Drawing Out the Resources
Every time I visit Asia my mind is expanded to lengths I didn’t think possible. Upon every visit the need becomes more and more obvious. There is an overwhelming lack of strong leadership and good doctrinal teaching in the local churches. The more time I spend there the more the roots of these problems begin to emerge. In the case of Nepal it seems to be the lack of proper training and education. One of the main obstacles to receiving proper training and education is a lack of finances. Nepal is a country ridden with poverty. Most men cannot find employment in their own community so they are forced to move overseas to find work. The average male will leave Nepal for 8 – 12 years or longer. I sat in church service one Saturday morning and I was astonished to see that the congregation was made up of about 80% women. I asked my friend Hom where the men were and he confirmed that they were all overseas working.
As for the churches, tithing is happening, which considering how little they live on already, is pretty amazing. It is the shear lack of numbers that is the problem. Only the largest congregations can provide enough to employ a full time pastor. The average pastor in Nepal, most of which are volunteer or very part time, has approximately 3 months of bible training. 3 months is better than nothing but it is hardly enough to bring solid leadership and doctrinal foundations into the church.
This lack of funding and education spills over onto the youth ministers. If there is barely enough training and money for the pastors there is most certainly nothing left over for the youth workers. This is one of my biggest concerns. My focus is the local youth worker because I believe they are the future of the church in Asia. I believe that they are reaching the next generation of believers and they will be the ones that will set the tone for what is to come. It is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with.
So what is the solution? As a westerner we would be tempted to open our wallets and hand these people a wad of cash but unfortunately that has already been tried and it does not work. A previous influx of cash from the west has left these people dependent on resources outside their country. Some have even become so expectant of this support that they are unwilling to work without it. A paradigm shift is needed amongst the youth workers in Nepal. Nexus believes that the resources are in the local people; they just need to be drawn out.
Nexus’ first effort to draw out the resources in Nepal is to provide high quality training and encouragement for youth leaders. In our most recent trip we accomplished this by providing in-classroom training and then putting their knowledge into practice out in the field. We taught youth leaders the value of building relationships through a prolonged shared experience with young people. They learned how that prolonged shared experience is a catalyst for building relationships, which in turn builds trust. We taught them how to analyze a given situation and create a biblical study tailored to meet the needs of that situation. We then took these skills and put them to work over the course of a 5-day trek with kids from the city. It was amazing to see the results of their efforts. Strong relationships were forged, leaders become more confident in their ability to build relationships and prepare a bible study, which in turn gave kids a new experience of the Gospel.
Our second effort to draw out the resources in Nepal is to help theses youth workers become self-sustaining. To do this we have begun to implement an adventure trekking company. The adventure trekking industry is by far the largest industry in Nepal. To our knowledge there are no companies there with the vision of reaching local youth and supporting the local church. This trekking company will be owned and operated by Nepali youth workers. In addition to providing employment to local youth workers this company will be committed to giving 100% of it’s profits back into the local youth ministries and the local church planting movement. We are very excited to see where this goes over the next few years. If it proves to be reliable model it is something that we will reproduce in other countries struggling with similar issues. There is a lot of work to be done in the coming months but we are hopeful to have something up and running in 2010.
On a final note, one of my favorite things to do when I visit Nepal is ask people to share their stories with me. I am utterly impressed and humbled by the testimonies and the walks of faith I find in these local followers of Christ. Almost every testimony I hear has tremendous persecution, sacrifice and conviction for the spreading of the Gospel in an incredibly dark country. My hat goes off to these men and women as they live dangerously in a country so desperate for light and truth.
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