When I think of Pokhara I can’t help but smile – my mind instantly goes to all the friends we have made in this beautiful city, and the amazing things God has done there.
This is where we spent the majority of our three months in Nepal, serving with our dear friends, Shonnie & Matt Widen, in their non-profit, Maya Ministries. There they have some of the most humble, hardworking, selfless lovers of Jesus I have ever met. We spent a lot of time serving with Niscea, Suju and Thomas – the local Nepali staff, and I learnt so much from them in this short period of time on how to love.
Maya has a large 3 story guesthouse where they host different teams from all over the world – such as YWAM, Iris, Bethel, I-HOP (International House of Prayer), World Race and more. Our role was to assist leading these teams in outreaches – street ministry and in the red-light areas. We absolutely LOVED doing this, and each team was a joy to host. Together, we reached out to meet the needs and show love to those in the slums, on the streets and red-light districts.
Maya Ministries’ focus is to see women set free from human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Their vision is to bring hope to the red-light areas of Asia, and to have a safe place for at-risk young women to find refuge. As they build relationship with the young women in those areas, the girls are given the opportunity to leave lives of sexual exploitation and make a new life as part of the Maya family. They are given the chance to work at the guesthouse and have a clean income while being surrounded by a loving community.
The girls are given a house, trained in new skills of knitting and sewing and paid for their talent and work. They have the opportunity to get education, learn how to live in a family and get a second chance of a brighter future with no strings attached!
While we were there our beautiful friend Monica came to visit and serve with us from Tasmania. She is an outstanding councilor and spent time with some of these girls speaking life and value into their hearts. We also had fun going on boat rides and dancing in the rain.
So much more happened in our time here, including seeing healing and miracles.
We prayed for a shoe-shiner who was of another faith and saw Jesus instantly heal his back, a homeless boy who was deaf stayed with us for 2 weeks and his ears were open to hear. We saw people encounter the love and kindness of Jesus and many more radical miracles and stories that would be hard to believe without seeing them with your own eyes.
We even had the opportunity to speak at a ‘Yoga and Healing Festival’ as guest speakers – where the
Holy Spirit met people and healed hearts and physical needs. I remember one lady at this conference who was a strong believer in another religion who was vocal in how she didn’t want to listen to us share … but her curiosity got the better of her. She came to our session and ended up responding – running to the front and crying out for Jesus to come. She had pain in her back and, once she had been prayed for, she was painfree! She was powerfully touched by the love of Jesus – just like so many others at this conference.
The story to how we even ended up at the conference was a miracle in itself… It’s a long story, so if you ever want to hear it one day you will have to ask me!
This was the last stop on our 6 months travels, after this we headed back to Tasmania where we started to plan and prepare for the next season ahead. I’ll share more about what this year will be looking like in the next post – but needless to say, it isn’t going to be boring!
More on Maya Ministries: https://mayahimalaya.wordpress.com/
