HIO provides meals and an education for less fortunate children in Nepal, focusing on younger girls overlooked by this culture. Please consider supporting this cause.

Nepal Mission Project Fall 2008, Deborah and Alan: We accompanied East Bay-resident Gyan Pantha, the founder of Himalayan International Outreach (HIO), for two weeks in Nepal, a country where less than 1% of the population are Christians. Gyan grew up in a remote village in Nepal and idolized the communist insurgents that were active in his province because they seemed to offer the only solutions to rid his beloved country of the historic corruption and injustice perpetuated by the rule of Nepal's king. But when he went to Kathmandu to attend college, he was befriended by some Nepali Christians who invited him to play volleyball at their facilities. These contacts led him to see the truth and redemptive love offered by Jesus, and he became a believer. After meeting and marrying a Christian woman from California abroad, Gyan and Katrina moved to the Bay Area where they are now working and raising their family.

The ministry of HIO to focus on:

• Feeding and clothing impoverished children
• Providing financial support to families that would allow children (especially girls) to remain in school so they would not have to go to work in factories or be sold to work abroad (usually in brothels in India)
• Providing financial and other support to a local pastor (Pastor Dinesh) to coordinate these efforts and continue ministering to the 11 additional churches he founded in the mountains of Eastern Nepal