Thanks to my teammate, Jessie MacNeil, for allowing me to use her blog as an outline because I had a hard time finding the words to describe what we experienced a couple of nights ago.
THE PERSECUTED CHURCH. What images does that bring to mind? It’s a term we hear in our churches and are asked to pray for, but how many of us actually do? My question is do we honestly have a grasp on what it means to be the persecuted church? Do we truly understand the intensity of what it means to be the persecuted church? Living in a western society, I don’t believe we can show empathy. We may think we know what it is like, but we really don’t know. We have become numb to the idea of persecution because it is something we often hear about but never sincerely experience. We sometimes say we feel that we’re being “persecuted” by other people who judge us based on our faith. But that is NOT persecution. Let me explain…
A few afternoons ago our contact told us that instead of teaching computer class we would be helping to clean the church for a few hours. With the help of the Bible students we cleaned the inside and outside of the building where the church is held. The church is actually a small room inside what we would consider a 4 story apartment complex. This included picking up garbage and pulling weeds outside. After finishing we gathered along with the Bible students for some black tea and cookies and began an impromptu time of worship. Our contact, Reuben, told us that we were going to worship for a little while and then pray. I thought, “Ok, that sounds good. We do this all the time. No big deal!” Little did we know what we were about to experience.
Worship was awesome! We could just simply clap along because almost every song was in Nepalese, but it was so cool! Being in a setting like this always makes me think about what it’s going to be like in heaven when we are singing praise with people from every nation and every tongue. It literally gives me goose bumps! After about 30 minutes it was time for prayer and we split up with 2 world racers joining the 4 groups of Bible students.
Prayer is something I’ve always struggled with at times personally, but I know that it’s powerful. I’ve experienced powerful prayer and I’ve heard many people talk about the power of prayer and the power our words hold. Tonight, however, was something completely new. We started by praying for the students who were attending the Bible school and the Bible school instructors. Next, we prayed for the Christian youth in Nepal because many of them and their leaders are leaving the country for financial reasons. They can’t support their families here because of the lack of jobs and leave looking for better opportunities. But then came the final request for prayer from our contact Reuben….
But before I get to that I want to give you a very brief history of Christianity in Nepal as it was explained to us a couple of weeks ago. For most of its history, the borders of Nepal were closed to the outside world before the 1950s. Missionaries traveled from Rome and had a short presence in Kathmandu for about 50 years in the early 18th century. Then for almost 200 years there was no organized Christian presence in Nepal. In the 1950’s the government opened its doors for mission organizations to build a hospital, clinics and a school in Kathmandu. However, until just a few years ago Nepal was the worlds only Hindu kingdom. As a result, people who converted to Christianity were boycotted, harassed, and cast out from their families. This continued until 1990 when the people of Nepal revolted against the king and Nepal became a constitutional democracy. With this change came more religious freedom and churches began to flourish. On May 18, 2006 Nepal officially became a secular country. This would help to end religious persecution in Nepal. This made things better, but persecution has continued from certain Hindu groups and changes in the government are threatening Christians again.
…..As we began our last prayer, Reuben began to tell us that there are people in Nepal that are currently trying to put laws back in place that will make it illegal to convert to and practice Christianity. In the last couple of years there has been a church bombed, a missionary beaten, and two pastors killed. Here are two links with more info:
The Voice of The Martyrs
http://www.persecution.net/nepal.htm
http://www.persecution.org/category/countries/asia/nepal/
We had been mostly unaware of this until Reuben began to explain. It hit me like a ton of bricks. THIS STUFF IS REAL. Persecution does exist! And now here I was in a room full of men and women who I’d built relationships with that are and will continue to literally put their lives at risk for the glory of the kingdom!!! It was a lot to process! Specifically our contact Reuben is in charge of literally 10-15 different ministries across all of Nepal. They range from sports ministries, Bible distribution, building a school and an orphanage, outreach, pastoring a church, and the list could go on. So to think about the repercussions he could face as a fellow Christian brother is unbelievable to my Western mind.
This man is truly a disciple of Christ, he speaks of his love for the Lord so earnestly. Who am I to be blessed with the opportunity to be working alongside him in his ministry? This man is more than a father, husband, pastor, ministry contact…he is the definition of apostle. Persecution became real for me tonight.
Not only Reuben, not only the pastors, but everybody who is living to fulfill a Christian lifestyle in Nepal are literally putting their lives on the line in order to follow God. And here I am complaining about missing the comforts of home for 11 months to serve the Lord. There it goes again, another smack across the face with a brick. WAKE UP!!!! Even when we believe we are living to serve the Lord, we are being so selfish! We do not know what it means to suffer, we do not know what it means to be completely selfless for Christ, we do not know what it means to be persecuted!!
So for the next 20-30 minutes I witnessed a room full of Christians who prayed with the most passion and desire that I’ve ever experienced. They were literally crying out to God at the top of their lungs! Words simply cannot describe what God allowed us to be a part of that night. So I’m going to end with the prayer that Jessie posted on her blog:
Pray for Nepal. Pray EARNESTLY, INTENTLY, RAW. Pray hard. Mean it. Seize the opportunity of power being held in your words. Pray LOUD. Pray for the persecuted church. Pray for Nepali Christians. Pray for the government of Nepal to refrain from setting such obscene laws in place. Pray against the enemy who is eager to attack, because he sees the power in what Reuben is doing here in Nepal. The enemy is seeing the ruckus that the Christian church is stirring up in Nepal and he doesn’t like it. This is a GOOD thing! This means that something is happening, God is moving. We know that God is so much more powerful than the enemy, so continue to pray. Pray for Churches Network Nepal. Pray for Reuben, his family, his friends. Pray that the Christian churches of Nepal will rise up an army.
PRAY!
