Hello Dear Friends of Iris Nepal!
We continually give thanks for all of you and how you love us and partner with what God is doing in Nepal through your prayers, encouragement and support. We really cannot verbalize how thankful we are and words cannot describe how essential your role is to bringing the love of Jesus to the His Nepali Bride-to-be.
God has generously brought some amazing, humble, powerful, lovesick people into partnership with us in the past 2 months. For this update, we are going to give you some of their testimonies of a few things that our good Daddy is doing in Nepal. We pray that you are encouraged and filled with joy and awe as you read!
From Sam and Anna Werner, Iris Missionaries: Street Ministry
One way to draw a crowd is to start praying for someone on the street, especially in Nepal. One day we traveled downtown, a team of 10, and did just that. As we started praying for one man who lost sight in one eye a crowd began forming behind us. I could see in his one eye a white spot about the size of a dime covering his pupil.
"Something hit me in the eye a few days ago. Now I can't see anything in this eye. It's all black," he said out loud for everyone to hear. We laid hands on him and began praying.
One by one people started to gather behind us. Our group of ten started to disperse, as the people who gathered wanted more than just to watch, they wanted healing themselves. I could see about 50 yards away Ann praying over some young girls. Just to my left another one of our team members started praying for someone's back. I looked back at the man with the cloudy eye and continued praying.
"How's your eye?" We asked him.
He said he could start to see light. Before he told us it was all black. Now he was seeing light. God was starting to do something. As we continued to pray for him I noticed the white spot in his eye had gotten smaller. We asked him again about his eye. He told us now he could see some girls across the courtyard. He could see Ann praying for the young girls. God was healing this man's eye.
The crowd around us started pushing to the front. One man came up behind me. He was enthusiastic. He said he can't see very far. He couldn't read the sign across courtyard. I told him Jesus could heal him. I prayed and he opened his eyes, squinting and focusing.
"I can see. I can read it!" he said. He looked as though he couldn't believe it. "My back," He said. "Pain." That was his way of saying he wanted prayer for his back too.
I prayed again and a huge smile formed on his face. He was healed. I ask him and he said, "All gone. No pain!" People continued to come.
God used our little team in so many ways that day. We saw so many miracles. This was just one day in our short time here in Nepal. We love seeing God move.
From Jessica Rocco, Iris Nepal Short-Term Volunteer:
The 5 hour trip to Nepal went by in the blink of an eye. Tammy and Joel (Americans from Iris Nepal) picked me up at the airport in Kathmandu. It was very late so I couldn't see much. Here are my first observations of the country: hot, humid, rainy, stray dogs EVERY WHERE that bark and howl all night like wolves, most roads are only one lane so cars have to slow down really fast and squeeze by, no sidewalks for pedestrians so it's kind of dangerous to walk around, no stop lights, when there are two lanes driving is on the "wrong side" of the road, only the driver has to wear a seat-belt so as many people can cram in as possible, people talk very loud and are kind of physically aggressive, birds chirp hysterically in the morning. I stayed my first night at Tammy and Joel's house which was nice—warm water and a comfortable bed. I actually slept the whole first night through and the next day we went out to a slum on the side of a river, right on the outskirts of Kathmandu city.
It was insane. Families living in huts made out of tarp and tree branches. Kids running around ragged without parents. Amazingly a pastor has set up a hut of his own and turned it into a church. We walked around praying for people and a crippled man was able to walk. A woman with partial blindness could see. Miracles happening left and right. I learned that these people used to be living in a building near the river but the government tore it down because they didn't want them there. But they had nowhere to go so they just stayed in the same area and set up huts from the debris. The government will probably kick them out of there soon. One lady invited us in her shack to sing worship songs. It was such a crazy experience sitting on her dirt floor with bugs everywhere—I can't explain it but I just started crying.
I kept thinking about them after we left. How sad it is that I can go to a place like that with the comfort of knowing that I will eventually be back home in a comfortable bed and have good food to eat, but they are stuck there for who knows how long. They can't escape their condition because they're being so oppressed by the government. And we get to live like kings and queens in America. People are so ignorant to how good they have it in America.
From Clement Chen, Iris Nepal Partner:
So we go to Pokhara and half the team heads up to a village outside of Pokhara called Todke. On our way up we meet two old women over the age of 80 who have never heard of Jesus. We're in the right place. We also meet two men and a little girl. The little girl is the daughter of one of the men and she is coughing her head off. We pray for her and she stops coughing. Hallelujah. As we tell them the gospel I notice that one of the men is shaking all over. He can't stop twitching. His head is twitching and both his arms are twitching especially bad. Patrick, I think, says that the shaking is a sign of Parkinson's Disease. We don't pray for him there; however, we see him around Todke two more times. In my spirit I feel strongly that God is going to touch this man. On the first night in Todke, we show the Jesus film. It's great and people really enjoy it. Brother Ganga gives an incredible sermon and at the end of it people come up to get healed. Our shaking friend comes forward. Joel and I begin praying for him and there is no difference. Nothing. He doesn't stop shaking or anything so we pray some more. I close my eyes and just start crying out to God for this man. Suddenly a women bursts out laughing. Startled, I open my eyes and look up. The man's wife is laughing. The man somehow had managed to obtain a flashlight and was holding it in front of him with a shocked expression on his face. It actually took a while to hit me with what happened; actually, Joel had to tell me what happened cause my brain for some reason wasn't processing the healing. His head was still shaking; however, his hands and arms had completely stopped. In fact, the wife was laughing because he was trying to make himself shake.
He was holding the flashlight, shaking his hands and then stopping them; his arms and hands completely solid and still. We discovered the next day that our shaking friend was the witch doctor of the village. He came back the second night. We showed The Passion and three people publicly confessed faith in Jesus Christ. We saw many more whisper the prayer of repentance to themselves; however, not willing to publicly declare it just yet. Our witch doctor friend came to the front again for prayer. He told us, if Jesus healed him completely then he'd become a Christian. We prayed for his head to stop shaking and the shaking lessened; however, it didn't completely go away. He left without being fully healed. I was disappointed; however, I kept praying God would finish his work. Joel told me that Daddy does that. As we prepared to leave the next morning our witch doctor friend came to say goodbye to us. His head was still shaking a little bit; however, he told us that he called his two sons after we had prayed for him the night before. One of his sons is in Qatar and the other is in Saudi. He called them and said to them, "I'm thinking about becoming a Christian, is that OK with you?" They both said yes. I left that village rejoicing at how amazing our Daddy is. He's after every single one of his children, even the witch doctors. We don't know the end of that testimony just yet. Our beloved brother Josh Kretzu, who has responded to the call for that area of Nepal, will be visiting Todke again soon. I look forward to hearing what he says...
Wow! These testimonies are fruit of times of worship and intimacy with Jesus. Our priority at Iris Nepal is intimacy. Heidi Baker, Iris Ministries' founder says, "All fruitfulness flows from intimacy." It is part of the Iris DNA. One of my (Joel) favorite 'intimacy' verses in the Bible is Exodus 33:11: "The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent." These two guys obviously loved, and knew the importance of, spending very intimate times in God's presence and we all know of the fruit of those times.
We love you all so much! Please be encouraged and continue to lift us up in prayer!
Love,
The Iris Nepal Team
May the grace, peace, joy, and love of Jesus Christ be yours in abundance!
Joel and Tammy DeBortoli
(Ellie, Jordan, Grace, and Joy)
Base Directors, Iris Ministries Nepal