Jyoti's Birth Family

God Makes the Seemingly Impossible, Possible ~ Now for the evidence that God can do more than we can ask or imagine!

Friday December 30, 2011

Knowing that this was my last morning in Nepal, I was a little numb. Having lived there for the last three months it was hard to realize that today was the last day there! Dad and I walked down to the durbar square (old palace area) to do some final shopping and take pictures. It seemed almost “normal” and comfortable to be walking around the streets and interacting with people. On the other hand, I realized that within 24 hours, we would be on the other side of the world in our American culture again. It was another sunny day, another aspect I really liked about winters in Nepal.

Arriving back to the guesthouse to pack our bags into the taxi and drive to the airport, I experienced mixed emotions. I felt a bit down about leaving Nepal, especially since I recently discovered that I had a birth family. While driving up to the airport welcoming area, I realized wistfully that I would not see my birth family for a very long time. Arriving in the airport drop-off area, who should we see but one of my mamas (the relative I had originally met)! Then after getting out of the taxi we were met by at least 20 relatives, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

Some of the relatives that came to bid me farewell

They had come 5 hours from their village and had waited two hours at the airport not wanting to miss us. Mom, Dad and I were adorned with numerous honor-scarves, and I was given gifts from my sister and my cousins. One of my tailor mamas had made Mom, Dad, and me little silk purses, which he put on all of us. Then again we had to take many photos, and my sister was quite emotional throughout the time. I assured her that I was so very pleased and blessed to meet her and that I would never forget her and I would pray for her every day. I also asked her to please continue to see and welcome my brothers, and I told her that I would pray that they will stay connected.

L to R: My sister Khusbu, a friend, my cousin Dipa, & me

I was privileged to meet one of my mother’s sisters who walked two hours from her village to make the 5 hour bus ride into Kathmandu. She was very sweet, and assured me that she was so happy to meet me, and that I was like a living version of my mother. I especially appreciated the effort it took her and also an older great uncle, to come and see me before I left, for I know that physically it must have been difficult. 

L to R: A mama (uncle), my mother's eldest sister,
me & Khusbu

 
After many goodbyes, we finally made it into the airport to stand in line for security. The last scene in my head of my family was of all of them watching from outside the airport windows waving goodbye. Once again I was filled with appreciation of how accepting, caring, and the steps they took to meet me and send me off with gifts, foods, scarves and well wishes.

All my relatives waving farewell

After taking off on our Korean Air flight, and rising into the air, having a great window seat, I was able to view a grand selection of the Himalayas, including the magnificent Mt. Everest in the hue of the setting sun. Seeing this breathtaking sight felt like the seal to God’s numerous and awesome blessings that had taken place not only in the last week, but for the whole time I was in Nepal.

The Mt. Everest view from our airplane

Jyoti’s Birth Family

 God Makes the Seemingly Impossible, Possible ~ Now for the evidence that God can do more than we can ask or imagine!

Thursday December 29, 2011

 Having less than 24 hours left in Kathmandu, the time went quickly with so many unanticipated and wonderful contacts. Today started out leisurely, as we only had one planned activity and that was to go to our friend’s coffee shop for a noon lunch get together. Upon arriving at the coffee shop, I was surprised to meet one of my brothers who had been waiting for us, having called our translator to get directions. He then told us that our other brother had gone to get our father, who decided to take the 5 hour plus taxi ride into the city to meet me. I was pretty excited and nervous. Here was my father coming, and I would finally get to see him, but on the other hand I had no idea what to say to him! Finally, after two hours, my birth father came.

L to R: Visan (eldest brother), Sane (father), me,
and Kisan (the younger of the brothers)

When he arrived, seeing me for the first time, both him and my brothers got emotional and needed a few moments to collect ourselves. I think it was very important for my brothers to see me meet my father and to see that I wasn’t angry at him for leaving me, and that I was pleased to meet him. He told his side of the story and circumstances of my birth; why he didn’t come for me in the hospital and by whom my three siblings were raised by and why. It would have been difficult for him to raise four children by himself at that time having just lost his wife, so he had to make some choices.

My birth father telling his version of the events
that surrounded my birth

 There appears to be some resentment from my mother’s family members about the situation 20 years ago, but now that I’ve met both sides of the family, I can appreciate the difficulties that they all experienced. For me of course, it was/is all God’s plan, and I only feel that all these things have worked out for good. In addition to the tailor caste, my family members are the musicians for weddings and festivals, and apparently my father has some advanced skills in that, therefore, my flute playing is part of my genes! My brothers both said that our father also taught them well the tailoring business. Having printed out pictures from the previous day, my brothers presented me with the copies, a very considerate gesture on their part. 

Looking at photos of me and my life in America

 

It was really nice to see some of my father’s personality; he seemed very genuine and sweet. I calculated that he is 58 years old. He also had re-married and had two other sons, one nine and the other seven. I was able to see pictures of them. My father also said that he had heard of Christianity, and our translator stressed to him the fact that if he wanted to see his sons and daughter in heaven, he too needed Jesus. 

My birth father & me

The whole afternoon went well, and I was very thankful that my father could meet me and meet my parents, and therefore see that I was well taken care of. I also felt like there was so much said non-verbally and if only we could have spoken the same language we would have talked a lot more. Though the visit was short, the time we did have was very meaningful.

After that, I felt “complete” that I had met my birth family, and now I would never have to wonder who they were, how many I had, and what they looked like. All by God’s divine plan and grace, this whole experience took place. Praise God!

Jyoti’s Birth Family

God Makes the Seemingly Impossible, Possible ~ Now for more the evidence that God can do more than we can ask or imagine!

Tuesday December 27, 2011

Today I was to meet my sister Khusbu. I wondered if she would look like me as my brothers do. I knew she lived with her husband of two years and therefore with his family as is Nepali custom. Taking a taxi (with the same driver who drove us to Dhading village - I kind of wondered what he thought about the whole situation of me finding my family) across town having to ask directions once, we drove around the Swayambhunath temple. Eventually we called my sister’s sister-in-law to ask for directions and she located our taxi, since she was in that area to buy the traditional ceremonial honoring welcome scarf. After squishing into our already crowded taxi with me, Mom and Dad, our translator and her daughter, she directed us towards her house. Through some back roads and alleys, we finally arrived to the place where my sister lives. They live in a basic two room place on a flat roof, accessed by huge steep concrete steps. My sister lives there with her husband, his sister and his mother.

When I got out of the taxi, I stood facing the car for a second, collecting myself before meeting my siblings. All of a sudden my sister came running up to me so fast she almost knocked me over! She was wailing, almost like somebody had died, her face with tears of emotion falling down her cheeks. She clung to me like I was going to disappear. Finally after quite a period of time, the younger of our two brothers reminded our sister that she should lead me up to their room.

Meeting my sister Khusbu

I could tell that everyone had tried their best to come well-dressed. Both my brothers had suit jackets on handmade by them, and their wives were also dressed very nicely in the traditional kurta which are short dresses and matching pants. My sister also dressed nicely and was wearing her wedding jewelry, and therefore I could see they had taken extra measures for our meeting.

My sister wanted to give a “tika” (a Hindu blessing of a spot placed on the forehead between the eyes) to me as a welcome, but I declined telling her I was a Christian and did not want to receive the Hindu tika mark.

L to R: My siblings: Kisan, Khusbu, me, and Visan

All my siblings and their spouses/children, my parents & me

Having met my brothers' wives, and sons (each had one) we found out that they were also Christians! Praise God! I was SO blessed, to know that they believed in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. My sister, however, did not, but I urged my brothers to continue to be a witness to her. My sister’s husband, knew some English, so my sister had dictated to him a note for me, of things she had been feeling, and things she wanted to say but couldn’t because of the language barrier. This was really touching to me, the effort they had made to reach out to me, even though we spoke different languages, and came from different cultures. My siblings then showed me pictures of their weddings, family gatherings, my brothers' children when they were little. A few more of my “mamas” (uncles) were there and to understand who was who, Dad tried to formulate a family tree. 

Relatives

 We then took many photos of every possible combination, one of my brothers had a camera, we had ours, and everybody else used their cell phones. My brothers and sister do not have internet accounts set up, but this meeting may encourage them to set up email and Skype accounts so we can stay connected. They do have cell phones which have very inexpensive rates for calls internationally (at least compared to our costs for calling from the US). We hope to stay in contact, and this will be an incentive for me to upgrade my Nepali language skills.

 Again, we learned that my brothers had not had any contact with our sister for the past  20 years, so finding them provided an opportunity for us all to meet, all planned creatively by God to reconcile a family. My sister prepared a nice dal bhat meal for us, and was pretty surprised that we couldn’t drink the water (due to untreated tap water) and gave us soda instead. My 3 year old nephew kept eating the chips off of my plate, for which I was extremely thankful because I was wondering how I’d eat it all! Then my siblings presented me with many family photos for me to keep, and again my birth father called while we were there and apologized for not being able to be there. I’m sure there must be some difficult emotions that he is experiencing over past actions, but that too is something that God is reconciling. My family, as I may have described, is from a so called low caste of tailors, but seems to be exploring and starting enterprises that provide a reasonable income. They wanted me to stay with them a couple days, which would’ve been “interesting”, but with the language and cultural barrier would have been tremendously difficult. It was of course difficult to leave, but on our way they led us to a building where an uncle had a factory in three small rooms that produced over-the-shoulder cloth purses for export to Europe. They wanted to give me one to remember them by. It was quite special to have a bag made by some of my birth-relatives, and what made it more fun was how my brother sewed on a button that had been missing right then and there. When I use that bag I will always think of the special time that I was able to have met my birth siblings and extended family.

The bag my siblings chose for me