Iris Global Nepal
Base Update: April 2022
Blessings to you all from the beautiful nation of Nepal! We pray that this update finds you growing more and more in love with our wonderful Jesus. We are super thankful to God for all of you and everything you do from praying, encouraging us, and financially supporting us. Please know that you are truly partners in everything that God is using us to accomplish.
God continues to work in and through us as we choose Him and the things of His Kingdom every day. His grace is always sufficient and is being poured out on this nation even though many of them still choose to reject Him and worship idols. His word is true and His love transcends our sin:
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Rom. 5:6-8
That same unfathomable love and grace allows us to see Him work wonders here daily amongst the poor, outcast, addicts, and unreached. Here are just a couple of fun instances where His kingdom became “at hand” in the lives of various people.
Anil and Saroj
We regularly minister the love of Jesus in an area of Kathmandu called Thamel. It is a mix of tourists, trekking shops, guide services, dance bars, regular bars, prostitution, and homeless people. Many of the homeless people are just kids, sometimes as young as 5 years old, living on the street trying to get money from tourists. All of them are addicted to alcohol, glue, or drugs. We have known many of them for years and convincing them to leave the street for a better life has been very difficult. Last November while we were in Thamel doing ministry one night, we met some of our street friends down a dark alley where they normally sleep. One of the teenage boys, Saroj, was having a very difficult time walking. Saroj had been living on the street since he was 5 years old and is now 15. A friend of ours had taken him to the doctor for tests and the doctor had said that Saroj’s nerves had been damaged beyond repair due to years of sniffing glue. He said that if Saroj didn’t stop glue, he would be dead within 2 months. We tried to convince Saroj and his best friend, Anil, to come with us to our Freedom House so they could stop glue and save Saroj’s life. They were not receptive at all to that idea as they had been forced to go to the government rehab center before and it was not a nice place. They did agree, though, to come to church the following Saturday. We continued to pray over Saroj and brought them to church 2 or 3 times. Finally, when Saroj’s health got really bad, they agreed to try it out and come stay at the Freedom House. When we brought them, we had to carry Saroj from the road to the Freedom House because he could not walk on his own at all. It has now been almost 4 months and the two boys’ transformation is nothing short of miraculous. Both of them have accepted Jesus, both have been baptized, Saroj now runs up and down the terraced fields carrying animal food and harvested crops, they both have learned to read and write, and both have much greater dreams for their lives than they ever had before. It is an amazing, amazing testimony of the power of the love of our Lord Jesus. A photo of the two boys before and after is attached.
Chitlang Outreach
While we were recently praying with a visiting team, God gave them two specific words: “llama” and John 8:1 “Jesus went to the mount of olives.” We found out that there was only one place in all of Nepal that had an olive grove and llamas and that was Chitlang, a village in the Mawangpur district of Nepal. God had also gave us a word to go to the ‘forgotten people.’ So, when we arrived in Chitlang, we told the our pastor friend there that God wanted us to go to the place where the olive trees and llamas were. It is called Bisimkhel. The pastor actually laughed and told us that he had been there twice before years ago to preach the gospel and both times the people were very closed and forcibly made him leave. Because it had been years since that time, the pastor actually told us that he had ‘forgotten’ about those people. The next day we walked about 3 miles to Bisimkhel. The olive grove and llamas were outside of the village in a remote place and there were no people around when we got there. So, we just took out a guitar and started worshipping Jesus and praying for the village. One man eventually came and sat down so we thought he was the one God had sent us there to love. His name was Bikash. We spoke with him for awhile and eventually found out that he had a deep sadness from being in an accident and seriously breaking his leg a few years ago. While he was in the hospital recovering, his fiancé broke off their engagement. He was still having pain in his leg and couldn’t walk great and his heart was broken. After telling him about Jesus, he allowed us to pray for him and testified that his leg was better and he felt joy afterwards. We left that place and went to the village and Bikash came along. Because of Bikash’s testimony, more people were open to receive prayer and hear about Jesus. One man who was cursed by his neighbor and became partially paralyzed, testified to the village people that his legs were much better after we prayed. We stayed there until dark loving and praying for many of the villagers. The pastor was amazed at how God had opened the hearts of many there. We went back on the last day of our outreach and more people got healed and Jesus delivered one young girl of demons that gave her life to Him. Bikash also got saved and walked 6 miles roundtrip on his own to church on Easter! We plan to go back in a week to follow-up and show the Jesus Film in Bisimkhel. All glory to God!