Reaching up

On a recent early morning in the Kathmandu Valley, six Nepali men gathered a few carefully selected supplies, strapped on a handful of simple backpacks, and set out for the steepest mountains on earth.

These weren’t Sherpas aspiring to climb Mount Everest. These were indigenous relief workers scrambling to reach some of the most remote populations in the world.

Nine days after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed more than 8,000 people in Nepal, a six-man team from the humanitarian organization MountainChild launched a daring mission to visit Himalayan villages cut off by the quake and grueling to reach in the best conditions.

An American helping with MountainChild relief efforts described pre-quake trips to communities the group serves: Workers usually take vehicles as far as the road allows, and then hike for seven days at elevations around 10,000 feet before reaching the first villages they serve. The remote villages are host to poor and largely Tibetan Buddhist populations.

The hard-to-reach became nearly impossible to reach in the first days after the massive Nepal earthquake on April 25, as landslides filled rugged mountain paths with rocks and boulders, and helicopter access for relief crews at first was scarce.

Another major quake on May 12 killed at least dozens in remote regions of northeast Nepal, and injured more than 1,000.

The government estimated the April quake destroyed or damaged more than 350,000 homes, but many believed the number would grow far higher, as damage assessments from remote areas grew clearer.

Indeed, as aid flowed into the capital city of Kathmandu, a greater mystery loomed in the soaring mountains near the quake’s epicenter: How many villagers had died? How many homes had crumbled? How much food was left? And how would relief reach them?

For one of the poorest nations in Asia, the short-term relief crisis also poses long-term recovery challenges, as attention turns toward rebuilding areas long steeped in deep poverty.

The former Hindu kingdom—still struggling to write a constitution more than seven years after embracing democracy—faces an even more acute challenge: making government work now.

Meanwhile, as Nepali officials in Kathmandu scrambled to formulate relief plans, workers from aid organizations and churches in outlying areas lifted their eyes to the hills—to a people wondering from where their help would come.

THANKFULLY, HELP HAD COME to these Himalayan hills before the earthquake.

MountainChild, one of a handful of aid organizations with projects in the region, focuses on health, education, vocational training, and anti-trafficking efforts in the far reaches of Gorkha District, near the northern border of Nepal and the epicenter of the earthquake.

The needs are vast: The group reports more than 25,000 children in Nepal died before the age of 5 in 2012, mostly due to diarrhea induced by unclean drinking water.

For many children, the nearest school is days away. For others, more sinister dangers loom: Human traffickers sell thousands of Nepali girls into sexual slavery or servitude each year along one of the busiest human trafficking routes in the world.

When the massive earthquake rocked Nepal in April, MountainChild workers based in Kathmandu immediately worried about their friends in the mountains.

For days, the group tried reaching villages via cell phone, and when they finally got through, villagers said most residents were in the fields when the quake struck and had escaped death. (In other areas, landslides reportedly wiped whole villages off the mountains.)

But the villagers did report loss: They said the tremor had destroyed more than 90 percent of their homes. With no shelter and early rains, families were spending soaking nights in open fields, and said they soon would run out of food.

With landslides blocking mountain paths, there was no way down. So MountainChild workers decided they would find a way up.

Other aid groups were looking for ways up as well. The World Food Program began making supply drops to other areas from helicopters, but access to choppers was scarce for most organizations. The group Save the Children explored sending donkeys or tractors into areas inaccessible by truck.

MountainChild eventually succeeded in gaining access to helicopters, but also sent a six-man crew by foot. The Nepali team included men the group had served as children—now well positioned to find a way to their home villages and to map the route for others.

Nepali staff members served other critical roles as well. When supplies of beans, rice, and water jugs grew scarce in Kathmandu, the local staff scoured the city and worked contacts to locate supplies. “Two hundred jugs here, 50 jugs there,” said the American who helped with relief efforts.

It was painstaking work, but the local staff helped track down enough supplies (including tarps for shelter) to serve 8,000 people unreached by other aid. The group began delivering supplies by helicopter in early May, and the American worker said some staff would stay in the villages to assess needs, begin plans for rebuilding, and help the people: “Until now, they have felt forgotten.”

IF UNREACHED VILLAGERS FELT FORGOTTEN, other groups were trying to reach them as well.

Sean Malone of the Nashville-based Crisis Response International (CRI) said his Christian-based organization deployed a team of pre-trained volunteers to help local partners with relief efforts on the ground.

Malone says training volunteers in advance helps the group identify those best suited to serve in traumatic and stressful situations and offer help that doesn’t drain local resources.

In Nepal, CRI volunteers are working with YWAM (Youth With a Mission) to identify communities in need. Malone said the team is also partnering with a local church to help villages still unreached by relief response.

Though Christians comprise less than 3 percent of the population in the predominantly Hindu nation, and have endured severe persecution in the past, many local churches are working to serve surrounding communities.

Raju Sundas, a pastor and leader of Hosanna Church Ministries (HCM), reports local volunteers in HCM’s network of 55 churches across Nepal have delivered food and tarps to more than 5,000 people.

Baptist Global Response, the disaster response partner of the Southern Baptist Convention, is working with the Disaster Response Christian Coalition, a group of 10 local Christian groups delivering aid to some of the hardest-hit areas.

But delivering relief is complicated, even within cities. Malone of CRI said his group heard firsthand reports of government officials seizing relief supplies at checkpoints around the country. (He said local contacts are helping the group determine the best routes to avoid such problems.)

Other groups have noted similar reports, and in some cases government officials reportedly say they will distribute confiscated items themselves. The Nepali government has denied blocking aid, but has certainly faced pressure to perform well under intense circumstances. The earthquake comes as the government leaders still face a tense struggle to agree on a constitution after an overthrow of the country’s Hindu monarchy in 2008.

Some Nepali politicians want to enshrine the nation’s Hindu identity in the constitution and have said a growth in Christianity undermines Hinduism. Last summer, the group Christian Solidarity Worldwide expressed concerns over reports that an Indian official encouraged a total legal ban on religious conversions during meetings with senior Nepali leaders.

DESPITE SUCH WORRIES, Hinduism and Buddhism remain strong in the birthplace of both religions. After the earthquake, Nepali citizens flocked to monuments and temples for both religions, seeking solace in their grief.

For Hindus, the mass deaths bring worries related to their beliefs.

Some Buddhists told reporters that in the face of such agonizing loss they struggled to obtain the detachment from the world the religion demands. For Hindus, the mass deaths bring worries related to their beliefs about reincarnation prospects for the dead.

At churches around the country, Christians gathered for worship just as many had done on the day of the quake a week earlier.

Baptist Press reported a small church in Kathmandu picked up with the song they had been singing when the quake struck during the previous worship service: “Still I love You and spread Your love to the people.”

The small congregation’s meeting place had collapsed during the quake, but they found another room to meet the next week. They prayed for members of a church in the Nepali countryside that lost 20 members during the earthquake.

A Christian worker noted the rural church had endured intense persecution in the past, and he asked the congregation to pray they would endure: “I’ve seen the resilience of the believers before. They’ve survived bombings and witchdoctors and chose to cling to Christ.”

The pastor of the Kathmandu congregation then served communion just before an aftershock rumbled, and he encouraged the congregation to serve their communities in tangible ways: “People will ask why we’re doing this, and we will simply say: ‘Because our God loves you and so do we.’”