TAN Mission Report June 2026 – Nepal 2026

In the email invitation for our partners to read the April meditation on our website, I made a comment about all the challenges that Peggy and her team had encountered on their March mission to Sri Lanka and the “hoops” I had to jump through to get the flights for our upcoming mission to Nepal rerouted after the war in the Middle East closed the Dubai airport.  I then followed with the hopeful anticipation that we would not have any further problems on the trip to Nepal.  I have to confess that I was miserably wrong.  Because we were not able to rebook with the same airline all the way to Kathmandu, I purchased tickets on one airline as far as Delhi and tickets from there to Kathmandu on a different airline.  When Peggy and I tried to check in for our flight, we were refused boarding, saying that we did not have visas to India, and that were booked as going only as far as Delhi rather than being transit passengers.  Although I could show the clerk that we had onward tickets to Nepal, I was repeatedly told that we could not board the plane without visas to India.  After about an hour and a half of going back and forth with several different agents, a supervisor was able to solve the problem, check our bags all the way to Kathmandu, and issue us boarding passes for all the flights.  When we thanked her for her help, she told us that she is a Christian and that she had prayed that morning that she would be in the right place at the right time to help someone in need.  Of course, we told her that we are also Christians and were praying for the favor of God and man over our predicament.  She was definitely in the right place at the right time to help us!  When we met Linda Easton who was joining us in Newark for the rest of the trip to Nepal, we found out that the airline had allowed her to fly as far as Newark but had canceled her flight from there to Delhi for the same visa issue.  We wound up with five customer service agents working on the problem, and they finally settled the crisis five minutes before we were to board the flight.  When we eventually made it to Nepal, we discovered that in the rebooking process, I had booked our return flight to Delhi on the wrong day.  Fortunately, I was able to get that straightened out; however, rebooking fees, the difference in the price of the ticket because we were so close to the travel date, and fuel surcharges because of the price increases due to the fuel shortage because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz essentially doubled our price.

 Upon our arrival in Kathmandu, we were greeted with the disturbing news that a close friend whom we have known and worked with since we first began ministry in Nepal over thirty years ago had been in an accident that killed two people.  Apparently, he fell asleep at the wheel and swerved into the other lane.  He was taken into custody where he remained during the whole time we were in the country.  I sent out an urgent prayer request to all our partners on our email list and received an overwhelming response with people saying that they were praying and many following up to check on him.  I was relieved to hear there were no lawsuits filed or charges pressed.  He does have to serve a mandatory period of time in jail, but it looks like he will be free after being detained for the prescribed period.  Meanwhile, he has found an unusual way of ministering to the other inmates.  Since his glasses were lost in the accident and he can’t read his Bible without them, he asks other prisoners to read passages to him.  I understand that someone brought him an audio Bible which has the same effect when he does his daily listening.

Our first day in Nepal was planned as a free day to rest up from the long flights and begin to adjust to the half-a-day difference in time zones.  However, I took advantage of the fact that there is only a fifteen-minute time difference between Nepal and India and made several ZOOM calls with ministry partners in India.

On days two and three, I led a conference on victorious the Christian life based on my “Finally, My Brethren” course.  I gave the delegates a daily homework assignment that would help them to have a victorious life – prayer for their eyes to be opened to all that Christ has already done for them. (Ephesians 1:16-23)  I instructed them to learn how to declare that their citizenship has been transferred from the power of darkness…into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13) and that they are, therefore, no longer subject to the devil’s authority.  Finally, I encouraged them to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord (II Chronicles 20:17) and watch the devil flee (James 4:7).

Since the Women’s Aglow conference that Peggy and Linda were to minister in didn’t start until day three, I asked them to join me for the first day so that Peggy could teach in one session; however, there was an even more significant reason that I wanted them to be present.

The church that hosted the conference was facing a serious problem.  They had planned to expand their building and had been saving money for the project in a building fund.  When the pandemic brought the whole world to a screeching halt, the pastor came up with a clever way to “make lemonade out of lemons.”  He realized that the building fund had enough money to buy the materials and pay an overseer, but that it was not sufficient to hire laborers.  Since his church members were out of work, he figured that he could “kill two birds with one stone” by feeding them every day if they would volunteer to do the manual labor of the construction project.  Since the government was shut down, they were not able to have the official surveyors determine the boundary lines; so, they hired a private company to do the job.  Once life normalized after the shutdown, the government assessors came out and discovered that the building was encroaching on the neighbor’s property.  The congregation was faced the dilemma of either buying the neighboring lot or tearing down part of their annex.  When I learned of the problem, I asked our generous partners if they would like to help.  The result was that Teach All Nations was able to raise ten thousand dollars to help.  Of course, I wanted Peggy and Linda (who is one of our board members) to be part of the presentation when I handed over the offering.

But, before I can share the story of the offering, I need to give a little background.  A few years ago, I was asked to minister to the congregation via ZOOM and taught a six-point lesson on doing the impossible:

Hear the Word
Believe the Word
Speak the Word
Act on the Word
Associate with people who had done the impossible
Get so desperate that you will fail unless God intervenes

A couple years later, I was ministering in the church in person and totally forgot about the message I had given in the ZOOM meeting – and preached the same sermon again!  I introduced the presentation of the offering by telling the congregation that they were going to hear the message a third time because I felt that I had heard two words for God that morning when I came into the building.  The first was Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you. (Joshua 1:3)  The second one was The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will. (Proverbs 21:1)  I then asked the congregation to believe those words and begin to speak them.  Next, I told the pastor and elders to act on the words by making another attempt to negotiate with the landowner, reminding them that they were associated with me and that I had seen God intervene in similar property disputes.  Finally, I told them that, when things looked so desperate that there was no way out, they can expect the Lord to change the heart of the landowner.

After spending the first day of ministry with me, Peggy and Linda turned their focus to ministering to the women in conferences with the members of the Kathmandu area Women’s Aglow and the women leaders from other local churches.  Unfortunately, there was a serious setback when Linda experienced a severe fall as she stepped down from the well-lit stage into a shadow that hid a speaker monitor.  Crashing over the speaker, Linda found herself seriously bruised, bleeding, and with a fractured wrist.  As if out of nowhere, ladies instantly came to her rescue and rushed her to the hospital – even foregoing being in the conference to stay with her throughout the day and into the night.  The Lord even arranged that one lady who is a doctor and also married to one of the prominent doctors in the city was there for Linda and even arranged for a nurse to visit her in the hotel after she was released for the hospital.  Peggy, of course, continued with the women’s meetings, teaching from her Women for the Harvest book and having a special meeting just for the leadership team of the Aglow chapters.  Although Linda was “out of commission” for a couple days, she was able to make the trip to Pokhara where she and Peggy ministered at a special meeting for the ladies in that area of the country and preached in one of the churches in the city.

While Peggy and Linda were hosting the Aglow meetings, I was privileged to be the speaker at the annual conference for the pastors and leaders in Agape Fellowship, the ministerial association of the churches that were birthed out of the ministry of our dear friend the late Pastor Robert Karthak, who was one of the very first Christians in the country.  The focus of the conference was on how to recognize leadership qualities in ourselves and those whom the Lord wants us to help raise up to come along side us and eventually replace us.  A second emphasis dealt with how to protect our ministries from becoming ineffective or even destroyed.  Because the pastors’ conference extended beyond the ladies’ meetings, Peggy was able to join me for one day to share with the delegates about the importance of women in ministry – both to encourage the pastors to utilize the women in their congregations and to release the ladies from the inhibitions and limitations they face.

Teach All Nations was also able to make an ongoing investment in the lives of all the delegates at the conferences and other meetings in Kathmandu and Pokhara through gifting them with sets of my books in Nepali and copies of the Gospel of John which had been provided by Bibles for the World and by making available the download of audio Bibles and the Jesus Film through an app for their phones produced by Faith Comes by Hearing.

Our trip to Pokhara began with a day of ministry to the students, alumni, and supporters of the Bible college that Teach All Nations helps to sponsor.  I taught on the keys that made Paul’s ministry in the life of Timothy and with the church in Thessalonia so successful.  After the session, I was asked to visit a lady who had suffered an accident that left her with a fractured spine.  After prayer, she was able to stand up, move about, and bend over with minimal pain.  The following day, I preached two services in the oldest church in Nepal, ministering on “What God Saw When He Looked at David’s Heart” – a message that is built around the differences between him and his brothers who were also present when David fought Goliath.  I summed up the message with the conclusion that the most important thing that God wants to see in our hearts is Jesus and asked those who would like to invite Him into their hearts to raise their hands.  About a half dozen people responded to the altar call in each service.  After the service, I asked if I could again visit the lady I had prayed for the previous day.  Although she was in bed when we came in, she said that she was better and that the pain had subsided.  I encouraged her again to continue to stand, move, and bend until the healing is totally manifested.

We did have a little extracurricular excitement in Pokhara when a man tried to accuse the Bible college of hiding his wife.  Apparently, she had slipped away from home, and he didn’t know where she had gone.  Having heard that there were ladies living in the dormitory at the campus, he concluded that she must be hiding out there.  He came twice and also made threatening phone calls to the director of the school.  On his second visit, he actually entered the property without permission, and the director had to call the police who said that the Christians were “nice people” and that he needed to leave them alone.  The officer then added that the man could have been arrested for entering the property and that he would be charged if he came back again.

In addition to the organized conferences and church services, Peggy, Linda, and I did a lot of one-on-one ministry with leaders who were facing various challenges.  Additionally, the Lord seemed to use my big mouth even when I wasn’t trying to minister.  On three different occasions, individuals stopped by our table in the restaurant to say that they had overhead us discussing the Bible during the meal.  I also wound up sharing the gospel even when we took a few hours off to tour some of the historic sites in the city.  At one ancient temple where the people still make annual blood sacrifices, a gentleman came up to me trying to convince me to hire him as a guide to explain the history of the temple.  When he pulled out his cell phone to show me pictures of the sacrifice, I pulled out a card with the QR code to download the Bible.is app and told him to watch the Jesus Film to learn about the one blood sacrifice that put an end to all others.  To that, he responded that his uncle is a pastor.  When I asked him the uncle’s name and what church he is associated with, I was surprised to find out that he is a friend who has served as my interpreter on previous missions!

I must warn you in advance that you are being set up for a really bad pun, but I believe that it will worth my bad humor to read the testimony behind it.  Two of the families I know in Nepal have young sons; so, I decided to bring them gifts from the US.  Knowing that boys their age like Legos, I decided on getting them Lego sets. 

When I gave the Legos to the first boy, his parents said that he had been asking for Legos for five years, but they had not been able to afford them.  The kit that I gave to the second boy had instructions on how to build a model of the space shuttle.  He was “over the moon” when he opened it.

Jesus said that He wanted us to have fruit that remains. (John 15:16)  This trip proved that He has done exactly that through our mission to Nepal.  In my conversations with different people, they would repeat to me the messages that I taught on previous trips.  The director of the Bible college shared with me that, many years before, he heard me teach and was amazed at my ability to explain scripture.  It so inspired him that he decided to go to Bible college and then dedicated his life to teaching others.  One gentleman remarked about the messages he heard, “Other ministers teach theory; you teach life.”  A lady remarked that I preached for more than an hour without looking at the Bible because the Word is inside my heart.  Another lady who didn’t realize that I was using an electronic Bible, commented in broken English, “Big message, little Bible.”