Cheryl's Well

It was Cheryl’s desire that at her memorial service it would be requested that friends and family contribute towards drilling a well in Nepal in lieu of sending flowers.

To understand why she wanted to do this, we have to go back to 2001 when we first met a young man from Nepal, Jagat Lamsal. We met Jagat through the International Student ministry at First Baptist Church in Rolla, Missouri. He was studying at Missouri S&T for his Master’s degree in Physics.

Jagat grew up in a Hindu family, but had converted to Christianity before his arrival in the United States and we quickly came to love him. In 2002 we invited Jagat to come and live with us in our home, and later that year he married and his new wife Nani also joined us. They continued to live with us until they moved to Columbia, Missouri in September, 2003 so that Jagat could earn his Ph.D. at the University of Missouri.

Jagat and Nani are like family to us, and through them we learned a lot about the country of Nepal. In the spring of 2015, there were two major earthquakes near the capital of Kathmandu and there was considerable damage in Jagat’s hometown.

Afterwards, relief efforts were slow to come and in his village people were living in damaged homes if they were able to live there at all. Cheryl wanted to do something to help, so she began raising funds for Jagat to take home and help with the needs there. One of the things he did was to dig a new well so that the residents would have access to clean water.

After that experience, Cheryl made it clear that when she passed away she wanted the family to request donations in lieu of flowers, so that another well could be drilled in Nepal. Sadly, Jagat has also passed away, and so we need to find someone else to accomplish this project.

That is why we are grateful for the work of Quenched, and we are requesting that the donations be sent to them so that they can drill the well that she hoped for. Thank you for helping make Cheryl’s Well a reality!