After 30 hours, three planes and two layovers, a group consisting of mostly members of HOPE Christian Church in Columbia arrived in Nepal last month to begin an 11-day mission trip. 

During the trip, the group delivered jackets, coats, shoes, appliances, a few guitars and other supplies to children’s homes and churches in various villages, helped with exterior painting projects and met with local church leaders and other Nepali Christian organizations.  

Among the eight people who took the trip was Waterloo resident Brock Keckritz, who was the defacto group leader since he has visited the country six times since the early 2010s.

Keckritz explained how a group from Monroe County ended up making multiple trips to Nepal specifically.

The story begins with David Runyan, who is currently the pastor of Fresh Start Community Church of God in Lebanon.

“He’s been to 30 different countries and been doing it for 30 years,” Keckritz said of Runyan, noting that current members of HOPE were with Runyan during his first mission trips.

“He was doing work in China when I first met him (in 2007). They were doing underground Bible classes that the government didn’t know about,” Keckritz continued, adding he would have liked to have gone to China but he had not accrued enough vacation time to take off work for an extended period.

In the five years from the time Keckritz met him, Runyan was no longer taking mission trips to China, but had been introduced to a Nepali man named Dinesh who had begun children’s missions in his own county.

Runyan had already taken several mission trips to Nepal when Keckritz joined him in 2012.

Keckritz said his first trip was to Jiri, one of the last villages on a “real road” to Mount Everest.

It was in Jiri where he met Dinesh with a mission objective to help establish a children’s home for orphans as well as “discipleship training.” 

Tragically, Jiri was rocked by a 7.3 magnitude  earthquake in May 2015, just two weeks after a deadly 7.8 magnitude quake devastated Nepal.

“The children had lunch, then they went outside. Then five to 10 minutes later the second quake hit, and the room they were just in, the walls fell in,” Keckritz said.

After the children’s home collapsed, it was relocated to near the country’s capital of Kathmandu.

Keckritz subsequently  went on two earthquake relief missions in 2016 and 2017.   

Keckritz has also been on one medical mission in Nepal. He described it as a “dental” mission, with him assisting a Nepali dentist who spent all day pulling teeth in a remote region of the country.

The latest trip had an inauspicious start. The day the group landed in Nepal (Nov. 3), there was a magnitude 5.7 earthquake about 300 miles west of Kathmandu.

Although that quake claimed over 100 lives, it was not nearly as destructive as the 2015 quakes and did not affect the regions where missions had been planned.

The rest of the trip went relatively smoothly, although there were reports of rough travel along bumpy country roads during some of the drives between destinations – some of which were between three to five hours each way.

One of the highlights for the group was being able to take a group of children from the home started by Dinesh to Chitwan National Park. The two-day visit included canoeing on the Rapti River, with some taking the opportunity to ride on an elephant through a nearby jungle.

Nick Wittenauer of Fairview Heights, whose grandparents attend HOPE, thanked the church for its support, which allowed for some of the activities the group was able to do with the children.

“It’s thanks to HOPE that this trip was possible for the kids, though this is not their first time, these trips do not happen every day for them. Many blessings have come their way, and may many more come too,” Wittenauer wrote in a Facebook post.

Keckritz echoed that sentiment, saying the best part of the mission trips is being able to spend time with the kids at the various children’s homes.

The latest trip to Nepal was a special blessing to Keckritz as well, as he was accompanied for the first time by his wife Kim and daughter Danielle.

Kim explained part of the reason the group continues to return to Nepal is due to a rapidly expanding interest in Christianity in the country.

“As a percentage of the population, the fastest growing religion (in Nepal) is Christianity,” Kim said, also noting that of the roughly 25 million residents of Nepal, only about 1 percent identify as Christian.

Until 1951, the Nepali government did not allow Christianity to be practiced in the country. 

When the country’s government system changed to a multi-party democracy in 1990, restrictions on Christianity were eased, leading to opportunities for the religion to take root in Nepal. 

Despite the inroads for missionaries and those establishing Christian churches in the country, there is still a gray area when it comes to evangelism. 

Even though identifying as a Christian is not illegal anymore, the Nepali Constitution “prohibits converting persons from one religion to another.”

That hasn’t stopped Christianity from growing, though.

It is estimated the number of Nepali citizens who identify as Christian has grown from about 50,000 in 1990 to over 375,000 per the 2011 census – although some reports suggest the current number is likely closer to one million. 

Brock also pointed out that financial support can also go a long way toward spreading the gospel in Nepal, and a preacher can live off about $100 per month. 

HOPE sponsors a preacher in this country.

The relationships formed over a decade do not involve just a one-way trip, though. 

Before the recent trip to Nepal, Dinesh and others visited the United States – including a stay at the Keckritz residence in Waterloo – to meet up with friends in several states who they have met during various missions.

Keckritz added he plans on returning to Nepal, but probably not for another few years. In the meantime, people from Monroe County stay in touch with Nepal through Facebook and other online channels.

Other locals who made the trip to Nepal are Rob Burke, Tina Busche, Carol Turnquist and Shannon Westerfield.