Good Land

Their dream.

Your partnership.

Together, we can transform this village.

Your church can help the people of Ghusel transform their village this harvest.

Travel with BMS World Mission to Ghusel, a remote village in Nepal’s mountains.
Hear the hopes and dreams of the people in the community.
And then partner with them as they seek to make life better for their whole village.

Good land logo with mountain motif
How will your gifts make a difference?

goat icon

£29 can provide the Ghusel community with breeding goats and veterinary training to rear healthy and productive animals

water icon

£70 can equip 20 people with vital water management and hygiene skills to fend off dangerous waterborne diseases

pen icon

£1,430 can create a child-centred classroom in Ghusel, giving children the best foundation to stay in school

What is Good Land?

Good Land is BMS’ 2022 Harvest appeal. It’s a video appeal resource. But more importantly, it’s an opportunity for your church to support vital development in a remote community in the mountains of Nepal.

The people of Ghusel face many challenges – from poor education opportunities for their children, to precarious livelihoods and dangerous drinking water. The leaders of Ghusel heard about the work BMS World Mission partners had done in other parts of Nepal, and they asked us to come and help them, too. We listened to their request and have been working with the community to discover their hopes and dreams for a better future.

Now, they need your help to make these dreams a reality.

As BMS’ 2022 Harvest appeal, Good Land comes with an array of resources to encourage your church to pray for and support education, health and livelihoods work in Ghusel and beyond.

Watch the Good Land feature video

Download the video




Your gift for Good Land will be used to support the people of Ghusel village and similar communities in Nepal.
If our appeal target is exceeded, we will use additional funds to support similar urgent work in the world’s most marginalised countries.

Need help planning your Good Land service? Look no further!
  • The Good Land Leader’s Guide is jam packed with stories, sermon inspiration and service ideas to inspire you as you plan your Good Land service.
  • Use our 60-second Good Land trailer video in the run-up to your Harvest service. Share it on social media and play it in your church ahead of your service to encourage people to come ready to pray and give.
  • The Good Land reflection video is a prayer for the people of Ghusel. Play it as you take up your offering, at the end of your Good Land service or during your prayer time.
  • Quiz your church on their knowledge of Nepal using our Good Land  quiz.
  • Order Good Land gift envelopes and leave them on seats ahead of your Good Land service. You can also print the downloadable Good Land service poster to advertise your harvest service. Find all these resources and more below!

Good Land resources to download or order

  • Good Land Leader’s Guide

    BMS World Mission is inviting you and your church to walk hand-in-hand with a remote community in Nepal’s mountains – and help them transform their village.

    This easy-to-use Leader’s Guide includes everything you need to plan a Good Land service, including sermon inspiration and all-age activities!

    Cover of the Leaders Guide featuring some of the faces from the Good Land video
    View the resource Download item Add to basket

  • Good Land main feature

    Their dream. Your partnership. Together we can transform this village.

    Good Land is BMS World Mission’s 2022 Harvest appeal and an opportunity for you and your church to support vital development in a remote community in Nepal. Travel with us to Ghusel in Nepal’s mountains, hear the dreams of the community, and then choose to partner with them in prayer and giving as they work to transform their village.

     

    A group of girls skip down a rough path with the Good Land Logo to their left
    View the resource Download item Add to basket

  • Good Land trailer

    Share the Good Land trailer with your church as soon as you’ve got a date in the diary for a Good Land service! It’s a great way to get everyone excited about how they’ll be able to help a village in Nepal realise their hopes and dreams.

    Video length: 1 minute

    Image of the village with a man, a child and some goats, and the Good Land logo with its mountain motif
    View the resource Download item Add to basket

  • Tir Da – Prif nodwedd

    Gwelodd arweinwyr lleol yn Ghusel drawsnewid gyda chefnogaeth BMS mewn pentrefi cyfagos.
    Breuddwydiodd y gymuned am newid a, gyda chi, mae’n nhw’n barod i wneud iddo ddigwydd. Dyma eu breuddwydion.

     

    Tir Da – Prif nodwedd
    View the resource Download item Add to basket

  • Good Land main feature – BSL version

    Their dream. Your partnership. Together we can transform this village.

    Good Land is BMS World Mission’s 2022 Harvest appeal and an opportunity for you and your church to support vital development in a remote community in Nepal. Travel with us to Ghusel in Nepal’s mountains, hear the dreams of the community, and then choose to partner with them in prayer and giving as they work to transform their village.

     

    A group of girls skip along a village path, with text 'Good Land British Sign Language version'
    View the resource Download item Add to basket

  • Good Land quiz

    Help your congregation to engage with some of the challenges of life in Nepal and have fun at the same time by using this quiz in an all-age Good Land service.

    Alternatively, why not use the questions as one round in a quiz night hosted at your church to raise funds for the Good Land appeal?

    Tip: answers to all the questions are at the end of the slideshow.

     

    Title slide from the quiz showing a girl in Nepal
    View the resource Download item Add to basket

  • Good Land gift envelope

    Place gift envelopes on chairs before a service, along with pens. Collect the envelopes containing both cash and cheques and post them to BMS World Mission at: PO Box 49, 129 Broadway, Didcot, Oxfordshire, OX11 8XA.

    Please do give your congregation plenty of time to fill in their details on the envelopes before taking up your offering. And remember, you don’t even have to open the envelopes. Just send them straight to BMS and let us do the hard work!

    Image of the gift envelope with information and a picture of a smiling woman
    View the resource Add to basket

  • Good Land A3 poster

    Put up a Good Land poster to let your church family know when and where your service is happening!

    This A3 printed poster includes space for details of your service or fundraising event.

    You can also download and print an A4 poster here.

    Image of poster featuring a schoolgirl on a mountain path and space to add service details
    View the resource Add to basket

  • Good Land A4 poster to download

    Download this A4 colour poster, print copies and add details of your Good Land service or event.

     

    Image of the poster showing a Dad with his daughter and space to add service details
    View the resource Download item Add to basket

  • Good Land PowerPoint slide

    Use this editable PowerPoint slide to advertise your Good Land service in the weeks leading up to the event.

    Image of the slide showing the Good Land logo and service information with a Nepali family on a mountain path
    View the resource Download item Add to basket

  • Good Land colouring sheet

    Younger members of your congregation will love colouring in Bishnu’s goat and the beautiful flowers and mountains they saw in the Good Land video!

    Download and print this simple colouring sheet, and leave it out in your children’s area or on seats, together with some crayons or colouring pens, during your Good Land service.

     

    Image of the colouring sheet
    View the resource Download item Add to basket

  • Good Land prayer sheet

    Download and print this prayer sheet to use during your Good Land service or for those attending to take home and keep. The prayer for Ghusel also features in the Good Land reflection video.

    Some members of your congregation may even find it helpful to do some reflective colouring-in while they pray!

     

    Image of prayer sheet
    View the resource Download item Add to basket

  • Good Land video download cheatsheet

    If you need to download any of the Good Land videos to DVD or USB stick, this handy cheatsheet will guide you through the process!

    Image of the document
    View the resource Download item Add to basket

Transform a village this harvest.

“We believe Jesus wants us to be his hands and feet in Ghusel village – helping to bring abundant life. And we need you to make it happen.” – Amos, BMS partner worker in Nepal

Will you help transform this village?

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land…
Deuteronomy 8: 7

Images: © Clive Thomas for BMS World Mission

Saving lives this Christmas

This winter, families in Afghanistan will be able to drink water without risking death for the very first time.

Supporting this

BMS World Mission photographer Alex Baker takes us behind the scenes of our Christmas appeal. We’re bringing clean water to Afghanistan, and we urgently need your support.

In January 2018, a team from BMS World Mission travelled to the snowy mountains of Afghanistan. They were there to see the difference that BMS’ winter appeal will make in the lives of remote communities, as clean, fresh water is piped into the heart of Afghan villages. Alex was part of that team. These are his photographs.

A village chief in a blue outfit stands in a shelter protecting a new water tap from the elements.
"They were incredibly proud of the well. They were very keen to show us that they were not only using it, but looking after it too."

“What was really clever was that the village had built this greenhouse around the well. It meant that the water would flow freely, despite it being -40 degrees outside. It really is a great example of local knowledge and expertise.”

An Afghan girl in a white headscarf looks towards the camera in her village.
“People didn’t directly share with me about their children getting sick and dying, but I heard stories."

“I already thought that the work was good – that it really helps. Providing people with good drinkable water is such a step forward.

But being there in person, I saw how something that was meant to be very functional and practical made a difference to the village’s interaction on a society level. It was giving them this point where different generations could mix and interact.”

Children in Afghanistan are dying from waterborne diseases, like typhoid and cholera.

Dirty water is a death sentence in Afghanistan.

Could you give to save lives?

Any amount you give really can make a difference.

Save lives today Click here
icon

“It becomes this meeting point. It’s really cold outside, but the minute you walk into the greenhouse, you feel like you’re in some kind of lovely spa. There’s fresh, clean spring water. And it’s really nice and warm in there.”

A boy in blue drinks water from a WASH project built by BMS World Mission in Afghanistan, surrounded by other children.

“Sometimes projects like this are purely functional — but the fact that so much thought was put into making this a warm, inviting space? The architect in me was impressed by that. It was a genuine gift to the village on every level.”

Afghan women wearing black headscarves gather around a tap, filling up jerry cans with fresh, clean water.
"You aren't just building a tap. You're bringing life. Life not just as a physical thing, but as a social thing, too.”

Give the gift of water this Christmas. You can get clean water to families in Afghanistan, so they don’t have to stagger through driving snow to get to a river teeming with disease.

You can provide the materials for villages to help build their own wells, empowered every step of the way by BMS World Mission-supported workers.

Save lives today Click here
icon

What’s more, you can hand people ownership of their well, so they can choose the best spot for this new source of life and community. Please continue to pray for Afghanistan. And give if you can — any amount makes a difference.

Words and interview by Hannah Watson, Editor of Engage, the BMS World Mission magazine.

Exciting news from a boring project

Exciting news from a boring project

I'm praying for this

A borehole gave this community something more than health: it offered them a shot at unity. And by supporting BMS World Mission, you helped them find it.

The deadlock seemed hopeless. Two factions in the village in rural Uganda could not agree on where to dig a borehole, and their disagreement had gone on so long that the BMS team who had come to the village with a limited window for drilling (also called ‘boring’) were worried that they would have to leave without finding clean, healthy water – so essential for community health and flourishing in places like rural Uganda.

BMS and local partners had arrived in the morning to consult with the community about where the borehole they had requested should be dug, and it had taken all day to come to an answer, one that half the village was less than pleased with. When the well failed to reach good water, BMS worker Tim Darby decided that it would be best to come back the following day, hoping for more agreement – otherwise he and the drilling team would have to move on to another village.

Watch how Tim’s team use a man-powered drill to dig a borehole.

The drilling project Tim helps to run is an innovative one, spending some of its time on commercial drilling (a kind of ‘business as mission’), which helps to fund the free well-boring that this village was so close to missing out on. They couldn’t stay in the village forever, as Uganda has a great deal of need for safe, clean drinking water.

When the team returned, they expected to find the community in much the same state as the day before. But instead, they found optimism, helpfulness. Unity. The village had met the night before and decided on a completely new drill site – miles away from the sites that had been in dispute. They told BMS water engineer Tim: “We knew that the other place would not work because we were not united. But now we know you will find water.” The team began digging in the morning, and they did! By the evening they had installed a handpump – a new record time for Tim and his team.

This is something that Tim sees regularly in his work: communities coming together over their collective need for clean water. Because when Tim and his team dig boreholes, they’re not just providing water. They’re encouraging people to live healthier lifestyles by making water easier to access. They’re protecting people from waterborne diseases such as cholera and E. coli. They’re freeing up time in the day for people, especially women and girls, who previously had to walk for hours every day to dirty water sources. And they’re doing it in a sustainable way, making the drills they operate pay, both for the good of the local environment and for the community. As Tim puts it: “Every single borehole changes and improves lives.”

This isn’t water as charity, pumped into a community that Tim thinks needs it. It’s a process of consultation with local people, asking them what they need and how they would like to receive it, engaging them and involving them so that communities, with a little help from BMS, can give themselves hope. Now that’s far from boring!

After this handpump was installed, a committee of nine people elected from the local community were trained for two days to manage the borehole. The rest of the community were also offered training on good sanitary health. They were taught how to keep the pump safe and clean, but also to care for and depend on one another to keep the borehole working.

Water is a basic need and a fundamental right. If we all work together, with respect and generosity, all people could have access to it. Pray with us today that this would happen.

People digging a borehole in Uganda.
The boreholes dug by Tim’s team encourage local communities to work together to maintain them.

Tim’s team have already provided many communities with clean water. But there are still people in Uganda and around the world whose water sources are limited or unsafe. Please pray today for:

  • Communities in Uganda without access to clean water. Pray for good health among them, and that they will soon be able to drink without danger.
  • Tim and his team as they bore wells for rural communities. Pray that their work goes smoothly, and that people will soon see the benefits.
  • Villages who have already received boreholes. Pray that they are able to safely maintain them in years to come, and that they will experience unity in their communities.
Want to share this story? Why not print it out and bring some copies to share with your church!
if you're praying for this Click Here
icon

Words by Laura Durrant.