Jeff's reflections

Well, we are home, we are safe, we are relatively sane and our trip to Nepal was amazing! We felt like it was important to sit down and write out a reflection on the trip sharing some stories about what happened and how we saw God working during our time there.
Most of the trip can be categorized by the overwhelmingly large amount of teaching that we did. We taught seminars in churches to groups ranging from brand-new believers to people who have been Christians their whole lives; we also got to teach to missionaries and youth desiring to become missionaries at Youth With A Mission (YWAM) bases in Nepal; we also got to teach the importance of proper Bible study to first year students at a Bible college. The diversity of the people we taught to was really cool because it showed us how we were having an influence on so many different spheres within Nepal, teaching the farmers, the business men/women, mothers, children, teachers, missionaries, the old, the young, and the teens but all of these people had one thing in common – they were passionate about Jesus Christ.
About my time teaching I will just share a couple of things: First, God really worked on my heart about the kind of teaching I brought to people. I have had opportunities to teach for a number of years now, working with youth, going through college and even in my time in YWAM and God showed me how content driven my material typically was. I love theology and doctrine so my sermons and teachings would reflect that where the content or material of the message would consume 80 to 90 percent of my message and then application would get 5 or 10 minutes at the end but God really used this trip and this training in teaching to remind me of the importance of allowing our teachings to transform lives. If all I bring is content than lives are not necessarily being changed, so I had a great opportunity to see how my teaching began to change and become more balanced between content and application. I want to teach to see lives changed not just teach so people can see how smart I am or come away with lots of information, even if that information is good stuff.
Second, I had a number of opportunities to be stretched as a teacher. I found out we were leaving for Nepal that I would be teaching the book of Hebrews. This being the first book of the Bible I would be teaching I was excited but also extremely nervous that the deep and difficult book of Hebrews would be my first book. But by the grace of God and time in preparation I was able to teach through the book and see how the truth of this profound book worked in the lives of the students. But then part way through the outreach I found out that I would be teaching another book…the book of Revelation. Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh…I think this was all I could think of for the first couple days that I found this out. Who am I to teach a book like Revelation? How could I possibly teach such an incredibly difficult book? Is it too late to just leave? I felt completely under qualified and overly stupid to be able to teach this book and with only a couple weeks to prepare it I felt sure of certain disaster. But again God showed up and his Holy Spirit worked through me. What a beautiful reminder it was of the fact that it is not our power, abilities, skills or wisdom that makes us successful as teachers but it is God’s power inside of us. Could the teaching have been better? Of course and with more preparation and experience I hope someday to be able to teach through the book again but God showed me what happens when we are obedient and rely on Him.
There are so many other stories that I could share; stories of people finding salvation in Jesus; stories of how specific teachings impacted the lives of different people; funny stories about teaching “mess-ups”; and fun stories about the beautiful country we got to experience during our time in Nepal, but one of the biggest things that I came away with from this trip was once again a reminder of the huge need for Biblical teaching all over the world. There are Christians all over the world who are desperate for Biblical teaching and discipleship. Many pastors of third world churches have found themselves in that position because they are the first convert of a village and are left there with no direction and no discipleship. Understanding the truths of the Bible and seeing it transform are essential to seeing God’s kingdom come to the lost and I am so blessed to be a part of it.
If you want to hear other stories from Nepal feel free to say hi next time you see us or we would love to share a meal with you and talk more about the impact of this trip.
Jeff