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Meet Nepal's Most Unlikely Church Planter

The God Who Turns His Cheek

The pastor of the church gave Suraj a copy of the Bible to read. “One night as I was reading the Bible, just as ordinary literature, and studying Matthew’s Gospel, something amazing stopped me that I had never ever seen or heard before: ‘If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also’” (Matthew 5:39).

It was like cold water to his face. Suraj was familiar with gods of wrath and the warning of the Hindu god Krishna, who promised to descend to earth in order to “deliver and rescue the pious and to annihilate the miscreants” (Vedas 4:7).

“I had heard of many gods who love righteous people,” Suraj said, “but never had I heard of a God who loves sinners and says, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,’ and, ‘If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also’” (Matthew 5:39, Matthew 5.44″>44).

“But above all, I would never expect a God who would die for sinners! Having read the love of Christ toward sinners, I could make a sharp distinction between Krishna and Christ. All the teaching I ignored in the church powerfully overwhelmed me. Krishna came into the world to destroy sinners; ‘Christ came into the world to save sinners’ (1 Timothy 1:15, I could no longer resist God. His invincible grace overcame me, and I burst into tears, and I trusted Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.”

A New Reputation

The outcast—hated by his gods, despised by his village, a disgrace to his family—was now embraced by Jesus Christ.

His reputation as a thug was infamous, and rumors of his transformative conversion spread quickly. Suraj’s mother could not believe the change. She wanted to meet the pastor of the church to tell him: “My son was dead, you made him alive”—words of high praise from an orthodox Hindu woman with a lifelong suspicion of cow-eaters.

“The despair I felt in my life before Christ, all those suicidal thoughts, were replaced by a joy and delight in Christ,” he said. “I began to love this God who gave me new life! The spiritual refreshment of that night has been springing up in my heart ever since.”

God’s amazing grace became obvious to everyone who knew Suraj. His new reputation began drawing others to the church. A neighbor of his, a young woman preparing to become a Buddhist nun, witnessed Suraj’s conversion, attended his church, believed and was baptized. At school, he met and fell in love with a young woman, Roshani, with whom he shared the gospel. She was converted and later became Suraj’s wife (they have been married for five years). Most of her family was converted soon after.

Twenty souls eventually came to Christ because of Suraj’s testimony.

The changes were dramatic in his life. Suraj’s love of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes stopped immediately. It’s not something every convert experiences, but he did. “My parents were very happy, my family and village were all happy. My gang was broken and disbanded. All the people in the village were shocked at the change, and some of them even came to faith, not because I evangelized, but simply because they saw my life and were drawn to my church.”

The Message

Suraj looks back on his conversion with a new zeal to minister the word of God in Nepal.

“Like many people in my village, I was raised in orthodox Hinduism, with 330 million gods, all of them who came to destroy or to teach morality, but none who came to save sinful mankind. Above all, no one died and sacrificed like Jesus—not Buddha, not Muhammad, not any gods or goddesses. Jesus came to give life, and he is God who incarnated to come down from heaven. God came to touch the untouchable sinners when Christ took on human avatar! Had I followed Buddha, I would have been a better or moral guy, humanly speaking, and would have avoided a life of crime, but I would not have found forgiveness for my sins or new life. In Jesus, I got new life and a wonderful Savior who took my sin, and in return he gave me his perfect saving righteousness, free of charge. This is the great message Nepal needs.”

This is the message Suraj plans to bring back.

Reformed in Scotland

To do this, Suraj believes he is called to plant Reformed churches.

“Despite my gang life, I was good at studying—I don’t know why.” Now, it is clear God had plans for his natural academic gifts. Suraj wanted to study theology in America, but his visa request was denied. His request was granted by the UK, and he settled on studying at Edinburgh Theological Seminary in Scotland, where he encountered a robust Reformed theology. There he was introduced to the sermons and books of John Piper. He says the books Desiring God and Spectacular Sins were especially helpful. He downloads all the free books and many sermons from desiringGod.org, and he encourages friends back in Nepal to listen to episodes of the Ask Pastor John podcast.

Reformed theology was not something Suraj came to understand until God opened doors for his studies in Scotland. But Calvin only helps put words to his personal experience. “I believe in irresistible grace,” he said of the I in the Reformed acronym TULIP. “I resisted. God overwhelmed me, overpowered me, and I could not resist it even by my hatred of Christianity. The voice of God is insuppressible! As I have studied in Scotland, especially under Dr. Donald Macleod, it has become very clear, my election was not accidental or coincidental but ‘he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world’ (Ephesians 1:4). My conversion was by irresistible grace.”