Trip to East Asia, Kathmandu, Nepal and Hyderabad India

Dear Partners,



This trip was almost 2 years in the planning with the purpose of providing theological training and equipping of church planters. Our first stop was to a nation which is officially "closed", the second was to a nation that is close to making being a follower of Christ legal, and third was a nation where the followers of Christ are going strong.


I started in Seattle, and met part of our team in Tokyo on our way to East Asia. The primary purpose there was to see what kind of partnering and support we might be able to provide in the future. God's work is being started in factories along with other places. In South Central Asia we discovered our hotel had listening devices......exciting, huh? The two needs we found were in the areas of marriage and family as well as leadership development. We will be discussing how we can help in these areas as a team at some point in time.


Our next stop was to minister to 500 church planters and movement leaders in Kathmandu, Nepal. The conference was called International Church Plantering Summit. We were scheduled to be there a week, but had to cut our time short by a day due to the Maoist uprising. As of this writing, Kathmandu is shut down due to the Maoists who want to have the current government step down. Oh, but what a great time with the church planters! The growth of believers is exploding in Nepal! All got safely out of Kathmandu, but some of us did have a trial getting out........more on this later in my future blogs. (Thank you so much for your prayers......they helped!)


As you can see by these pictures of Nepal, it was too hazy and polluted to see Mt. Everest from there. There was an international team of pastors and leaders who came to minister in this conference. I will describe some of the conference pictures below. One is of the worship team for the conference. Another is some of the attendees,
as well two women who did a dance that spoke to how lost they were without Christ, and the joy and hope they now have. Most of our presentations had to be interpreted.



I will be sharing more on culture in Nepal in a future post in the next view days with some incredible pictures taken by my traveling partner, Pastor Dennis Gingrich from Florida.

Because of our difficulty getting out of Kathmandu, we missed our connecting flight and had to stay overnight in New Delhi, India. The team ended up with two groups, all arriving late for the graduation festivities. The schedule had to be changed for us. We finally were privileged to address the graduates of The Timothy Initiative (TTI). These graduates are just beginning, or in the process of planting new churches. We addressed about 700 graduates plus their families. We were outside under canopies It was about 110 degrees plus humidity. It even rained and stormed during our time, but all the people were very excited with the whole event! In my next blog, you can see pictures of the graduation.

I ended my trip flying out of Hyderabad to Mumbai, India and then to Newark, New Jersy and from there on home to Seattle. Truly an around the world trip!! I used herbal "No Jet Lag" pills, and I really have had a much easier time adjusting than my last trip.

The Lord provided funds the for this trip through your generous gifts which made the trip a reality. Thank you for your prayers and financial support!

There are many lessons learned, stories, and more pictures on this trip coming your way in my future blogs. Stay tuned........