Snippet # 1

In his book - "The Attack Lambs - prayer that changes the world" - Mark Geppert shares this story. Following are some excerpts from his book (in italics).

The story is set in Nepal in 1983 when Mark was trekking from village to village - distributing Christian literature and praying for the sick. Pretty gutsy stuff to do considering that jail terms were one year for converting, three years for leading someone to the Lord, and six years per person for water baptism.

They had just been handing out about two hundred tracts, with great response. They came into a village of Panchat - town of Gaighat, Sagamatha province. They entered the place in the heat of the day, and stopped to rest on a stone wall near the local school ...

"The children were attracted to the two very different looking Westerners. They ran over to see us and were very curious about what might be in our rattan baskets. Our porters, also weary from the journey, were looking forward to spending the night in this town and had left us there on the wall to fend for ourselves , while they went to make arrangements. The crowd of children grew and two of the braver boys, perhaps ten years of age, began to open the baskets. We let them.

Across the way from us was a man in legal garb. Attorneys in Nepal have a very distinctive haircut and robe. This was obviously a man of some legal influence. As the children began to open the baskets and shout with joy at the books they found, this man turned and hastily headed toward the police station.

Calling to the porters, I expressed my concern, but they were not inclined to move quickly. So we Westerners took off as fast as we could go and left them behind. We were certain there was going to be a problem. We were right."

... cutting to the chase - Mark was caught, arrested and bought before the Chief District Officer (CDO) ...

"As I walked back down the trail to face certain difficulty, the Lord spoke to me, "If you deny Me before man, I will deny you before the Father."

The voice was as clear as day. The certainty of its tenor gripped my heart so that minutes later when the CDO asked, "Are you a Christian?" it was very easy to say, "Yes." When he further asked, "Are you a baptised Christian?" It was even easier to say, "Yes sir, I have been baptised three times," (once as a child, once as an adult believer, and once in the Holy Spirit).

As I said that, the same voice spoke to me saying, "I live to make intercession for you." It was so real. No one else in the room heard it. The CDO never heard it. But there was Jesus telling me He had the situation under control. He was standing in a major gap in my life that day. He was drawing together these events and the perfect plan of the Father.

After lengthy dialogue in which I shared the message of the Gospel with the CDO, he decided to let me go, along with our team. His exact words were, "I have decided to show you grace." Where did a Hindu official come up with the word "grace?" God was speaking through him. Instead of six hundred years in jail, I was going on with the rest of our scheduled trek.

Six months later, that same man walked out of his office and from a clear blue sky was struck dead by lightning. It was reported in the Kathmandu paper and the Christian brothers in Nepal saved the clipping for me. For years I thought about that lightning strike as retribution; you know, "Touch not mine annointed, and do my prophets no harm" (Chronicles 16:22). But one morning the Lord corrected me. "Rather," he suggested, "see how much it took for Me to get a pampered, self-centred, Christian preacher over to Nepal to share the faith with that man, knowing he had just six months to live."

(Note: "The Attack Lambs" is written by Mark Geppert, and is published by Genesis Books and ARMOUR Publishing Pte Ltd - Singapore.)