Dear Friends,
Two years ago, while I was at home visiting family and friends in Kansas, my home church had a night of prayer and prophesy over my life. They do this almost every time that I am home, and it brings fruit and direction to my life consistently all year long.
I am so thankful to have the words that people have spoken over my life on cassette tapes that I can pick up at any time and listen to. Those tapes are truly a gift and I feel SO incredibly blessed to have them. In fact many of you who receive this letter are on those tapes praying for me and speaking into my life. I love to just sit and listen to familiar voices speaking out through my headphones while I sit here in my bedroom in Nepal and listen.
During this specific night I remember one word that I come back to and reflect on often. A man from the church told me that God had shown him a picture of a road, and the season was summer, but as I went along the scenery changed, the road became ice packed and the season turned to winter. He went on to say that we often think of the season of spring as a time of growth, but in the seasons of a Christian life, and when talking about anointing ALL seasons are of God.
Many people that night were talking about anointing – and he said that he had a sense from the picture that this road was not depicting a season of death, as we usually relate with winter, but of an increase and a magnification of that anointing on my life. Even Paul, who was taking the gospel throughout the whole world, with one of the greatest anointings in history came to points in his life when he desired to do something and the Lord said, "don't do it!" Even with all of his knowledge and experience it got to the point when he would not take a single step unless the Lord said it was right to do it. He said, "without you Lord I don't go anywhere." And that is what made him more and more and more effective – because the anointing increased. But as it increased he declined and declined and declined.
Now an icy road is nothing to fear if you know your equipment and you know the track. But if you're going at full speed, full tilt like you were in the summer time, where you could do whatever you wanted to and God would bless it, in the winter season if you come into life with that same attitude you wipe out. Because with the increase of anointing and trust things become more serious, and it's a process of learning that step by step God is going to tell you, "Now you're coming to a turn… I want you to turn…. NOW!" And you have to be going at the right speed to do that.
I don't know that I still consider myself to be in that winter season. However I do recognize that over the last 2 years God has been bringing me through a process of slowing down and instead of reaping a lot of fruit outwardly, I know that I have been digging deep and laying down layers of roots underneath me. And those roots must be there in order to be able to support all of the fruit that is yet to come.
At the point, around 1 year ago, when Kripaa Sadhan, our rehabilitation home for men, closed I felt like I was sitting in the deepest, darkest and coldest season of winter that I had ever experienced here in Nepal. I could see very few positive things that were coming out of that experience.
But now when I look back at where we are today I am beginning to find a few little treasures that God was hiding for me along that way. Knowing I would find them in the right season.
In the past when people used to walk through the streets of Thamel, you could barely walk 10 feet down the road without having a young man brush past you and whisper "hashish, marijuana?" or offering drugs of other kinds as well. Today the streets are rather bare. The few boys that are around aren't nearly as aggressive as they used to be. Shop keepers stop us as we walk by and ask us, "where did all of the drug users go?" or "we saw you working with all of those boys, now we rarely see any of them! Thank you!"
I have come to the conclusion that over the past several years God decided that it was time for His Spirit to sweep the streets of Thamel, so to speak. Those of the young men who had lived there on the streets for decades using drugs had a choice: life or death. Almost all of the boys that we had been pursuing in love for years, chose life! And I am so thankful that God asked me to be a part of that harvest. And the many that ended up passing away in that season came to a saving knowledge of Christ before they died. Today, the only ones lingering back in those streets are the handful that heard of the love of God, took a taste of the life He has to offer, and returned by their own decisions to life on the street.
But now when I look back at that experience, and look forward to the future I know that all of that was for a purpose. I also know that if it were my own choice, I would run back to the streets and jump back in. But perhaps it's time to take a step back and wait upon the voice of the Lord, and to only make that step forward if He is the one telling me to move. I'm starting to believe that as hard as it is for me to accept, God was bringing closure to that area of ministry through WMF Nepal. I continue to be in relationship with many of the boys in the streets but it is now up to them to choose, and is not for me to make choices for them.
Honestly I have no idea what the future holds. I feel like every week we are coming up with new ideas of how to move forward or a new dream of what "could be." But until we hear that voice… we continue to wait and pray.
I do feel that anticipation beginning to rise up in me again. Pray for all of us here as we are in a season of new beginnings once again. Pray that as we move forward as a new community (3 new staff members here now, and our field director of 10 years leaving the field) we would hear clearly the voice of the Lord when he tells us to turn!
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Saying Farewell to the West Family,
Celebrating 10 years of living life in Nepal.
Silas West arrived in Kathmandu on December 13, 1997 to begin pioneering a new field for Word Made Flesh in Nepal. He had no specific plan in mind other than to simply allow God to lead him and show him what to do. In March of 1998 Silas met Gautam and Rekha Rai in a small 'momo' shop that he frequented for lunch, not aware that 10 years later the same couple who were serving him momos for 10 rupees per plate, would be the parents of WMF Nepal's Home of Compassion, Karuna Ghar.
In December 1998, Silas returned home to the US to marry his college sweetheart Kimberly Garrison. The couple returned to Nepal to begin their years of ministry and service together with WMF in August of 1999 – the same month that Rekha Rai committed her heart and life to Jesus. As time passed the two families moved in together sharing a home, and sharing life together. Children were born – 3 to Gautam and Rekha and 4 to Silas and Kimberly over the years. As the two families began to dream together they formed a vision to create a home for young girls who had been abandoned or abused. By September, 2001 the first young lady Bhawani entered the home followed by 12 others in following years.
On July 31st, 2008 the West family: Silas, Kimberly, sons Jedidiah (7) and Elijah (4) and daughters Adia (6) and Priya (2) will be completing their time with WMF Nepal and will return home to the US. Silas will be resuming work with Word Made Flesh in the Omaha, NE hea
d office. Pray for the Wests and the Rais and ALL of us here as their presence among us will be dearly missed. Surely the fruit of the West family's labor is evident as we watch so many lives that have been transformed through their love for this nation and it's people.
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Thanks again to each of you as you support me with love and prayers. I appreciate you all more than you know! I'm also beginning to make plans to spend a few weeks back home in Kansas once again at Christmas time this year. Hoping to see many of you at that time!!!