“I was born into a Hindu family in Nepal. My parents used to go to the temple, but I didn’t. I didn’t like the look of the Hindu gods. I had no interest in them.

When I was 13, I was married. My parents arranged my marriage, according to Hindu culture. My husband was 17. I had no choice but to marry, and because of the marriage I had to finish my schooling at class 5.

One year later, at age 14, we had our first son. When he was a year old, we met a neighbour of ours who was a Christian. He knew our family well and he used to visit us. At that time, my husband was not very well. He had a phobia – he was scared of dead people. One day there had been a Hindu funeral procession through our street and my husband had accidentally ran into the procession on his bike. After that, he was very scared. In Hinduism, there are ghosts. My husband was not well at all.

But our neighbour kept visiting us and he invited us to church. We didn’t go. Then our neighbour got married and he invited us to his wedding. My husband went to the wedding. The next weekend, he went to a church service. He said he was standing there, listening to the singing and the sermon. Then something happened. He fell over. When he stood up, he was amazed. He came home and told me about it.

I saw that the Christian God has great power, as well as great care and love for us.

He really wanted to go to church again. Also, at that time, we had another neighbour who was a Buddhist priest. My husband used to go and see the priest to get help for his phobia. He spent a lot of money on mantras from the priest.

But at that time, he went to see the priest again, and the priest said he’d been to the Christian church and forgotten all the mantras. My husband was amazed! How could the priest have forgotten the mantras? There must be something big in the Christian church. It made my husband want to go more and more.

Three weeks later, I went to church with my husband for the first time. At first, I understood nothing at all. I was only 15. But I kept going and I noticed that my husband got better. His phobias went. He started to pray all the time and read the Bible. Our son who had been unwell gradually got better too. I started to believe in Jesus.

I saw that the Christian God has great power. He has great care and love for us! We can pray to him. He has the power to heal people! He is able. And when I prayed to God myself, great peace came into my heart. Slowly I believed in Jesus. I was baptised in the river the next year, when I was 16. I was 4 months pregnant with our second son.

My favourite verse is Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

No matter how bad in life our situation becomes, God is not far away.

Some people say that people in Nepal become Christians to get money. It wasn’t like that for us. After we became Christians, we actually lost a lot of money. We were running a small shop, and the business went really bad and we lost everything – our home and income. We had no food. But God didn’t leave us. For a while, my husband stopped going to church because he was embarrassed. But he didn’t stop praying. He didn’t stop reading the Bible or believing in Jesus. And God was still with us.

After a while, we went back to church, and slowly, we recovered. But I realised that no matter how bad in life our situation becomes, God is not far away. Even if we lose everything, he is there. He loves us. Nowadays we run another business in Pokhara, Nepal. It’s going well. But I always say to people that no matter what happens, God is still good. He loves us. He’s with us!”

Rajkumari’s story is part of Eternity’s Faith Stories series, compiled by Naomi Reed. Click here for more Faith Stories.