You can also see some pictures from the Nepal trip here.
9.28.2014
Testimony video about Nepal
Our church put together a testimony video from two different e3 trips this summer. Chris and Tanner share in the first half about their trip to Nepal, and then a dear friend shares about her trip to India.
You can also see some pictures from the Nepal trip here.
You can also see some pictures from the Nepal trip here.
9.07.2014
God's faithfulness despite our inadequacies
A recap of the Nepal trip in the words of Chris:
My son Tanner and I recently went on a mission trip to Nepal, located between North India and China. As we were preparing for the trip, God was already starting to show up and work in Tanner. But there was something different about this trip for me. I had been on several trips before with physical or financial handicaps, but this time it was more of a feeling of a spiritual unreadiness. The closer it got to the time to leave, the more apprehensive I was feeling about going. I didn’t feel connected to God or have a heart yet for the people we were going to minister to. All I was feeling was that I was not ready to go. But God had always met me on prior trips with exactly what I needed, so on we went.
As we start on our journey, we find God using us before we even arrive in Nepal. On our last flight into Kathmandu, I begin talking with a local man from Nepal and find an opportunity to share my testimony. I am quietly and discreetly telling the man what Jesus has done in my life, almost whispering, and then I hear Tanner, who is sitting in the row behind me between a businessman and a young agnostic with body piercings, loudly proclaiming while pointing to his evangecube, “this light represents the One True God!!!”. It leads into great conversations and convicts me to not be ashamed or shy about the Gospel.
It is a long trip but it gives us time to bond with our new team members and we quickly become more like a family. We arrive in the city of Lahan on Saturday morning about an hour before we have to head out and minister at three of the small churches in the area. The people are so gracious and do everything they can to make us Westerners feel comfortable. As we get back to our hotel on Saturday afternoon, I am personally feeling at an all time low as I start to experience symptoms of a stomach ulcer and am only able to eat a few bananas over the next two days. We spend the day on Sunday in training meetings with our translators and local pastors preparing for the village work to begin on Monday. I wake up Monday morning at 2:00 am and begin applying some of the training we have received on healing. While praying, God shows up just as He always has. All of my ulcer symptoms disappear...no nausea, pain or anxiety just the feeling that He is right there with me. It is just what I need!
In the morning, we are heading into the villages and I am ready to go! Our team of 20 North Americans has been split into five teams with each team assigned to a different village for the week. Monday we find out quickly that our village is not as open as some of the others. Some of our team even gets yelled out while walking through the village. One of the first people that I meet is a man named Artun. He is different than most people in the village. He is bigger, smarter, dresses nicer and actually has a satellite tv. He quickly asks why we are here. Our conversation starts off friendly and I eventually see an opportunity to share my testimony. He hears the name Jesus and it changes the conversation. He says he knows why we are here. He has heard many things about western Christians from his satellite tv and none of it is good. We change the subject and I ask if I can visit him the next day. On the surface it seems like it might be a waste to spend more time with him, but God puts him on my heart and I begin praying for him daily. I also notice over the next few days that he meets daily with many of the men in the village and it appears he has some influence with them. The team spends the rest of the day meeting villagers and sharing testimonies. The Gospel is shared a few times but with little positive results.
We return to our hotel that evening and it becomes obvious that our results in the village aren’t as impressive as what the other teams are seeing in their villages. Our trip leaders wonder if our team should be moved to another more open village. Although we did not feel very welcomed today, the team decides that we want to give our village another try.
Tuesday morning starts off by us meeting a young man named Deb who is one of only three Christians in the whole village of about 300 people. He quickly becomes an important part of our team. We then witness our first healing of a little three year old boy. According to his grandmother, he has been in constant pain for days, not eating, crying a lot, a bloated stomach and despondent with no emotion. In fact, the grandmother says he has not smiled for days. We pray over him and the grandmother asks him if he is still in pain and he says “no”. She begins poking around on his stomach as if she doesn’t believe him but he insists there is no pain. We ask if we can come back and check on him later in the afternoon and before we leave he gives us a slight smile. We come back later that afternoon and find him sitting on the porch laughing and stuffing his face with food. The rest of the day is spent continuing to build relationships and entering into the lives of the villagers. We return to our hotel that night a little more encouraged but still not seeing new believers like the other teams are experiencing.
On Wednesday, one of our team members is moved to another larger and more open village. She was bold with the Gospel and we will miss her! We start the day praying over houses and families as we walk through the village. It is around 1:00 and it is time for our remaining team of 3 Americans, 2 translators and 3 local Christians to meet for lunch. We arrive at our designated spot at a tree in the center of the village, but today there are two blankets laid out for us to eat on. Something has changed, and I think we are being accepted. After lunch, people begin asking to hear the story of Jesus. We start to see our first new believers and a discipleship group is started.
Thursday morning we begin experiencing several physical attacks from the enemy. The first attack happens with my translator who suddenly finds himself unable to understand and translate the English during our morning meeting. He is one of our top translators and the confusion and fear is evident on his face. He goes to our trip leaders to explain what is happening, and after some prayer the confusion leaves and he is able to resume translating. After that, Tanner and I along with our 3rd team member experience stomach pains but we pray and see relief on the way to the village. This tells us that it is going to be a good day in the village! Today ends up being the most fruitful day so far. We see more healings, more new believers and the discipleship group has grown. Some of the new believers have already begun sharing the Gospel with their neighbors. I did not get to visit Artun today, but have had good visits with him over the past three days. But neither of us has mentioned God or Jesus since I first shared my testimony. I pray that I will get one more visit with him before we leave tomorrow.
It’s Friday and if there is one thing about a mission trip that you can always count on, it is that there will be last minute changes! We are leaving on the bus this afternoon and have just found out that heavy rains have washed out a main bridge on the way back to Kathmandu. This means we will need to take a longer route back which is going to cut our final day in the village short by several hours. We are devastated by the news but we know that it is all in God’s hands. Our plan is to have our last training session with the new discipleship group, a children’s program, and a couple appointments with people who want to hear more about Jesus. I don’t know that I will have time to see Artun before I leave. The discipleship group is held out the house of a family of three who are all new believers along with four other new believers from around the village. They have a hard time reading the Bible but already know how to share the Gospel using an evangecard. Many kids and their families show up for the last children’s program and hear the Gospel one more time. As God would have it, I run into Artun one last time as he is on his way into the market. I ask him if he has thought about why God would send us half way around the world to his village when we could have gone anywhere. He says he has thought about that and that he wants to hear more about Jesus. So I share the Gospel with him and he says he wanted to follow Jesus but has concerns about how his wife and parents will respond and how this will affect his status among the men in the village. I tell him this is more about a relationship between him and Jesus and that God will guide him on how to handle his concerns. He has been counting the cost but after our discussion he decides to accept Jesus. We pray right there in the village street.
It is time to leave the village, and people are coming up and wanting to know more about Jesus. We tell them about the discipleship group that has started and it is obvious that there is so much more work to be done in this village. Everyone is loaded up and ready to go, and Tanner turns to me and says that he wishes we could stay longer. I tell him that I understand...I’m not ready to go either.
I started out this trip not feeling ready and not sure that I even wanted to go, and the trip ends with me not wanting to leave. God has worked despite my feelings of inadequacy and this ends up being the most meaningful mission trip that I have ever been on!
My son Tanner and I recently went on a mission trip to Nepal, located between North India and China. As we were preparing for the trip, God was already starting to show up and work in Tanner. But there was something different about this trip for me. I had been on several trips before with physical or financial handicaps, but this time it was more of a feeling of a spiritual unreadiness. The closer it got to the time to leave, the more apprehensive I was feeling about going. I didn’t feel connected to God or have a heart yet for the people we were going to minister to. All I was feeling was that I was not ready to go. But God had always met me on prior trips with exactly what I needed, so on we went.
As we start on our journey, we find God using us before we even arrive in Nepal. On our last flight into Kathmandu, I begin talking with a local man from Nepal and find an opportunity to share my testimony. I am quietly and discreetly telling the man what Jesus has done in my life, almost whispering, and then I hear Tanner, who is sitting in the row behind me between a businessman and a young agnostic with body piercings, loudly proclaiming while pointing to his evangecube, “this light represents the One True God!!!”. It leads into great conversations and convicts me to not be ashamed or shy about the Gospel.
It is a long trip but it gives us time to bond with our new team members and we quickly become more like a family. We arrive in the city of Lahan on Saturday morning about an hour before we have to head out and minister at three of the small churches in the area. The people are so gracious and do everything they can to make us Westerners feel comfortable. As we get back to our hotel on Saturday afternoon, I am personally feeling at an all time low as I start to experience symptoms of a stomach ulcer and am only able to eat a few bananas over the next two days. We spend the day on Sunday in training meetings with our translators and local pastors preparing for the village work to begin on Monday. I wake up Monday morning at 2:00 am and begin applying some of the training we have received on healing. While praying, God shows up just as He always has. All of my ulcer symptoms disappear...no nausea, pain or anxiety just the feeling that He is right there with me. It is just what I need!
In the morning, we are heading into the villages and I am ready to go! Our team of 20 North Americans has been split into five teams with each team assigned to a different village for the week. Monday we find out quickly that our village is not as open as some of the others. Some of our team even gets yelled out while walking through the village. One of the first people that I meet is a man named Artun. He is different than most people in the village. He is bigger, smarter, dresses nicer and actually has a satellite tv. He quickly asks why we are here. Our conversation starts off friendly and I eventually see an opportunity to share my testimony. He hears the name Jesus and it changes the conversation. He says he knows why we are here. He has heard many things about western Christians from his satellite tv and none of it is good. We change the subject and I ask if I can visit him the next day. On the surface it seems like it might be a waste to spend more time with him, but God puts him on my heart and I begin praying for him daily. I also notice over the next few days that he meets daily with many of the men in the village and it appears he has some influence with them. The team spends the rest of the day meeting villagers and sharing testimonies. The Gospel is shared a few times but with little positive results.
We return to our hotel that evening and it becomes obvious that our results in the village aren’t as impressive as what the other teams are seeing in their villages. Our trip leaders wonder if our team should be moved to another more open village. Although we did not feel very welcomed today, the team decides that we want to give our village another try.
Tuesday morning starts off by us meeting a young man named Deb who is one of only three Christians in the whole village of about 300 people. He quickly becomes an important part of our team. We then witness our first healing of a little three year old boy. According to his grandmother, he has been in constant pain for days, not eating, crying a lot, a bloated stomach and despondent with no emotion. In fact, the grandmother says he has not smiled for days. We pray over him and the grandmother asks him if he is still in pain and he says “no”. She begins poking around on his stomach as if she doesn’t believe him but he insists there is no pain. We ask if we can come back and check on him later in the afternoon and before we leave he gives us a slight smile. We come back later that afternoon and find him sitting on the porch laughing and stuffing his face with food. The rest of the day is spent continuing to build relationships and entering into the lives of the villagers. We return to our hotel that night a little more encouraged but still not seeing new believers like the other teams are experiencing.
On Wednesday, one of our team members is moved to another larger and more open village. She was bold with the Gospel and we will miss her! We start the day praying over houses and families as we walk through the village. It is around 1:00 and it is time for our remaining team of 3 Americans, 2 translators and 3 local Christians to meet for lunch. We arrive at our designated spot at a tree in the center of the village, but today there are two blankets laid out for us to eat on. Something has changed, and I think we are being accepted. After lunch, people begin asking to hear the story of Jesus. We start to see our first new believers and a discipleship group is started.
Thursday morning we begin experiencing several physical attacks from the enemy. The first attack happens with my translator who suddenly finds himself unable to understand and translate the English during our morning meeting. He is one of our top translators and the confusion and fear is evident on his face. He goes to our trip leaders to explain what is happening, and after some prayer the confusion leaves and he is able to resume translating. After that, Tanner and I along with our 3rd team member experience stomach pains but we pray and see relief on the way to the village. This tells us that it is going to be a good day in the village! Today ends up being the most fruitful day so far. We see more healings, more new believers and the discipleship group has grown. Some of the new believers have already begun sharing the Gospel with their neighbors. I did not get to visit Artun today, but have had good visits with him over the past three days. But neither of us has mentioned God or Jesus since I first shared my testimony. I pray that I will get one more visit with him before we leave tomorrow.
It’s Friday and if there is one thing about a mission trip that you can always count on, it is that there will be last minute changes! We are leaving on the bus this afternoon and have just found out that heavy rains have washed out a main bridge on the way back to Kathmandu. This means we will need to take a longer route back which is going to cut our final day in the village short by several hours. We are devastated by the news but we know that it is all in God’s hands. Our plan is to have our last training session with the new discipleship group, a children’s program, and a couple appointments with people who want to hear more about Jesus. I don’t know that I will have time to see Artun before I leave. The discipleship group is held out the house of a family of three who are all new believers along with four other new believers from around the village. They have a hard time reading the Bible but already know how to share the Gospel using an evangecard. Many kids and their families show up for the last children’s program and hear the Gospel one more time. As God would have it, I run into Artun one last time as he is on his way into the market. I ask him if he has thought about why God would send us half way around the world to his village when we could have gone anywhere. He says he has thought about that and that he wants to hear more about Jesus. So I share the Gospel with him and he says he wanted to follow Jesus but has concerns about how his wife and parents will respond and how this will affect his status among the men in the village. I tell him this is more about a relationship between him and Jesus and that God will guide him on how to handle his concerns. He has been counting the cost but after our discussion he decides to accept Jesus. We pray right there in the village street.
It is time to leave the village, and people are coming up and wanting to know more about Jesus. We tell them about the discipleship group that has started and it is obvious that there is so much more work to be done in this village. Everyone is loaded up and ready to go, and Tanner turns to me and says that he wishes we could stay longer. I tell him that I understand...I’m not ready to go either.
I started out this trip not feeling ready and not sure that I even wanted to go, and the trip ends with me not wanting to leave. God has worked despite my feelings of inadequacy and this ends up being the most meaningful mission trip that I have ever been on!
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