Kathmandu Gospel Festival Report
Dear Friends, July 20, 2018
After two earthquakes in Nepal in 2015, the Lord called David to Nepal. At the invitation of church leaders of Nepal, we started our work in Nepal with pastors’ conference. Our initial commitment to the church leaders of Nepal was to help develop Nepalese church leadership through three pastors’ conferences each year for three years and then to hold a citywide gospel festival in Kathmandu in December 2018. In the summer of 2017, however, the Nepalese government passed the law that would ban evangelism as of August 16, 2018. The church leaders of Nepal abruptly changed the festival date from December to April.
Spiritual warfare surrounding the Kathmandu Gospel Festival was intense! Team members experienced physical, emotional, and financial issues before, during and after the ministry. Our Nepalese coordinators received threatening phone calls from Hindu extremists. Nothing, however, put off our passion for preaching the gospel in Nepal.
The Children and Youth Festival on March 31 brought thousands of young people to the festival grounds. The United Easter Service on April 1 was spectacular with thousands of Christians coming from all over the Kathmandu Valley to worship our risen Lord together. The resurrection of Christ is a constant reminder to these suffering Christians that, in God’s time, they will have total freedom to worship and serve God without intrusion.
A huge crowd worshipped the Lord together at our two-day Kathmandu Gospel Festival. The former Prime Minister of Nepal received thunderous applause when he declared in his congratulatory remarks that Nepal should not be a nation for Hindus only, but it should be a nation for all people of all religions. When I appealed to the crowd at the end of my message to give their lives to Christ, the number of people responding overwhelmed the counselors. Our
counselors collected about 300 decision cards. The responses were from people with either no Christian background or church members who have never accepted Christ. Nepalese churches are working hard now to link these people to local churches that can train them as disciples.
Nepalese church leaders expressed their gratitude in various words. Of all these, I would like to share this with you, “Dr. Chung, thank you for uniting our churches through this event. For this alone, you and your team have already written a new chapter in our church history.” This event will be marked as the last public proclamation of the gospel in the current history of Nepal until their law will change.
Sincerely,
David