Have you ever had an experience, a moment in your life, when it seemed like the world shifted around you and suddenly your perspective was entirely changed? Moments like these are magical and happen rarely, unless that is, you happen to be the proverbial fly on the wall at Kailash Home. At Kailash, these moments happen regularly.

Through our Friends of Kailash Home program, people of all ages, but primarily university students, from around the world have the chance to stay at Kailash for up to a month. While on campus these visitors have a unique opportunity to meet and mentor our children through shared meals, tutoring, and other fun activities and outings. Rather than tell you how impactful these experiences are for both our Friends and our Kailash Kids, though, we invite you to read what a few of our most recent visitors had to say:

In this post Guest Writer and HYF Board Member/longtime Kailash Sponsor, Brad Blum reflects on his first visit to Nepal almost exactly 7 years ago.

“As I write to you, I’m transported back in time and flooded with memories from my very first trip to Nepal.”

My name is Jayang Wangdue Gurung. I hail from a tiny, isolated village in the Tibetan border regions of Dolpa, a district in the north Western region of Nepal that lacks broad access to schools, health services, and modern transportation. As a young child, I lived there with my young widowed mother and five siblings. I was told that my father had passed away a few months before my younger brother was born, leaving my mother destitute, and shortly after I was admitted to Kailash Home at age 7, my mother also passed away. Like many other children, Kailash became the only real home I’d ever known.