Building global community can be writing a letter to an orphan, providing a small loan to a family in a village or praying for the church to grow around the world. For Pastor John Free from Boerne, Texas it meant flying to the other side of the world to get to know their sponsored pastor, Mansing. Pastor Free and a team from Currey Creek Baptist Church traveled to Nepal with ServLife, and after teaching at our annual Pastors’ Conference in Kathmandu, they set out on the journey of a lifetime. They followed Pastor Mansing to his home base in the Himalayas, traveling like locals to see where the ministry of church planting in an unreached area goes from theory to reality.
“The trip was – it’s crazy!” Pastor Free described. “It’s a 13 hour bus ride over less than ideal roads, but it was good to experience it and then even to go on from there up into the mountains. At that point it’s not theory, it’s real. This is where the ministry of ServLife [happens]. This is where the rubber meets the road.”
Pastor Free’s team was able to visit two of Pastor Mansing’s eight churches to worship and fellowship with their congregations. They also interviewed Mansing about his journey as a Christian and his work to share the Gospel in an area where most people are Hindus and have never heard the Good News before. “To see what life is like in the village where Pastor Mansing pastors his church… to see the living conditions that are there – the poverty that is there – was again just a hugely beneficial experience,” Currey Creek member Eric Cate shares.
The trip provided a rare window into the challenges and joys of planting churches in remote and unreached areas. Nepali pastors often encounter persecution and resistance to what locals see as an outsider’s religion. “I really understood the challenges they’re up against,” Associate Student Pastor Bret Williams said. “The socioeconomic struggles, the cultural and religious struggles they face. It really put the work these pastors do into perspective.”
That perspective is what created a powerful bond between Pastor Free’s team, Pastor Mansing, and the work he and pastors like him are doing in India and Nepal. These are the bonds of global community ServLife strives to build, and we are so grateful for this team and their strong commitment to solidarity with Nepali pastors as they spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.
“I dream for the future that here will be a church in every village,” Mansing envisions. “I’m building a team of believers that can go and serve everywhere.”
If you would like to learn more about the pastors involved in ServLife’s ministry planting churches visit servlife.org/sponsorapastor/ and read some of their profiles.