Wednesday, February 24, 2010

January 2010 Peak Team

This past January God put together a phenomenal team of students for the purpose of taking the message of the love of Christ to the people of Nepal, both in the remote areas of the Annapurna region, as well as in the big cities of Kathmandu and Pokhara. The team came from all over the US as well as our first international team member who came all the way from Bolivia. The team was very diverse in personality, but one thing was certain, they all were deeply in love with Jesus, had a desire to share that love with others, and as a team their diversity came shining through in a culmination of giftedness that made sharing Christ a powerful experience. When it came time to plan our outreach event for over 480 students at a remote mountain village school, Kelly’s creativity came to life, Claudia’s gift of evangelism was definitely loosed, and Kate kept us all focused, organized, and on track. The result was several days of clearly communicating the gospel of Jesus Christ with all of the students, the faculty, and many other members of the community. The relationships continued to deepen during our time there and God continued to lay the foundation for continued ministry in this village.
We have been going to Ghandruk for many years now and are beginning to see a powerful moving of the Holy Spirit there. Up until 2 years ago there were only 3 know Christians within a 6 hour walk of this village. Last year a home church was started about an hour away. This year there is a church that has been started a stones throw from the big buddhist monastery we have been praying over for many years. This church has about 25-30 regular attenders and just had a huge Christmas celebration where the entire village was invited. Many of the people we have been investing in attended this celebration and were asking more and more questions about what it means to be a follower of Christ. We are so very excited to be a part of what God is doing here. Our Peak Team did an amazing job of furthering the gospel in this community and i am so excited to be back there this coming May to do some teaching at the church, some discipleship with the villagers, and continued prayer with our brothers and sisters who call this place home.
We had a chance to sit down with one of the elders of the church on our last night in Ghandruk. As we sat around the bon fire behind our guest house we were able to pray for him and the church, pray over our friends who were there who do not yet know Christ, and continue to shine the light of the love of Jesus with them. One of the requests that was shared that night was for more biblical training and discipleship for the leaders of their church. They do not have any formal training or seminary degrees. No libraries or resources in their language. i will be working on getting them those resources through Desiring God ministries/Packing Hope, and will be planning some trips to help with ongoing training. Join me in praying as we seek to eliminate this need!