Nepal (MNN) — It’s supposed to be the end of southern Asia’s monsoon season. But today, central Nepal is reeling from heavy rains last week that rapidly turned into flash floods and landslides. At least 224 people have lost their lives and others are still missing.
“It’s been sporadic at times, [our] communication from our ministry partners in Nepal, but we are hearing and also getting some videos and pictures of the flooding that’s going on. [The damage has] just been devastating,” says John Pudaite with Bibles For The World.
Nepal has seen rapid urbanization in recent years, but not matching development. Pudaite says that their partners are among the nearly 2 million people in the hard-hit capital of Kathmandu.
“[Nepal] just never planned to have a city with this many people in it, with the necessary flood controls and water runoffs and things like that. So they (our partners) are sheltering hundreds and hundreds of people, also feeding them,” Pudaite says.
Bibles For The World works in areas where there is restricted access to God’s Word, where copies are scarce or among peoples where Christianity is beginning to take root — such as Nepal, Cambodia, areas of India and other Asian and SE Asian nations.
(Photo, caption courtesy of Bibles For The World)
“These are people who just have nowhere to go. Their homes are still underwater. You know, they’re probably lost pretty much all of their possessions because of the flood damage.”
Bibles For The World primarily distributes Scripture to local pastors and missionaries. Their warehouse appears to have escaped damage, but many of their partners’ churches and ministry centers have been flooded.
The challenges are steep, but for local Christians (who make up less than 1.5 percent of Nepal’s population), Pudaite says, “This is a incredible opportunity for them to show Christ’s love and reach out and just pray for the people of Nepal, predominantly Hindu, who may respond to this outpouring of love from our brothers and sisters.”
Pray that more Nepali people will hear the gospel of Christ even through this disaster.
To sign up to receive a free prayer guide for the Hindu world from Bibles For The World, visit our resource page.
Header photo of the Himalayas from Kathmandu, Nepal (Photo courtesy of Bigyan Khanal via Unsplash.)
