This morning I was alarmed to read a BBC News Alert on my phone that a 7.8 or so earth quake had painfully shook Kathmandu, Nepal and the surrounding area.  This was particularly impactful to me as my wife, Carrie, was just there only a few weeks ago.  Just days after she landed in Kathmandu a plane ran off the runway there – fortunately no one died.  And now this happens only a few weeks later!  I can’t help but to be sobered and slowed over the sorrows being experienced in this part of the world.  It’s estimated that at least 1,000 were killed in this quake.  SEE LINK.

Please join me in prayer for the people of Nepal:

Father God, please provide for any who may be even at this moment trapped in debris.  Please give courage to rescue workers and give endurance to those who are without proper medical attention or supplies for basic needs.  Please comfort those who have lost loved ones and provide wisdom for leaders and volunteers around the world.  Give us all wisdom as to whether there is something that we can do to make a difference.  Thank you for the various faith-based and otherwise motivated groups through whom You care for the hurting.  Your compassion knows no bounds and Your wisdom is perfect.  May believers in particular rise up to make a difference in this situation, and may Nepal be known as a country where Your mercy was shown in 2015 in dramatic ways.  We will not curse You for this incident, as we know we deserve to all be utterly crushed for our sinfulness.  You have shown great mercy to spare whom You have spared, and we pray for Your grace for the people of Nepal today.

God, You know the plight of these hurting people, and You are not far from the cause of the sorrowful and suffering.  In Christ’s name we pray.  Amen.

This sorrow is beyond imagining.  The family that my wife was able to get to know is fortunately doing well physically, and yet they have had much sorrow today.  There is death all around them and any who were impacted have the additional sorrow of poor medical attention in most cases.  My wife described the condition of Kathmandu prior to the shake, and it is already not a  place where medical attention is easily accessible.  The infrastructure in this region is third world in most cases, and so the out-lying villages and towns are very possibly where some more very deep sorrows are being experienced.  So far the reports seem to indicate that these villages are in ruins and many lives possibly compromised.

When thinking about such sorrows in our world, it’s extremely alarming, and yet God gives us the opportunity of responding at least by considering how to prepare to be more and more able to make a difference when events like these are heard of through the years.  My wife and I have some savings, and so one thought is to drop everything and fly out once it is possible to get to the Kathmandu region and spend a good month laboring to restore a sense of stability for as many individuals and families as possible.  One could run an on-line funding campaign and find funding for such a venture.  Even more, however, are the thoughts that come into my mind about future responses to a situation like this.  How can I prepare to spend a good part of mine and my family’s energy and resources through the years in making a difference in desperate people’s lives.

How can we, as believers, look at life less as what can we get out of it and more as what can we pour into others’ lives?  I believe this becomes more and more our nature as Jesus Christ is formed in us, as we pray and consider how to stir one another up to love and good!

May we humbly pray over the people of Nepal and consider not just how to make a difference in their lives this month but how to spend our lives making a difference both locally and globally to touch the lives of the hurting whom God has given us to love.

In His compassionate love,

– Torrey