Hi! It has been way to long and I deeply apologize. WiFi has not been strong or often for that matter but there is no excuses.I thought you might want to know I had full intentions of posting some pretty pictures along with this blog and my upcoming ones but the spotty internet had something else in mind so without further ado…
Ministry in Nepal looked like a lot of different things. Our first week centered on encouraging the local Christian community.
Being a Christian here is hard. There’s no other way to put it. We’ve heard countless stories about people choosing to follow Christ at the cost of being cast away from society and even having their own families reject them. The courage it takes for Nepali Christians to willingly bring such things upon themselves is so inspiring. They are literally leaving everything to follow Christ, which has made me search my own heart to look at what is holding me back from chasing after the Lord with my entire being.
That’s not all. Our host family shared with us that they used to have land and a church. The earthquake destroyed it leaving them with nothing. Since Christianity is persecuted, they have had little to no outside support in getting back and rebuilding what they had. This has forced them into not being able to meet in large groups anymore but to have small fellowship meetings in their homes. We have been able to go and visit these places, hear their stories and encourage them to keep pushing forward. The fellowships may be small but the evidence of the spirit is so there.
My view of the church is constantly being molded, shifted and refined. We packed over twenty people into this little room every Saturday morning and praised our Father. We didn’t have a big fancy church and it wasn’t super organised but it was a group of people who wanted to grow together and grow in intimacy with the Lord and praise him for who he is. Now that is the church.
One day of ministry involved hiking ten miles through the mountains (they just called them hills) to reach a village and share a message. It was a hard hike, we couldn’t possibly imagine that people would ever climb this and then we found out that pastor Ramesh does this hike 3-4 times a week. His story is a powerful one as well; instead of becoming a city side pastor and making a fairly good income, he chose to become a village side pastor, this means that he has no income. Pastor Ramesh needs to rely on the generosity of others to support him while he has six children to provide for. This man is so driven to serving the Lord that he doesn’t let things like fear of not having a steady income stop him.
Our first week of ministry was very eye opening to the current situation and struggles in Nepal. Although I in no way can completely understand the depths of these peoples struggles, I am so blessed that we were able to come and encourage them and pray for them.
