What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike! 37You know the saying, ‘One plants and another harvests.’ And it’s true. 38I sent you to harvest where you didn’t plant; others had already done the work, and now you will get to gather the harvest.” (Jn 4:36-38 NLT)
For most of the past eleven years, the Lord has sent us into places of harvest. How often as I have watched hundreds of people––sometimes over a thousand––stream forward to give their lives to Christ, have I been so aware of all those heroes who have gone before us, breaking up hard ground, sowing the seed of the Gospel? With almost 50 Journeys now behind us, we have had a few trips where we were breaking spiritual ground: places like east Kenya, Cambodia, northern India, and southern Thailand. But for the most part, we have experienced the thrill of reaping large harvests that others have sown.
And then there was Nepal.
Our team from five nations gathered in Kathmandu and from there headed into the remote villages of the Himalayan foothills. This was among the steepest, most rugged terrain that I had ever seen. We were going into communities with only a tiny Christian presence; these villages were almost completely Buddhist. I have worked in a number of Buddhist communities before, but never in ones so culturally and geographically isolated. In many ways, it was like stepping back in time. Most people were illiterate; there was no medical care; most children did not attend even primary school; and everywhere there was the influence of witchcraft and deep superstition.
We first traveled to Gauri, a village about three hours northwest of Kathmandu. For the first two days the people, while grateful and accepting of the medical care we offered, were quite resistant to prayer. A small team climbed even higher up a mountain (we were already at close to 9,000 feet) to reach a community of about 250 that we were told about. Two of the nurses went with medicine in their backpacks; four others went with water filters and buckets. They were gone all day caring for many people. That night, back in the village, we had a large bonfire. Cautiously watching from a distance for several minutes, the villagers began to slowly move toward the fire. After a few testimonies, I very briefly shared about Jesus and the cross. To our amazement, almost all of the people listening received Christ. This was completely unexpected, given the atmosphere we had been working in for the whole time we were in Gauri. To be sure, the numbers were not very large––perhaps 60 or 70 adults and children had responded––but we realized that it was a significant breakthrough. Afterwards, most of them followed our team down the hill to be with us while we ate supper.
From there we traveled east for about seven hours to the remarkably isolated village of Kaleri. This was the community that Randeep’s team had been led to supernaturally following the earthquake last May. The spiritual darkness we felt was oppressive, certainly much heavier than in Gauri. Socially and economically, Kaleri seemed to be stuck in the distant past. Even though Randeep’s team had been there seven months ago, we were still dealing with a great deal of suspicion. Very few people wanted prayer for anything, even though their sickness and needs were obvious. They were all greatly afraid of the village witch doctors who were not happy that we were in their territory. But we just kept pressing ahead with medical clinics and water filter teams. And we continued to offer prayer. The second day we sensed a spiritual shift beginning to happen. More people accepted prayer; villagers started coming to us; we began to see some significant healing. On the third day, one of our team prayed for a witch doctor who had been in pain for a long time. The Lord healed him. In just a few minutes, this elderly man gave his heart to Jesus. By that evening, people started coming into our camp to receive prayer. Increasingly, they came with questions about the Gospel; a number came to Christ in our camp.
On the fourth morning as we were just emerging from our tents, Randeep came running into our camp with a limp child in his arms. This little girl had gone into convulsions from a very high fever and was now unconscious. Randeep was followed by a small crowd of family members and villagers. Some were whispering that this was the gods’ judgment on the family because the child’s grandfather had received Christ a couple of days earlier. Our medical team got to work on the two year old, while the rest of the team prayed. Besides the danger to the child, her fate would hugely impact the seeds of the Gospel that had been planted. As the team continued to work on the child, she showed little improvement, in spite of the treatment she was receiving. Some of the medical team put her into a jeep and headed up the mountain to the Red Cross hospital that was many miles away, while the team kept praying for her rescue. The further the jeep got away from the village, the better the child’s condition became. By the time she got to the hospital, there were no signs of sickness at all! Clearly this was an intense spiritual battle. They kept her in over night for observation. As word spread in the village of the child’s recovery, more people came to see us at the camp, many of them asking for prayer. The next morning, as our team drove up the mountain on our way back to Kathmandu, we came upon the child with her mother and father. The mother kept thanking us again and again: “You saved my baby’s life! You saved my baby’s life!” We assured her that it was Jesus who did that.
During our days in Kaleri hundreds of people received medical care; many hundreds more received a permanent source of clean drinking water. But the greatest change was that the light of Christ was increasingly penetrating the darkness. After twenty years, the only church had about 20 people attending. When we left, that number was about 65––certainly not a large number, but a clear indicator that significant spiritual progress had been made. People who had been afraid to talk to us when we arrived, now gathered around us. The apostle John wrote, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.” Once again, we saw the truth of this being lived out.
It is interesting: among those on the team who had been to other nations with Impact, even though we did not see the hundreds and hundreds of healings and salvations that we so often do in “reaping” areas, most of them told me that this was one of their greatest adventures.
What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike!
Add new comment