Last month, as I ascended into the Himalayas with our Nepalese ministry leader, I was struck by both the beauty and brutality of our surroundings.
The Nepal-Tibet border region is a land of high peaks and steep slopes, raging rivers and unpredictable weather. Evidence of flooding, landslides, and damage caused by the 2015 earthquakes was all around us.
Though it is beautiful, the region’s brutality makes human habitation seem rather absurd. Yet humans do inhabit these mountains, and most of them have never heard the Gospel – especially the people groups of Tibet.
13 indigenous missionaries supported by Harvest Bridge focus on outreach to Tibetans. These missionaries walk for hours over dangerous terrain to reach villages that cannot be accessed any other way.
Staying in the Nepal-Tibet border region for just one day was a challenge. I am enormously humbled to partner with these 13 brothers and sisters, for whom the risks of both natural disasters and persecution are a 24/7 reality.
The Nepal-Tibet border isn’t the only brutal place where HB’s missionaries serve. In fact, it is the norm for our partners to labor in the hardest of places. If someone doesn’t go, how will the people of these lands, created in God’s image and dearly loved by Him, ever hear His saving message and taste His goodness?
In rural Bangladesh, I encountered a hellish environment of a different sort. Hot, humid, flood-prone and severely underdeveloped, the places our Bangladeshi leader showed me had few redeeming qualities.
Yet amid poverty and suffering, I witnessed joy – the joy of new life in Christ.
Love for God and neighbor compels three teams of Harvest Bridge supported missionaries in three rural regions of Bangladesh to live the Gospel among the poorest and most marginalized. Their work is bearing much fruit; over 700 new followers of Jesus were baptized through their ministries last year alone.
Ministry challenges in Bangladesh are not limited to rural areas.
Take, for example, Rachel’s* outreach to Muslims in the slums of Dhaka, one of the world’s fastest-growing megacities. Bearing witness to Christ in the burgeoning slums invites harassment by extremists, yet Rachel has ministered for 13 years, seeing the Lord heal numerous physical ailments and draw Muslims to faith in Him.
Our missionaries are imperfect, broken people like the rest of us – but God uses these broken vessels to do incredible work in the most brutal of places.
Through your support, God uses you as a vital part of their ministries as well. Thanks to over 260 HB-supported missionaries like those described in this letter, you can send the Gospel to places where others can’t go.
Join us in this mission by giving Where Needed Most.
In Christ,
Andrew David
Director of International Partnerships
*Name changed for security