By Calvin Smothers.
In August of 2008, Andrew Ulasich and I moved next door to Prem Ghar (home for destitute widows) and have begun enjoying the joys of having more mothers than you could have ever imagined.
Together with ammas (mothers) I led a type of prayer that is experienced through art. I handed out color pencils, oil pastels, crayons and a blank piece of paper. I explained to them what to do, and they waited, and waited and waited until I began….they watched intensely and began to copy what I was doing, then I told them “you can draw whatever your heart desires.” One of our mothers here stated, “I have held gardening tools, cooking tools, but I have never, in my 80 years of life, never have I held something like this (color pencil).” We laughed and we drew and we laughed some more, this time was priceless.
These beautiful women here love me so well and I learn more and more about what it means to love. I am grateful to be here and to live with our mothers.
I continue to find myself finding it hard to fully love everyone here. The needs of Nepal are numerous and many times overwhelming. It is when I donʼt have times of feeling overwhelmed or even any emotion that I question my thoughts, and wonder if I have become desensitized to the needs and cries of our friends here. My hope is that I continue to be willing to learn from our friends here and never growing tired of praying for them.