Alas, the time has come for us to leave Nepal, at least in terms of the foreseeable future. Since my last post, our planned journey to the remote Far West never came to fruition. The entire region was shut down, and the airport in Dhangadi was padlocked due to political upheaval for 20 days! Our backup plan to target the nearby Helambu area also fell through as another bandh (i.e. strike) crippled transportation in Kathmandu Valley. It became very apparent that the Lord was keeping us here and closing the door on those opportunities. With sadness, I write these things; but I also find comfort in the Divine Hand of Providence.

With bittersweet emotion, I am forced to consider that our time in Nepal is winding down, at least for this calendar year. On May 29th, our visas expire, and we will be forced to leave the country. By July, Lord willing, we will have returned to our base in the United States, hopeful that from there, we might continue to faithfully follow the call to publicly proclaim the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ on American soil, a most fallow ground and one of the world’s largest mission fields.

‘Tis a whirlwind of activity here in Nepal as we enter the homestretch of our time on this particular tourist visa platform. And thankfully: "The LORD hath his way in the whirlwind (Nahum 1:3). May 30th is our projected day of departure, and there is much yet that remains to be done. It seems we have little time to reflect upon the past and/or contemplate future plans; therefore, this post must, of necessity, prove uncharacteristically brief.

This post will be short as its primary occasion is to petition your prayers for this upcoming week. Ricky and I will be traveling from Kathmandu down to Bangladesh, a closed Muslim country and one of the poorest and most chaotic nations on the planet. At roughly the size of South Carolina, Bangladesh boasts a population of nearly half that of the entire United States.

Wow! My last post, transcribed more than a month ago, highlighted the work up in the Mt. Everest Region AND anticipated the coming of my dear brother, Shawn Holes (a.k.a. Shawn the Baptist), to Nepal for five weeks of intense Gospel labor.  Well, those five weeks have come and gone, and Brother Shawn has safely returned to his family in Idaho.  And frankly, in terms of recap, I don’t even know where to begin.

Here in Nepal, on or around Christmas, the Nepali churches typically take to the streets with Gospel tracts and microphones in honor of our Lord’s birth.  Yesterday (i.e. Christmas), we saw several groups out witnessing with boldness.  ‘Twas a great encouragement.  If only the American churches would follow this example, putting aside all the commercialization, greed, and insanity that descends upon our culture this time of year, and utilizing the opportunity to openly declare the child born in a manger as the ONLY ONE who can redeem us from the curse of the Law (Galatians 4:4-5).

My family is now living with us here in Kathmandu (Thank God), and we just finished a month of labor with a small team that came in from Ricky’s home church in Owasso, Oklahoma. Now, we are setting out sights upon some very difficult unreached areas, praying with earnest that the Lord would open a door of opportunity to go in to some of these places with copies of the Word of God.

Much has transpired here in Kathmandu over the past 3 weeks as we have secured a place to live and have actively come alongside Bishnu Shrestha, FPGM's national partner, in the open-air preaching of the Gospel and mass distribution of Gospel tracts and Scripture portions.