58 Goats

Standing on a steep hillside in the village of Damechaur in the center Nepal, I was talking to pastor Dilip Tamang of the Damechaur Salom Church as our medical team was holding a clinic for the village. After the small talk, he said, “Can you help us?”

What does it mean to help? The definition for help is to “make it easier for (someone) to do something by offering one\’s services or resources.” The phrase that kept coming to my mind was “what to do?” The apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 6:10, “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.”

What to do? First, pray and then listen for the wise word from the Lord. I heard in my heart, “Ask him.” So, I asked him what they needed help with, and he said, “We have no water and our crops are failing.”

He explained to me that the earthquake in 2015 had broken the water line from the spring that feeds the village. Since the earthquake, the women of the village had to walk about five kilometers to get water every morning for their families. When I asked him how much it would cost to fix the problem, he shared that they needed to replace the broken sections of the pipe, and that it would cost about $2,500 USD.

“Ok, God is able,” I thought to myself. Now to the next question of how to help him with feeding the village. He went on to say that if they could raise goats their church and village could make enough money to feed everyone and pay the school fees for the children to go to school. When I asked him “why goats?” he told me that goats would thrive on the hills around his village. One doe can produce up to four gallons of milk a day and they are zero grazing, which means very little land is needed to raise them. Goats provide milk, cheese, butter, and meat that can be sold for income, providing the villages children the opportunity to go to school. Their grazing encourages better crop yields by creating fertilizer and clearing land that the village grows its crops on. So, it is a “win-win” with goats.

I knew in my heart that the Lord had brought us to this village for a purpose beyond doing a medical clinic, but to partner with Christian brothers and sisters to help these them to walk in the blessing of the Lord. I told him that we would pray and seek the Lord about how to serve his village.

What to do? On the way back to Kathmandu, I talked with our friend and translator, Man Dai. He told me that a goat farm would be the perfect solution to help the village not just survive but thrive. We at SEAPC put the word out through the magazine that we needed funds for repairing the water line and a goat farm and you started to respond. And since then, friends like you have been buying goats. The first goat that was purchased was named Grace.

Currently, we have repaired the water line and the goat farm overseer, Hira Lai Tamang, has built the goat barn and prepared the land for grazing. We have been sending money to buy goats and we currently have 42 goats. We are trusting the Lord for 58 more goats. That might sound like a lot of goats, but the vision is to help this village church and in turn they will tithe to another struggling village church to start their own goat farm. As they prosper, they will help another village church, and so on and so forth.

How can you help? You can give a gift of a goat. The price for a single doeling (a young female goat) is $100. The price for goats has gone up in Nepal, and according to the government of Nepal there is a need for 430,000 goats in Nepal. So, we are at a prime time to invest in goats in Nepal. I pray that you will consider helping. Click here to give towards this endeavor.