Illegal Nepalese Dilemma

 Dilemma of illegal Nepalese in Korea

Many Nepalese come to Korea with the hope of earning money and securing their future, but the three year time period for their stay here as legal workers is just enough for them to pay back the debt by which they came to Korea and send some for their families to have few new items in their homes.  The first year is simply spent in getting used to the basics of life and work environment in a foreign land and some give up their dreams and return.  But those who manage to stay for three years; they get used to the culture and society and become accustomed to the way of life.  They pick up the language, and know in and out of their working environment.  When they are just about to live and work in Korea without much difficulty in terms of language, food and culture, time comes for them to go home. 

At the same time, the home country continues to go from bad to worse every year.  As they communicate to their family members, everyone suggests them that it is better for them to stay in a country like Korea illegally than coming back to Nepal where there is no hope of doing anything.  As the three year period comes to a close, they run away from their working places and start working as illegal workers.  Many companies do prefer the illegal workers than going through the hassles of hiring the legal ones; beside, the illegal ones already are good at work, language and adjustment where as the new ones will have to be trained all over again.  So, the illegal Nepalese workers have no problem of finding the employment.

There are about 3 thousand or more illegal Nepalese working in Korea, but the latest crackdown by the government has become so painful for these friends whose hopes lie in their being here so that they can continue to work and send money for their families in Nepal.  They wish to stay here for few more years so that they could save some for their future and at the same time wait for their nation to be a place where they could live and work without fear and uncertainty.

However, many Nepalese are caught by the immigration officials these days and some are already held in detention centers, waiting for their time of deportation.  They had plans, hopes and wishes, but all of them are now dashed, not because it is a bad thing to go home, but because, for Nepalese, home means, absolutely no job, insecurity, extortion by the Maoists and criminals and even kidnap and death.  The Maoists and criminals know that a worker from a country like Korea does have some money for them to extort.  As they wait in the detention centers, their minds become restless.  On the one hand, they hare happy to see their family members and loved ones that they have missed so much, but on the other hand, when they think of the over all situation in Nepal, they feel helpless and lost.

The political situation in Nepal is getting nowhere and there is a strong possibility of bloodshed and perhaps a total control by the Maoists.  Economically, there is absolutely no condition for any investment or entrepreneurship.  Except in the monsoon season, there is no electricity for more than 15 hours everyday, constant transport strikes and closers of normal life have completely paralyzed the nation.   Factories and businesses are being taken over by the workers who are being brainwashed by the extreme communistic ideology of Maoism; businessmen are running away from the nation for their lives.  Departmental stores and shopping centers have become like hunted houses because the workers demanded more than what the owners could pay them and government loathes them with heavy taxes.  Security wise, when one leaves home, one does not know when or whether he/she will be able to come back, and for those who do have wealth and property, life is very uncertain; the constant news of kidnapping and killing for ransom have taken away their sleep and hunger.  Parents wait anxiously for their children to return from school and breathe a sigh of relief when they see them safely home.

With this kind of a picture in mind, a Nepali feels safer in Korea even if it means living like a fugitive, but a thought of going home creates a panic.  Deep down in the heart, everyone wishes to go home but the present reality of Nepal sends a chilling sensation in the spine every time the thought of deportation comes to mind.

Academics with Affections

Academics with Affections

Coming from Hindu religious background and atheistic (communist) indoctrination, my journey into Christian faith was an adventure of academics and affections. I was born into a devout Hindu family that faithfully observed their religious duties and astrological signs. My father would not leave the house for any emergencies unless the signs in the sky were right for him to do so. For a man like that, the birth of the first son was a major event and every detail surrounding the birth had to be recorded in the birth-scroll (horoscope) as soon as possible. Two meters long scroll was prepared for me and unfortunately, the priest discovered that my birth had taken place in one of the most inauspicious moments in the Hindu calendar; my birth ushered father’s death. The only way to avoid his imminent death was for him not to see me (a Hindu father generally would not see his new born child until the priest prepares the horoscope). The priest explained that so long my father does not see me, he would live and gave them two options; either the mother should stop feeding the infant or give the infant away to someone never to be remembered again. I was lucky! When I was nine days old, my maternal grandmother took me away; eight hours’ journey to her distant village. I stayed with grandmother until I was 11, never knew where I had come from. By the time I was seven, I had begun to pray to various Hindu gods about my origin and destiny. Meanwhile back in my home, a different priest had a look at my horoscope, and he discovered that I was not at all a danger to my father! The first priest had made a horrendous mistake!

In my eleventh year, the news came that I had parents and I was going home! Reluctantly they did bring me home and for the first time I saw my father, brother and sisters! About mother, I had seen her before many times but nobody had told me that she was my mother. She used to visit her family and then take me in her arms and silently cry and I had no idea that she was my mother. Sadly, even after I came home, my father refused to look at me and talk to me and my joy of finding my family ended there.

As a bewildered teenager, I lost my faith in religion and got into a communist group. Spending few years in their indoctrination campaigns, I thought that I had found my destiny. But in an amazing way, I met Jesus Christ (which is a different story all together) in my 17th year and did I realize what life was all about; questions of my origin and destiny were settled forever and from the age of 19, I entered into the full time ministry as an itinerant preacher without having any formal theological training. Later I was persuaded to go for formal theological education which then led me to a reputed Bible College in a Southern Indian city of Bangalore. It was there in that college that my life was refined for a lasting Christian service; after four years I received my Bachelor of Theology degree along with academic excellence award. I had the privilege of being mentored by wonderful men and women of God from various parts of the world whose influence still adds new impetus every time I am reminded of. Some filled the place of my father and others filled the place of a brother but not every one of the mentors under whose ministry I sat was able to leave a lasting legacy behind; some were dry and detached from what they taught.

After 8 years of full time ministry in the area of theological education and church pioneering, I had another chance to go for Master of Divinity course at Torch Trinity Graduate School of Theology in Seoul where once again had the privilege of meeting many more men and women of God, some of whom had great academic achievements in their lives. But there were others, who also had great academic credentials, but their academic credentials were coupled with deep emotional affection for their students. As a mature student after years of ministry experience, I was greatly touched and impacted by their personal affections and academic excellence. I was able to re-evaluate and correct my own way of learning and teaching to my students.

Finally, another opportunity to further my theological education came my way and the Lord led me to do Master of Theology and Doctoral studies at Asia Life University in Daejeon. The university is relatively young and much of the infrastructure is still developing, but compared to the schools I have studied in and taught at, the ALU leadership and the professors possessed higher degree of affection for their students. The affection I found in ALU is coupled with high degree of respect toward students as co-workers in the kingdom of God regardless of their nationality and level of learning (which is a rarity in Korean context). Almost all of the professors have earned their doctoral degrees from prestigious universities in the US, UK and elsewhere, and have the reason to boast for their academic achievements. But they demonstrate such a depth of humility and camaraderie inside as well as outside the classroom that demands highest respect from their students. I am grateful to God for the privilege of being a part of such a wonderful place and I am sure the Lord will use these men and women of God to impact countless lives. It is my prayer that the professors that I have studied under in many of these schools would continue to strive for their academic excellence but would not forget to cap their academic caliber with affectionate countenance; without the affections of the heart, the dry and cerebral academics alone will not be able to leave a lasting legacy behind for their students to cherish.

As I reflect on the influence of my professors in my life, I am reminded of the two great Jewish Rabbis; Hillel and Shammai who had titanic struggles with one another for ascendency and influence during the either side of the first century. Hillel was known to be a man of great affection and tremendous influence among the Jewish populace while Shammai was a strict legalist who lacked compassion and wider following, but both were among the finest minds of their time. Shammai outlived Hillel and tried to eradicate Hillel’s influence by weakening the house of Hillel through all means, but according to the tradition, a voice from heaven nullified Shammai’s position on the Law (Yerushalmi Berakhot, 1:7) and till today, it is the position of Hillel that has survived as a testimony to the power of a teacher who possesses academics and affections.

One of the reasons why scholars and theologians lack affections in their academic life can be understood on the basis of their relationship with suffering. Hillel was born in Babylonia, and at the age of 40 he went to Jerusalem to study the Torah and for the next 40 years (Hillel is thought to have lived 120 years) he went through a lot of opposition, rejection, suffering and pain where as Shammai was on the side of persecuting Hillel and had relatively comfortable life compared to him and failed to express compassion to his fellow human beings. Most of the arm-chair scholars who have never faced suffering of any kind in life are wonderful to read but terrible to have relationship with. Such theologians neither can adjust in any local church nor are they able to run theological institutions and thus they resign themselves away from people in the company of their books. But of course in the area of scholarship, affection void of academic depth is equally ineffective to impact students’ life. I am fortunate to have met many wonderful people of God who have touched and transformed my deranged mind and damaged emotions so that today, every time I stand behind a pulpit, a podium or a lectern, I too wish to leave something behind.

Ministry at Sooyoungro Nepali Church, Pusan

During Chusok holidays, we were invited by Sooyoungro Nepali Church in Pusan to share the word of God. Our theme was "Living as Aliens", not just from one country to another, but our life here on earth is a pilgrimage, we are strangers in a foreign land until we reach our final home, a city whose builder and maker is God himself.


We also spent a day in a famous Heundae beach in Pusan!!

One Life to Live and One Wife to Love

Former president of South Korea, Kim Dae-jung, died on August 18 at the age of 85. Born in a remote Island of the South-western seacoast of Korea, DJ (affectionately called by common people) made his way up to the highest office in the nation but his journey was full of ups and downs as he becomes nostalgic in his diary. For him to say that his life was full of ups and downs is a very mild way of putting the perilous journey into a lighter tone. His was a journey filled with sufferings, sorrows and death itself. But his dedication and idealism for democracy in his homeland paid at last and he became the first democratically elected 15th president of South Korea, brought his nation out of the Asian economic crisis and nearly succeeded in uniting the two Koreas after a half a century of hostility. It was during his administration that the world actually got to know what Korea is really like; the resilient spirit of Korea coupled with love and forgiveness was personified in the life of the man Kim Dae-ung. Nobel Peace Prize added just a little flavor to a man whose life was already an aroma of inspiration for any aspiring politicians and civil servants. He carried this aroma of inspiration around him primarily because of his strong faith in God as a devout Catholic which undergirded his moral convictions that man must live to love God and serve fellow human beings. Such faith in God sprang from a tragedy when his first wife died suddenly leaving him behind with two young sons. His faith was again tested and affirmed when he was kidnapped from a hotel in Tokyo, bound and bundled in a boat to be drowned in sea by the Korean secret servicemen. In that moment of death, he had a mystical experience of Christ and miraculously with the help of US government, was spared from drowning. With this strong Christian conviction, in a culture where bribery, corruption and power grabs are considered normal, DJ exhibited a different moral standard of humility, forgiveness and reconciliation. His second marriage to a strong Christian activist only strengthened the faith that had already led him through many troubles and he led the nation from the economic miracle story of the 80s and 90s to a miracle of one of the most democratic and free societies in the world.
In retrospect, one can say that DJ was a successful man who lived his life to the full. On January 11, 2009, six month prior to his death, he wrote: "The relationship with my wife is now the best it has been since we got married. I love and look up to my wife. If it wasn't for my wife, it would have been hard for me to stand where I am right now. But I can't imagine myself without her, even at this point of time. I pray every day to God that we could live happily together for a long time."
At the grand old age of 85 he says, “The relationship with my wife is now the best it has been since we got married”, and he prays everyday that God would allow them to “live happily together for a long time”. This was not a wish of a man who had squandered loving relationship with his wife and was regretting at the end of his life; it was a wish of a man who had very fulfilling and richly blessed marital relationship with his beloved wife. Theirs was a story of a marriage filled with love and mutual respect. In a typical Korean society it is not a common thing to hear a husband confessing his respect for his wife, but almost all the letters he wrote to his beloved wife from the prison begin with “To you with love and respect”, and till the end he kept his love and respect for his wife and only wished to deepen it. Sadly, his wish to live happily together for a long time with his wife lasted only about six months in this world, and God willing, eternity awaits them for that. But here is a lesson for us who are still much younger than DJ to make that wish come true. As we come to the end of our lives in this world, may our wish to love and respect our wives and husbands be not from the regrets of failure to do so while in good time, but may it be a desire only to deepen the life-time of cherished love and respect because wife and husband will be the only person that will matter the most when we come to the end of our journey.
Sometimes, when we are in pursuit of ambitions, it is easy to neglect this part of life. Other times, our stupidity, selfishness and greed may destroy all the beauty of a marriage and a home. But from the life of a man who was never free from the challenges and dangers, we learned that he never forgot who mattered the most in his life. As he grew older, his love for his wife grew deeper as his prayer tells it all. He died as a man who loved his wife and reaped life full of contentment; he died with no regrets. Surely, he was not an angel or a saint, in their marriage they may have had their fair share of struggles, but judging from his words, it is easy to see the heart of a man who truly loved his wife and if given a chance for another life would have asked for no other person.
From Kim’s diary, if there is one thing we need to learn to have a happy ending; it is to have a hope for the better marriage every single day of our life in spite of all the struggles. It is to wish to love our spouses more than yesterday, respect them more than they deserve and if we can do this, every marriage will last a life-time with flames of love still blazing. Our romance does not have to be buried after the birth of our first child and respect for wife does not have to be equated with “joitingre” . Extended families and in-laws do not have to replace our spouses and economic hardships and suffering of any kinds do not have to be the messengers of doom for our “happy ever after”. If there is love and respect for each other, in the midst of all hell, we can still have a wonderful marriage filled with love, respect and romance as demonstrated by beloved DJ and his wonderful wife.

In God We Trust

The national motto of the most powerful nation on earth reads “In God We Trust”. Out of the ashes of terrible civil war, the nation longed for some sense of hope and security and the motto first appeared on the United States’ coin in 1864. Nearly a century later in 1956, President Eisenhower approved this motto into a law passed by the US Congress to provide a calming assurance from the looming danger of communism and a new kind of imperialism hiding behind the shadow of cold war. The congress insert reads: “In these days when imperialistic and materialistic communism seeks to attack and destroy freedom, it is proper to remind all of us of this self-evident truth that as long as this country trusts in God, it will prevail”. The wisdom and the commitment to recognize human limitations in the affairs of a nation by the historical leaders of the United States has stood the test of time, and today the nation reaps the reward of their faithfulness. God said to Moses in the second commandment that he will punish the children for the sins of their father until the fourth generation but he will show love and kindness to a thousand generations of the righteous. Psalms 33:12 says “blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh”. In spite of the carnality and heathenism that we see coming out of the United States of America, this nation still has a divine hedge built around it because God is ever faithful to his promises made in covenant with his faithful servants. The carnal children of the US still benefit from the faithfulness of their forefathers because their forefathers chose to trust God, individually and nationally, and left behind a blessing for a thousand generations.
The same story can be repeated for many of the European states whose forefathers trusted God and the children still reap the blessings of peace, prosperity and freedom which the world is in great need of. China and many of the Islamic nations are now wealthy and prosperous but with great cost to peace and human freedom. God created man with free will but in these nations the free will of man has to be regulated by manmade rules. Man has become the master in these nations even though there is plenty of prosperity. Japan and South Korea have enjoyed peace, prosperity and freedom; thanks to their association with a nation that carries God’s blessing. It is the American money, manpower and prayers that have made what these two nations have become. The rest of the nations in the world has a long way in recognizing Yahweh as their God and thus deprive their citizens of the blessings of peace, prosperity and liberty. They have lived in misery for thousands of years and will continue to do so until they recognize the Lordship of Yahweh.
Now, as a citizen of a nation like Nepal, what hope do I have? What blessings can I expect from my forefathers who broke the very first and second commandments of God and worshiped the creation instead of the creator? The first book of the Bible is named Genesis, which means “beginnings” and in the very beginning of this book, Satan is represented by a snake that deceived the first man. The Bible also tells us that Satan fell from heaven because he refused to worship God; he wanted to be God and wished the angelic beings to worship him. He wanted to set up his throne higher than God’s. But God cast him down and replaced him by the creation of man. But we see him in Genesis chapter three as a snake and today there is no household in Nepal (except Christians and Muslims) on whose doorpost they do not post a picture of five, seven or sometimes nine snakes entangled together. Every year on Nag-panchami (Day of the snake god), the Hindu households will replace these pictures with the worshiping ceremony of the snake god. The snake posters will be posted on the top horizontal post of the door frame so that when a person goes out of the house, the head has to be a bit bent down to worship the snake and the same thing when one enters the house (traditionally, the doors in a Nepali house are slightly shorter than the average height of a person so that one has to bend the head to enter in and out of the house and therefore, the best place to put the snake god). In a devout Hindu home, every door in the house must have one of these snake posters. This tells us that what the Bible symbolizes as evil, Nepal worships as its main god. In Egypt, the blood of the lamb that symbolized Jesus Christ was put on the doorpost for the deliverance, but today Nepal replaces the blood of the lamb with the symbol of Satan itself. What blessings will we hope for?
On the national level, there is no hope now for Nepal. Unless the rulers and the general population turn to God and repent from the generations of violating the very commandments of God; our nation has no hope of prosperity, peace and freedom. The atheistic Maoists might be able to bring economic prosperity (that is because in my assumption, God prefers an atheists than an idolater), but this economic prosperity might come with a high price of peace and human freedom. In their pursuit of absolute power, they will not be hesitant to kill any number of people and once they have the power, there will be no liberty left for the common man. But because poverty is such a terrible task master, the general public might be happy to live under the political tyranny than the tyranny of poverty. So, there is no hope of a national blessing for Nepal.
But on the individual level, there is hope. There is hope because God in Jesus Christ transcends the national and collective boundaries and brings his blessings to every individual. Any Nepali who has accepted Jesus Christ as his or her personal savior from sin and satanic bondage has the power to break free from all generational curses. If anyone is in Christ Jesus, he or she becomes a new creation (2Cor.5:17) and Jesus has covenanted with such people a new covenant by his own blood (Luke 22:20). He has become the lamb that was slain and his blood on the doorpost of their hearts protects them from the angel of death and destruction. They are born again and all their past has been wiped away and now they are free to create a new genealogy for their posterity that will last for eternity in the blessings of God.
But this new beginning has to begin by trusting God just like Abraham trusted and he was declared a friend of God (Romans 4). Hebrews 11:6 says “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him”. David says in Psalms 40:4 “blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust”. This picture of blessedness is beautifully painted by Jeremiah in the context of a man who trusts in man. The one who trusts God is “like a tree planted by the water…does not fear…leaves are always green…has no worries…and never fails to bear fruit” (17:7-8). But “cursed is a man who trusts man…will be like a bush in a wastelands…will not see prosperity…dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives” (17:5-6). This is a very scary picture the prophet paints for the man whose trust rests on man. But the one who trusts God, he or she shall be free from lack, fear and worry and will live in the land of prosperity. This land of prosperity does not have to be some other nation or geographical location. In fact, regardless of a national boundary, one can enter into this blessedness on the basis of one’s trust in God, and therefore, Nepali followers of Jesus Christ do not have to bear the burden of generational curse from their forefathers. God in Jesus Christ is able to come to their aid and bless them spiritually, physically and materially.
But have we seen all these blessings (spiritual, physical and material) come to us in the last 50+ years of Christian history in Nepal? Yes and no. Yes, because, first, many Nepalese have come to the Lord and spiritually they have received eternal life. With the handful of Christians in 1960s, today some estimates claim that there are a million Christians in our nation. So, let’s say that all of these one million Christians have received the forgiveness of sin and eternal life; that is the greatest spiritual blessing we can ever imagine. The Nepali church is strong in preaching the message of salvation; Jesus Christ saves. Second, we also have received physically blessing of healing. The highest cause of the growth of the church in Nepal is physical healing. Even the cessationist Baptist and Presbyterian ministers in Nepal are still preaching that healing is possible when they pray (in their seminaries they teach that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit have ceased after the death of the apostles). So, the church in Nepal preaches that Jesus saves and Jesus heals, but the third aspect of the blessing, which is material, is the biggest issue now. Salvation is not possible apart from Jesus Christ and they trust him for that. Healing is also not possible apart from Jesus Christ and they trust him for that. But for the material blessings! Because, right from the early days, Christian leaders found out that man can meet their material needs and because of that, this faculty to trust God for material blessing never developed in their newly formed spiritual brain. Because the leaders did not have to worry for their material needs (their needs were met by outside donations), they did not know how to teach their members to trust God to meet their material needs.
The Christian population even today comes from the lower end of social stick and they have tremendous needs. They cannot send their children to school, they never have the luxury of seeing a doctor when they become sick, and they do not know what it is to have a vacation in life because if they do not work for the day, there would be no food in the evening. Life in this world to them becomes a burden from which they wish to be free and that’s why they trust the Lord Jesus for their eternal rest. But unfortunately, they have never been told that God has the ability to give them the glimpses of that blessed rest from the tyranny of poverty right here on earth if they could exhibit the same trust that they have for salvation and healing. Until today the Nepali Christian leaders have blinded the Nepali believers from trusting God for the material blessings by demonstrating that without the outside financial the Nepali church cannot exist. But, like the motto of the US, it is not the money that would give us the rest and peace and freedom in this world, but it is our trust that puts us in a higher plane of life where every need is met by the power of God. And therefore, Nepali believers need to learn to trust God to carve their new course for their own lives as well as for their posterity by placing their trust in God’s goodness and his ability to bless them and meet their needs. The God who is able to save them and heal them is able to meet their material and financial needs; and thus individual Christians can be free from the national curse that comes from breaking his commandments.

Church With No Songs

The Sunday came; I was not engaged for any ministry related matters. I decided to visit a church that I had ministered in a few years ago when I was a student. It was a lovely congregation of people coming from different nations, but mostly the English speaking Koreans or the Korean Americans. They had a pastor from an English speaking country.
This morning I arrived there early because they had moved the time half an hour late. The deacon that I knew was still there, fixing the place for worship. But when I saw a bewildered look into his face after shaking my hand, I did not know what to make of it. But he politely informed me that the church is no longer the way it used to be and not many people come. In Korea, most English or international congregations are either branches or the department of strong and powerful Korean churches. This particular church was no exception.
As I was sitting there for nearly 40 minutes, four mid thirties ladies came in and then three more men. The deacon had fixed the microphone and the chairs, in the bulletin, the name of the preacher and the presider was printed. Well over 15 minutes of the starting, no one showed up. Then a little girl of about 10 years old came in. She sat on the front row and called someone from her mobile phone. As she finished the call, in came the English department pastor, not the person from an English speaking nation but a Korean educated in UK with zero level of English communication. He fixed a small microphone for the little (apparently she could be his daughter, but we never had a chance to meet them) girl sitting in the front row. Neither was there any opening prayer, nor was there any one to play music, and believe me, this was the first time in my entire life that I attended a church service without singing a one line of hymn or a chorus, I mean not one song or a prayer (except benediction). The pastor went to the pulpit and motioned towards the deacon who was way back controlling the sound system. The pastor muttered a few words in Koreans and the deacon replied likewise. The first word in English from the pastor’s mouth was 1 Corinthians 1:1-3. After that he began to preach in Korean…and a sweet sound of English translation came from the PA system (I was the only foreigner there today), and it took me for a while to figure it out as what is happening and finally I saw the little girl in the front row reading the notes for her apparent father. He was reading in Korean from the pulpit and she was reading it in English from the chairs. He took about 20 minutes and sat next to the girl translating for him. I was so impressed with the little girl as how beautifully she read and had decided to meet her at the end and tell her how blessed I was to hear her read the sermon. The content of the sermon was…Corinthian church was full of division and immorality but still Paul called it “the church of God”. “The church of God” was the title of his sermon. While the preacher sat down, the deacon went forward and took the offering without any song. After the offering, he asked the pastor to pray and close with benediction. In Korea once the benediction is pronounced, you just don’t shoot yourself from the seat; you sit with eyes still closed and wait for the pastor to come to the exit so that he or she can meet the members as they go out. So, as we said “amen”, with eyes closed for few seconds and I looked around to see if the pastor was there. They were nowhere to be seen, the pastor and the little girl well. This church had the practice of having some snacks after the service, and nine of us who were still in the room, we gathered around the snacks table…and I could not help but told the deacon that this was the most bizarre church service that I have ever attended. With apology, he told me that the church is going through division and there is no communication between the pastor and himself. He said, “we are playing wait and see, hide and seek game”. As I moved out of that room, my heart became so heavy, knowing that I have witnessed the most destructive weapon of the devil in the church being fully used. Division has totally paralyzed and now possibly the English church will cease to exists and what kind of ministry will the pastor that can come, preach, and go without meeting his congregants can have in life. How could he come and preach? I just cannot fathom. How could he?

Life comes with its own storyline

Cry from the Far West Nepal

I was born in Doti, and was supposed to be living the life my friends and neighbors are living even now. But I met Jesus when I was 18 years old and that changed everything for me. No, as some of you might be thinking that becoming a Christian helps you to go abroad; thats not how change came in my life. Change came when I came in touch with the one who created me. Only the maker has the power to bring change, and therefore, God in Jesus Christ has been my guiding light to see changes along the road that has made my life more fruitful and meaningful. We have one life and it should not be wasted on looking for food, but rather loving God and loving our neighbors. Today, many of our talented young and old people are leaving the nation to find more food in the affluent nations. But if we ask God to come into our lives, he can bring the end of all such suffering that we are witnessing in this video.

You Cannot Serve Two Masters

Nepali Church leaders are now crying foul against certain terror group for demanding to pay huge sum of ransom for their security and some seemed to have bought their security with the hard currency. This group chasing the wealthy Christian leaders appears to be well aware of the corrupt practices among the Christians leaders which otherwise go unnoticed by the simple minded Nepalese in general and Christians in particular. It is possible that the group members or the leaders of this outfit might even be some of the disgruntled former Christians themselves because there is half truth behind the rumor that becoming a Christian fetches dollars. This half truth behind the rumor is evidenced in the life style of some of these Christian leaders who have embezzled mission funds to build their own houses, start their businesses and buy visas for their children to live and study in some other developed nations; this is no different than the news which we hear from Pasupatinath and other temples. The only difference is that the Hindu temples get money from the Nepalese (Indians as well at times) where as these wealthy Christian leaders deceive the foreign donors. Just as it is not the devotee with bheti (offering) that is to be blamed for the corruption in the temples, so are the Christians, whether foreign or national, in putting their hard earned money in the hands of these Christian contractors in Nepal with the hope of seeing someone in need being helped.

Because these Christian leaders have demonstrated well, the half truth remains the full truth for the outsiders (non-Christians) who have never really understood what it is to become a Christian. Becoming a Christian and becoming a Christian religious leader in Nepal are two very different things. These Christian leaders who have become wealthy today by deceiving the foreign donors might have become Christian at a certain time in their past and might have endured some of the suffering that comes with becoming one. Until few years ago and even today, becoming a Christian is a very challenging thing in our nation. Our society is still very religious and conservative when it comes to other religions and even the caste system is very much a reality in Hindu ceremonies and rituals (except with Maoist forced exceptions). In a society like this, becoming a Christian means a total ostracism from the family, friends and local community. Sometimes wife is divorced or a husband is abandoned and parents are chased out by the children just become they believe in Jesus Christ. But if someone hears the truth about who Jesus Christ really is; the chances are that he or she will desire to be the follower of Jesus Christ regardless of the price to be paid. When someone really understands the message of the Bible, there is no power or threat that can stop that individual from accepting it. Once the choice is made to be the follower of Jesus Christ, then comes the inevitable case in our nation; the family gets upset and shuns the person regardless of who the person is. If the person is an unemployed young man or a woman, things become more complicated. But it is also not easy when one family in a village decides to become Christian and the whole village comes against them, they are not allowed to drink the water from the same tap, no one goes to their house and no helping hand is given in their times of tragedies. Even in death, most local villages come against the Christians and do not allow their dead to be buried in the same burial jungles. In circumstances like these, the already existing Christian community tries to minimize the suffering of their new brothers and sisters by offering any help they can find. In some cases, they would ask to their known contacts in affluent nations to help these suffering Christians. Such help, not always, comes and suffering is sometimes relieved. But then the real cycle of greed begins by those watching the help come; it is because of the merciless poverty. A non-Christian sees the help from the Christians and becomes tempted to go the easy way, thinking that if he or she can find financial help, it is worth the risk. Poverty is such a powerful task master that it reduces human dignity to the dust and no religious convictions are worth cherishing while in its grip. If there is some relief, it does not matter what religious clothes one wears, and some people do choose Christianity with this false hope and who later become disgruntled if they do not succeed in getting what they came for. Some do succeed.

It is these people who we have to be weary of and make sure that they really know why they want to become Christian. Why one becomes a Christian in the first place will determine the kind of life that person will have. If we see a Christian leader whose conscience is dead, it is possible that he or she had come to Christianity with such a wrong motivation. The right motivation of becoming Christian is to recognize that Jesus is the only way for us to be saved from our sin and restore our relationship with God our creator. It is to recognize our sinfulness and repent from it with a desire to be a better person of honesty, integrity and credibility. It is to be a human with love and compassion for the fellow human beings. But some of these people who are now wealthy and control the church in a nation like ours do not exhibit any of the right motives of becoming a Christian. They appear to have become Christian for the material motivation only.

Since their aim is to gain material success, they do not mind to compromise their doctrinal and moral convictions to please any foreign donors. On the other hand, because they are good at pleasing the human beings, the foreign mission leaders trust these people with their life and resources. Once they have the backing of the foreign Christian leaders and the power of money in their hands, these leaders climb the leadership ladder to the top and control the local church under their vice like grip. They want to attend any world level Christian gatherings, they want to be the main body of Christians with whom the government should deal, and they want to be the main body for any possible donation to run NGO and INGOs. But these people have no concern for the welfare of the Church and the Christians in Nepal. Nepali Christians have now become victims from both the sides. They have been cheated and betrayed by their so called leaders. In the name of these real Nepali Christians who have shown great courage in following Jesus that these wealthy Christians leaders have collected enormous amount of money for themselves. From the other side; the terror group threatens to attack these poor and defenseless Nepali Christians while these wealthy Christians leaders will flee the nation and live in the security of Europe or America. Some of them have already done so and others will follow soon and the rest can pay the ransom, but the innocent Christians will have to pay for the sins of these wealthy Christians leaders all over again.

When a nation crumbles, everything crumbles along with it and the church is not immune to that. The level of corruption in the government is now matched with the Christian mission work where the innocent are only used as baits to catch for the wealthier ones. Some of the foreign missionaries are also achieving great success because they have realized that these poor Christians in Nepal can never voice their grievances against them. A foreign missionary went so far as to tell (to the seminary president where I studied) that the Nepali Christians should not be given admission in seminaries in his country because after their education they know more about the missionary and they do not obey. With this kind of religious betrayal and a real threat from the terror group, Nepali Christians need to voice their concerns and let it be heard from one way or the other. The real Christianity in Nepal is not represented by these gospel agents either national or foreign, but by believers who live in the simplicity of life with all its suffering; from the plains of Madhes to the foot hills of the Himalayas, from the far west to the far east. In order to redeem the face of Christianity, every local church needs to rise up and evaluate its leader because due to the influence of these wealthy leaders, the low level Christians leaders are also contaminated and they are using their congregations for their personal gains. Some of these leaders do not want to be paid by their local congregations because that hinders their freedom to beg from multiple others. But the local congregations need to be given authority to choose their pastors and take care of the needs of their leaders. Unfortunately, some of these congregations are entirely infected with this false Christianity of greed that it is hard for them to think that they are supposed to feed their leaders. This is because for years, these corrupt Christian leaders used such congregations for their advertisement and now the damage to real Christianity is irreparable.

Yet, if there is any hope for the Church in Nepal, this cycle of greed needs to be broken and Christians must take responsibility for their own destiny. It is going to be difficult and sometimes, it may cost lives. But there is no alternative to the authentic Christianity because we are now witnessing the consequences of a false Christianity. If from the beginning days, these leaders were honest and were content with the support from their own local congregations, the rumors of dollars might not have become a problem today. If the Nepali Christians still do not learn the lessons, then God might have to use anyone or anything as he did in China because Nepal is dear to God. The Nepali believer in general is still one of the finest Christians in the world today and God will not abandon him or her because compared to the godless Christianity of Europe, pagan Christianity of Americas and the ritualistic Christianity of the Far East Asia, Nepali Christianity is much closer to the heart of what Jesus taught. May be these greedy leaders will now flee the nation and the real Christianity will take root and hopefully the foes also will realize that the cause of Christian growth in our nation is not money but something else which is also equally attractive to them as well. May be we might have to pay the ultimate price until every Nepali sees the real face of Christianity and experiences the love of God.

Prayer for Kathmandu from a mountain top

Men's group climbed a mountain to pray for the city of Kathmandu