No rejection, persecution or humiliation can deter Jacob, a Nepalese believer who lives in northeastern India.
“I just share Christ,” he said. “No matter what.”
Jacob served as a translator for a missions team from The Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, Sept. 24–Oct. 2. The team switched its original plans to serve in the western portion of Sikkim state and headed to another area in the state after the Sept. 18 earthquake.
That’s when the team met Jacob and learned he moved from Nepal to India when he was 13. He accepted Christ when he was 14 after a Christian from Mongolia shared the gospel with him.
Six years later, Jacob can still share the exact date, time and moment when Christ entered his heart. Eager to share Christ, he went to a relief camp and a small village outside the camp with the team. Anyone who met him could see the joy in his eyes and spirit.
Jacob hopes to one day return to Nepal and open a university ministry and eventually plant churches.
Team member Chance Walters became fast friends with him. After they shared the gospel at the relief camp together for the first time, it was as if they had been brothers their entire lives.
“It’s encouraging to see [Jacob] share his faith so boldly when [Christians] rarely share the gospel with the people they work with or see every day in America,” Walters said.
Another translator for the team, Mercy, also is a believer originally from Nepal.
After the earthquake, she shared with her friends and neighbors from Isaiah 54:10: “For the mountains may move and the hills disappear, but even then, my faithful love for you will remain. My covenant of blessing will never be broken,’ says the Lord, who has mercy on you.”
Team member Elena Collins said she frequently saw Mercy share the entire gospel with a local before the team even knew what was being discussed.
“[Mercy] just jumped right into it with no hesitation,” Collins said.
As team members shared their faith and God’s Word with the Nepalese people, they saw and felt things they never expected. They said they learned a heart lesson.
“Back home, I kind of see Christianity as American,” team member Brad Collins said. “I know it’s all peoples on paper, but coming here, hearing nationals pray in their native tongue, put faces to that. [The believers] are truly our brothers and sisters in Christ.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — Some names changed for security reasons.
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