By Kathryn and Kumar, Co-Mission Partners in Nepal

Serving in Nepal, Kathryn and Kumar are Co-Mission Part­ners with NZCMS, where we serve them in rela­tion­ship and in prayer. Their work focuses on church lead­er­ship and dis­ciple­ship, where they have been part of equipping thou­sands of local people to plant churches and spread the Gospel.  

In far West Nepal, 25 believ­ers gathered for fel­low­ship at a small village. People of that place have been seeking forseek­ing peace, as many are suf­fer­ing from evil spirits. When our CP and his team first visited, they tried praying for people and sharing about Jesus. Those who were curious went to them, but others were hes­it­ant. Things began to change, however, as people exper­i­enced deliv­er­ance from evil spirits that had long troubled them. They couldn’t keep quiet because of this and started telling their fam­il­ies and neigh­bours. Soon, others came to faith.

One wife who had long been imprisoned by an evil spirit began to recover, both body and spirit, after her husband trusted in Jesus. Even­tu­ally, she too put her faith in Christ! Today, almost half of the com­munity has found sal­va­tion and freedom through God’s grace and deliv­er­ance. PRAISE GOD for His saving grace and mercy!

K.B is known as one of the most ded­ic­ated and fruit­ful church plant­ers in his region. In his very first year of min­istry, he suc­cess­fully planted five churches, and his com­mit­ment to evan­gel­ism con­tin­ues to bear fruit even today.

One remark­able testi­mony from his min­istry involves a young man named K from Tati village. After hearing the Gospel, K put his trust in Jesus. However, his decision brought great opposition—his family and rel­at­ives expelled him from their home and began to per­se­cute him. For two months, K stayed at the home of another believer, where K.B. visited him often to encour­age and pray with him.

Determ­ined to grow in his new faith, K later joined a short-term dis­ciple­ship train­ing. After com­plet­ing the 3‑month course, he returned to his village to rebuild rela­tion­ships and share about Christ. His stead­fast faith deeply touched his family, and one by one, they began to accept Jesus. Today, a new church has been planted in that village, with K himself leading it faith­fully, evan­gel­ising four to five fam­il­ies each day.

After joining our church plant­ing work, T.K. reached out to his own tribal com­munity– the Santhal people, one of the most under­priv­ileged groups in the region. With a clear vision and a heart full of faith, T.K. ded­ic­ated himself to full-time evan­gel­ism among the Santhal community.

God opened doors, and he was able to plant a new church there. Today, 30–35 Santhal believ­ers gather reg­u­larly for worship and fel­low­ship. Before Tala’s min­istry began, there were no single believ­ers in that com­munity. Now, this church stands as a shining testi­mony, making a tre­mend­ous impact and drawing others to faith in Christ!

One of B.R.’s min­istry fields is among people of Muslim back­ground, where sharing the Gospel is often met with great challenges.

Through B.R’s tire­less evan­gel­ism, people from two dif­fer­ent fam­il­ies came to know Christ. They began attend­ing worship ser­vices reg­u­larly, growing in faith and fel­low­ship. However, as others in the com­munity knew about their new­found faith, per­se­cu­tion arose. The local Muslim com­munity began threat­en­ing them and for­bid­ding them from attend­ing church.

Despite these chal­lenges, B.R. con­tin­ues to stand firm in his mission, caring and encour­aging the new believ­ers. He requests con­tin­ued prayers for God’s pro­tec­tion and strength—that the believ­ers may remain stead­fast and that many more may come to know Christ through their testimony.

A few churches have been estab­lished in other sur­round­ing vil­lages, but none had ever suc­ceeded in plant­ing a church inside Bhet­eghari. Each time a believer tried to enter and share the gospel, the vil­la­gers would stop them and send them back.

One par­tic­u­lar man was espe­cially hostile towards Chris­ti­ans. He would chase anyone who came to share the gospel, and on some occa­sions, even beat the evan­gel­ists. Sharing the message of Christ seemed impossible.

With a heart full of prayer, A. visited the village, going house to house, gently sharing the gospel and praying with people. When he encountered the hostile man, he saw that the man was greatly dis­tressed and des­per­ately trying to find treat­ment for his ser­i­ously ill son. A. began praying for the man and reg­u­larly visited him and his family.

Mean­while, the entire village had another huge problem—there was no water. The land was dry, so people struggled daily. A. encour­aged the new believ­ers to pray spe­cific­ally for water, so the com­munity prayed earn­estly for an entire month. Then some­thing remark­able happened. The muni­cip­al­ity finally had a water project for the village! The vil­la­gers were ecstatic when water finally flowed, and those who had heard the believ­ers praying began to say, “This happened because of prayer.” Slowly, the hearts of the people began to soften, includ­ing the hostile man whom A. had been vis­it­ing and praying for— he too later on came to faith and believed Christ whole­heartedly. The once hostile and angry man had been trans­formed into a strong believer by the love and grace of the Lord!

Bhet­eghari village now wit­nesses the power of prayer and the hope that Christ brings. Today, 18 new believ­ers con­tinue to gather there for worship—something that had never happened before.

This article was taken from this year’s Annual Report. You can read and down­load the full report here.