My First Missionary Trip:

The first step was to get over there with some concept as to how I should proceed. I contacted a missionary in that area and volunteered to go to India and briefly help in his work. He suggested to me that a greater need was to be found in Nepal, an area which had been largely overlooked. After some consideration, I agreed to go there instead, believing that my plans could just as easily be achieved in that nation. I arrived in Kathmandu in October 1999 and took a car to the preacher training school where I would be teaching for one month. The trip is just less than 150 km but it took five hours. The main road to where I was going was in great disrepair and the travel was very difficult.

When I arrived at Narayangarh I met Rudra Prasad Giri who would serve as my interpreter while I was in Nepal. He was a very humble man who demonstrated a sincere passion for the teaching of his people. After around two days of settling in, I began to train the young preachers who were assembled at the school. They seemed very eager but they had much to learn.

After I had been in the country for around two weeks, Rudra came and talked to me about the Far Western regions of Nepal. He told me that there were no Christians to be found anywhere in the western half of the country. He urged me to take a couple of days and make a brief missionary trip there to evangelize and make contacts for further studies. I knew the trip would be more than I wanted to undertake. It would be physically challenging and I had already reached 50 years old. I felt it would be too much for me. He said he understood and went on to bed. But my answer bothered me. If I did not go, then who would? If I did not go now, then when would I go? I called Rudra on the phone and told him to make the arrangements and we would go.

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We left Thursday evening after class and traveled all night, around fifteen hours. I had only thought the road from Kathmandu was bad. This was unbelievable! We traveled through the woods, riverbeds, rocks piled in ravines, and even through fields. It was dangerous and extremely tiring. There were no rest stops (or bathrooms) and we stopped only briefly to eat. When we arrived in the morning in Western Nepal, I was glad to leave the bus.

Rudra and another Christian man who had accompanied us began to hand out tracts. I just stood there feeling stupid. I could not talk to the men in the market so all I could do is watch. After a brief time, some of the men took me by the arm, set me down, and asked me to tell them of this thing called Christianity. Suddenly I realized that this was different than anything I had anticipated. I did not have a Hindu specific sermon and they did not have a Christian background. I was called on to draw from every experience, every talent, and every fact I possessed. Even now I look back and realize that, at the very best, I was barely adequate to meet the challenge.

I began by explaining that I had been sent by Christians in America at very great expense to the people of Nepal because in America we knew that the Hindu people were very religious (they have well over a million gods). I explained that we also knew of a God that they did not know and that I had come to tell them about Him. I told them that in Hinduism they make a god in the image they like. In Christianity we believed that God had made us in the image He chose. In Hinduism they carried their god with them wherever they went. In Christianity we believed that God carried us through life. I based my study with them on Paul’s sermon at Mars Hill and I drew frequently from the law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, to prove that Jesus was the Christ. After a very pleasant study, we began to head home.

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Our next stop was several hours later at a place called Pahalmanpur where we would spend Friday night. We studied there briefly and then traveled another hour to a different town and did some study there before we returned to Pahalmanpur to our hotel (mud hut). When we left the bus, two natives met us and asked if I was the Christian that they had heard about. I said yes and they asked if I would come to their village and speak. It was only around two miles away and so I went. I remembered how Paul had been summoned to Macedonia by a vision and I felt as if I was living the book of Acts. After some time there, we returned again to our hotel where a Bible study was to be held that night. It lasted for many hours and far into the night.

When we got up Saturday morning to leave we were met by four Hindu people who wanted to obey the gospel. We took them to the river and baptized them into Christ. We then discussed the situation we had. Tomorrow was Sunday and these new Christians had no concept how they were to worship. We had no choice but to stay another night and teach them how to worship and make some sort of plans for their future as the Lord’s house in far Western Nepal. We had more Bible classes that night and many came to hear the gospel for the first time. The next day three more people responded to the gospel and were added that morning to the church of our Lord.

After we visited and studied some more that day, we headed home to the school. On the way home we stopped in Kohalpur (around 80 miles away) and studied with someone that Rudra had been teaching through the mail. After some study there, two men decided to become Christians. It was night and we could not baptize them at that time. Later that week Ashok, our young companion, returned and baptized them into Christ. Ashok then moved to Kohalpur with his wife and began to guide the two congregations we had established and evangelize the area in general.

From that point on, I have been supporting Ashok and Mamata, his wife, so that these converts could be taught and strengthened and others like them could be led to Christ. I returned to the school and finished my teaching assignment and then returned to the United States. I had been blessed by God in that He allowed me to preach in what was probably the first Christian worship in far western Nepal in the twentieth century. When I returned home, God also had blessed me so that I had accomplished all that I had set out to do.