NEPALI JATI (people), MISSIONARY JATI; NEPALI JATI, VIJAYEE (victorious) JATI
That is the slogan of the missions conference at which I had the great opportunity to speak. About 500 pastors and leaders from Nepal and India took part in this first ever national missions conference in Nepal. My contact, Ram Prasad Shrestha, had the vision to put this conference together. It was the answer to seven years of unceasing prayers of many throughout the world.
In the mid-1950’s, there was only one church (Christianity had just been introduced to Nepal after a very long absence). Today there are approximately 3000 churches but 95% of the pastors are untrained. Nepalis are found in 105 countries and the leaders of the Church have the vision to put a Nepali missionary in each of those countries.
Why Nepal? It is strategically placed in Asia and the Christians greatly desire to reach out to the people groups in their region: the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Maoists. They have the desire and vision to impact their world. As it was clearly shared at the Missions Conference, one of the greatest needs for the Nepali Church is leadership development. In a country where the illiteracy rate is high, there are 90 to 130 languages spoken (with only one Bible translation), and less than half of the population speak Nepali while 90% of the churches worship in Nepali, it is easy to say that there are problems dealing with communication.
WILD can help meet the needs of some of these problems. The illiteracy rate and the multiple language barriers have started my wheels turning because there are similar problems in Africa. Ram has translated the spiritual leadership material (that was given to him 18 months ago) into Nepali. His comments on the material include that this spiritual leadership tool is easy to teach, understandable no matter the educational level of a person and transferable from one culture to another. We have heard the same thing from African pastors. God is amazing how He has led to put this leadership tool together.
With the assistance of a translator, I spoke twice during the Missions Conference on leadership issues. A few pastors spoke English but for the most part I was in the dark when they spoke to each other. With the exception of three others who gave their messages in English, people could have picked on me all day and I would not have known the difference.
The second week of my time in Nepal was spent at Ebenezer Bible College where I taught 14 hours to third year students. the 12 guys and five women who comprised my class have all their classes in English (no translator – Yeh!) These vibrant students met with me over a four day period and we had a ball learning and discussing the material on leadership. They each had a copy of the material, so I could highlight different portions. It would take 40 hours or more to go through all the material.
I received feedback from some of the students, mainly in the form of questions as they wrestle through the material. Within a week or so I expect to hear from all the students. Being an elective class, I was instructed to give an exam and then a grade on that exam. This class graduates in May and they all are determining where God is leading them.
One of the female students is Maya. She comes from a village in western Nepal and Maya is the first Christian from that village. Her goal is to go back to her village and serve the Lord, proclaiming the Gospel to her own people. Now she also has a tool to help develop Christian leaders.
Knowing that I would have a fair amount of down time to myself on this trip, I intentionally took projects along to work on. To be honest, these two weeks were the best times I have had being alone with God since my sabbatical six years ago. In the continuing development of spiritual leadership training and material, I am doing Biblical character studies. Right now I am looking at Peter from day one when Jesus met him through the Gospels, Acts and writings of 1 and 2 Peter. Wow! I was able to dig ever so deeply into that study and God was speaking to me.
During every trip I seek to learn what the next steps are for WILD. As for Nepal, Ram and I discussed the great need for spiritual leadership development. So the plan is to gather 20-30 key Christian leaders next Fall and spent four days or so in a Trainer of Trainers week. Similar to what we did in Zambia this past summer, we will teach the material to these leaders plus add aspects of how to teach, how to lead a discussion, differences between public speaking and communicating, the whys to the material and more. Ram would like to have this at a retreat center possibly somewhere in the Himalayan Mountains, away from their hectic world so that we can be much more sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading for each participant’s life. This would be a huge step toward meeting the need of Christian leadership training in Nepal.
Along with the Nepal trip, WILD will take a team of trainers to Zambia sometime in July and teach either on a National or regional scale. At the same time, our pastor friend, Allan, wants me to go with him to Namibia to launch the teaching to churches with whom he has already established relationships and taught. Prior to this trip in July, another person has asked me to go with him to Zambia in late February or early March so that he can share about economic and youth development with our contact people. During that time I would assemble as many of the trained leaders as possible and teach on several of the subjects that have been requested by the leaders plus work to put the July training together. There is an outside possibility that we would take a construction team at the same time to finish the school in Lusaka which ministers to many AIDS orphans. Of course, this all takes money, so I need to get booking.
I close this letter with a story about my plane rides this year. Our world is much different than it was even ten years ago. Flying back from Zambia this summer, a Muslim woman who was an American citizen but knew very little English, was seated next to me during the flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis. Then on the way from Amsterdam to Dehli, India, a Hindu man ended up next to me. In fact, he was the most uniquely dressed and face painted person on the plane. Sitting next to these two individuals I sensed God asking the question of how could I reach these people for Christ. How will they find out that the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ? Our traditional ways of sharing about Jesus most likely will not work. I am definitely wrestling through these questions. In the simplest answer, it comes down to having faith in Christ, to trust only Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins and nothing else. There are many more steps to get a person of another world religion - or even our youth - to understand that Jesus is the only way and He alone is God. That is the challenge for the Church right now.
