From Nominal to Nepal
By Kimberly Rae Thigpen
“Jac, come on! Today’s the festival.”
“Shh.” Jac looked around. Had his parents heard? “You know my parents are Christians,” he told his friend. “They would never let me go to a Hindu festival.”
“My father is a Hindu priest,” the friend said. “We have thousands of gods. What’s one more?” He grinned. “You know you want to.”
Jac was curious. His friend said the festivals were exciting. Jac had seen the lanterns rising in the night sky at Diwali, the festival of the new year. The lanterns were lit and released to float in the sky. If a person’s lantern rose high in the air, that person was said to have good luck that year.
“Want to come see Kali?” the friend asked. He tugged on Jac’s arm. “She has ten arms and her tongue sticks out.” He laughed when Jac made a face. “She’s the goddess of death and really scary.”
Jac took one step toward the path that led to the Hindu temple, then two. “Okay,” he said, “just this once.”
Jac* remembered those childhood days, when he followed his friend to Hindu festivals and activities time and again. Jac had accepted Christ at twelve years of age, but had never become serious about following Jesus with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength. When his mother discovered his secret visits, Jac was seriously reprimanded.
She had good reason to be upset. Jac’s parents had left their home and culture in India to give the Gospel as missionaries in Nepal, where the smell of incense burning to the gods seemed to hover like a cloud over the land. Though Jac’s own country had many in need of the Gospel, Nepal had so few believers in Christ, they made up less than two percent of the country’s population.
Many considered Nepal to be the most religious Hindu country in the world.
It grieved his parents to see the sacrifices, the people turning prayer wheels, or banging gongs, or tying prayer strings to tree branches, all to get the attention of gods who could neither help them nor give them hope. Jac shuddered. Like Kali, the goddess of death, Nepal’s religious system inspired fear rather than hope, uncertainty rather than love. The fear came even from the government, which proclaimed Nepal a land of religious freedom while simultaneously making it illegal for Hindus to change from their religion to any other belief.
Jac’s parents traveled from village to village, often spending twelve hours a day meeting people and sharing the Good News, despite evangelism being a crime. They brought their son along on their trips. As the years passed, seeing his parents continue to serve despite little and sometimes no money, Jac decided he should work to earn money to support himself and his family.
Though he wanted to be a doctor, Jac had to change this goal because he could not pay the required fees. In time, he returned to India to work and study at the same time. Finding a good job provided for his college education. On visits back to Nepal during those years, Jac started youth meetings in their church, but his involvement was dispassionate and without joy.
Jac wandered from job to job and place to place. He had decided to get a government job when another friend, this one far different from the Hindu priest’s son, mentioned an opportunity that pointed Jac in a totally different direction: Bible college.
Jac’s life seemed forked where he stood, with two possibilities ahead. What should he do?
“Go to Bible college.”
The voice Jac heard was so distinct and clear that, despite not having the money, with no more doubt Jac went to college. He now knew his purpose.
God provided in miraculous ways through his years of study, and after receiving his theology degree, Jac was given opportunities for ministry in Delhi and Punjab. He was even offered a job over a school, a position that not only paid well, but included an apartment and vehicle.
This time, his circumstances were less like a fork in the road and more like an intersection. So many choices, but Jac’s heart was in Nepal. He refused all the opportunities and returned to that needy land and helped his father in ministry. One day he was contacted by Source of Light’s North India Director, Sanjeeb Sahu. Would Jac come serve in Sanjeeb’s church while he and his wife traveled to the United States to raise support for the ministry and update current supporters?
Jac’s new ministry there was not a different life direction, but rather a time of ministry exposure and training.
Now with his education, training, and experience, Jac is ready and equipped for Source of Light mission work in Nepal. Part of his equipping was God’s recent provision of a wife! Jac was married this past December and he looks toward ministry with, as Sanjeeb expresses it, “The passion and burden for lost souls of Nepal.” Sanjeeb, who shared Jac’s story, asks for prayers on behalf of this young man as he fully enters the mission work of his calling. Perhaps one day, Jac will find his old Hindu friend; and this time, Jac can be the one to lead him to the temple of the One True God.
*Name changed to protect security.
