PEOPLE NEEDED IN NEPAL!

1.  We are looking for the person who can help us with the teaching of practical skills as well as help us organize the Bible School which the pastors in region distant from Kathmandu  have requested.

2.  We need a person who has skills in developing an internet industry.

3.  We also want a woman who can help establish a woman's component to the Nepal Educational Mission.

4.  We need a seminary professor who can teach graduate level courses to students who are seeking to increase their educational level in order to be able to provide contextual and appropriate curriculum for the Nepal Educational Mission.

5.  We are searching for a couple who can help organize an Anglican presence and spiritual retreat center in Nepal.

6.  We are looking for the youth who could help in Nepali youth development, conduct house meetings for families, and participate in work projects and other outreaches.

These are just a few of the areas and we are happy to say that we already have persons who are working now to respond to these challenges.  We welcome others.  Write to me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and let us discuss how YOU can be part of this educational mission.

MY FAMILY IN NEPAL

Meet my chora (son), 28 year old Mahendra Gurau. Nepali people do not want you ever to be

alone, so they assigned Mahendra to be my companion and guide in Nepal.  Mahendra is a young

man of multiple talents. 

He plays the guitar, keyboard, piano, madal (Nepali drum), drum set,and sings both English

and Nepali songs. In fact, he has given up his popular music school, "Mahendra Classical

Music Training Center" in Nawalparasi District in order to stay with me in Kathmandu

Mahendra is a graduate of Marnatha Bible College. He has been the lay pastor of New Life

Church in kawaswati, which is in the middle of Nepal but now has turned over his church

responsibilty to his brother, Resham.

Mahendra can also cook, wash clothes, cut hair, or anything else you need. He takes me

shopping, teaches me Nepali, advises me on Nepali customs, and sometimes interprets. He is

experienced in riding motorcycle, so when we finally get one will be able to take me anywhere

I want to go. 

My chori (daughter) is Dina Gajmer. I gave her the cross that my wife Daisy used to wear,

because Dina is something like Daisy, a leader in her own right. You can see her wearing it

in the picture.

Her husband, Philip, is my juwain (son-in-law). He is pastor of the Onnuri Glorious Church

and a leader among pastors in Kathmandu. He is Joint Secretary of the Nepali Christian Civil

Organization which seeks to evangelize high ranking government officials. He is active in the

National Pastors Assocation of Nepal and is head of the music department. He is an executive

member of the Christian Advisory Board for the New Constitution of Nepal.

My grandchildren are thulo nati (elder grandson), Annish, who is now preparing for his school

leaving certificate, and sano nati (younger grandson), Assim, who is a super active three year

old who is into everything.

We live together in a four flat building. The first flat will be mine and Mahendra's, the

fourth is Philip and Dina's, Aita and Lila Singh's, and the third, our landlord, is Maila and

Deo Lama's--all Christians!

ONNURI GLORIOUS CHURCH is the first church in which I preached when I visited Nepal.  It

started in 2005 and now has 55 baptized members. Onnuri Glorious Church has six church plants

in different parts of Nepal. Among the ministries is the Nepal United Prison Fellowship, the

Kathmandu Valley Evangelism and Healing Crusade, television and radio ministry, and fasting

prayer chain. I enjoy taking part in the Home Fellowships and other activities but usually on

Saturdays, our day of worship, I am called to preach in other churches.

One of the urgent prayer requests of Onnuri Glorious Church, and also mine, is to buy a piece

of land in Golldunga, a new developing area of Kathmandu.  This piece of land will cost

$15,000 and is a place where, God willing, a future Center for my ministry can also be

constructed.

DR. GEORGE PIERCE, aka SANTABIR

HOW DID YOU COME TO GO TO NEPAL?

In November 2007 my beloved wife Daisy went to be with Jesus. At that time St. Dunstan's Church was inviting us to purchase some bricks for the memorial garden.  I bought one and had the words inscribed: "For Daisy, Valiant for the Truth's Sake," for she was always a great missionary and evangelist alongside me through our forty years together.

I wondered, then, what the Lord would have me do. As I was walking along and praying I saw a sparrow fly across my path and perch on the cupola of "The Palace of the Orient," a restaurant in our town.  I thought, "Okay, that's good." 

Shortly thereafter I had an opportunity to go to China. "What would Daisy think of this," I thought, and then remembered that she was now a part of that great cloud of witnesses who are watching and cheering us on as we run the race that is set before us (Heb. 12:1-2). She was a very strong woman, a sister in the Church Army, and always my great encourager. I could hear her saying, "Go, George, go!"  

For fifteen years I had been a board member on Gobal Teams, in fact, its chairman for most of them. Our International Director challenged us with the goal to see "Christ in the skin of every culture." As a lifelong missionary who had worked among Lakota Indians in the United States and among the Kwanyamas of Namibia, I was thrilled with the mission of Global Teams. Now I was single again with no children or family ties to hold me, I had a small retirement income, and I was in excellent health. I decided to enroll as a line missionary of Global Teams.

An exploratory visit to China gave me the desire to devote myself to the need for theological education in the great house church movement spreading through Asia.  Our Asian director, Michael Jun, suggested Nepal as the base.  After a visit there in April 2009 I resolved to follow the Lord's plan, sell all my possessions, and moved to Kathmandu.

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS?

I come first of all as a learner.  Even though I have 53 years of ordained service as an Anglican priest, serving in missionary, evangelistic, and parish contexts, that experience is but a drop in the bucket when compared to the challenges of mission in Asia. I am therefore depending just on the Lord to guide me.

Both my life experience in training evangelists and deacons in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, USA, subdeacons and seminarians in Odibo, Namibia, evangelists in the Church Army, and seminarians at St. Petersburg Theological Seminary in Florida, USA and my ThM and PhD studies in leadership training and development at Fuller's School of Intercultural Studies have provided me with a background of experience and knowledge.  However, God has His own ways of shaping us and using our experience; I depend mostly on Him. 

I have four thoughts about theological education:

1. We should teach the way Jesus taught.  I am thinking of some of the insights of A. B. Bruce's classic TRAINING OF THE TWELVE and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's LIFE TOGETHER, as well as
some more recent work on the training of church planters.

2. The training should be contextual to culture and taught by persons of that culture. The translation of concepts from one culture to another always requires the mediation of words whose meanings often do not overlap. For this reason translation is always transformative.  The Bible itself is composed from many cultures.  However, God's message is one and it endures. 

3. The training should make use of all methods and ways of theological education.  In the West there are residentitial institutions, online courses, correspondence courses, onsite conferences, cohort groups of various sorts, and so forth.  In other cultures other forms may be customary: the use of stories and dialogues, for example (how like Jesus!).  Private lectures in homes may be necessary.

4. The education should be accredited. It is not because I love accreditation.  Jesus was not accredited nor were the apostles except for Paul. However, we are global Christians.  Each person who is trained would like to believe that if he goes to another country some day, his education will be recognized

HOW CAN THIS WORK BE SUPPORTED?
 

In the beginning some funds for training are needed. I remember in Ovamboland in Africa a woman would come and ask for slates. She had gathered the village children, maybe a hundred or so, under the shade of a spreading tree, and she would teach the children to write with their finger in the sand.

I would say our situation is about the same, but with different implements. It costs to make trips to the isolated places and to provide the resources to teach appropriately to the level of the situation.

For our ministry, donations can be made to Global Teams, earmarked for Prayer Mountain, our name for the theological education.

On this website under Ventures we will in the future be devoting space for some various ways to help churches become self-supporting by developing simple industries. The ideas is "businaries" just like "missionaries". I was involved in that kind of work after Wounded Knee 1973. Our Crisis Response team developed an irrigation project and a cattle cooperative.

DO YOU LIKE THE NEPALI PEOPLE?

Very much.  They are invariably warm and welcoming and quickly incorporate newcomers into their families .  They have even given me a Nepali name, "Santabir," which means "brave saint," saint being a term of respect.

HOW LONG DO YOU PLAN TO STAY?

I am going to stay in Nepal until the Lord calls me elsewhere.