Mission Moments: Nepal

Baptizing new believers

Brother Megh and Pastor Dulsar baptizing new believers in a mountain stream in 2012 before Climbing For Christ helped build the church at Korchabang. (Photo by Dave Stoessel)

Pastor Dulsar once led Maoists in a bloody civil war that killed more than 19,000 people in Nepal from 1996-2006. Now he leads the church in a place that has been a stronghold to both communism and his country’s Hindu tradition.

The Holy Spirit led him from a life as a rebel to walking with Jesus.

Dulsar walks the rugged hills in Nepal’s Mid-West district of Rolpa delivering the Good News. We have been blessed to walk with him for several years, helping him build a house of worship in his village and funding the building of another church in a nearby village. Joyfully, we have witnessed the baptism of many new believers in Rolpa – as well as other parts of Nepal.

Megh Gurung, our staff’s Nepali kingdom worker, says 137 have been baptized in Rolpa, where a Climbing For Christ team visited on Mission: Nepal 2017, Part 1 in May. Fifteen have been baptized in the district of Huma, where our next team is GO-ing this week on Mission: Nepal 2017, Part 2. The pastor of the church we helped build in Humla told Megh another five or six people will be baptized.

In a country where every day is associated with a Hindu deity and the government recognizes 81 Hindu holidays, the church is alive and well. It grows in the face of increasing opposition. There’s no stopping the Holy Spirit.

To celebrate how God is touching and changing lives in Nepal, I wanted to share a few images I have taken of the many baptisms we have witnessed since 2012:

Megh, above second from right, with Dulsar, right, teaching those about to be baptized the significance of what they are about to do in May 2017.

Above, a new believer emerges from the water in the baptism pool built behind the church at Korchabang in May 2017. Below, before the pool was built, the church at Korchabang hiked down to a stream for baptism, this one in 2012.

A very cold baptism in a mountain stream at 10,000 feet in Humla in 2014.

Pastor Tej Rokka from ministry partner SARA (Savior Alone Redeems Asians) baptizes in a temporary pool built at the church at Dapcha in 2016. This was the first church Climbing For Christ helped build in Nepal. Pastor Tej and SARA ministries have baptized hundreds across Nepal.

The Word

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  – Matthew 28:19 (ESV)