Many months ago, when we were still in the planning stages for our mission with Equipping Saints for Ministry (ES4M), all the details effortlessly came together, from a divine connection through our Acts 29 Church Network pastor at our home church, Transit Church in Northern Virginia, to the timing for our mission. The director of ES4M, Mike Heitland, many times commented on how the stars had aligned for our partnership. That is, until a few days before our arrival date when a Turkish Airlines plane crashed on the Kathmandu runway sending the airport into a spiral of chaos (see previous blog post).

When we finally got there, we were a full two days behind our working schedule and the team of six didn’t fully arrive until four days past their schedule. This might not sound like much of a delay until you consider we only had 10 days to begin with and two videos to film and produce, not to mention a spur-of-the-moment task of capturing specific footage to be used in a video narrated by Tim Keller for The Gospel Coalition (TGC). Apart from us, ES4M was now forced to cram a week’s worth of training into a two-and-a-half day course. It seems impossible, but with God, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). Even with the late start — not to mention Jordan getting a 24-hour stomach bug and the team taking a two-day culture trip out of our working time — God graced us with ample time to produce our two promised videos for ES4M and TGC in the least amount of time we’ve had so far. When it finally came time to edit, we felt God’s hand leading the project. Creativity was abundant, and before we knew it, we had produced two completely different videos that complimented each other perfectly. We hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed making them.

This first video introduces you to the ministry ES4M, which trains local Christians with a full understanding of the Bible and Biblical preaching so that they can return to their remote villages in Nepal and plant churches.

This second video gives you a taste of Nepali culture and explains the partnership between ES4M and The Gospel Coalition’s International Outreach.

Even while we felt short on time from the beginning, we found time for wonderful fellowship with the team of four other Americans during our nightly dinner outings and a two-day cultural side-trip to historical Bhaktapur. We really enjoyed getting to know them all and learned more than we ever wanted to know about the Twin Cities (home of the two TGC team members) and Fargo, North Dakota (home of ES4M and River City Church). It was amazing to see the team jump right into the pastor training when they arrived and to watch the attendees soak up the dense theological material while we worked every angle of SARA Church’s one-room sanctuary/classroom. Dan Olson, Director of Advancement with The Gospel Coalition, even had the opportunity to deliver a sermon on the only Sabbath day we were there. Dan preached a compelling message on Prem Pradhan, a Nepali Gurkha warrior-turned Evangelist, which you should really take a moment to read about in an article he wrote after our trip.

Here are some of our team’s highlights in photo form—

And many photos from our cultural explorations beginning with Bhaktapur’s far-East architecture and ending with the largest Buddhist stupa in the world—

Though we didn’t get to spend much time on it between filming and editing the two videos, our hotel room’s private balcony may now have the most photographed view in Kathmandu.

We hope our work efforts excite you about spreading the Gospel in Nepal as well as ending theological famine. For more information, visit our new partners’ websites provided below.

Equipping Saints For Ministry (ES4M) is an evangelical, interdenominational nonprofit organization that focuses on helping indigenous pastors and missionaries to be fully equipped with a mature knowledge of God’s word for the purpose of fulfilling the mission for the glory of God. Donate to this cause.

The Gospel Coalition International Outreach is engaged in a mission of Theological Famine Relief for the Global Church. They partner with translators, publishers, and missions networks to provide new access to biblical resources in digital and physical formats. Their goal is to strengthen thousands of congregations by helping to equip the pastors and elders called to shepherd them. Donate to this cause.