• Population: 970,000
• Languages: Dzongkha,Sharchop(Tshangla), Tibetan, Nepali
• Religion: Buddhism (Majority) & Hinduism (Minority)
• Government: Monarchy
• Capital City: Thimphu

   As a Buddhist theocracy, Bhutan has been totally closed to all other "foreign religions" for centuries – especially Christianity.  Thus, no foreign missionaries are granted visas to visit or live in the country.  Tourism is highly regulated by the Government with only a few thousand visas granted annually.  

   However, for several decades, there has been a quiet "underground church" movement growing in the country.  This has been almost exclusively led by nationals Christian evangelists and missionaries from the neighboring countries of India and Nepal.  We have been in partnership with some of those key national missionaries for a couple of decades.  One of our training centers and launching pads for ministry inside of Bhutan has been the city of Jaigaon.  It is a border town between India and Bhutan through the famous Phuentsholing Gate.  We have build churches, agape homes for pastors, a training center and the Bethany Children's Home there.  We have also held a number of conferences in the Jaigaon region for pastors, refugees and women.

   One of our key young leaders there is Markus Mukhia.  He is a relatively new partner of 5 or so years, Markus was born into a Hindu home in Bhutan.  Struggling between his Hindu home life and the teachings in his Buddhist school, he was miserable. He developed a form of epilepsy at age 15 that neither the Buddhist monks nor Hindu priests could cure. His plans to commit suicide were eternally interrupted by a Christian pastor who told him about Jesus. His parents expelled him from his home when Markus accepted Christ as his Savior. A Christian Nepali woman, Sister Sarita Pradhan(Spiritual Mother), discipled him in his new walk of faith.  Later he receive some Biblical training in India.    God has now enabled him to plant several house churches inside Bhutan.  Besides his vision for this evangelistic ministry among his own people in Bhutan, Markus also assists Sister Sarita with her work at the Bethany Children’s home in Jaigon.  He is the CFO of that ministry.  He provides administrative oversight to the 20 Bhutanese and Indian children living there who are either orphans or destitute. 

   Enjoy these few pictures of the mystical country of Bhutan and Markus' ministry there among the underground Christians.  In the last several years, the King of Bhutan has granted a measure of religious freedom for Christians.  However, when they meet for worship, they must not dress in Western clothing but in the traditional Bhutanese dress.  We are thankful for this new measure of freedom for the Christians there.

   We are also praying for one of our partners to support him for $100 a month for his travels and treks into Bhutan.  Please pray with us about being one of those "Bhutan partners."

   In His Love for the People of Bhutan,
   JL & Patt

Shmu and I made the trip to Cana to deliver Pastor Hani and his wife Shifa their "Christmas Baskets."  They were so sweet.  Hani seemed to almost be in unbelief when I called him about giving him ones to give out.  It was so fun to go to Cana with Shmu.  At first, he was a little hesitant to be going to an Arab village because of the recent war, but since I go to Cana all the time, it seemed totally natural for me.  Granted the recent war did cause a bit of tension in the area.  Remember when we visited Cana, the war hadn't broken out yet!  Shifa came out to meet us and gave us a hug. Shmu melted and got really excited. We sat in their living room and got acquainted. We told them our whole story and they told us theirs – all in Hebrew.  We had Arabic coffee and Christmas cake. 

We got to see the upstairs. They have added more dry wall since you were there. He said his main needs right now were chairs and the sound system.  We brought enough "Christmas Baskets" for just about every family in the church.  Hani was thrilled!  They kept them a surprise and then gave them out at their special Christmas concert Thursday before Christmas. What's great about this is that Hani can take the "Story Teller" devices and program more material for the kids. They also remarked about the other things in the basket and loved the book of 101 Bible stories. We went away really happy feeling that, for the first time in all the years that we have been doing this, we had some positive feed back.