Hi everyone! For those who don’t know me my name is Hannah Gustafson. I had the amazing opportunity last summer to do Iris Globals harvest school with Heidi and Rolland baker - which led to my recent trip back to Nepal to one of Iris Globals bases!
Nepal holds a special place in my heart. The first time I went was in 2018 with the World Race and after that month , I was very eager to come back and see all that God was doing in Nepal !
This time around the team that I was with was very small. It was just my leader and friend, Ariel and I. We flew into Kathmandu which is the capital of Nepal and stayed in the Iris Nepal Guesthouse with some of the local missionaries there. Most of our ministry time was based out of and around Kathmandu.
Let me just say first that the Iris base there is the exact DNA of Iris Global and how Heidi and Rolland envisioned it. They are all about stopping for the one. All about loving those in front and around you - forming relationships with people and being faithful to commit your life to the area that God calls you to.
It’s not about them, it’s about shining Gods light in the dark places and sharing with others where they can find that peace and ultimate freedom which is in Christ Jesus!
Iris Nepal has a heart to see the people of Nepal be saved and experience the love of the one true God. Over the 2 weeks that we were there we had a jammed pack Schedule and it was great! We ran hard and basically worked with the team there in various ways.
I’m going to try my best to share everything with in the time limit that was given so bear with me please.
These pictures above are from another day where we drove this huge van to the local slum village and filled it up with kids then drove off to this indoor soccer field and let them play for a couple of hours - it was an absolute blast! The pic on the left I’m hanging out with a little friend playing some games.
Then the second picture was a house visit that we made after hanging out at the soccer field.
We were asked to come and pray for this sweet little boy who was having stomach problems. We just spent time praying and encouraging the family there.
Now To back track a little: when we first got there Ariel and I spent time in prayer asking God to reveal to us what this time would be about. Did he want us to go to a specific location? Who did he want us to speak to?
And yes regardless we were going to be a light wherever we went but we really wanted to be exactly where God wanted us.
The leaders there really inspired and encouraged us to ask God for names, visions, dreams, pictures - anything really that will guide us in the right direction that God wanted us to go in.
We got various words, pictures or ideas from God. One of them was a lady with an orange dot.
Now apparently having an orange dot on your forehead is not all that common.. so one evening while we were making a visit to a slum village. One of the local missionaries that we were with pulled us into this small room where family was staying. We stayed and chatted for awhile then my friend Ariel realized that this was the same lady that she saw with the orange dot in the picture that God gave her.
The lady was so blown away and we got to speak to her about how much God loves her that He brought us here to encourage her and share the gospel with her.
You could definitely tell that she was more open to hearing about God - even though she said that she prays to Him and pointed to her shrine area with all her other gods.
The leaders invited us along with them to go to pashupati. They talked about how it was probably one of the darkest places on earth. And for those who don’t know what pashupati is and what goes on there - I’m about to share with you.
Pashupati Temple is a famous Hindi temple which lies on the banks of the Bagmati River. At this temple along the side of the river Hindu cremation ceremonies take place and so people come with their dead loved ones to do rituals so they can be reincarnated to something better in their next life. As I walk in there it was very overwhelming, you have loved ones grieving, people trying to sell things and make a profit, tourists walking around, you smell fire and smoke from the dead bodies burning. You see this black river that the bodies are being dumped into, people jumping in the water fishing for anything valuable that was with the bodies, kids jumping and playing in the water - and the whole time I’m slightly nauseous, a bit of righteous anger and also wanting to cry. Thinking oh my goodness! If they only knew the one true God! If they only knew that they can have resurrection abundant life with God. That they didn’t have to worry about where their loved ones were going if they knew God. That they don’t have to strive for the real Gods love - He just loves them and died for THEM.
Honestly it was so hard to be there. We kept praying and interceding for the people there and also that God would raise dead bodies back to life! Cause we know He can!
Although our time was short, we knew we needed to come back as soon as possible. Just a few days later we went back and miraculously got in with our guitar and decided to go farther up on various levels of the temple back where we could sing and worship and not necessarily be disrespectful to those who were mourning. While up there Ariel played the guitar and we sang worship songs, quickly gathering a crowd of people and God just began to highlight people for us to talk to. You could feel the light penetrating the darkness and the peace of God just filling that temple.
A man’s ears got healed! Praise God! I chatted with this 22 year old girl who was sitting and listening to the music for awhile. She said that she would come here for peace but also realized that none of those gods were real, they were all fake and really couldn’t do anything for the people. She saw the schemes. I’m really thankful for the time to pray over her and encourage her to seek after God. I told her to ask God to show up in real ways to reveal Himself to you and how He is the one true God because He will!
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