Today was a travel day. It took about seven hours to travel from southern Nepal back to Kathmandu through the hills. That included almost an hour of traffic just getting into Kathmandu! Fortunately, most of the drive was beautiful.
If you look carefully you can see the carefully constructed fields for growing rice. These continue up many of the hillsides in beautiful terraces. Rice is a staple here and people rely on it along with lentils to provide the core of their basic nutrition.
The possibilities of Nepal as a nation seem myriad. Certainly despite their comparative isolation from other locations they remain a huge draw for tourists, driven mostly by the desire to witness eight of the ten tallest mountains on Earth, including Mt. Everest. While a draw this terrain is also complicated. During the rainy season of the summer, rains can cause landslides and mudslides that destroy roads and villages. Pollution is another challenge here, and much of the scenery is marred by the litter on the ground and the haze overhead. However in the hills and mountains the smog disappears and it’s much brighter and clearer.
We give thanks for safe travel today and our friend, driver and translator, Rabindra. He overseas an organization called Livingstone Ministries that works with groups of churches throughout Nepal to assist them in providing necessary training to their pastors and church leaders to teach God’s Word faithfully to his people and share it in love with their neighbors. Christians constitute only about 2-3% of the population of Nepal, which is overwhelmingly Hindu. But Christianity is growing rapidly, due in no small part to the practical love of Christians towards their neighbors.
Please pray for Christians in Nepal that they would continue to receive the blessings of God each day for life and for ministry. Pray they are able to continue sharing the love of Christ with their neighbors and that more and more would come to faith (estimates are that Christianity is growing by 13% a year in Nepal – clearly the Holy Spirit is at work!). Please also pray we can find ways to come alongside Christians in Nepal to provide training as well as other necessities for them to serve their own people.
The Nelson Family Indonesia 