I had the opportunity to lead a mission trip to the country of Panama January 4th-11th. I took eighteen teenagers from Charlotte Christian School. We had the opportunity to share the Gospel in nine different villages to three different indigenous communities (the Embera, Wuonaan, and Kuna).
Each time, upon arrival we played games with the children and gave the people gifts. We brought beads to make jewelry for them, we gave them soccer balls, we brought polaroid cameras, took pictures of them and gave them the pictures—many of them did not own pictures of themselves or of their families. Now they do.
After showing them we cared for them, we sang fun worship songs with them. Then, we shared the Gospel through drama and a short Gospel explanation.
The students acted out Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac on one side of the stage and the sacrifice of Jesus on the other side as I narrated the two stories. The purpose was to show that Abraham’s sacrifice of his son pointed to God’s sacrifice of his Son. And, just as the ram took Isaac’s place Jesus took our place.
I explained that God is just and punishes all sins but that Jesus took the punishment we deserve. Since some of the indigenous people still worshiped the one all-powerful God, I explained to them that long ago this one God told the ancient people to atone for sins through sacrifices to him. This is why indigenous people still sacrifice to him today. I told them we were God’s messengers sent to tell them that the one true God became flesh (his Son/Word became flesh) in a country called Israel and was sacrificed to take the punishment we deserve. The animal sacrifices pointed to God’s sacrifice.
I asked, “How many of you are sinners?” And everyone would raise their hand. Then, I asked, “May I pray for you and ask God to forgive you and for his Son’s sacrifice to take the punishment that you deserve?” Every time, every hand went up and they would nod, “yes!” And I would then pray for their salvation—explaining the Gospel in the prayer. Next, we would have two students give their personal testimony of their changed lives.
The local missionaries we traveled with will be following up with all of the people to whom we ministered. They said our dramatized illustration of Jesus and Isaac as well as our accompanying explanation of the Gospel and testimonies were among the most clear portrayals of the Gospel they had seen.
Please pray for the people to whom we ministered—that they will remember the message, understand it, continue to embrace it, and that they will be changed forever!
I can’t begin to explain how excited I am about my recent tip to Nepal! It is not too much to say that NGIM stands in a place to impact the entire country for the cause of Christ.
You may know that Nepal was closed to Christians from the late 1700’s until 1954. So Christianity is experiencing growth in recent years. However, in 2017, the Nepali government instituted “anti-conversion” laws. My students informed me that if they share the gospel with someone either on purpose or by accident and are caught, they can go to jail for 3 years. If they actually convert someone to Christianity and are caught, they can go to jail for 5+ years. I did not know this until I was in Nepal.
Conversational Evangelism (CE) was developed by David Geisler to reach the lost in the 21st century because many people today have been raised in a non-Christian, non-theistic worldview. Christianity believes in one, all-powerful God who created the world and is the standard of right and wrong. This is theism. There are six other worldviews and numerous other philosophies that see parts of reality or all of reality very differently.
CE fit the Nepali context because Nepal is the most Hindu nation in the world. Hinduism and Buddhism account for the vast majority of the people in Nepal. That means polytheism, pantheism, and spiritual atheism are the dominate ideas of the country.
CE provides the principles that not only lead people to the cross but also uses apologetics to help clear away intellectual and emotional barriers to the gospel. Apologetics is just “giving a defense for what you believe.”
I spent one week teaching Conversational Evangelism, and two weeks teaching the 12 Points that Show Christianity is True.
Students would often ask me, “Why are all the apologetics books written for Westerners?” In other words, no one was addressing the kinds of the issues or challenges people in the East were facing. I was honest with them: “If you want to make money, you write on atheism or Islam, not Hinduism.”
The classes went well, and I took extensive notes on the culture and how to bridge the gap from West to East, not just in apologetics, but in evangelism as well.
I had several talks with the Principal (president), and the Dean of students. They want the Norm Geisler Institute to help develop the first masters and doctorate programs in the entire country of Nepal!
Our vision is to raise a small army of fully equipped pastor/theologian/apologists who can serve the churches of Nepal as one of them rather than relying on Westerners who must learn the culture and yet always be a foreigner. The churches of Nepal are in DESPERATE need of strong theology, apologetic thinking, and a disciple-making mindset.
We will begin offering online classes as early as THIS JUNE for Nepal Ebenezer Bible College. A new class will be coming in and we will offer a steady stream of classes starting with “Bibliology” which is the study of the history of the Bible, inerrancy, inspiration, canon, transmission, and textual criticism (the process where the manuscripts are examined for errors and corruptions to reconstructed the original text). It will be a great place to start with apologetics as it will defend the Scripture’s integrity and nature as the divine revelation of God.
As most of you heard, I developed a fever Saturday morning March 14th, the day before I was supposed to fly out. This was very unfortunate timing. I didn’t know if I could even get another flight because of all the mess with travel. However, through the providence and provision of the Lord, I managed to painlessly change my flight with minimal cost. I spent the next 5 days getting better so I could return home. I traveled physically and emotionally pain free! I spent the next two weeks in voluntary quarantine to make sure I didn’t infect my children with anything “left over.”
If I had known I would have gotten sick and gone through this mess, I still would have done it all over 100 times! My life is forever changed from this, and I have a feeling our ministry will be forever impacted as well. I can’t wait to see what all will become of this. I’m going to be staying in close contact with the administration of the college. We have all swapped even personal phone numbers to make sure we stay in contact as we seek to build the kingdom together.
To all of you who have prayed for this trip, thank you! This has been one of the most impactful trips I have ever taken. Without all of you this would not have been possible.
A final note: Books are very expensive to ship to Nepal from the states. About a week before I left, I set up a fundraiser because the college needed books. I raised all the money I needed for the Bible college, and the money I need for our NGIM intern in Nepal whom I’ve been training. The day before I flew out, the last of the money came in to pay my expenses. I never fundraised once for myself and God provided every penny. One of my students is a professional translator. I know his rates and what it would take to get materials in Nepali. They can’t get them. They don’t have Amazon. But if we create the books and they print and bind them in Nepal, they can mass print for $1/100 pages. This means he translates the books we have like CE and 12 Points, but he will also translate my discipleship material. They also asked that I put together a booklet answering all the questions I was asked while I was here. They would translate it and distribute it to every church and every college in all of Nepal.
Please pray for this new partnership with the church in Nepal, and for the creation and translation of the materials they need!