Amazing Village Outreaches and The Freedom House

Written by Joel and Tammy DeBortoli

Hello Beloved Ones:
We love you all and are overwhelmed every time we think about your kindness and generosity towards us in prayer and financial giving. We have been running hard the race of love here to see Jesus’ name lifted high in Nepal and in the Himalayas!
Crazy Village Outreaches
A short time ago, we were blessed to be able to go on an outreach to the south of Nepal where we partnered with one of our pastors who is blind…an amazing man of God! We went to two different villages on two different days within walking distance of the pastor’s church. In both places, we found a great hunger for all the things of our Jesus: love, peace, healing, deliverance and salvation. We spent the majority of the days praying for hundreds of people who would come and ask for prayer for healing and deliverance. One young man, Bijay (which means ‘victory’ in Nepali!), was brought forward for prayer by his father who said that he was possessed by demons and visited by dark figures at night. He was unable to speak and we prayed and just loved him. Within a short time, he was in his right mind and took us to his house to introduce us to his wife and small baby…beautiful! His whole family was shocked (as was his village) and Bijay and his whole household came to the Pastor’s fellowship the next day. It never gets old witnessing God encounter His beautiful people and seeing them respond! We showed the Jesus film in both places at night and many people came to faith in Jesus afterwards.
On the last day of our outreach, we travelled to a nearby small city which has a very large and famous Hindu temple. We decided to go there pray and see what God might do. Most of our team walked around the temple praying while some attempted to pray for pilgrims who had come there. God gave us a word of knowledge for one Sadhu (A Hindu holy man) that his knee had some problems and he was healed in about 15 seconds! Now this is inside a very sacred place to Hindus and not at all a safe place to be doing this type of thing. But, God’s light shines brightest in the deepest darkness! After the Sadhu was healed, he tried and tried to tell others what had happened and ‘recruit’ them to get prayer also. Of course, we thought that this was going to cause a lot of people to come forward, but they all resisted. Finally, the head Sadhu came out and told the one who was healed to go and do some work. It was time for us to leave and we thought God was through in that place for that day. We were rejoicing that we were able to pray there and that the one Sadhu got healed. Glorious! But God was not finished yet! As we walked out into the temple court, a few of our group stopped to pray for a beggar. He got healed and a large crowd started gathering and everyone was asking for prayer. We broke up into 6-7 groups and started praying…many were getting healed and another pastor who was with us was preaching the gospel and people were believing. Usually, when big crowds gather, police come to see what is happening. The in-charge officer who came realized what was happening and asked for prayer for his painful knees. He got healed and stayed there providing us with security over the next hour! So many people were getting prayer and the crowd kept getting larger. When the officer who had gotten healed was off-duty, his replacement came and was very angry. He started shouting at us threatening to arrest us! Many people had not yet received prayer and they were becoming angry at the police officer. I spoke with the officer and realized that a powerful, radical Hindu had told him that he had to make us stop. So, out of honor and respect for the officer (we love police officers!) I told him that we would leave. It was one of the craziest 2 hour periods that we have ever witnessed. We were all filled with awe. There really is nothing better than seeing multitudes of hurting people encounter the one, true living God for the first time! Another added joy for us was seeing our biological daughters Grace and Joy, and our adopted Nepali daughter Biba, standing, praying for and ministering to people all day long and loving every minute of it! Seeing God grow our kids to love Him and love others brings us unspeakable joy.
The Freedom House
Our newest project is building a farming training center called the Freedom House. Our friends from the streets, who are all addicts or alcoholics, will be invited to live there to get free and trained to start a new life using farming and agriculture as a practical example of God’s Kingdom. We are nearly finished with the first phase of building on newly leased land outside of Kathmandu. We will also have a cow for milk and raise pigs as it seems we have found a market for pork. Our older boys from the children’s home have been helping and we are so proud of the Godly men they are becoming. Strong, loving, enduring, a filled with joy while working very hard.
For this project, we need as many prayers as we can get. It is a very challenging and stretching ministry and we need more love, more power, more wisdom, more trusted personnel, and more start-up provision. Our prayer is that it would be a self-sustaining operation where hundreds of addicts can become free, learn about Jesus and farming and then be sent out as missionaries to remote villages. We are excited! Pray, pray pray!!!
Again, thank you all for your partnership that allows us to be here in Nepal loving and serving the beautiful people of the Himalayas for the glory of Jesus!
Love, love, love! Joel and Tammy DeBortoli
Iris Global Nepal Base Directors
https://www.irisglobal.org/nepal