The faith that could not be erased: the story of GBHO

Some communities are bound together by a place. Ours was bound together by everything we lost, and by what we refused to give up.

The Global Bhutanese Hindu Organization was founded on a single conviction: that a people's faith and culture cannot be suppressed, no matter how hard someone tries to suppress them. That belief was not an idea on paper for the families who started GBHO. It was the story of their own lives.

Driven out, but not undone

Our community members are citizens of Bhutanese origin. In their own homeland, they were forced out — displaced by the ruling power because of who they were and how they worshipped. Families who had farmed the same hills for generations were made to leave with whatever they could carry.

What followed was not a season of hardship but a chapter that lasted two to three decades. Most of our families spent those years in UN-managed refugee camps in eastern Nepal, in bamboo huts, raising children who had never seen the land their parents still called home.

It would have been easy to let the old ways slip. People in camps are focused on survival — food, shelter, the next day. And yet the temples went up anyway, made of whatever was at hand. Children learned Sanskrit shlokas they had no textbooks for. Festivals were kept on the calendar even when there was little to celebrate. The Vedic Hindu faith, the language, the rituals, the values that told our people who they were — none of it was surrendered. That stubborn devotion is the real foundation GBHO is built on.

A seed planted in Charlotte

After resettlement scattered our families across the United States, a new worry took hold: that distance would do what the camps could not, and slowly thin out the traditions we had carried so far.

The answer began with prayer. In December 2013, the community gathered in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a Shrimadbhagavata Saptaha Mahapurana — a seven-day recitation of the Bhagavata Purana — under the chairpersonship of Mr. Kamal Dhimal. Out of that gathering came a question that would not go away: if we can come together to worship, why not come together to build something lasting?

On January 1, 2014, that question became an organization. The First Bhutanese Hindu Conference brought Bhutanese Hindus from across America into one room to formalize what would become GBHO. For people who had been told they did not belong, choosing the first day of a new year to claim their own future was no small thing.

Putting down roots

Conviction is one thing; permanence is another. GBHO was officially registered as a non-profit in the State of Ohio in 2017, giving the work a legal home and a structure to grow into.

Then came the milestone our elders had dreamed about through all those years in the camps. In 2022, GBHO acquired 150 acres of land in Galion, Ohio, to establish the Om Center Divya Dham — a permanent religious and cultural home. After a generation without ground to stand on, our community finally had land of its own, dedicated to the faith that carried us through.

Why we keep building

The history above is not a museum piece. It is the reason behind everything GBHO does now — every puja at Om Center Divya Dham, every cultural program, every effort to help a new family find its footing in this country. We were a people who held on to their dharma when they had almost nothing else. The work now is to make sure the next generation, born in America, knows that story and chooses to carry it forward.

Om Center Divya Dham is open to that future, and so are we. If our story is your story, there is a place for you here. Become a member, visit the center, or give to help us build what comes next.

GBHO is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, EIN 82-2341423. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.