Greetings Remnant Body of the Lord Jesus Christ, dear friends, and to whomever else may stumble upon this post. Grace, mercy, and peace be with you from the One True God. “Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders (Exodus 15:11)?”

The work continues here in Nepal despite a plethora of difficulty and spiritual attack. Rolling blackouts are now at 14-hours per day here in Kathmandu. The temperature in our house hovers between 48-55 degrees Fahrenheit most of the day. Petrol and diesel shortages make for station queues FAR LONGER than Jimmy Carter’s gas lines. Hyperinflation continues to plunder our pockets. And, the desire to continue preaching the “glorious gospel of the blessed God” (I Timothy 1:11) to idolatrous ears (i.e. which are known to listen but never seem to change) wanes. I feel like Jonah sitting under the shadow of the gourd, but with one difference: Jonah resented the repentance of the people of Nineveh; I resent the Nepali people’s refusal to repent. Are we wasting our time here? Should we cast the dust from our feet and move on? . . . questions that have plagued my spirit of late. But alas, even as I type, the words of a prophet and of an apostle simultaneously come to mind, each serving the same God though separated from one other by 700 years:

“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:17-18).

“For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!  For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me” (I Corinthians 9:16-17).

Thus exhorted, therefore corrected, we press on, grateful for your persistent intercession before the Throne of Grace.

Just after Christmas, my previous blog post indicated that we were preparing for a difficult journey to carry the Gospel to the Sherpa peoples in the Mt. Everest region. That missionary journey, though fraught with difficulty, trial, and tribulation, is now bhayo (i.e. Nepali for been, became, done). And, for this: SOLI DEO GLORIA.

Approximately 350 Project Jagerna Scripture portions and more than 1,500 Gospel tracts were carried by us up into the mountains; and all of these were freely distributed as we proclaimed Christ openly along more than 60 miles of trail and house-to-house in 13 Sherpa villages. For 12 days, we were above 10,000 ft. and as high as 15,500 ft. The weather was bitter cold and wintry, to say the least. More than a foot of snow fell, and on one occasion, as I climbed Sunder Peak, attempting to locate additional settlements in the valley below, I was forced to break trail in knee-deep snowdrifts that occasionally reached waist-height. At least 3 Buddhist monasteries were visited with the Gospel, including the famous Tengboche Gompa. Back in 1999, the last time I was in the Khumbu, we presented the Tengboche monks with a few copies of the Nepali New Testament. This time, after Raj and Jacob (our Nepali partners in ministry) had spent hours explicating the Scriptures with a young monk in our nearby lodge, we again made a “formal presentation” to this monastery, this time with several copies of our Project Jagerna Scripture portions.

In Lukla, Phakding, and lower Solu (Jacob’s home area), Christians were provided with needful medicines and Project Jagerna Gospel materials for evangelism purposes. Valuable information was gleaned for longer-term laborers who target the peoples of this area on a regular basis. The highest permanent Sherpa settlements were reached. Wicked idolatry was confronted head-on. And, an added benefit included being able to preach Jesus to trekkers from Australia, the UK, Germany, the United States, Korea, the Czech Republic, France, New Zealand, Ireland, Malaysia, and India. Praise the Lord that we took along some English Gospel tracts. Not all were friendly. In fact, the only real ugly hostility came from foreigners . . . surprise, surprise. Still, SOLI DEO GLORIA.

I have already been asked: Why in the world would you go to the Khumbu in the dead of winter? To be honest: bitter cold and snow were small prices to pay for a time when locals, customarily distracted by the religion of tourism, do little else than sit around trying to keep warm. In other words, the season, though terrible for trekking, is prime for the preaching of the Gospel. Trekker-trash, typically a hateful and brash enemy of the Gospel, is scant; the number of tourists in the region is at an annual low; lodge owners and porters actually have time to discuss and consider the Gospel; a plethora of local porters are out on the trails carrying wood and other needful winter supplies between villages; and Buddhist monks, devoid of the coveted distraction of tourist throngs, are easier to find and entreat with biblical truth. Need I say more . . . It was a good time to be there.

I have also been asked: Why would you want to target a tourist area of Nepal? Since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay’s successful ascent of Mt. Everest on May 29, 1953, the Khumbu has become a magnet for climbers, and more recently, for tourists. In 2010, more than 34,000 tourists visited the area; and far more than any other region of Nepal, the Solukhumbu has encountered the Western World. Yet, for all this, there are ZERO churches above the village of Phakding and the few believers that do exist can be counted with one’s fingers and represent people groups other than Sherpa, the indigenous group. The Solukhumbu, my friends, is the most popular place in Nepal and one of the most unreached in terms of the Gospel. Jesus Christ needed to be preached there; He needs to continue being preached there WITH BOLDNESS! Thank God for those fellow-laborers who sense a call to focus on the Sherpa of the Khumbu long-term. God bless them; I pray our seed-sowing will only benefit their work and yield fruit in which they can rejoice. It’s not an easy field.

Immediately upon my return to Kathmandu, had someone sensing a call to labor amongst the Sherpa asked me for recommendations or insight regarding the area, I would have assuredly responded: “Your best bet . . . find another people group!” Such are the conclusions that fatigue, hunger, frustration, and spiritual attack can yield, and I wouldn’t necessarily say the same today. Nevertheless, it’s worth considering: when you add to centuries of Tibetan Buddhist decadence a few decades of the corrupt religion of Tourism, what you get is a WICKED society where the gap between rich and poor is huge; where slavery operates in plain sight; where the white man’s wealth is coveted, yet he himself despised; where lodge owners have more money than President Obama yet don’t even know how to let water drip to keep it from freezing or how to practice basic hygiene; where porters are expected to carry more than 100lbs over miles of rugged terrain for reparation that wouldn’t even buy a gallon of gas in some places in the United States; and where, in the shadows of some creation’s most amazing handiwork, the creature is worshipped and served more than the Creator. Sad, but true. Thanks, WHITEY, for screwing up another place on God’s green earth, for making an idolatrous people twofold more children of hell with your globetrotting, pot-smoking, free-thinking benevolence! Yeah, thanks a lot. The blood of the Sherpa people is on your hands.

As difficult as it is to love the Sherpa people after having spent 12 days among them, I remain convinced that they deserve to hear the Gospel as much as any man; we owe it to them to pray for their souls; and we owe it to the FEW who labor among them, some of which I know personally, to continually petition the Father of Lights for strength, resolve, boldness, patience, and spiritual fruit on their behalf in a most difficult mission field. As for us, I am grateful to God that He gave us opportunity to preach Jesus in one of the world’s highest and most spiritually dark corners.

Ricky and I learned a few things worthy of inscription along our 60+ mile route in the Khumbu Himalaya:

• It may be advertised, but there is no such thing as “Sherpa Hospitality.” Those two words never belong in the same sentence.

• Westerners who go gaa-gaa-goo-goo over “peaceful Tibetan Buddhism” are utterly blind to modern-day slavery and Dark Age feudalism that operates in plain sight under the nose of “his holiness, the dalai lama.” I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: In many ways, the Communist Chinese liberated the Tibetan people from the tyranny of the Buddhist monks. Maybe it’s too bad that said “liberation” didn’t cross the Himalaya.

• There are local peoples running Khumbu lodges who have more than 20 million Nepali rupees stashed (i.e. approximately $250,000 USD) but are too cheap to tip a porter or to provide a hungry white traveler with a cup of hot tea, a few minutes to charge his phone battery, or a bucket of water for a quick bath.

• You can get 4 Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, fries seasoned with sea salt, and a Coke at Wendy’s for less than a plate of disgusting rice and daal in the Solukhumbu.

• Bathing in a spring at night when the outside air temperature is in the single digits is miserable, but well worth it once a guy is clean and snug in a warm down sleeping bag.

• Nepal is the only country in the world that believes ridiculous price increases and ridonkulous government red tape will actually attract more tourists and benefit the tourist industry

• Nepal has 3 major religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Tourism. The latter is the most wicked and idolatrous of them all.

• Battery Charge: 200 rupees per hour (free in Kathmandu); Plate of Daal Bhat: 500 rupees (4 times the price of Kathmandu); a hot bucket bath: 400 rupees; cup of tea: 70 rupees (6 times the price of Kathmandu); a porter’s average daily salary when working for Sherpas: less than $5.00 (i.e. slavery); a white man refusing to eat or drink tea after miles of hiking in snow in protest of price gouging: PRICELESS; a Sherpa’s facial expression after said white man opts not to eat: MORE PRICELESS . . .

• The Sherpa of the Solukhumbu need Jesus, and despite all my rants, there will be Sherpa from the Solukhumbu around the Throne, praising the Lamb of God, men and women whom Almighty God has saved (Revelation 5:9). Glory to God. Thank-you, dear Jesus.

There were some divine appointments and clear manifestations of the Lord’s Sovereign Hand along this journey:

• A young high-school student from Khumjung received a Gospel tract from Raj, our Christian brother and co-laborer, along the trail to Namche. I later saw him reading it, and like the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, he asked me to further explain. Later, this young man brought a friend and searched us out. The two of them sat in our hotel room for more than an hour as Ricky, Raj, Jacob, and I laid clearly laid out the Gospel. When they left, Asik turned to me and said, “When I believe, I too, will preach to others like you are doing.” Please pray for Asik and Amraj.

• In a small tea shop, I preached Jesus to a group of Sherpas as we enjoyed shelter from a snowstorm. Two of the women present had heard the Gospel and received Gospels of Mark from Raj’s hands several days earlier in another village miles away. These were sisters of another woman we had preached to in Khunde. Later, we would run into these women way up the trail in both Pangboche and Pheriche. One of the sisters later asked me to share the rope trick with her husband.

• A young man working in the kitchen in a Buddhist monastery above Thame has an elder brother that is a believer. He was very open to the Gospel, smuggled us some free tea on our way down from Sunder Peak, and received a Scripture portion.

• As we took the Gospel to every house in the small village of Yirulung (a bit off the Gringo Trail), we ran into a young girl who spoke perfect English. Nima and her mom heard the Gospel and received Gospels of Mark from our hands. Several days later, and miles away, we ran into these as they were coming from a local “hospital.” The mother was sick and in need of medicine. We happened to have what she needed, and as I dug the pills out of my pack in a driving snow, the little girl and her mom again heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

• We shared Christ briefly with a family who was on their way to Lukla (i.e. a long walk) and then on to Kathmandu. The Sherpa man was missing all ten of his fingers, lost to frostbite while portering for a Cho Oyu Expedition.

• An old, fat lama with a long beard in Pangboche expressed real excitement when Jacob, one of our Nepali co-laborers, entered into his home and offered him a Gospel of Mark.

• Heavy snowfall prevented us from crossing the Renjo La and going to Gokyo. God’s sovereign change of our “plans” thus resulted in us taking the Gospel to at least five villages that we hadn’t anticipated, included the area’s highest permanent settlement.

• We stumbled upon Khumjung High School just as classes were letting out and the snowfall was becoming more intense. What looked like a ghost town suddenly seemed active, and many Scripture portions went out.

• We discovered that the head police officer in Namche Bazaar is a new believer who was on the verge of plunging headlong into false teaching. Raj and Jacob were able to find him at the right time and more perfectly instruct him in biblical truth. He received some solid discipleship materials with gratitude.

• Raj and Jacob stayed up late one night witnessing to a Buddhist monk from the nearby Tengboche Monastery (i.e. the same place where there is supposedly a mummified yeti hand). He was open, and the “relationship” gave us the platform we needed to make a “presentation” to the monastery of some of our Project Jagerna Scripture portions.

• God gave Ricky and I a few minutes with 2 young monks in Pangboche as they took a break from a ridiculously long puja that was going on with a bunch of monks in the dining area of our lodge. We preached Christ and gave them John/Romans Scripture portions. The owner of said lodge (had climbed Everest 11 times) and some of the other monks knew what we were doing but were refrained from interfering.

• The Lord gave strength to climb to even the highest houses of several villages and to leave Gospel tracts in the door for those not home.

• The last house in Dingboche was our high watermark. It sat nestled on a small plot higher than any peak in the Continental United States. We left a tract in the door and prayed for God’s special blessing on that place. In the domicile just below, a woman was home. She heard the Gospel.

• A grazing yak fell and died in Dingboche; this brought activity to a ghost town and created several opportunities to give testimony of Jesus Christ.

• The Holy Spirit reminded me that I have a wife and 3 small children as I slogged up the high ridge of Sunder Peak alone in a white-out, dangerously cold temperatures, and waist-deep snowdrifts. I immediately turned around and was able to descend without injury.

• We walked more than 60-miles without injury or sickness. Jacob carried more than 100 pounds on his back for many miles injury-free without so much as a trekking pole in deep snow. All the materials were distributed. Ricky handled the altitude well. Raj persistently showed a worthy boldness, particularly toward the few tourists we encountered. And, God’s Hand of protection was upon us as we flew both in and out of the world’s most dangerous airport.

Again, SOLI DEO GLORIA.

There is so much more that can be told. Below is a video documentary in 3 parts that I trust will tell more of the story and provide greater cause for rejoicing. Also, enjoy the photo galleries. So many examples of God’s creative handiwork are forever etched in my mind. Who am I to have been blessed to see with my own eyes so much of what a camera can do no justice? Really, how can the fool say there is no God?

Pray for us in the coming days. We are weary, a bit frustrated, and just plain burned out. And, the rolling blackouts, the petrol shortages, and the chaos of this society certainly don’t help. There is no escape, no refuge within these political borders. Yet, Shawn Holes arrives for 5 weeks in less than 24 hours. Having this dear brother by our side will undoubtedly prove medicine for the soul. Stay tuned for lots more preaching. It’s all we can do. God will give us the strength, boldness, and resolve that we need in answer to your prayers. Please keep holding the ropes.

Pray also for Bishnu and his family. After a long and complicated pregnancy, Bishnu’s wife became the victim of an emergency C-section. The precious little boy made it for about 12 hours; then the LORD took him the day we were supposed to leave for the Solukhumbu. Since, it’s been difficult for my national partner as he tries to nurse his wife back to health. Pray for divine healing and special grace in their lives. I look forward to the day when Bishnu and I can preach together again. May it be soon. For now, Ricky, Shawn, and I will be laboring to do what he cannot.

For the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus Christ,

The Boyd Family & Ricky Springer