Last Thursday, I left for the retreat location at noon with eight members of the praise team. We split into two cars and departed from my house. On the way, we stopped at a rest area for lunch and arrived at our destination around 5 PM. The Nepali pastors and elders warmly welcomed us. We had dinner at 6 PM, and the evening service began at 7:20 PM.
As soon as our church’s praise team started worship, the vice president of the Nepali Church Association came up to me, warmly put his arm around my shoulder, and asked, “Is this really the praise team from your church, Pastor?” When I said yes, he gave me a thumbs-up and said, “They’re amazing,” which made me feel really good too.
After the service, Elder Anil, who was in charge of the entire camp, shared that many Nepali praise teams tend to perform in a way that focuses on showing themselves to the audience, but that our praise team always starts and ends with prayer, worshipping while focusing on God. He said that in itself taught the others a lot.
Then it was my turn to preach, and I stood at the podium with a nervous heart. Originally, I thought my message would be translated into Nepali, but I was told that most people understood English, so I could just preach in English. Honestly, this caught me off guard. Since I’m not very fluent in English, I usually prepare what I will say next while the interpreter is translating. I was worried as to whether I could preach for a full hour in English without any breaks.
Thankfully, I had experience officiating a wedding in English and had prepared a script, so I was able to share the message somewhat comfortably. With my personal testimony, I boldly preached the core of the gospel—becoming children of God. Then I led a prayer session to give people an opportunity to personally encounter God.
I wanted to do a laying-on-of-hands prayer like we do at our church, but the head pastor suggested that, since the youth came from many different churches, some might be uncomfortable with that format. He recommended inviting only those who wished to be prayed for to come forward.
After singing a heartfelt worship song, I invited those who wanted me to pray for them to come forward. However, no one came up at first. This also caught me off guard and I was unsure what was happening. But after a little while, several people came forward.
Elder Anil later explained that not only was this type of prayer unfamiliar to them, but also that Nepali people tend to be shy, so they like to wait for someone else to go first—just like what happened that night.
Even after the service ended, many young people wanted to talk with me, so we moved to the next room. As we talked, several of them tearfully shared their struggles and said they had never experienced a worship like this before. They asked me to pray for them.
There was even a serious incident during the retreat, where someone smoked marijuana in the room to the point it set off the fire alarm. However, seeing God deeply touch their hearts in just one evening service made me so thankful.
Later, we had a deep time of fellowship with the two American pastors who were guest speakers and with the Nepali leaders until midnight.
Deacon Yoon Si-Hyun and three team members left for London that same night, and the rest of us had breakfast the next morning before heading back. Although the long drive was tiring, we were all grateful and deeply fulfilled to have served young people from another country’s churches. Thank you so much for your prayers once again.