I discovered my passion in December of 2005, quite by accident, through a series of unexpected and strangely synchronous events.
I have a sister, well actually I have 5 sisters but this story starts with my youngest sister Heather. She is an adventurous free spirit who has followed one of her life’s passions; traveling throughout the world. The things she has done, the people she has met, and the experiences she has had, have been staggering. One of her journey’s took her to Katmandu, Nepal where she struck up a friendship with one of the housekeepers at the hotel she was staying at. Nhuchhe was a single mom, in her late 20’s, vivacious and very interested in working on her English language skills. Heather jumped at the chance when Nhuchhe offered to take her on a tour of the area and to meet her family. It was a fortuitous encounter.
Heather, true to form, maintained contact with Nhuchhe via the Internet and email after she left Nepal.
In early December of 2005 I received the following email from my sister:
Dear Family;
I'm writing today to tell you about a friend of mine. Nhuchhe is the woman I met in
Nepal a couple of years ago. I may have told you about her. She works in housekeeping
at the Kathmandu Hyatt and makes about $60 a month. She's a single mom with an
8 year old daughter. She lives outside of Kathmandu with her extended family. She has
a sister and (I think) three brothers. They all have a bunch of kids so it's about 15 or
more people living in their little house. I had pictures of it...the dirt floors and very
rustic kitchen. She took me to stay with her family a couple of times.
I had been meaning to send Nhuchhe a little money to help her with her daughter's
school tution. In Nepal you have to pay fees for school and many families can't afford
it. She's actually never asked me for any money. I just wanted to help her out a little.
Anyway, I got this email from her recently asking for help for her niece who
needs an operation. It turns out it will cost about $1,800. I was planning to send
about $200 myself since I know them and I'm not going anywhere for
Christmas (I cancelled my Thailand trip).
So, I was wondering if any of you want to contribute. It's totally OK if you don't want
to. On the other hand, it might be a good opportunity for you to talk to your kids
about giving to people who don't have much at all. Maybe they would even be willing to
give a little of their own money so they can feel like they've sacrificed something for a
good cause. Anyway, please let me know today either way and how much you want to
send. I'm going to wire the money in a couple of days and there's a fee involved so
I only want to wire money once. You could send the money payable to Dad and
he and I will sort it out.
I think she may have collected a little money from other friends but it's
not much I'm sure. This will be a pretty big burden on their family and I think
Nuchhe has the highest salary of all of them. Still, it's just a suggestion. Feel
free to decline if you don't feel like sending anything. Love Heather
Dear Heather.
how is going your work now? I am sorry to say, I need you little help.
I need your support for little money because my sister is geeting
problem for her daughter, her daughter surffing from heart problem
and she need to do opertion next week . she has hole in her heart
that's way she need t do opertion for her 7 years daugheter.
hope you will help me ,how much you want you can. I asked
my other friends also that's way I Request to help for her.hope you
will keeping touch soon...........
PLEASE KEEPING TUCH SOON...............
yours
Nhuchhe
When I received this email, I read through it and then shut down my computer. The Christmas before my sister was encouraging us to send money to buy goats for some of her ‘families’. I thought, here she goes again…however, I couldn’t get this
family's plight out of my mind. I spent the whole night thinking about how devastating this would be economically for the entire family, to say nothing about the prospect of open heart surgery. I wondered what it must have been like to have to ask friends for money. I marveled at the ‘price’ and thought about what $1800 would buy in the United States.
When my husband finally woke up the next morning (and it is possible that I was giggling the bed a little in order to wake him up) I told him about the email that I had received from Heather. I reminded him that we had been talking about sending money to the Katrina hurricane victims and that we hadn’t because we where concerned about where we could send the money and know that it would make a real difference. And I reminded him that it was Christmas time and that we hadn’t made any donations yet…he looked at me and said “You want to pay for the whole thing, don’t you?”
We sent the money and I can’t begin to tell you how it made me feel. To know that we played a part in saving a young girl’s life. To know that a family wouldn’t have to make major sacrifices in order to pay for the surgery. To give with no expectations of anything other than the knowledge of their gratitude. I couldn’t tell anyone about the experience for months without getting emotional about it.
In short, my husband and I got to be an entire family's miracle.
It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
