Wrapping up Nepal…
Well to say the least, it was full of new experiences and lots of adventure. The people of Nepal are beautiful and kind and I was very blessed to be welcomed with open arms by our host family. A lot happens in a month so I’m going to try to my best to break it down for you so you can get a taste of some of my experience and how God worked through me and in me. Here are three big revelations that God showed me this month…
God is working through you, even when you can’t tangibly see the results.
Our main ministry was to encourage Christians because, unlike in the US, being a Christian in Nepal means you will most likely be persecuted and disowned from your family and you will without a doubt be the minority wherever you go. At first, I was kinda frustrated because I was thinking, “These people already know Jesus. Shouldn’t we be reaching out to all the Hindus and Buddhists in the village who don’t know Jesus?” But then my good friend Myles explained to me that it would be really hard for us to minister to the Hindu and Buddhist people because we don’t know their religion very well, whereas the Christians in Nepal are mostly converts from one of those religions so they can relate and understand where those people are coming from. Living in an environment where you are constantly ridiculed and out casted for your faith can be extremely draining and discouraging. So that helped me understand my mission for Nepal: Encouragement.
Each day we would go to two or three different house fellowships to share testimonies and messages to the Christians in the community. One week, we put together a three day seminar on the Great Commission (Matt 28). It was awesome to be able to witness to and encourage these people but at the same time it was frustrating because of language barrier. There was only two people in the church that spoke decent English that would have to translate everything for us. It wasn’t a problem for messages but the fellowship after church was frustrating for me because I wanted to have one on one conversations with all these people but I couldn’t. So it was hard for me to know what they were thinking and what they took away from the messages.
Week three I got to go to a house fellowship that consisted of four older women. They were incredible. They just had a powerful presence about them and I just knew that they were strong women of God. Usually at the house churches we were the only ones that spoke but at the end of the testimony this time, one of the women started to speak. She talked about how she had been struggling with so many things before we came and she felt so alone in her faith. She said that coming to our seminar on the Great Commission and having house fellowships with us had lifted her spirits in so many ways and she was so encouraged. She felt like her burdens were being lifted and God was rejuvenating her spirit. God must have known that I was struggling with not knowing if we were making an impact and this lady was my little encouragement from him. I was so stoked to know that God was using us to impact these people and was specifically filling their needs. So lesson learned, just because I can’t see exactly how God is working I need to trust and know that He most definitely is J
Trust God. Be joy.
On a realistic note, it wasn’t always easy to get super excited at 6am to walk 45 minutes up a mountain to go give a testimony at someone’s house. One day, my team was definitely feeling the morning struggle and not all in the most joyous of moods walking to ministry. Beejay, our guide/translator, was happy and upbeat as he always was no matter what time of the day. After our message we always did prayer requests. Beejay talked some Nepalese to the lady in the room for a while and then we asked him what he was telling her. Beejay said that his prayer request was for his mom. She is sick and has needed surgery for a long time. She actually needs an entire lung removed and her stomach worked on. She is in a lot of pain and has been for a long time. The doctors are saying if she doesn’t get something done soon then it could be fatal. Beejay’s father struggles with alcohol and hasn’t showed much interest or support in helping his wife get help and they don’t have any money to afford the surgery even if he was supportive. His mom had called him the night before crying asking for Beejay to help her because he was the only one that cared. Wow. I have never felt more selfish. There I was, not in a great mood because I slept terrible and had to get up early and walk up a mountain and Beejay was dealing with all that and lost no joy at all! Do you know what his response was? He said that his trust is in the Lord and he is praying for her salvation and healing. I was so humbled. It’s so easy to get caught up in our own lives and daily struggles and forget to give everything to God. Beejay’s faith is his life. He has nothing else and it is simple and beautiful and such an inspiration to me. He chooses to trust God every day and be joyful in counting his blessings not his worries. What an amazing way to live and what an incredible lesson learned.
Jesus Heals…just not always on the spot.
The last few days of our time in Nepal my team was able to go hang out with one of the other teams and listen to a prophet from Australia. He didn’t exactly prophecy over each one of us but he did share some amazing stories of healing and awesome ways God had worked in places that he had been all around the world. Something I realized was that a lot of the people he prayed for were not healed right away. Sometimes it was the next day or next week or months later. He made it very clear that when he prayed, it was for the healing that was already happening. It didn’t matter if it happened on the spot, he had 100% faith that God was going to work in that person’s life. In the past month I prayed for plenty of people to be healed. Some were and some weren’t…on the spot. That doesn’t mean that they won’t be healed. Sam, one of my fellow squad mates, made the statement that sometimes God doesn’t always heal people on the spot because then glory can go to the person that is praying and not to God who is actually doing the healing. Duh! That makes perfect sense. It’s not about us getting satisfaction that God worked through us in that moment to heal someone; it’s just about God and his power and his love for us. I’m learning more about God every day and understanding that faith really is believing without seeing.
I’m really excited to see how God continues to work in my heart and through each person I come in contact with this next month in India.
