By now, you have probably seen or heard the news reports about the massive earthquake that rocked the little nation of Nepal.  In every way, it is a tragedy of immense proportions.  Thousands dead, many more thousands injured and/or left homeless, venerable and ancient buildings reduced to rubble, screaming and pain continuing to fill the streets:  how can one measure such horror?
     As a lover of mountains, I've always felt close to Nepal.  As you may know, it houses the highest peak on the planet (Mt. Everest), along with numerous other 8,000 meter mountains (8,000 meters is considered to be the standard height for the loftiest peaks on the globe; there are fourteen of them.  Many people have climbed all of them).  As a result, each year literally thousands of mountaineers enter Nepal in search of alpine adventure. All who do find it.  Tragically, some never return.
     Among the many aftershocks that rippled through the region were some that shook numerous avalanches loose on Mt. Everest.  Seventeen climbers died, including a number of Sherpas (those whom Western climbers pay to ferry the heaviest loads up the mountain).  Many more were injured, some severely.
     The irony here is that the mountaineers, all of whom possessed the best climbing equipment that money could buy and who, more so than native Nepalese, were prepared to weather most geological downturns, will be able to return, fairly easily, to their native lands, relatively intact.  Their Nepalese helpers and assorted friends will not be so fortunate.  I hope the Westerners are doing their level best to stay and help.  They are surely better fed and have access to better medical care than the natives.
     We of the West tend to make the world our playground.  We come, we go, then come and go elsewhere, over and over again, while the rest of the world remains as it always was.  Nothing changes for us, yet everything changes for those who live in the nations we visit.  I hope that as we journey overseas in search of greater outing and meaning, we can be freshly cognizant that ours is a privilege that, whether occasioned by politics, economics, or religion, demands our utmost humility and grace.
     Did not Jesus give up everything he had, and was, for us?

     Also:  PLEASE PRAY FOR THE PEOPLE OF NEPAL!