For the last week and a half I’ve been in the district of Chitwan in a small village, polar opposite of Kathmandu, very much the countryside. While we were there the Lord taught me a lesson on stewardship. Bare with me, this might be a long one.
- Life. We stayed at the mother church of about 8 or 9 church plants. Right next door to us was a home that the pastor and his wife had opened for women. Not just any women, but women who had been kicked out of their homes for their faith. Think about it. Nepal is a very big shame honor culture, so the shame that you bring to your family by being a Christian is much greater than the shame that you bring to your family by kicking your grandma or wife out of the house. But the beautiful lesson here is they knew Jesus was worth it. We all have to give an account for our lives in judgement day and whether you’re Hindu, Buddhist, or Christian, at the name of Jesus every knee will bow. And on that day, despite being kicked out of their Earthly home, these sisters of mine will be welcomed into their eternal home
- Time. We met for fellowship twice a day for 1-2 hours at a time. The people in this village value community and fellowship so much that that they meet twice a day to praise the Lord. We hiked somewhere between 30min – 1hr to different villages where the mother church had a church plant and we would worship with each congregation. This looked like singing a couple of Nepali songs, a lot of prayer, and usually 2 of us would share our testimony and we’d give a short word of encouragement from the Bible, then they’d make tea and cookies and we’d just sit and enjoy each other’s presence for awhile. I had no clue what we singing or praying other than hallelujah and Jesus but it didn’t matter because you could feel the Lord’s presence flowing through those places. Our worship was like incense, like a pleasing aroma to the Lord. This emphasis and value on meeting regularly and frequently was beautiful to me. But even more beautiful to me was that we met in people’s homes. The Korean Methodist church actually came in Jan 2020 and built church buildings for these congregations, but long before the building existed, these church plants in these villages had been meeting in people’s homes for the last 12 years (give or take a couple years). Wherever 1 or 2 meet in my name. The other piece on stewarding time well came in their prayers. I thought I’d met prayer warriors before but some of the ladies in the church we stayed at their faith ran deep, and they prayed bold prayers of both praise and expectation. And more of their time was spent on their knees in prayer than anywhere else. They’d come into the church and pray at 3am, they’d be there praying when we woke up at 7am, they’d have prayer meeting throughout the afternoon and into the night, every single day. And it’s because prayer is so powerful and they reminded me of that. Sometimes we think it doesn’t matter and we think it’s pointless or that God doesn’t hear us but we have direct access to our father, the creator and sustainer of the universe through prayer why wouldn’t we pray this often? Why wouldn’t we pray expectantly? Why wouldn’t we pray boldly? Y’all I have some stories about these women and their prayer and the the Lord’s faithfulness in answering them, it’s absolutely incredible.
- Resources. The thing is nothing that we have is truly ours, the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. In theory we know that, but in actuality we’re some of the most selfish people I know and we’re always worried about self preservation. We’re so focused on providing for ourselves, and making a living for ourselves, and being comfortable, that we hold onto everything we have with clenched fists. We tithe maybe 10% and think we’ve done our due diligence to the Lord when in actuality we’ve not even scratched the surface. My friends in this village obviously not the most well off, but they were so giving of everything they had to us. With us there they ran out of water 2 or 3 times (yikes Americans and their showers and their laundry lol), their place of worship and prayer was occupied by us literally for over a week we completely broke up their routine but they accommodated us anyway, comfort isn’t a resource but they gave that up for us too. As a group of Americans we attract a lot of attention and bring a lot of weird people and things around and those things followed us to their home and showed up at their home a lot, but even still they gave and showed patience and grace. Even more than what they gave to us they’ve given so much to their community. The pastor’s wife sold her symbol of marriage because the Lord told her to in order to have the funds to build the women’s home. She then donated that money to the church and because of her generosity many church members began giving rings, and jewelry, and large sums of money all for the church and the Lord to do with as He pleased and out of their giving the women’s home was constructed.
Once again I have a number of stories from the village, but the Lord has been so faithful to these people, and He has showed up time and time again and they’ve answered His call. And as I reflected on it I began to have questions like why can’t we do this in the American church? Why don’t we meet this often? Why is our faith so shallow? And one of the things I realized is that when your faith is all you have, your faith has to be deep. For these brothers and sisters sometimes they don’t know where their next meal is coming from if faith is all you have, you have to depend on the Lord, sometimes they can’t afford medical care, or they don’t have access to it, so if faith is all you have you have to depend on the Lord for healing. As Americans I think Satan has a good time with our self sufficiency, a lot of us have jobs, cars, an adulation, a place to live, and even when we don’t we have ways, we can make ways. For us it’s easy to be self reliant and for faith to be a last resort.
2 questions for you all this round, and thanks to everyone who answered the last one! 1. How have you seen the Lord’s faithfulness recently? 2. What is something that keeps you from dependency on the Lord?
Prayer Request:
- Being Present. I feel like I’ve had enough adventure lol. The privileged American in me wants to go home. I want a long hot shower, I want a bed, I want non-curried vegetables lol. I just want to be comfortable lol. But I’m also thankful to be here and I know the Lord still has so much to show me, so many ways to grow me, and so much to do through me still.
- Good Rest. Today was our last day in Kathmandu doing work. We have debrief for a couple of days before we fly to india. We’ll be staying in a hostel and it’ll be a time to refresh but also process everything we’ve done, seen, and been through in the last month
