Nepal is mostly a land of hills, but surprisingly, there is a large portion of it that is hot lowland next to the Indian border. The population is around 26,000,000, and it has been one of the most closed non-Islamic countries to the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They have been the only officially Hindu country in the world. You can be a Christian, but you cannot proselytize, and of course you cannot have a church or do anything Christian openly. The Seventh-day Adventist church has had an unofficial presence here for 50 years or so, all thru the auspices of a hospital in the capital. However, the hospital has been kept from spreading the gospel both by the govt. and by employees who were afraid of ruining the medical work here. So while not much has been done for the people’s souls, there were around 1,000 SDA members when the current SDA mission president was elected 7 years ago. Now there are 6,000 SDAs, praise God! And the most exciting thing, is that just this summer the people of Nepal overthrew their king, and are on the road to make a new country based on secular standards. That means the Three Angels’ Messages can be spread openly thruout the country! And this wave has spread to Bhutan, perhaps the most closed country in all the world, where the king has promised democractic reforms by year 2008. God is working mightily to open up the whole Himalayan region, and now we need to be faithful in fulfilling our duty to bring those in darkness to truth.
While not even being considered until about 40 hours before actually landing in this country, my trip to Nepal turned out to be the most exciting from the standpoint of opportunities and vision to spread the gospel, and is also the country where i was treated more royally than any other in all my travels.
The view coming into Nepal was gorgeous, with mountain peaks flanking us on our left. It is awe-inspiring to see the huge, white peaks poking the heads seemingly higher than your airplane is. hmmm, that could be a problem! Kathmandu is set in a bowl, and is only around 1,300m above sea level. That keeps is fairly warm, but also traps in the smog. The airport is set almost in the middle of the city, and you can look down and see the kids playing in schoolyards and the traffic, all quite closely. Nearly everywhere else in the world, airports are situated out in some field or even island, but not here. It is funny that we get in a bus to go to the terminal, and get dropped out at the terminal building about 20yards after getting on. I pay the 30usd visa entry fee which is good for 60 days, and am thankful that i have kept some unused passport-sized pics, as i need one here. They staple it to the paper after i’ve wiped off the attached vitamin-c powder, and i head down the escalator to the baggage claim area.
A man is standing at the bottom of the escalator. His face looks vaguely familiar. As i look at him, he asks “Are you Daniel Winter”? I reply in the affirmative, a bit in shock. How can anyone know me, when i haven’t even gotten out of the airport yet??? He informs me that he has some connection with a man who works at the airport, so he got a VIP badge which allowed him in. His wife and child are waiting for me outside, and they give me a huge bunch of flowers. The plane was late, and with the visa application, they have been waiting over an hour for me. They put me in a little, old, white Suzuki 4-wheeler, and we start the first of our “honk if you are moving” adventures. I’ve never seen a noisier country as far as motor vehicles go, and the pastor tops them all it seems – ha! Things look pretty much like India in the poorer areas, with lots of people walking, lots of people living by the side of the roads, lots of pollution, and did i mention – noise!
We arrive at St. Devi’s school. I’m to find out later that the pastor’s wife’s name is “Devi”. Somehow a mistake got made, and anyway, she is sorry that this “St.” got attached, but that is the way it is registered, so they are going with that. She is in charge of a school that has around 400 students, with approximately 80 of them being “live-in”, meaning either “orphan”, or “from far away”. She gets help from sponsors in America, especially one SDA lady (Sims) helps sponsors most of the children’s food and clothing needs. I see one young man wearing a jacket i sent in one of those many boxes of used clothes from Japan, and it really warms my heart, thinking about how all the time and energy and money put into collecting and sending them was really worth it 🙂
We go to the top of the 4 story building where the pastor’s family lives, and where a meal has been prepared. It is delicious Indian-looking, but all Nepali. This is the first gooey meal i’ve eaten with fingers since leaving India 4 months earlier, and the feeling is a bit nice (if gooey). An American man is here (non-SDA), who came to Nepal to visit a few times, and now makes it a yearly plan to come and help the kids with getting eye exams, and glasses for those who need it, and helps in other ways too. He is not rich at all, just a simple man working in a supermarket in Philadelphia, but is doing more Christ-like work than many of us Christians. After going to the top of the roof and looking out over the city, with it’s many dimly flourescent lit homes, and then looking up at the great, starry sky, i hear the bed calling, and turn in a bit early.
Electricity is not constant here, and whole areas are shut out sometimes, then most areas given power starting around 6pm, then full power after 9pm for one or two hours. This probably explains why many people have both incandescent bulbs and flourescent bulbs. Flourescent won’t light if the voltage is too low. It was painful to see 40 kids crammed in a study room in the evening all trying to do their day’s homework by the tiny light of two yellow bulbs. They tell me that there are no oil-burning power plants here, just have to depend on water to turn those turbines. Maybe some of those near the border get imported electricity, but here in Kathmandu over a million people get by in this fashion. Actually, i learn that it is better now than it used to be.
The students are studying for exams, so we take a ride out into the countryside. The road is mostly paved, altho in the hills there are landslide remains and washouts here and there. All the hills are terraced up and down, showing that there are quite a number of people living in the area. The few people i do see in the noon-time sun are women washing giant radishes, women with big baskets tied to their back – cutting some grain and putting it in, women hoeing, and women selling produce at one or two places. There are a few men, one or two is hoeing or carrying something, but most of them are either gone (finding a job in the city), or goofing off (what most men seem to do everywhere when not fighting). We get out at a little village, and buy some green beans, and then make our way back.
There is a nice school beside the road, one sponsored by Japanese donors i’m told. Way to go Japan! I wonder if they teach them Japanese. You can see many kids everywhere wearing school uniforms. That is an encouraging sign. But the most encouraging sign at our school, is that even tho they are not yet officially allowed to teach Bible during school hours to the children, at assembly every morning for 1/2 an hour they sing Christian songs, and repeat the Lord’s prayer (in English) etc.
This is the plan to evangelize Nepal:
1. To set up small schools where children can be trained in things of the Lord. It is very difficult to change an adult’s thinking patterns. When confronted with the evidence that what one has believed to be true all your life has been false, of course many people will reject it. It is much easier, but time-consuming, to train up a child to think in right paths from a tender age so that they will not get indoctrinated in error.
2. To have cottage meetings in the villages. There are some laypeople who wish to work for God. They will go live in some village for several months, developing interests. There are very few pastors or evangelists, so these lay people will do the ground work, and the evangelist will come and give a two-week series explaining the things more in detail. Then the ones who want to live for Christ will be baptised, and the layperson will stay in the village longer making sure the group is formed and organized properly. It costs approx. 200usd to have cottage meetings. I have offered to sponsor 3 of them. Is anyone else interested?
The mission president’s brother is my friend from northern India that i have known for 8 years. He makes a hurried trip over to Kathmandu, and it is a real pleasure seeing him again after such an absence. He has sent a few pics over the years, which probably helped me to recognize something familiar in his brother who greeted me at the airport. Other than needing to lose a bit of weight, he looks non the worse for the bout of malaria he contracted last year. We have a good talk, and he shows his appreciation for rest by turning into a freight train at nite – haha. I sleep pretty good every nite here, but somehow can’t seem to get enough. Not sure why. Perhaps it’s because of the racket that starts every morning around 4 o’clock? I don’t understand why in most of these “developing” countries, that the people get up so early, and then laze around most of the rest of the day, taking naps now and then. I guess there is nothing to force them to live a structured life, so they don’t. Or maybe this IS their “structure”?!
The family here tells me about the time maybe 15 years ago when they were asked to come visit some village waaaaaaaaay back in the hills. They point out a fairly tall mountain surrounding Kathmandu, and tell me that they walked for 3 days up and down over big hills like that one. When they arrived, they stayed in a place where the family lived above, and the pigs and chickens below. Human waste was just anywhere you left it. (Ouch! this old Hitachi laptop is shocking me silly. put a shirt over where my arm rests on it – good) unnnnn. yes. They stayed there a few weeks teaching the people, helping them dig a hole for waste, talking about Jesus to them etc. They said the people were begging them to stay and teach them more, as they were living much cleaner and healthier with the pigs gone, animals away from the house, and a proper toilet. They got lost in the forest on the way back, and the husband especially was doubting why they came. Just after praying for guidance, the wife looked up and saw a dove in a tree just ahead. It was a bit unusual to see a dove here, so she took it as a sign from God. The dove would fly just a bit ahead of them, and they would follow after. This continued for around 4 hours, when the dove flew off. They knew where there were by then, and prayed again to God – this time a prayer of thanks for his divine leading.
They also have a few other supernatural stories, as nearly everyone in this region of the world does. It is hard to believe for scientifically-trained people, but these things are real, and is what Satan’s angels seem to have fun doing. Both of these stories involve cats, and were told as a result of me mentioning that i didn’t see many cats in KATmandu:
Why the wife does not like cats, is:
There was a church member who was sick. She had gotten better and worse, but now was breathing her last. Church members gathered to pray for her in her room. While praying, suddenly a black cat appeared out of nowhere, and cried in a terrible voice. They tried to shoo it out, and continue praying, but the cat somehow got up on a high place, and threw itself down hard on the cement floor in front of them, gasping painfully as it died from the hard fall. Just as the cat died, the church member died.
The husband’s story i think was told him by a church member:
In the jungle there are many stories of cats being possessed by witches. Especially black cats. Anyway, there was a witch who had been seen eating the remains of a dead boy. Whether she killed him or not, i don’t remember for sure, but i think she did. Some men of the village went to catch her, and make her stop doing these terrible things. They had a big earthen jar, and caught her and put her in it. Some hours later after they had decided what to do with her, they went and took the cover off the big jar. A cat jumped out and ran away, leaving an empty jar.
The nicest story i heard tho is of a girl who goes to their school. The mission president told me the story while the girl and her mother were standing in front of me:
The girl had been attending St. Devi’s school for a couple of years, learning school work, but also about Jesus. She went home one time and told her parents that the idols they had in their house could not help them, as only the true God could help them. The parents followed their daughter’s advice, and threw away their idols and idol pics. The daughter was baptized last year, and the mother is scheduled to be baptized this month. She beamed and looked so happy, even if she didn’t have anything shiny in her nose anymore 🙂
The hilite of my stay was in studying chapter 32 of the 1858gc with the mission president and his brother. As with most people, they started answering the first paragraph’s questions with their ideas, but when i asked them to answer straight from the book, they caught on quickly. I thot they might get upset at me, because they have theology training, and one is the mission president, but, on the contrary, HE is the one who said about half way thru the chapter “I’ve never had this kind of study before. This is wonderful!” His brother said later that he did not realize before how deep this book was, and this study encouraged him to study more. I saw him several times during the rest of his stay there, with this book in his hands. We study chapter 30 a different evening, but there is a lot of commotion, and we aren’t able to concentrate properly. I know it’s hard when there are 80 children in your family!!!
Shampoo time is during the day, as nite time is just too cold. The water is heated by the sun, so during the day it is quite nice, even hot. But at nite it gets cold. I thot it would be colder, but daytime highs are above 20C, not too bad. Actually, it is warmer here than in Armenia and Georgia 3 weeks previous. But if you look on a world map, and draw a longitudinal line thru Kathmandu around the world, you may be surprised to see it isn’t far from the level of Orlando.
On the third day the sky is finally free from haze, and the beautiful, magnificent Himalayas are clearly visible on two sides. Lovely. The school is situated just outside the Ring Road, and i’m told was way out in the country just a few years ago when it was started, but now is right in the midst of a bunch of buildings, with more going up. Seems the Maoists have been running rampant in the villages, so many of them have sold out and moved into the big city. The Maoists have worked like the Mafia, coming around to even St. Devi’s, and demanding money, or they will throw a grenade into the school grounds. Money was paid. Even the Maoists are orderly, as they keep a record of all this in their computers. Well, the government found those records one time, and called all the “contributors” to meet with the govt. officials. They were scolded for helping the rebels, then they were treated to a banquet. According to the school matron, she felt like the govt. officials knew the schools and businesses were in a pickle, but had to be firm and warn them.
But just while i was there, on around the 20th of November, the Maoists signed an agreement with the govt. to lay down their weapons and bring an end to the 11 year old rebel war. School’s out! Everyone is happy, just hoping that it holds. The same day that the Maoist leader was in Kathmandu signing the historic peace accords, in some of the remote villages, students were captured for use by the Maoist army. The next day, the newspaper showed how some girls who had just graduated from high school, but couldn’t find a job, decided to join the Maoists, and shoot up stuff, so that they could get paid and eat. What a crazy way to think. Destroy stuff so you can have stuff. Kill people to get a paycheck. What a corrupt way of thinking. I sure hope they all get disarmed and reprogrammed soon, and that Nepal can get some businesses going, and of course, freedom of religion.
We lay plans on how to evangelise Nepal. I agree that the cottage meeting idea is excellent. It is funny, and heartwarming, to see how the mission president has stayed in from the field for one whole week to be with me and his brother, but he is itching to get back out and spread the gospel. That’s a true servant of the Lord. The Indian pastor brother says he will do the evangelistic series (cottage meetings) in the villages, so when he leaves, he will first stop in a village that a volunteer worker has already developed interests, and then continue his bus journey to India. He tells me later in a email that it felt very strange being in this village, and seeing many Maoists with guns. Fortunately, the peace agreement was still being kept, and no one harassed him. But if he had come just a few days earlier, being an outsider, they would have hounded him and asked for protection money. We are planning to start in January.
The live-in students have worship every evening, and i give the talk one time. After the talk, the little ones go quickly to eat, each one having their name read out, and they replying “yes maam”. It is cute. But the older ones stayed a bit and asked me questions. Four of them are planning to be baptized before yearend. One asks if baptism is absolutely necessary. Yes, but if not physically possible, like the thief on the cross, God can save anyway. “Where is heaven?” Ellen White saw in vision, that the New Jerusalem came down thru Orion. Not sure if they know what “Orion” is, but they seem to understand. I give the Sabbath sermon with 2 flower strands (like a “lei”) around my neck. The marigolds seem to keep the bugs away. I talk about the Three Angels’ Messages. There are probably around 80 kids sitting on the floor, and plastic chairs next to the 3 walls in the back seating perhaps 20 adults. This is in a room smaller than many living rooms i have seen in America. There is no fan, except for the Japanese one in my hand, giving me a cool breeze when i choose to make the effort to move my hand back and forth. Oh yes, i almost forgot the 30 or so who sit outside under a blue, plastic sheet. There is a English Sabbath school, and most of the teen-age crowd, and i, go there. It is not interesting at first, with the leader doing all the talking, but the last part is good, with participation.
We take a walk going from the school, to a small hill around 1km away where a Buddhist monastery is. We pass some paddies, but it is not rice season now, so not much is growing except weeds and a few potatos. Some people are carding cotton, making it soft and then cramming it into some sewn-together bedsheets it looks like. Maybe that will be their mattress. Further on there is a man who has ground up paper pulp, and is making hand-made paper. He arranges leaves of various trees in the pulp, and then takes it out carefully in its mold, setting it in the sun to dry. He says one costs 10 nepal rupees, or around 15cents usd. They are used for lamp shades. There is a young girl who is very interested in my camera. I show her the pic i just took of her mother (i guess) who is burdened down with a huge load of straw. My friend later mentions that it didn’t seem like much when seeing it with the naked eye, but when stopped in motion with the camera, it looks quite impressive. I have noticed that too, especially with detailed things like flowers etc., but am finding it to be true by personal experience when taking pics of people in life’s situations too.
We walk to the top of the hill on the paved road. There is a freshly painted, rich-looking Buddhist monastery, and a young monk allows us to follow him inside. It looks like they are getting foreign money for all this, and the English and Japanese signs bely that fact. He takes us straight to the pride and joy of the large campus – the relic room. It is here that the former leader of this place was cremated and has his wonderful (?) remains kept, that are miraculously sprouting (?!) etc. etc. I felt bad for not giving hardly any testimony about Jesus Christ to him, but on the way back down the hill we found a group of three monk-trainees walking up, and asked them what they thot about Jesus. One replied that he thot the Bible was interesting, but that is was forbidden to be read, as their minds would get confused. haha. That is absolutely correct. When the light enters a dark room, there is liable to be confusion, because the darkness is not so dark anymore. Sure hope that many of those young monk-trainees can break free from the darkness, and be strong workers to spread the light of Jesus around Nepal.
And not just Nepal, you can see signs in Tibetan in several places around town. Of course most of them are to be found around the Buddhist temples, the ones with the big eyes looking down, and the flags waving in the wind, the ones with the prayer wheels that you spin, hoping your prayer reaches heaven, and with the big white stupa. We go to one of the bigger ones in town, and it is sad to see so many walking around and around the stupa, hoping to increase karma or something. Some young people are prostrating themselves down to the ground in front of the thing. It is interesting to me that some people will go to all this trouble to pray to a false god, when many of God’s true people can’t be bothered enough to leave their comfy chairs. I do admit tho that God’s people can, and do, pray from anywhere, whereas for these people it is mostly done in the special place, or done in some special way in front of an altar in their homes. I doubt very many of them send up prayers to their false god while driving or working or exercising etc.
The 1858gc has been translated in Tibetan and Assamese, but the funds to print were only sent after leaving Nepal. I had started the process before going, but seeing the language and people who use that language with my own eyes gave impetus to get things done quickly. A email received on Christmas day says that the funds have arrived safely, so i hope the books will get printed soon, and God’s last message of mercy can go widely in the Tibetan region. I don’t know for sure, but probably this 1858gc will be one of the first books by Ellen White ever translated into Tibetan. May God receive all the glory, and many be loosed from bondage to walking around stupas spinning a prayer wheel.
The kids and i have a great time playing with a superball in the courtyard. Free time is from around 4pm – 5pm, and many of the young girls are kicking around a ball-like thing made out of black rubber bands. Some of the guys are too, as this is the most popular pastime it seems. Some a shooting a basketball, but don’t really seem to know what they are supposed to do with it. Some play ping pong, some just talk, and some are playing chase. They have a great time with the ball until one of the kids bounces it over the 12foot brick wall into the neighbor’s compound. Goodbye. The next day i get out a square super ball, and it causes lots of laughter and tumbles.
I’m allowed to teach English several times, and while the little kids, on up to 6th grade, are good, the higher grades are tougher, with some of the students reading magazines, and purposefully answering wrong just to seem “cool”. I like teaching 2nd and 6th graders best here, as the little ones are just all over themselves to answer, like pandemonium in a beehive, and the older ones are a touch shy, but look very confident when they can give a right answer. Using cards in class and having the kids make teams and rush to the desk with the cards on them to find the object called out – that is fun! Not hearing the bell, and continuing for an extra 20 minutes is a bit embarrassing tho, but the head school teacher says he has done it too. One or two teachers look a tad upset at all the noise coming from my classroom, but that’s OK, i like to have kids talk, as that is the whole point – to listen and talk and read and write in English. They can read and write without a native speaker to guide them, but listening and talking, that’s where i shine 🙂
We go to the Thamel area of town for me to buy a ticket out of here. This is where all the foreigners go, especially the backpacker – moderate types. There are tons of craft shops, and of course your usual t-shirt and trinket shops. Exchange shops are surprisinly scarce in the rest of the city, but abundant here. I guess the opportunity to get out of the country and send earnings back hasn’t caught on in a big way yet. Sure glad it is big enough to allow Air Arabia to give cheap flights here. We find a travel agency, and am told the ticket is 253usd. After checking out several other places, and the lowest quote being 250, i realize they are all in cahoots, so might as well buy it from the first shop, as that person seemed to be the best informed (and cleanest shop). He tells us to come back after 5pm, as the Royal Nepal Airline ticket agency is on break or something. So we wander around the city, going to Durbar Square where there is a collection of old buildings, especially old temples, and then we walk down a street called i think “Straight Way”, looking for camera stuff and usb flash drives. I find a 1gb Jet drive for around 28usd, and am happy to give that to my Indian pastor friend. I hope now he can type on his computer, then use the drive to take to a cyber shop to send stuff. When we get back to the travel agent, he says he can’t get it to us today. We are upset, and he promises to deliver it to us the following morning, which he does.
There is a long, snaky line outside the airport in the morning. I don’t understand why this is necessary, why do you have to have everything checked before you even go inside the building? Can’t you make it so that everyone can go inside, then only those actually going on a plane have to have their stuff checked? What’s the point in having it scanned here, and then going thru it by hand again after getting your boarding pass? Finally, after craning my neck for a last view of the beautiful orange peaks towering in the distance, i make it inside, just ahead of a friendly German computer programmer who is carrying back a piano crate worth of stuff. The sign says “check in”, and points to the left, directly at an escalator going up. OK, i can do that. “No!” says the guard. I point up at the sign, and he looks flustered, but doesn’t change his tune. hmmm. Finally someone sees my predicament, and asks if i need help. I tell him i need to get checked in, and points me to go behind the escalator. I can do that. Yes. Everyone is happy, but i’m not thrilled with whoever put this sign in such a misleading place. I pay the 10usd fee to leave the country, get a boarding pass, and head for the escalator again. Magic boarding pass. The young soldier hand-checking my backpack before i go inside the waiting room seems happy to practice his English, and is quite satisfied that i’m not such a bad guy if i can put chapatis and p-nut butter with bananas in my backpack.
The plane is packed, maybe 90% or more full. They haven’t painted over the “Royal” on this one yet, as i saw on one other plane. Reminds me that i didn’t ever get that pic of the king’s statue with the king missing. Oh well, hopefully i can come again. I really do love this place, not just because they treated me royally (not like a deposed one either!), but because the leaders of the SDA church here are really on fire, and have good plans to spread the gospel here, and make the church grow. Having a newly free country, with a peace accord with the rebels, now is the time to move quickly here in Nepal. Within a short time there will be many of Babylon’s preachers and teachers here, and it will be much harder to reach the people with the truth when they have had a taste of that poison first. Of course, if the country starts improving dramatically economically, you can expect the people to leave the countryside, and flock to the cities. They are harder to reach there because of all the temptations Satan has prepared for them.
So let us work now for Nepal, if you wish to help support some cottage meetings, or if you have some good plans to spread the gospel there, like help with printing Spirit of Prophecy books etc., please, please email me. I am more excited about this country’s possibilities than any other i have visited, with Vietnam second, and Cambodia third. A little work done now will be worth tons of work done later. Dear Lord, please bless Nepal more and more. We thank you so much for opening up this country, and bringing peace so that your message of everlasting peace can be spread easily. May your people rise to the task, and may your Holy Spirit work on the people’s hearts there to accept the Three Angels’ Messages, and to join your remnant church, and at last be saved in your eternal kingdom, with you ruling as our king forever and ever, Amen.
NOTE: Post written December 25, 2006