A two-hour bumpy ride in a land rover over a dusty trail took us just ten miles west of the city of Dhangadhi along the southern border of Nepal. To the north at times Pastor Robert Hartman and I could make out the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains and to the south we could see the forest that marks the border with India. This is farm country. Broad, rich fields of wheat are ready for harvest. Soon the rice crop will be sown. Sugar cane, vegetables, goats and cattle abound. Dhangadhi is the center of the western part of the narrow agricultural plain that stretches along the entire southern border of Nepal.

We have come to a church constructed by Christian farmers several years ago. Land was sold, bricks were bought, and the men constructed a simple, but solid sanctuary that seats more than a hundred people. But it’s already too small—the congregation now numbers more than 200 people. Farmers pastor this church and others nearby. One of them received training from a Bible college in Delhi, but the pastors have seen various congregations split and then split again. Clarity is needed about the Bible. The pastors want to be united in the Scriptures. And they want to spread the gospel to the many that live in the mountains that form their horizon to the north.

The Board for World Missions accepted a request to help those pastors. We could provide literature and help them start a distance learning program. We could provide workshops to offer additional training for leaders of the Scripture learning groups that were now sprouting in dozens of little communities on the plain and especially in the mountains. While the core leaders, such as those pastor-farmers, are literate and knowledgeable about the Bible, many of the new leaders are barely literate; and they have only a rudimentary knowledge of the Scriptures. Few understand English well, only one speaks English well. Have we plunged into an impossible mission?

Paul Hartman

This article is taken from the Multi-Language Publications website.  Continue reading the rest of the newsletter.