Nepal (MNN) — A ministry family in South Asia is about to welcome its newest member.
Tom Dudenhofer with Audio Scripture Ministries says plans are underway for indigenous outreach facilitated by their partner, World Cassette Outreach of India (WCOI).
They're helping homegrown efforts to bring Scriptures in audio to the nation of Nepal.
"It's actually become like a grandchild, if you want to call it that…as we see the team in India now is reaching out, developing their own team that's going to be going into Nepal," says Dudenhofer.
"We're just going to wait and see what God is doing, and try to provide them with the tools that they need."
The idea to reach Nepal for Christ came when WCOI staff met a Nepali man getting his education in India. As WCOI shared their vision and more about their work in India, the man's interest grew.
"He had a tremendous heart and vision to go back to his country and to be a part of sharing God's Word in audio," explains Dudenhofer.
Over the past couple of months, he's been sending back encouraging reports as he surveys the religious landscape of Nepal.
Dudenhofer says, "He found tremendous interest, especially among pastors who go out and visit multiple churches and do ministry."
Several ASM team members visited Nepal recently to see the progress for themselves, and held a meeting with several area pastors.
"It was a wonderful surprise," says Dudenhofer. "They had hoped to meet with, at most, 100 pastors; over 150 pastors showed up."
He says the meeting had a full range of interpersonal dynamics.
"There was enthusiasm, there was excitement," he explains. "There was even some controversy that sprang up into the meeting.
"All of that points to God at work."
That has ASM asking some big questions: "How can we get the players into the country? What's going to work best? How much can they handle per project?"
Pray that the answers to these questions will come quickly and clearly. For more information and to find ways you can help financially, click here to visit ASM's Web site.
Would you keep Nepal in your prayers? Please pray wisdom for pastors as they find ways to get audio Scriptures to their people. Pray also for patience and interpersonal harmony as WCOI and the group from Nepal work together on this project.
"They're the ones that are going to be taking the first distributions and looking for the right people to use in supplying these players to do their own discipleship and disciple-making," says Dudenhofer.
Ask the Lord to protect national teams from opposition in any form.
"There is opposition in different ways and different kinds in the country," Dudenhofer states. "[It's] not too serious yet, more of a political, organizational nature; but it is a sign that something's happening when opposition pops up."
