Nepal Training Report: Spring 2020

This was my second trip to Nepal to teach a group of men who work under HeartCry Missionary Society in the city of Butwal. There are twenty men enrolled in this four-year certificate program with RBS and the course was the gospel of John. I arrived in Nepal the week before and spent four days in Kathmandu where we conducted a two-day module on the gospel of John with twenty-one men who all speak English. This group is not associated with HeartCry but with the Nepal Gospel Centre. I then took the thirty-minute flight to Butwal and was there at the beautiful and peaceful atmosphere of the Dreamland Resort for six days, after which time I returned to Kathmandu for two days and then returned home.

The men seemed to profit very much from our chapter by chapter exposition of the Gospel of John. The men are very eager and dedicated to learning and love the Word of God. The first day was challenging for me and for them because the material was introductory, and my task was to simplify all along the way. They had full translated notes of this section of about forty-five pages which helped. When we began to walk through John chapter by chapter, the class was smoother for them, and we had many great discussions on doctrinal subjects, especially the new birth from John 3, the Person and work of the Holy Spirit in John 14–16, the major discourses of John and the I AM sayings.

After two courses with the men there I am understanding much better the need to simplify the teaching and move slowly thought by thought. The two translators were helpful in this process. I found myself thinking on my feet as to how to proceed to the next thought. I found (again) that the men are helped by aids from the teacher to help them organize the main concepts of the chapters in John. Our focus was on the Gospel of John as the most theological of the four Gospels (see module pictures below).

The students in Kathmandu and Butwal were all grateful (and relieved) that I did not cancel my trip because of the problem of the virus. I see the hand of God’s providence so clearly at work on this trip. Two days after I arrived, Nepal banned all on-arrival visas at the airport, which is the way I entered the country. Travel bans were beginning to multiply around the world. The question of whether I should leave Nepal ASAP was before me. I decided to stay, trust the Lord, and complete the modules. I did not want to disappoint the students, RBS, or HeartCry. Three days before I was to depart, Nepal announced that no foreigner was allowed into the country beginning the following week. This meant that foreigners would have no way to leave the country. Then I learned that my flight to Philadelphia was cancelled. I was resigned that I would be living in Nepal for perhaps a few weeks or so. Thankfully my son-in-law persisted in getting me a flight home to New York.

I am very grateful to RBS for allowing me to teach in this country and to such wonderful men of God. I am extremely grateful and humbled by God’s providence during the uncertainty each day of the changes taking place around the world and in Nepal. During those two weeks Nepal was on a program to lock down. I am reunited with my wife Wendy but under a self-imposed quarantine these two weeks where we keep separate and distance in the home and sleep on separate floors of our home.

Sincerely,
Pastor John Reuther