Hey, Ben here, I've been meaning to write this for some time now. A lot has progressed since the last update that we sent out after my trip to Nepal. This leads me to think that I need to revisit the reasons why we have moved to Colorado to make sure that I am being clear and that everyone is on the same page. Our initial thoughts in moving to Colorado last July was for the main reason that Mountain View Church (MVC) and their relationship with Binay Church in Pokhara, Nepal. MVC graciously offered to help prepare us the best they know how through Porterbrook (www.porterbrooknetwork.org to see more), family/marital preparation in CTO (Called To Obedience), and Wilderness Ministry Institute (WMI). I have been involved in Porterbrook since September. We begin CTO in two weeks with one of the pastors and his wife. I will be also looking at guide training beginning in March with Matt Scott and WMI, since I'm still not sure how God is going to move once we are in Nepal. All this to say, it's still going as planned.
This brings me to the biggest changes. The original thought was that we would be sent directly through MVC to Binay Church in Pokhara, since Binay Church is a part of the same church planting network called Crossway Chapel Network. However after receiving some financial support and traveling to Nepal once again, Meredith and I felt like we were asking to much of MVC to support us like a missions organization would. We felt like MVC would have to hire someone just to handle all the responsibilities that come with the administrative tasks. We felt like it was creating too much of a burden for MVC, even though I think they were willing to try to make it work. We just didn't have peace with it. Also we felt that a missions organization could provide us with more of the support that we feel we need and even the support that we don't know we need once in Nepal.
This led us to look at Pioneers right before Christmas with the our friends Matt & Trista Deaver. God aligned us and the Deavers together at the same time regarding this step, which is awesome! Like with most missions organizations, you fill an initial introductory application and have an interview over the phone. We were fortunate to have a Pioneers rep right here in Fort Collins to meet with. One of the biggest unknowns or questions that came from the interview was the "E" word: Education. I knew this was coming with the territory of missions organizations, not for all, but most require you to have at least one year or 30 credits of Biblical education. If I wanted to make this update 5 times longer, which would be good for practice in writing papers for my "education", then I would discuss my thoughts on education. But I'll save you the time. If we were to go with Pioneers, I would have to have at least 24 credits and Meredith would need at least 12 credits and we would have 5 years from the date that Pioneers accepts to send us to complete the classes. We both feel that we would want to have this completed before we go to Nepal and that we would have to move back Iowa in order to afford the classes.
So why Pioneers? Many people that I look up to in the Faith, which includes the pastors from New Heights Church, the missions pastor at Cornerstone Church in Ames, IA, along with one of the pastors here in Fort Collins have all encouraged and said great things about Pioneers. Their focus, which goes with their name, is working among unreached people groups all over the world and encourage pioneering new church planting movements. They are a "field driven" organization compared to a "office driven" organization, which means teams on the field are able to make decisions more freely versus someone in a home office. Pioneers has only one team in Nepal currently working with sex-trafficking issues. Even though we haven't been told for sure that we need to join this team in Kathmandu, we are being told that this is a high possibility for a short season (2 years). The Deavers and we feel like Pokhara is where we want to be but also realize we might
need to take some other initial steps at first in order to get to Pokhara to join Binay Church. One of biggest unknowns is our visa to be in the country. The different options are a student, research, or business visa. Very briefly, a student visa would be one of the cheaper options and little commitment to a local university, but restricts you to a certain city, probably Kathmandu. A research visa gives us a lot more flexibility to be anywhere within the country as long as whatever we are researching, which can anything, is approved by the university. It's one of the cheaper options as well. A business visa would be ideal for long term options, but I've been told that it costs anywhere from $50,000-$200,000!
So this leads to another development! As you may know I had the idea or thought of a coffee shop or guest house in order to get a business visa. While Matt Deaver and I were in Pokhara this last Oct./Nov. we tried to meet a Canadian missionary couple that own and run a juice company. The company and their house is located right next to Tibetan monastery and a refugee camp that is home to around 20,000 Tibetan refugees. I've been told that it's the largest juice company in Nepal. They grow all the fruit right in Nepal and even have some greenhouses located within the refugee camp itself. It's a seasonal business in which this Canadian man named Keith hires 20 or so Tibetan people to work for him. Matt skyped with Keith in December to gain more of a perspective of what life is like in Pokhara. During the conversation, Matt shared our business ideas and Keith didn't think the guest house option would be good not only because its ridiculously expensive, but also it's seen as not creating job opportunities but taking them away from the local business owners. Keith mentioned that it would be better if we invested in an already existing business, in which both of our families could share the expense of $55,000! It dawned on Keith and he told Matt that he plans to be leaving the field to retire. Keith is 60 yrs. of age and has been living in Nepal for 15yrs. and doesn't want the business to go to waste. He asked Matt if either he or anyone on our team has a heart for Tibetans and would be interested in running a business. Matt told him that I've (Ben) had an interest and heart for Tibetan people; I've been to Tibet/China; we have friends that are working among Tibetans in Nepal and China; and we are very interested in a business opportunity!!! Obviously it was only one conversation, but we were all excited to be offered this opportunity and feel that it's no coincidence!
We are now currently just trying to figure out how realistic it is for us to move directly to Pokhara or after a short period of time in Kathmandu, begin our language training, transition into life in Nepal, AND possibly run a business. I'm trying to have my hands as open as possible and not have some firm plan as to what I think Nepal is going to be like and what we are going to be doing.
I confess that I need to do a better job at communicating these updates more frequently so that it doesn't take you a week to read it! This is what we are faced with currently.
Our prayer requests are:
1. Which missions organization to partner with (Pioneers - www.pioneers.org, or others that we are considering Shepards Staff - www.ssmfi.org, World Team - us.worldteam.org, World Harvest Mission - www.whm.org),
2. Our current communication with the Pioneers team to see if it is a good fit,
3. Education - if needed,
4. Business opportunity with Keith,
5. Continued unity with how God is directing the Deavers and us,
6. God to continue to prepare our families for what lies ahead,
7. Finally that we wouldn't lose sight of the Gospel and it's everyday value in our lives and that it continues to drive our vision for people that have never heard of Jesus Christ to follow Him with their lives.
8. Actually this is the final one for now, please pray for the Tibetan people throughout Nepal and the world and for our friends working among them. Pray that they would see fruit in their ministries!
We love you all and hope to connect with you all again soon! Please email us any questions that you may have!
Thanks,
Mer, Abe, Zion, and Ben
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