see poverty, both spiritual and physical, eliminated. Their vision is to bring God’s healing, hope, and salvation to Nepal – to the orphans, homeless, lost, and poor – by being the loving hands and feet of Jesus. Meeting the children that were once orphans and seeing them in their new homes as sons and daughters was a powerful experience. Their joy and love for life was contagious.
The leaders of this team are Joel & Tammy DeBortoli. We had the opportunity to film their story and hear more about the start of their journey, and what lead them to Nepal. You could see Jesus reflected in their eyes and hear the passion in their voices, as they told stories of miracles, wonder and radical acts of love. I hope to upload these videos when we have the time. Again, I hope the photos tell a better story than my words can.
You can sponsor one of these beautiful Nepal children here: www.stopfortheone.org
Or find out more about the Iris Global Nepal Base here: www.irisglobal.org/nepal
Much love and Blessings
Jessica
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