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The Power of a Small Ministry
When PF Nepal was founded 15 years ago, few would have expected it to have much impact or even last long. How could a non-profit organisation succeed in one of the poorest nations in the world? What could a Christian ministry do in a Hindu state that did not permit proselytizing?
The answer, as it turned out, is quite a lot!
The ministry began by providing poverty-stricken prisoners with free legal aid, food and clothing. Although the volunteers were initially forbidden from evangelizing with words, their kind actions to previously neglected prisoners spoke volumes about Christ.
Eventually, some of the restrictions eased and PF Nepal staff and volunteers were permitted to share their faith with prisoners. On one such prison visit, Dinesh Neupane, PF Nepal Executive Director, met an inmate just three days prior to the man’s scheduled execution. Dinesh told him about Christ and the man asked to be baptised. When Dinesh last visited the man hours before his execution, the prisoner wept as he explained that his children were homeless and had nowhere to go. Impulsively Dinesh consoled the man saying, “Don’t worry, I will take care of your family.” Dinesh took the man’s children into his home and so began PF Nepal’s Peace Loving Children’s Home, which cares for 35 such children who would otherwise be forced to live on the streets or in prison with their parents.
Over the years, PF Nepal’s Peace Loving Children’s Homes in Kathmandu and Pokhara have provided children with a safe and healthy environment where they are given an education, medical attention and loving care. Other children, who can stay with relatives while their parents are in prison, are “adopted” by PF Nepal and given financial assistance, medical care and emotional and spiritual support under PF’s “Support to Parents Programme.” Each year the children and their caretakers travel to PF’s headquarters in Kathmandu for a time of teaching and encouragement. PF has also built a thriving aftercare centre known as the “Model Rehabilitation Programme,” which provides vocational training for ex-prisoners, such as tailoring and mechanical repair, to help them find employment and avoid returning to prison. The centre is located on a large plot of land, where a vegetable garden and a rice field provide food for the rehabilitation programme and the children’s home in Kathmandu.
In just 15 years, God has built a thriving ministry in Nepal, achieving success few would have thought possible. Even recently, political instability and violence from the Maoist insurgency threatened the very lives of PF Nepal’s staff and volunteers as they travelled to remote prisons. Despite the dangers, they succeeded in installing several prison libraries that provide Bibles, Christian literature and PF Nepal’s own book, Life after Prison for the inmates. “I am so grateful that my Lord Jesus Christ has led us through this year of instability, poverty and civil war,” comments Dinesh. And the amazing success and growth of this ministry still continues today.
PF Nepal has been the only organisation granted permission by the government to go inside all of the country’s prisons. And PF has now been given consent to build a chapel and hold Christian services inside prison compounds. The prison authority is providing the land and the Christian community will fund the construction of a chapel inside Tripureshwar Women’s Prison. The Nakkhu Prison Authority has agreed to allow PF to hold Christian church services for inmates there every week. Such permission is unprecedented in a country that until very recently was considered a Hindu nation (it is now officially a secular state). “When we build a chapel, it will be a historical event in the Christian history of Nepal,” says Dinesh.
