Extending the good news to those who are excluded



  He has sent me to proclaim good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted. Isaiah 61:1

We hear overwhelming stories of abuse from the women we meet at KOSHISH in Kathmandu, Nepal. Bound in chains. Hidden away. Abandoned. These women were abandoned because of their mental disabilities.

KOSHISH director Matrika Devkota tells his own story of mental challenge and hardship. He had a breakdown in his 20s and was eventually able to regain his health through the intervention of an MCC worker.

Later, Matrika decided he was called to a personal mission of helping others in need like himself, and he says, MCC was there to provide some help.

KOSHISH now houses up to 40 women who are suffering from mental distress. The center offers treatment for them as well as rehabilitation in short-term residential communities and peer support networks. KOSHISH also advocates for inclusion, dignity and meaningful participation for people with psychosocial disabilities.


One woman, Kamela, tells us she was sold to a family at age 4 and sent away to India. Along the way, she spent time in prison, had some mental challenges of her own, and lived on the streets in Kathmandu before being rescued by KOSHISH.

Today, Kamela, has a leadership role helping others at the center.

Matrika says KOSHISH rescues nearly 100 women each year and puts them back on the road to rehabilitation and reintegration into their communities. In less than 10 years of operation, KOSHISH has touched the lives of more than 700 women.



Matrika says he’s grateful for the help Mennonites gave him. Because they invested in making a difference in his life, he is able to make a difference in so many more.

The next morning as our group reflects on what we saw and heard at KOSHISH and as we read from Isaiah 61, it is easy to see how MCC is extending the good news to people who are excluded.

The spirit of the Lord is upon me, says the prophet Isaiah, to bring good news to the oppressed. Good news is what the women at KOSHISH in Kathmandu are experiencing.

Ron Byler is executive director of MCC U.S.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

They welcomed us

Image
One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. (John 9:25) She was addicted to drugs for 20 years. She was in prison and her family broke apart. Her child was in an orphanage and her husband died. Because of her substance abuse, she eventually lost her one arm below her elbow. She saw no way out. She had hit the very bottom. When she came to know God, Natalia says everything changed. She found she had a deep desire to help people like herself and she discovered that her life experiences helped her understand others. “I remember what God did in my life and I have hope that God can touch other peoples’ lives and give them new life, too,” Natalia tells me. In Nikopol, Ukraine, she and Olga and Valodya, both of whom have similar stories to tell of their own, began New Life Charitable Fund a half dozen years ago to help people in prison, or who have drug or alcohol addictions, are HIV positive, homeless or for some other reason need a helping hand. Ukraine has ...
Read more

God multiplies our efforts

Image
Sister Zita at the La Posada shelter with baby Emmanuel and members of our border learning tour. Photo courtesy of Janae Rempel The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail. – I Kings 17:14 Ana Hinojosa remembers growing up on the Texas-Mexico border near Brownsville in the late 80s. Her family’s house was a mile from the border wall and she remembers the extended family gatherings in her back yard. Ana, an MCC immigration staff person, says border patrol agents would rest in the shade of the trees near the front of her house and, in the same day, it would be possible for a family from Mexico to knock on her front door to ask for food or directions. Her family turned no one away. Life on the border can look quite different today. When we enter the Catholic Charities respite center in McAllen, Texas, it is startling to see the contrast from the serenity of the neighborhood outside to the chaos inside. Cesar Matta tells us that, today, the cente...
Read more

A river of love

Image
For it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. – Matthew 25:40 “We are happy you are here to see this with your own eyes,” the leader of the Islamic Charities organization in Deir Attieh, Syria tells us, a group of MCC people visiting partner organizations in Syria. “We can’t express enough our heartfelt thanks to you.” Islamic Charities works with 3,000 at risk families affected by the war in the region and relies heavily on the work of volunteers. MCC provides food boxes to Islamic Charities as part of our humanitarian assistance in Syria. When I visit five families who received these food boxes, I recall the heartfelt thanks but feel mostly heart broken.    We visit two families living in a partially constructed apartment complex that stalled when the war began. The first family lives in a small two-room apartment, the mother and her five children and the woman’s father. Her husband is serving in the army. The second family inclu...
Read more