I don’t think I have words to express what the Lord has been doing here in Nepal, but I’m gonna try.
Our first week in Nepal, we went to a village to do outreach. We were incredibly blessed by the wonderful pastor that we stayed with and they even fed us for free because they were so desperate for us to com to their area and share the gospel. We say some amazing healings, saw people coming to know the Lord, and such powerful movement of the Holy Spirit in a way I have never seen before.
Since we have been home, our ministry has entirely revolved around whatever the Lord calls us to do. We had a time for listening prayer the first day we arrived, and we each got a few different words or ministries that we have been helping out with. At the core of everything that Iris Ministries does is love. Whatever love looks like to people, that is what we do. Spreading the love of God is their main focus, so they will do whatever needs to be done to do that.
We have fed the poor and sick at Banquet House, and it breaks my heart to see so many people addicted to a variety of things. Drugs. Alcohol. Young boys addicted to sniffing glue. So much pain and hurt – physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. I felt like I was going to burst with tears at any moment and it broke my heart to see so much brokenness. The wonderful part of this is that we are able to pray over every single person that came in. We prayed for them as they ate their meal. We prayed for them as we sat and talked with them about their lives. We prayed for them as we washed their dishes. We prayed for them as they cleaned up and left. We met one man that had intense chest pain when he came in, and some of the team prayed over him for almost an hour. As we finished putting away the chairs and cleaning up at the end, he began to dance to the music playing, and soon an all out dance party started up. There was so much joy and happiness shown by the few men still hanging around and all of the missionaries still there joined in on the dancing. It was hilarious, chaotic, and full of laughter and joy inspired by a man that could hardly breathe or more just a few hours before. It was truly amazing to see.
After we got home from Banquet House, we did not have a plan for ministry in the afternoon, so we decided to do a prayer walk around the area we live. We ended up splitting into two groups, one that helped out with some manual labor down the street, and the rest of us decided on a prayer walk to pray over people and the city. On our walk, we met a young girl named Momda, and she talked with us for a few minutes before asking if we were Christians, and said she was one as well. She joined us on our walk for almost an hour, and talked about her life, her boyfriend, and her faith. It was fantastic to find someone like her and be able to encourage her to continue to grow in her faith, even when it is incredibly hard in this culture.
We have helped with a branch of Beauty for Ashes (if you don’t know what BFA is, please look it up, it is such an amazing organization.) in Kathmandu that gives women at risk of prostitution and trafficking a place to work, eat, and study the Bible. They have devotions every morning, and make jewelry to sell. We spent several hours at their base taking photos of the products, and it ended up being such a fun time. There was lots of laughing, lots of prayer both for and from us, and lots of wonderful time spent with women that are truly amazing and have such wonderful hearts for the Lord.
One of our most recent and impactful things we have done so far was street outreach in Thamel, a touristy area of Kathmandu. We did a lot of shopping at debrief at the beginning of the month, and we met tons of cool shop owners, and some that we really started a relationship with. We went back to visit two of these stores, and it was such an amazing experience. The first shop we went to, the lady we had originally met was not there, so we spent about thirty minutes talking with her husband, and prayed over his shop before we left. We then happened to walk past another shop that we had really connected with a guy, and we spent almost an hour talking with him about what love looked like and about God and what he believed. I was not sure what to expect when doing outreach, but what we got was truly wonderful and something I will definitely not forget anytime soon.
Even though we have seemed to have a somewhat light schedule, I have been so overwhelmed with all that the Lord is doing here and I feel like I hardly have had time to really process what has happened. We have been blown away by physical healings, seeing others grow in their faith, and growing in our own faith in amazing ways.
Please continue to pray for us as we only have one more week of ministry and prepare to head off to Africa (it’s a crazy thought, I know). Also please consider donating, I still have about $1,500 to reach my final goal and be fully funded, and I only have a little over a month to raise that money.
Thank you so much for all of your support, it means so much! Feel free to email me if you want to hear any more stories, you can contact me at [email protected] and I will respond as soon as I can!
