How do you picture Jesus? In Nepal, my team and I had the opportunity to share a picture of how Jesus could look to school kids who don’t know him yet. Month 4 we were in a little village of Haripur in South Nepal at a family run Christian school. As a Christian school, the family faces pressure from not only the government, but many of the families who send their children there. In order to increase enrollment, they lower the tuition so that it is more accessible to poorer families. Most of the students are from Hindu and Muslim families. The family believes the best way to reach the children and families is to demonstrate Christ through their actions and behaviors, without proclaiming his name. This was somewhat discouraging to me and my team when we first arrived. However, we are are only there for a short time, so we chose to trust that God will do the work that only he is able, regardless of any restrictions there may be.
We were asked to paint a mural in one of the classrooms incorporating numbers and the alphabet. On two walls, we painted the parable of the lost sheep. On one wall, we painted pasture land, with sheep numbered 1 to 99. The next wall showed Jesus searching for the 100th sheep, and then the other side of the wall showed a larger image of Jesus holding the 100th sheep that he found.
When my team decided on what we wanted to paint, I struggled with insecurity in my ability to draw. However, I was the most artistically inclined member of the team for drawing. I prayed for God to take over my hand, so that when someone looked at the image of him, they would see only his goodness, and not just a drawing that falls so short of displaying everything that he is. I believe he helped me with that. It provided another great opportunity to bring the team closer together. We also painted the Alphabet, and used each letter to show an attribute of Jesus. We called it attributes of The Good Shepherd, since writing the name Jesus wasn’t allowed. It is my prayer that each child will come to know the full meaning behind the story we were able to paint on the wall of their school, and come to have a personal relationship with The Good Shepherd.
In addition to painting the wall mural, we also had a chance to help to teach the children. Teaching was a much greater challenge, which provided a great opportunity to grow my patience. It also broke my heart to see the level of education some of the children were at, with little hope of much improvement. The real work my team and I accomplished during the last week there was simply showing the kids the love Jesus, through kind words, and smiles. I choose to believe that God is able to take the simple seeds I plant that I may think will never amount to anything, will be watered by another, and ultimately reap a harvest I will never see.
