The Best Book You've Never Heard Of

At the Foot of the Snows by David E. Watters with Steve & Daniel Watters

Try to imagine moving to a place where you have never been before and where there is no one that you know. I’ve done that once in my life, maybe you have too, so maybe that’s not too hard to picture in your mind. But suppose that not only do you not know anyone in this place, but you don’t even know the language or understand the culture. You might think it would be smart to do a little studying before you leave, but what if you couldn’t? What if the language had never been written and the culture was completely undocumented? Imagine that not only is all of this true, but the place that you are moving to is located in a remote region of the Himalayan Mountains about 2 miles above sea level. If you are like me, you probably tapped out after the third sentence, but let’s add one more thing. Not only are you moving to this place, but you are taking your spouse and two young sons! Also, you are not going there just for a few weeks, you are planning on living there for years, so that you can learn the language, create a written form of the language, and then translate the Bible into that same language.

Just describing that makes my head explode. Who would even think of such a crazy thing? Who has the audacity to think that they can translate the entire Bible into a language that has never been written when they have never even heard the language themselves?! Well, David Watters not only thought it, he lived it! The story he tells, with the help of his sons, in At the Foot of the Snows is one of the most amazing, heart-warming, agonizing, beautiful, terrifying, and glorious that I have ever read. I read the book during COVID lockdowns in 2021, but I find myself frequently reflecting on and being challenged by this book – by the family’s faithfulness and unwavering desire to share the gospel with an obscure group of people who have never heard it before.

As my wife and I venture into the unknown of leading a microchurch (house church), I find myself challenged in many ways, but none of my challenges even remotely compare to the challenges faced by the Watters family during their time in Nepal. But their story shows God’s faithfulness through unimaginable troubles which is encouraging to me in the midst of our minor travails. I find myself impatient, but the Watters family shows the power of patience, of steady perseverance, and trusting God to work in His own timing. Our hopes for a fellowship of believers gathering in our home is nothing nearly as grand as translating the Bible into an unwritten language, but the obstacles we are facing and will continue to face are, by comparison, minimal.

Despite the enormous gap between what the Watters family was undertaking and what we are pursuing, there are many lessons we can learn from them. The essential nature of prayer tops the list and is likely my greatest deficiency. The Watters family did not head off to Nepal on a whim, it was preceded by intense prayer – prayer that never diminished. Prayer sustained them through every difficulty, every obstacle, and every success. Prayer kept them in tune with the task that God laid before them and kept their eyes and hearts alert to see what God was doing. Prayer was the fuel that moved their hands and feet to join God in His work, and it was prayer that softened their hearts toward the people of the village when the people were being difficult to love. Without prayer, their adventure would have been a colossal failure. I have no doubt that until I learn to pray faithfully, constantly, and consistently, our adventure will be a failure as well.

In the world of disciple making movements (DMM), which is at the heart of what we are doing, a key component is finding people of peace – people who have been touched by the Spirit in a way that opens them up to the message of the gospel. Persons of peace may already consider themselves to be Christians, or they may not, but the key is that they are searching and are willing to listen. Often, we spend too much time beating our heads against a wall, trying to convince people with hardened hearts of the truth of scripture. The results are frustrating and unproductive. Instead, in DMM, the emphasis is on finding those who are already open to scripture. It took considerable time, but finding that person of peace (or rather being shown by God in an amazing way) was the key to David Watters’ work in Nepal. Even then, there was, for quite some time, only one - one person with whom Watters could share the gospel and share his life. But without this one person, Watters would have been just as productive in his ministry talking to the mountains themselves. So, as we continue to pray, we keep our eyes and hearts alert to that person or those persons of peace that God will put in our path. Maybe it will happen tomorrow, maybe it will happen in a year or longer, but it is pointless to expect change in people unless the Holy Spirit is already at work in their lives.

Lastly, I am reflecting on the power of perseverance and endurance. It has been a couple of years since we first had thoughts of treating our home gatherings as a house church. I spent the last couple of years reading books and articles, trying to find resources and guidance to help point us in the right direction. I have had numerous conversations with people smarter and better informed than me from as close as Spokane and as far away as South Africa, and I have spent way too much time on the computer searching websites and organizations in hopes of finding the right match. Each conversation, each Google search, and each book read, led me a little closer to something that aligned with what I felt God had put on my heart. Finally, about 9 months ago, I was introduced to a group that was doing the very thing that I had been imagining - Kansas City Underground. This led to a meeting with a Spokane pastor who graciously agreed to walk with us through seven sessions (The Missionary Pathway) designed to help us develop a framework for how this might work for us. We completed the training a few weeks ago; now it is time to put it all into practice ("practice" being an important qualifier).

There is a part of me that feels that I should just be able to press the “go” button and things should start falling into place, but that would betray the training that we just completed. This is not a microwave approach – there are plenty of church plants already taking this path. This is about learning dependence on God’s timing, not forcing the issue, and hoping for His blessing. At the Foot of the Snows is, above all else, a tribute to the power of God’s timing and the blessings that result when God’s people are willing to persevere, endure, and wait for God to act and lead. As we move into this next phase of stumbling our way through becoming a microchurch, I can only hope that we can have a fraction of the patience and endurance that David Watters and his family demonstrated. If we have a small fraction of the results, we will be blessed beyond measure.