Greetings from Nepal

My life changed Saturday.

Normally when people use that phrase they mean to say that they experienced a dramatic life shift, a turnaround of sorts. Well, my life didn't do that, but it did change. It was impacted for the better. And that's because of Siba and Yeadu.

But allow me to backtrack for a moment. I was with some friends, and we were shopping at an Asian supermarket here in Denver about 10 minutes from my church. One of my friends teaches English as a Second Language to refugee families from other countries. Because she does that, she knows many people in non-Anglo environments around Denver. So the story is set- we're at an Asian market with someone who knows many refugees. But hold that thought for just another minute.

On a fact-finding mission of sorts, I had asked many of the "free-sample" people about their food, their background, and what they do here in America. I talked with a potsticker lady, a dessert lady, a stock-boy, and a few others. After being by myself for a little while, I decided to go and find the others that I was with: Donna, Eric, and Wenzel. I found Donna first. As soon as I saw her, she said, "You need to meet some of my friends!" Evidently, she had found some people she knew. Right done the isle were 4 small people of Asian decent- 2 men and 2 women.

Donna yelled down the aisle, "Siba, I want you to meet my friend." From down the aisle, Siba opens up his arms in an outstretched Y-form. He says, "Your friend!" in what sounds to me like a strong Indian accent. He immediately comes down and shakes my hand up and down in rapid motion, hardly containing his excitement. I then met in quick succession the other 3 he was with: his brother and their wives.

Siba and Yeadu (I have no idea if I'm spelling their names correctly) are elder brothers in a family of 8: 6 brothers and 2 sisters. 5 of them are here in the States. They cannot stand more than 5'4", either one of them. It turns out that they are of Nepalese descent, from Bhutan, and had lived in a refugee camp on the Nepal-Indian border for 17 years. 17 years!

At the very moment I have finished meeting all of them, my friend Eric comes up and then they collectively and lovingly maul him as well. And I find myself speaking with Yeadu while Eric was speaking with Siba. We were in long conversations at that point, asking them all kinds of background and family questions. It was the delight of my week to get to know them.

Then, I look over my shoulder and Eric is exchanging telephone numbers with Siba. Yeadu asks me if Eric and I are relation. I respond, "No, we're just friends from our church." He looks at me rather quizzically. I have said something that confused him. In a response that only makes sense in retrospect, he claims boldly and proudly, "You and I are friends too!"

And then he hugged me.

I had known him for probably 7 minutes. We talked further. And I recognized that family was the most important thing in his life. And then I think he forgot, or was confused about Eric and I and what we were doing. It might have been cultural shock or something, but he didn't quite understand why we were at a store together and were not family. So, he says, "You two are not brothers?" "Nope, I said, just friends." I don't think that "just" computed in his world.

"You and I are friends." And then he hugged me again.

After several more hugs of goodbyes, we went on our merry way. A few minutes later, we found our friend Wenzel and told him of our encounter with the happiest and friendliest people we had ever met. "They were from Bhutan," we explained. Wenzel, disappointed, said, "I had a really good friend in college from Bhutan. I wish I could have met them." "Well let's go find them again!" I exclaimed.

So we did. We walked briskly down the aisle and said, "Siba, we want you to meet our friend Wenzel!" In outstretched and excited arms, as if welcoming a hug, Siba gleams, "Wenzel!" More happy conversations ensued. But our day had to end, and so we left.

Humans are amazing creatures, really. We are capable of such joy, love, friendship, reason, and beauty. Siba and Yeadu were such brief pictures of that. They had endured unimaginable pain and hardship, but yet their capacity for friendship and love knew no bounds, even for tall American strangers. I hope I get to see them again. Eric got Siba's number, so that may indeed happen.

Atheism or naturalism says that we are meat machines, only responding to stimuli in the universe and really not determining being at all. Chesterton remarks in The Everlasting Man that even primitive humans drew pictures of monkeys, but never ever can we imagine the opposite being true. It doesn't seem to me that humans are different from animals only in degree, then.

Furthermore, pantheism (in versions of New Age, Hinduism, and Buddhism) says that humans are a mere illusion, that personality is generally bad, and that we need to devolve into the impersonal oneness of nature ("Atman is Brahman").

But Christianity says that humans are made in the image of God, fallen by their sinful nature, but still capable of love, joy, reason, and friendship. Siba and Yeadu, racked by 17 years of not having a home, and finding themselves in a foreign place, looking for some normalcy in an Asian supermarket, are living examples of true humanity.

The worldviews of naturalism and pantheism do not account for the beauty found in Siba and Yeadu. Common sense, indeed life experiences themselves, prove Christianity true over and over again. And my life was changed for having known more of God's illustrious creatures.