Hello All,
Here’s an update on my time in Nepal. Thank you for your support in standing with these communities in need. Your prayers and generosity continue to make a great difference — if you’d like to contribute to these projects, there’s still time to give.
Niles Sharif, President
🐐 A Year of Transformation in Kaule!
When I first arrived I spent the day in the Nepali village of Kaule. Kaule is an indigenous Chepang village in the foothills of the Himalayas where we have been working since 2019. We have done food projects, a school uniform project, and, most recently, a goat project to try to help a group of severely disadvantaged families develop a self-sustainable livelihood and ready source of dietary protein.
We distributed 50 female goats to 50 families in June of 2023. We also gave two breeding males to a goat committee to loan out to the families with females as the females became ready to breed. Receiving a goat was conditioned on the receiving family agreeing (1) to give back to the goat committee the first born goat for distribution to another needy family, and (2) to not eat or sell their goats for a period of two years.
John Hoobs and I were here for the initial distribution and it was all very exciting, but admittedly, the project got off to a slow start. The goats were purchased in Chitwan, Nepal, which is at or below sea level and they had trouble thriving at the 8,000 to 10,000 foot elevation of Kaule. In fact, in the first several months of the project, approximately 10 percent of the goats died of respiratory complications caused by inability to adapt to the elevation or the weather at the elevation. For the same reason, the females had more difficulty getting pregnant than expected.
When I visited the village last February, there had been a few births, but we were still below the 50 goats we started with. The villagers were discouraged, Pastor Raju (our partner in Nepal) was discouraged, and I was discouraged. I remember meeting with the goat committee during that visit and wondering if they really had the fortitude and patience to make the project a success.
What a difference a year makes! The Kaule goat project is still not without its challenges. The birth rate of the goats in the village remains lower than expected, but the pregnancy rate is now as expected and the goats have acclimated to the elevation. It has been over six months since a goat has died of a respiratory illness. The best news of all is that there are now 75 goats in our herd.
My meeting with the goat committee yesterday was so much different than the one I had with them last year. The members were happy, upbeat, talkative, and interactive. Unlike last year, they showed confidence in themselves and the project. Last year, I had feared that working in Kaule might be a lost cause, but this year I have renewed confidence that we can make a real difference in this community.
Thank you on behalf of the Chepang people in Kaule to all of you who have reached out to them in love. I was specifically told to ask you to please encourage them by coming to visit them and getting to know them personally. They want you to know how much that would mean to them. I know this to be true. The Chepang in Kaule are Christians, but they are surrounded on all sides by Hindus. The Christian Chepang face tremendous prejudice, even persecution from the militants around them, but not only that, they face tremendous spiritual pressure to return to the Hinduism of their countrymen. This pressure is enormous. Visiting them lets them know that they are not alone, that there are Christians out there who are thinking of them and praying for them. This is no small thing.
New Mailing Address
Please update your records and ensure that financial donations, including checks, are sent to:
Global Care Alliance
3755 Avocado Blvd, No 439
La Mesa, CA 91941
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Global Care Alliance
3755 Avocado Blvd, No 439
La Mesa, CA 91941
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