Lal Lura HOW I CAME TO CHRIST - AND HOW LORD LEADS MY LIFE by Lal Lura of Pokhara I was born in a Christian family on 21 October 1962. My father was a church elder in our church. I was a nominal Christian and went to Sunday school regularly and I received the prize of best regular attendance every year until 1979. One night in the year of 1989, I had a terrible dream, I was in front of the final judgement and I was condemned. I was very scared and from that day I started searching for the real peace. On 26th. September 1989, I attended Christian camping which was for one week (26 September - 31 September) organized by the Servants of God local evangelistic team. On 28th. September 1989, I accepted what the Bible told me Jesus Christ had done for my salvation and committed myself through Romans 6:1-11; 2 Corinthians 5:14-17; Galatians 2:16-20; 3: 13; 5:14-16; Colossians 2:14; 3:3; Hebrews 13:11-13 and other verses of scripture. I was born again and received a new life in Jesus by faith. Two weeks later I was suffering from fever and I was deathly ill. One evening, as I slept on the bed, three angels came and asked me whether I want to go with them. But, before I answered, I thought to myself, “If I go now, I will never have a chance to share with anyone else what the Lord Jesus has done foe me.” Those three angels knew all that was inside my heart and what I was thinking. So they agreed to leave me and then vanished. Soon after that I recovered and since that day I have never suffered from fever again. I left my job and joint the voluntary organization called Servants of God evangelistic team in Mizoram, India as a worker. Through evangelistic team, God allowed me to witness many miracles through faith. I learned that everything is possible with God. In 1990, I was elected as a leader in a Christian Youth group in our local church. Also, within that year I was appointed as a counselor on the Servants of God team. At the end of the year I was elected as General Secretary for the Servants of God team. In those days, God had been leading us to have faith in Him. He used me to heal some sick people. One thing I understood very clearly was that God wanted me to know Him very well “who He is.” We led many people into Christ. After two years, in 1992, one night I had a dream again. I saw the lamb’s blood flowing towards one of the tribes whom I never saw before. Those people who touched and drank that blood became clean and fresh. But most of them did not understand what it all meant. I prayed to God and asked Him to let me understand my dream. Two days later, I received a letter from a missionary who was working in China. In that letter he mentioned about the Tibetan people and asked me to pray for them. That letter had a very deep meaning for me, because of my dream. Since my dream I was preparing myself to be a missionary. I had joined missionary training (for one month only) under Mission for Christ Missionary Training Center in November 1992. While there, God spoke to me once again. One day I was tired of hearing the message from the speaker and I thought to myself, “ I can read the Bible at home.” I decided to go home without telling anyone and packed up my belongings and waited for the chance. When everyone went down to the dininghall, I reached for my bag and grabbed to leave. Suddenly, I heard a clear voice, which could never have come from a human being, “ You are called to follow Jesus. You should not go home.” I was shocked by that voice and fell down on the bed. I tried to hear more, but there was no more. Perspiration covered my whole body. I checked myself to see if I was still awake, but that voice was still in my heart and repeated the message again and again. I went to the bathroom to wash my face and that voice was still in my heart and still repeated the same message. Then I was afraid to go home and went to join the dinner. The next morning, when the speaker came and sat with me, I asked, “Could it be the God voice? ” after I told him that what I was trying to do and what I had heard. He said to me softly, “ Yes, that must be the God’s voice, you must not go home.” After the training was over, I married one who was also trained as a missionary during the same time. We went to Kathmandu, Nepal where we did not need a visa, trusting God that He would provide all we would needed. We studied the Tibetan language for two years at Tribhuvan University of Kathmandu. He is faithful to us even until today. In 1995-96, we evangelized the Nepali Hindu areas of Vaishapatti, Itagal, Chober, Pajangal, Panga, Gamcha, Machhigaon, which are on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Many people heard and received Christ. By the authority of Jesus, we cast out demons from three young girls named Nirmala; Kanchhi Tuladhar, Geeta Paudel and the authority of Jesus healed many sick people. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, new fellowship was started in Itagal and Vaishapatti, Hasantar. Since, May 1999 we moved to Pokhara, 205 kilometers west from Kathmandu. Within this year, after we moved to Pokhara, 7 more people came to Christ and baptized in October 1999. A Tamang village called Lhapa, near the Tibet border, many more people came to Christ and out of these, 107 people were baptized on 8th.April, 2000. Since May 1999, God the door to open an orphanage home in Pokhara. We have ten children from Tibetan and Tibetan background. Eight children are from the different villages of Mustang and two children are from Dolpo. On 7th. November, 1996, in one of the villages inside of Tibet, I shared the gospel through Bible tracts. After I finished one bag full, the Chinese Police caught me. I spent altogether 15 days in a communist Jail at Shigatse (Tibet). I was released again on 21 November. Throughout this hard time, our loving and faithful God showed His faithfulness to me and took me out of prison in His own time without me facing persecution. MY GOALS I am planning to produce well-instructed believers who can share the Gospel with others in their own culture. I believed that if the missionary vision is not instilled in the local church, the church may remain an isolated and defensive group of believers who presence is barely tolerated by non-Christians. By contrast, local believers properly instructed and trained can win others to Christ without having to overcome all the cross-cultural obstacles faced by foreign missionaries. We will have an end-point at which the local Christians will become the leaders with self-governing autonomy. We will go to serve in other areas. This is how I interpret one of the striking things about the Apostle Paul’s ministry. Even in the major centers like Ephesus and Corinth, Paul stayed only about two years before moving on to other cities. His apparent method was to gather a group of believers, instruct them, appoint local leaders and then leave. There are many Tibetan people who want to believe Jesus, but they could not. In their concept it is too late to accept Christ because of their culture and present situation, but they hoped their children would have a better chance to believe Jesus. Since May 1999, God opened the door for us to look after ten children who are Tibetan or of Tibetan background. It is a good strategy to build up the real faith in their hearts and to put the Gospel seeds in them. God says, “ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and get up.” (Deu.6: 7). My chief aim is as stated Proverbs 22:6.“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” Under the guidance of God, now they understand why we are praying, why we are singing the Lord’s songs, who is Jesus, who is God, what is sin, what is Heaven and what is Hell. God is revealing Himself to them. All the ten children can pray before having the meal, before going to School, before going to bed. Even when they have physical problems, they pray and our loving God answers their prayers and they became healed. Now they are started to pray for their family to know and to believe Jesus Christ. We believe that someday they will become a real army for Jesus to attack Satan with the power of Jesus and rescue their people from the hands of Satan. This is the long-term plan. Through these children I have planned to build up relation-bridges to their families, relatives, and to their villages. After this relation-bridge is established, we will have an opportunity to evangelize them, train them to be disciples, baptize them, and teach them to obey what ever our Lord commands. He will provide us means to train them to be real disciples of Jesus and lead them to return to their own people to show the love of Christ. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. (Colosians. 4:3).