Bhutan

2020 was a year of restoration. Believers had time to sit at the feet of God and pray and fast... Gospel seeds that were planted in other ways and days sprouted in 2020.

—Pastor Jagan*

BHUTAN IMPACT REPORT 2020

A YEAR OF RESTORATION

$45,735 Total 2020 Ministry Expenditures

27 Pastors & Missionaries New Believers

125 New Believers

In this small, mostly mountainous Buddhist kingdom of about one million people in the Himalayas, we join hands with 27 pastors and missionaries. The men and women we support focus on sharing the Gospel in their own villages and cities, as well as traveling to even more remote parts of their country to share the Good News. There is a significant emphasis on counseling, sports ministry with young people, and drug and alcohol rehabilitation. During COVID-19, Bhutan was one of the earliest countries to close its borders. They did so in January 2020, and used significant testing to trace cases. With this response, there has only been one death from COVID-19. However, restrictions severely limited ministry and caused economic hardship for many. Pastor Jagan*, our country director, explains how this year shifted their ministry:

“2020 was a year of restoration. Believers had time to sit at the feet of God and pray and fast. COVID-19 has brought a drastic change in pastors’ and believers’ lives. I found that we were all busy, busy, busy doing ministry. We were not spending as much time in prayer and scripture reading. This year, family prayer has really increased. The pastors and the missionaries share that they have spent more time with their families. This season was a recharging season for all the believers and especially the pastors. There were very restrictive rules so everything happened online. Believers used to have excuses to miss prayer and worship meetings, and now they have no excuse because they are all at home! More people were on the Zoom meetings than before in physical church. Those who used to not come as often to church now come regularly. There was fear of what was going on in the world, so suddenly there was a great interest in the Gospel. Some hard questions were asked to the pastors about suffering and other things that they needed to grow in wisdom to answer. Gospel seeds that were planted in other ways and days sprouted in 2020.”

Pastor Rigzin* shares how his ministry was able to expand:

“The prayer lives of our fellowship members increased, as we could time after time have online meetings. My personal prayer life and Bible reading increased. It was so difficult in the initial stage of

lockdown as I was clueless, and there were so many fears that haunted me— what am I going to do in terms of ministry? My sincere prayer was that the devil should not take away the believers. We as a family were praying, and the LORD God has made our smaller congregation strong. The believers were strengthened to strengthen each other, so we could pray for the world on a daily basis. As we were praying sincerely for our fellowship members, God has strengthened the believers to a great level. They always used to look to us for each and every prayer activity, but now they have learned to pray as a group and strengthen others. Now we can confidently move on to focus on other ministry fields. The tremendous change in the believers’ prayer lives and leading the group themselves is Awesome. I thank God for His strengthening hand. Now we are very much focusing in a new ministry field.”

Jigme* explains how her children’s ministry deepened: “During the last months there were so many challenges due to COVID-19, but as I visited homes I was able to develop a close relationship with the kids. The children were expressing themselves more openly in a very friendly way. They were opening up their hearts and raising their doubts about God and questions about life. God gave me wisdom to clear those questions and doubts in a simple way that they could understand. That helped most of the children to become strong in the Lord. During this period, rapport among the parents was also well established. This is a new experience and a new turn for a bright future of ministry.”

Pastor Tobgay* shares how COVID-19 led to the answering of his prayers:

“Many hopeless people found hope in the Lord as I prayed and preached in the online platform. In this period many young people who were addicted to drugs were struggling when they were not getting drug supply due to the lockdown. I was praying for years for God to open up doors to reach out to these people. God gave a wonderful opportunity to spend time in counseling and prayer with a few such young ones. Initially, they were too arrogant to listen to anything in our group; I motivated all our fellowship people to pray for this particular need. After continuous attempts, these young men (a group of eight) slowly started to accept the teaching and counseling. Now these young men are in the process of accepting the Lord. I feel so excited in the way that the LORD God does wonders.”

In addition to the modest monthly support our pastors and missionaries receive to carry out their ministry, 130 families—about 520 individuals—received a month’s worth of emergency food supplies after intense flooding destroyed their livelihoods. Four pastors received motorbikes so they could expand their ministry field. Ultimately, 125 men and women began following Jesus. Although lockdown made it impossible to baptize them in 2020, Pastor Jagan says this:

“Those souls who now have a thirst for finding God after 2020—there will be a great opportunity for the harvest. There will be revival. The land is already prepared for the harvest. We are calling 2021 the year of hope. Now, we just must go to reap the harvest in 2021.”