Brief Introduction of Hope Churches Fellowship in Nepal
Hope Churches Fellowship in Nepal (HCFN) is the outgrowth of Hope Church in Kathmandu. Hope Church is an indigenous church and leads a church pioneering movement and leadership development. Hope Churches Fellowship, established in 2008, aims to be a fellowship of any like minded churches, but our aim is not to be segregated into a denominational ghetto but rather be open to everyone who has similar vision of church pioneering and leadership development in Nepal. We are in a period of development where we aim to become a fellowship that incorporates the like minded Churches. Currently we have five churches in our fellowship. These churches are directly related to Hope Church in Kathmandu, but we are now opening our arms of fellowship to any church or church groups that feels the need to belong to a fellowship. Especially in the area of local leadership development and church pioneering, we want to be the helping hand to the wider body of Christ in Nepal. The following is a brief introduction of our ministries under the umbrella of Hope Churches Fellowship.
1. The Beginning: In August 1993, a small prayer meeting began in Pastor Bhojraj Bhatta¡¯s residence in Chabahil along with English teaching classes. This prayer meeting continued without fanfare until the end of 1994. But as the number of people began to grow, in 1995, the Bhatta family along with the congregation had to change their residence to Maijubahal for a bigger place where they could conduct the weekly worship. Until then, it had no name. In 1996, the fellowship began to grow and had to change the place one more time in Maijubahal and the name Hope Church was then publically accepted and since then has been known as Hope Church. By the end of 1996, Hope Church again had to change its place of worship to Tusal near Hyatt Hotel. While at Tusal, Hope Church grew in number and recognition within Kathmandu as a church. Hope Church remained at Tusal until it moved to its own church building in Mahankal in the year 2002. After moving into the newly build church building, Hope Church has grown in many ways and today it is recognized as one of the leading churches in Kathmandu with membership of about three hundred and an active ministry of pioneering new churches.
Hope Church had a humble beginning and faced a lot of hardship, but today we can say that the hand of the Lord was there to guide us and lead us on to victory after victory. Under the leadership and the ministry of this church, we now have a national level structure which we call Hope Churches Fellowship in Nepal.
2. Brach Churches:
a. Jarayotar Ashish Church: The first church pioneering evangelist was sent to Sindhuli District in 2000. Dilip Shrestha went to his home village and began a prayer meeting in his home. He and his family went through a lot of persecution from the locals and the Maoists. But the church kept growing in the midst of all the hardship with many amazing miracles of healing and deliverances, and now it is a well established church with its own church hall. Its membership is nearing three hundred.
b. Jasmintar Asha Church: From the ministry of Dilip Shrestha, this place of fellowship was born in 2003. Hope Church in Kathmandu sent Hari Adhikari to look after this fellowship. Today it is also a well established fellowship with its own church building and property with the membership nearing two hundred. Combined membership of these two churches is about five hundred.
c. Panitanki Asha Church: Hope Church in Kathmandu sent Gyan Bahadur Tamang to pioneer this church in 2004. This is a small congregation of about 30+ members and Hope Church had been investing in it until the year 2009. But towards the end of last year, Gyan Bahadur Tamang opted to leave Hope Church fellowship. However, we are yet to decide as what to do with this fellowship as some of the member still wish to remain with Hope Church Fellowship.
d. Sindhuli Bazar Church: This is another direct growth from Jarayotar Ashish Church under the ministry of Dilip Shrestha. It¡¯s a growing fellowship in the district headquarter. This church began as a home fellowship some five years ago, but from the last three years, it is a full grown church with its weekly worship service.
e. Two new outstations: We have believers in two more places in Sindhuli district and as soon as we train the leaders, we will send them there to begin the full time worship. Currently the members from these places have to travel up to 4 hours one way to get to our main church in Sindhuli.
Sindhuli district was the first place God opened the door for us to begin new churches. This was one of the most Maoist affected district during our pioneering days. But Dilip and Hari have done a wonderful work and God has blessed their efforts. In many occasions they were harassed, beaten, and even chassed from there. But the grace of God has continued to give them strength and today we can praise God for bringing nearly seven hundred souls in his kingdom from this district. We are also in prayer for the doors to be opened in other parts of Nepal to pioneer such work.
3. Hope Bible School (Hope Christian College): When we saw how God was using Dilip Shrestha in the villages to begin churches, we felt the need to train such men and women of God. Dilip was not trained; he was simply discipled in Hope Church and yet he was so effective. Therefore, in the year 2003, we began our short term training course and we named it Hope Bible School. We began with the aim of making it a rotating training school where the newly trained would go into the filled and then allow the already working ones to return for further training. We are now fully prepared to implement this vision of training many church planters and gradually bring their theological and leadership training up to a higher level by establishing a rotating system. Currently Hari and his wife have returned for further training after several years in the mission field.
Hope Church wishes to train as many members as it can so that they would go back to their villages where they came from and begin new fellowships. For this to happen, Hope Christian College will have to be the nerve center to mobilize the rest of our members. At present, we are using Hope Church building to conduct short term course. But we will also begin the in-field training. In this way, on the one hand we will raise church planters, but on the other hand we will also work towards a qualified theological college to run Bachelor Degree program. We will also aim to make this institute as the center for research and publication. Christian literature is very much in need and we hope to contribute something through our college.
4. Scholarship for the needy Children and social welfare: From the year 2007, Hope Church began to raise money to provide scholarship to the neediest children in our congregation. Several families have been blessed with our initial efforts, but the lack of fund and the increase in the needy families have become real challenge for us. But in God¡¯s grace, we shall continue to provide this glimmer of hope for the children who otherwise would not be able to see the light of education in their lives. This scholarship effort will also be working towards starting a home where the most needy, orphans and abandoned children could find shelter, food and education. This also applies to the elderly ones. Due to the grinding poverty, people are abandoning their elderly and unable parents and we as a church cannot shut our eyes when they come and attend our fellowship. Hope Church has been helping such elderly by providing them the basic necessities as our members are willing to sacrifice their own comfort. Our ministry also takes special care for those who could not afford medical treatment even for the simplest of sicknesses; time to time, our members take special offerings for such needy to make our ministry more relevant and biblical.
5. Micro-Credit (Income generation): Hope Churches in Sindhuli have begun this process helping the poors to overcome their poverty. A poor but willing family will be given a pig or a goat or whatever in that case. Once they are able to make profit, they will be encouraged to pay back the initial amount so that the fund becomes the rotating source for other such needy persons. We want to see our members come out of poverty.
6. School development: There are many government schools in the villages, but their condition is pathetic. It¡¯s our dream to improve these schools with resources and volunteers so that the poorer children in the villages are also given the chance of attaining proper education. The government schools in Nepal are running at the mercy of teachers who are there only for their salary, but taking part in the development of school gives us the voice and credibility in the eyes of the villagers so that we can demand a better service from the teachers who otherwise care nothing for the education of the children.
