By Elizabeth Davidson

In the late 1960s, my father, Malcolm Davidson, was working for the Canadian International Development Agency and was introduced to Fr. Joseph Murray Abraham, SJ.  Fr. Abraham was a Canadian priest who founded the St. Alphonsus Social and Agricultural Centre (SASAC) in Kurseong, Darjeeling District, India.

My dad fell in love with the Himalayas, and St. Alphonsus School, and decided to move us to Kurseong for the next five years. The news that we were moving to India was exciting. We had always traveled and embraced other cultures, but this would change us all, forever.

Unfortunately, my dad was killed in a car accident in 1970. It was a major upheaval for us all, but my mum, Jane, embraced the opportunity to fulfill his plan. In 1972, with her five children in tow, she moved to India. I was 12 when my Mum told me we were moving to Kurseong. Leaving my grade 8 friends was hard, but they promised to write. And they did!

We settled in, and every morning I woke up to the sight of Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest mountain. Even when it was cloudy, I knew it was there, a constant in my ever-changing young life. I made new friends and learned to speak Nepali within the first month.

We went to school with our neighbours. Andrew, my brother, worked on the poultry project; my mum worked at St. Alphonsus School. We lived there happily for a year. From our house, which my father had lovingly called Edelweiss, projects were hatched, including the square-foot garden, the Montessori school, and the sale of eggs.

After leaving India, Mum maintained her ties to the community, raising funds and planning trips to India with supporters. She continued this commitment to the people of Kurseong and to SASAC for the next 45 plus years.  Neighbours, friends and family would sit around our dining room table and fold copies of the letter that Fr. Abraham had written to all his supporters, and lick and stamp the envelopes. We called it "licking for the Lord.”

I remain connected to Kurseong, and just before my Mum's death we returned one last time. The legacy lives on, my mother's realization of my father's dream.

Elizabeth Davidson is a Canadian Jesuits International donor.