GO-ing means never having to say you’re sorry
“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” – Galatians 6:9 (ESV)
Compassion fatigue is a very real challenge when you find yourself in the trenches day in and day out, always trying to find a way to give more, do more, be more. The Apostle Paul encouraged the church at Galatia to always do good, and never give up.
In Nepal, if ever we have a moment when we are weary, we need only think of Sumitra. She is the poster child for our mission there.
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Sumitra.
On CHRISTmas day 2007, Gopal Pariyar carried his crippled daughter into the small house church that was meeting in the village of Dapcha east of Kathmandu in Nepal’s Central Region. Sumitra’s Hindi family had heard that Jesus could heal people and Gopal had tried everything – from praying to the 330 million Hindu gods to paying witch doctors to buying medicine. Nothing had worked and Gopal felt he had nowhere left to turn.
“He heard that if you go to church that Jesus would heal,” a Nepali brother in Christ said, translating Gopal and Sumitra’s story.
The church prayed for Sumitra. They asked for healing in the name of Jesus.
Soon after, Sumitra took her first steps. She received Christ and then she began to walk for the first time in nine years.
“She is sorry,” Sumitra told us through a translator in 2011. “What if I got Jesus earlier before being paralyzed?
“She is sorry for that – that she did not hear about Jesus before her sickness.”
When we heard these words our hearts broke. A young woman, our sister in Christ, was apologizing for not knowing Jesus earlier.
This was not Sumitra’s fault, nor the fault of her family. It was our fault. It was the fault of the church, the body of Christ. Why had we not delivered the Good News of Jesus Christ? What is holding us back today from taking the Gospel where it has not yet been heard?
Nepal is a former Hindu kingdom, where sharing Jesus was illegal until 1953 and where evangelism can still lead to jail. More than 60 years later, Nepal is among the top five most unreached countries in the world with 99.5 percent of the 31-million people remain unreached.
Climbing For Christ has ministered in Nepal since 2008. We have ventured through the Central Region, the Mid-West and the Far West. We have several Nepali members who are on the ground working every day. We support pastors, an orphanage, the distribution of Bibles, and the building of churches (four to date – Dapcha; Korchabang in the Mid-West district of Rolpa; Kathmandu, and Simikot in the Far West district of Humla), among other things.
Twelve Evangelic Expeditions were completed in this Himalayan country from 2008 through 2016 with two more scheduled for 2017.
There is much work to be done in Nepal, much good to do. We cannot grow weary. We have been inspired to be like Sumitra’s family. As her father told us: “I have to tell others in my surroundings this Good News.” He knows our need to GO.
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