Young Catholics:"demonstrate faith through work"
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) – For some happiness is a real home, of bricks and mortar which shelters you from the wind and rain: Jit Bahadur Ghale’s family experienced a moment of such happiness, a happiness that he shares with everyone he meets, since he received the gift of a home, built for him and his family by a group of young Catholic volunteers.
The volunteers tell that Jit Bahadur Ghale has a large family, but one wracked by poverty. For over ten years their home was a makeshift tent in the suburbs of Kathmandu. The head of the household had always worked hard to guarantee a roof over his children’s heads, but as a security guard his earnings and pension never stretched far enough to allow for a real home. Moreover, even if both he and his wife are illiterate, they invested every single penny of their savings to educate their children.
Sunil Ghale, their 10 year old son confesses “God alone knows how much we have suffered. I have lost count of the amount of times my school books were blown away in winds and storms, or of the sleepless nights we have spent in our tent flooded by rain”. Without this house, concludes we would “never have slept during the monsoon”.
The young Catholics, who regularly carry out volunteer work, collected the necessary funds and immediately set about building the house themselves (see photo). Dibya Sharma, a young volunteer, underlines that “our group has always had helping the needy as its main aim, and we will continue to do so in the future”. President of the Catholic students movement, Robin Shrestha, emphasises that “our priority is social work” and says that the group is “ready to help those in need, by following the teachings of Jesus Christ”.
A faith experienced in an everyday context and nourished by their work which has brought a smile back to the faces of one of the many families in difficulty: given that the children – two boys and two girls – are not old enough to work; their parents earn a little extra money by selling hand made baskets. Their father says he “admires” Catholicism and the “concrete witness” of those who live their lives according to their faith in Christ: “Christ is in the heart of all of those who search for peace, love and brotherly help. In the small by immensely important gestures of these Christians I discovered the joy which faith brings to your heart, a happiness I thought I would never know”.
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