How did you come to know about Lobsang and learn about Jhamtse Gatsal?

In 2013, I was a community-based renewable energy developer on a conference call with a pile of lawyers and engineers, and a colleague said, "Hey Bob, stay on the call when everyone else hangs up." It was Adarsh Mehta, who was so excited she just had to tell me about how she'd just come back from the "happiest place in the world". She talked about this monk with an amazing life story who was transforming kids' lives in the Himalayas. She said she just had to tell me, and I will be forever grateful to her for that.

Long story short - my 16-year-old daughter Lista was inspired by this story and found a way to invest most of her gap year at the Jhamtse Gatsal Children’s Community, volunteering primarily as an art teacher. I, of course, went with her to make sure she got there safely, and upon arrival, immediately felt a profound sense of home. It wasn’t foreign to me at all. I’d lived for many years in remote Inuit communities in the Arctic of Canada, supporting education and community development on different levels. At the beginning of that time, I’d led a home for Inuit teenagers who wanted to finish high school, some who’d come from challenging beginnings. So Lobsang’s position, the overwhelming responsibility of it, and also his hope/faith in the future was something that had a familiarity to me.

The first night I was there, the electricity was out, and a group of little kids was walking towards me in a field in the dark. I’m about the same size as Lobsang (known as “Gen la” meaning spiritual friend). I walked with a bit of a limp from a sore back, making my walk similar to his. But these kids in the dark didn’t see any difference – they said “Gen la!!” and threw themselves on me, hugging my legs and beaming loving energy that would have lit up a village if harnessed. I knew Lobsang was adored, even before we shared our first cup of chai the next day. We became fast friends, and our friendship is the basis for my involvement today.

On that first visit, I stayed a month, assessing the feasibility of their renewable energy potential, teaching when requested, and coaching a bit of volleyball ☺. But at a deeper level, I’d found a place that aligned with my active hope for people. With so many complexities to manage in a sustainable and emotionally intelligent way, I saw meaningful work for life for a whole collection of individuals - a clarity of purpose - and felt drawn to try to help strengthen their example for the rest of the world.

In the one phone call with my wife during that month, I said, “If it weren’t for you, I don’t know if I’d want to come back to Canada. There’s everything else that feeds my soul and tons to do right here.” Then the conversation started. We made that call together (Gen la and I) because he wanted to speak with her. He was one of the first three people to read Kim’s book “Conversations with a Rattlesnake: Raw and Honest Reflections on Healing and Trauma” that she co-wrote with Theo Fleury. The book had gone to press the moment we were stepping on the plane to get to India. I had offered him the manuscript I had in my suitcase. He told her, “reading this, it’s like for the first time I’m beginning to understand myself…” Kim Barthel is an occupational therapist with a background in neurobiology. She’s done a lot of work understanding trauma and resilience. That conversation is how this became a family connection.

What involvement have you had with the community? how have you helped? if you’ve visited, what inspired you?

Today, I'm on Jhamtse International's board with a pile of like-minded people looking at the community's long-term sustainability. Kim is its volunteer director of therapy, sometimes helping Jhamtse Gatsal staff and Ama las with training or whatever they ask. We've been going outside these roles when travel schedules have aligned to meet up with Gen la away from the community for holidays/retreats and training (with Vasu too, when it's possible). Gen la hadn't had a "vacation" for eight years when we first started making these extraordinary times together a part of our mental health practice! In the past years, we've had energy-giving adventures together in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, other parts of India, and a couple of times in Switzerland with amazing people from Jhamtse Switzerland (hats off to Judith, Suzanne, and Dom!). The last trip we had together was in Israel on a brilliant tour around the country with educational psychologists hosted by dear friend Orna Kerstein and her family, with brief side trips afterward to Istanbul and Dubai. Some of this seems surreal. Soon after, Vasu and Michelle Dubois met up with Kim and me on the east coast of Canada, in Newfoundland, for Kim’s workshop on understanding complex behaviour. With each of these purposeful "Jhamtse" connections, the world keeps getting smaller, more interdependent, and from where I'm sitting, more full of hope.

Highlights of these adventures are when I got to be Gen la’s date at the United Nations in Geneva on World Children’s Day, when Kim, Gen la and Malcom Wong co-facilitated a workshop “Compassion in Action” in Singapore, and when our whole family visited Jhamtse Gatsal over a New Year’s Eve and danced with the kids around the bonfire under the stars for hours. Pure joy.

Maybe the funniest moment was when Gen la and I were meeting people on a boat near James Bond Island in Thailand, a day when we were literally away from everything, and Gen la spontaneously introduced us to fellow travelers as “Bob and Lob”. We do kinda look alike. Reflecting on it, we each come from such different backgrounds and are often living half a planet apart, but on so many levels we’re in the same boat. We all are. Every one of us. We are all figuring out how to live together, bring out the best in each other, deeply accept one another, and have fun together whenever possible.

One of our family’s connections with Jhamtse Gatsal at this point is that we have the privilege of co-sponsoring 4 of its inspiring young adults. We have letters and friendship bracelets from all their kids in a box under our bed, (haven’t yet met the new ones) and are thankful they are all living the lives they are. When opportunities arise, we like to add to and direct donations to the Paying Forward Kindness Fund. It’s the positive ripples in the region that keep going, initiated by these kids, that make this one our favorite family investments.

What about Jhamtse Gatsal is inspiring?

The theory that surrounding a kid with love and compassion makes the world of difference is boldly being put into practice. We know there are ongoing challenges and complexities even in the happiest place on earth, with some of the most open-hearted, selfless, and blessed people we know. Knowing them and loving them only makes it that much more frick’n meaningful. They are consciously trying.