1st Church Dedication in Nepal

With Pst Dannish and Bishop Samuel

Sunday morning, 30 Sep, Pst Danish , the church planter whose church we are going to dedicate, was waiting for us at Ketuke. We still have about 2 hrs to go before we reach the church. We quickly refreshed ourselves. The small so called motel, reminded me of Singspore in the 70’s. Thank God it was not the “bucket system”. Breakfast was some energy bars that we brought from Home. 

Then we made our way to Newareydara, which was about 15 km up in the mountains. For the first part of the journey we too a vehicle. Pst Danish told us that the mountain tracks are newly paved and are still in a “raw” state. To my shock, these tracks were worst off than what we had been through the night. There were no barricades at the edge, and one slip we would have fallen 4000 feet down the cliff. I was holding on to my seat as the vehicle was maneuvering around the mountains, especially when it came almost centimeters close to the the edge id the tracks. We could see the deep ravines down below. The only thing that kept us going was the picturesque scenery around us. After an hour on the dangerous track, we came to a point the vehicle could not go any further. 

Now we had to walk. It was narrow winding paths up and down the slopes of the Himalayas. At certain tracks were were extremely narrow and steep. It was a real challenge to climb up the slippery slopes. Any slip would have meant death and people cannot even find your bones. The slopes were steep and deep, easily 2000 to 3000 ft. 

We tracked for about 45 minutes before we reached the village. We were sweaty with perspiration and worn out. But it was a relief to see the village. It was almost 10:30AM.   

I was very surprised to see the  new church building. It was very well done. Pst Dinnesh is inky 26 years old but he displayed great maturity and has the respect of the entire village. He was responsible for getting the authorities to build a new track to the village so that  the walking distance can be shorten. Previously they had to walk 3 hrs to reach the main village but now it takes sonly one hour. We thank God for such wonderful young man to be our partners.

Pst Dinnesh was the first one to be saved in the village. He heard the gospel when he came to Jalgaon. After his salvation, he attended PEC School of Ministry. After his training he went back to his village and brought his family to Christ. Now about 50 people in the village have accepted Jesus as their Lord snd Savior . What an amazing testimony.

More than 150 people turned up for the church dedication. Many pre-believers  from the village also came for the dedication, including some government officers. I am really thankful to Mrs Dorothy for sponsoring the building. We had a wonderful dedication service. All the believers in the village were overjoyed. It was indeed heart warming to see another church in another difficult, remote place. This is the first church building dedicated in Nepal, another milestone for PEC.

After the service, we made our way back to Ketuke Village, tracking the mountain trails and the terribly dangerous tracks. 

We reached Ketuke at about 4PM. Then it was a long  drive  along zig-zagging roads. Some stretches were very bumpy and we were at crawling speed. By the time we reached the Nepal/Indian border it was 4 AM. The border gates only open at 6AM on 1 Oct.. With limited sleep, it was a terrible wait at the border. By the time we reached Jaigaon it was about 11 AM. Finally managed to get a good shower after more than 48 hrs, the “national service field camp training” was useful at this point for the young men in the team.