Forty-five years ago when I was in Bible college, we used to pray for Nepal, a country that was synonymous with the most closed and unreached and unlikely place for Christians to be. Someone who had lived there for many years came and spoke to us about how very few people were followers of Jesus. He urged us to pray for believers there. The very small number of Christians made it seem incredible that a Christian book would ever be published in their language.

As the years went on, I heard stories of many people coming to faith in Christ in Nepal and many churches starting. Almost nine years ago, I mentioned in a blog that my book Heaven had been translated into the Nepali language. So it meant the world to me to receive the following Facebook message last week. While we get letters from many different countries from people who have read my books, to get one from Nepal is a very special pleasure:

Greetings to the author of the book Heaven, in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. I am writing this message to you from Nepal. I had the pleasure of reading the book "HEAVEN" that you wrote some time ago. This book helped me to understand a lot about heaven. I am very happy to read it in my own language and thank you very much for your pen.

I have a great desire to read other books too, if they were in Nepali language it would be better. Your brother, who respects and loves you, from Nepal.

Stephanie on our staff responded:

It's wonderful to hear that you were able to read Randy's Heaven book in your own language! We have two more books available in Nepali: his graphic novel The Apostle and his book Why ProLife? You can download them here. God bless you!

Counting each of my books in each language as one book, I now have five times more books in other languages than in English. When I look at my books in other languages on the shelf, I sometimes marvel at how far God has taken them and what lasting impact there may be even in books which have gone out of print but will fall into someone’s hands at the right time and place in the providence of God.

Photo by Kalle Kortelainen on Unsplash