By Jeremiah Goddard
As I travel the world and experience the Body of Christ, I am constantly reminded of how we are afforded “holy ground” moments in our lives. God allows us to experience these moments that sometimes shape us more than we shape the situations we observe. Often these moments are profound and life-changing. On a recent trip to Nepal, we experienced several such moments, but one, in particular, stands out for me.
As we journeyed from the north of Nepal, which is predominantly Buddhist and Hindu, the feeling of the area changed. We moved out of the major cities and into the villages and settlements down to the far south of Nepal which is a majority Muslim area. The world grew a little bit quieter, aside from the random howling dog and honking taxi. On one of the days there, we set off to find a school. We sped through the town on a three-wheeled tuk-tuk dodging sleeping dogs and wandering people. Quickly the scenery was replaced by mud-filled streets and a taste of rural life, where animals often share a room in the families’ home.
We trudged through the muck and arrived at a small school where we could hear children counting out aloud in English. “One!”, a student would call out, and the class would repeat, ”One!”, and so on past the 20s and 30s. This school had six classrooms packed to the brim and dreamed of adding more. The “holy ground” moment came a little later. We toured the classrooms and were shown the expansion plans, but the most impactful thing about this school was the director. As he showed us around the school you could see an air of pride and excitement. You could feel how happy he was to show us his village and area. He invited us back to his home. We sat on the front porch of his home and drank tea. It was then that God allowed us to get a picture of the reality of the situation. Here we sat in Nepal, surrounded by poverty, and yet here was one man bringing hope to his village. Our contact explained the situation to us. The school struggled to find educated teachers in the village, and it had run out of money. I had to reconcile the picture in my mind: the director was so proud and excited to show us what God was busy doing and the reality of the seriousness of the situation. The true “holy ground” moment was seeing the vision that God had given the director, through his eyes. Through human eyes the situation is dire. The truth and reality of the situation though is that God planted the seed in this man’s heart, God has given him the wisdom and drive to move it forward. The “holy ground” moment may not seem profound from the outside, but the beauty of the moment was in each and every child whose life has been or will be, impacted.
