Our names are Laurie and Andreas Kjernald. We are two ordinary people who have harbored an extraordinary dream for many, many years. However, the name of the blog, Because of Two, doesn't refer to us.
It all began on a normal day walking in "downtown" Kathmandu for some official errand pertaining to the adoption of our first son. The chaos, the noise and the ever-present fog of diesel-fumes made everything seem almost surreal. To our amazement, we saw a little stand where a man was selling fresh, red strawberries in the middle of all this. The contrast was stark, with the dirty, noisy chaos all around us. We were tempted to buy some but decided (wisely) against it. We moved on and crossed the street.
Then we heard something.
Amidst the chaos and the noise, we heard a cry. We looked around and saw two small children sitting on the sidewalk, leaning on a small metal fence, inches away from the crazy traffic. Two small children, no older than 5, sat there and cried. They were covered in the filth of the city, one was half-naked and was only wearing a shirt but no pants, the other had a thin shirt on. It was January. You didn't have to be a doctor to see that they were freezing, hungry and scared.
This was in the year of our Lord 2006 and there were two small children freezing, starving and lonely in the middle of thousands of people. It shouldn't be. It was not ok.It is not ok.
So we turned around and sat down by those two children. What could we do? What could we say? They didn't look at us and they didn't understand what we said. They simply sat there, one crying and the older one just staring ahead, trying to comfort his brother without any hope that things would get better. So we tried to offer some comfort and shared what money we had.
We know, there are millions of children in need and we can't save them all.
We know, they were probably placed there by their parents, like the local expert had said to beg for money.
We know, there are lots of "if's", "and's" and "but's".
But it simply wasn't ok. No child should have to be hungry or lonely or scared or freezing or having no hope. If there was a way, any way, we wanted to offer some help and some hope.
So...because of two small children, we are going to start an orphanage in Nepal.
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