When U.S. Drug User Visited a Mission Hospital in Nepal

He is now a pastor and leading Adventist proponent of Creationism.

Editor’s note: The Seventh-day Adventist Church celebrates Creation Sabbath on Oct. 28, 2017. Read more about Creation Sabbath.

By Andrew McChesney, adventistmission.org

The sight of his mother coming out of the water in the church’s baptismal tank in the U.S. state of Wisconsin didn’t impress John Kurlinski.

The 18-year-old teenager, wearing long hair and a T-shirt, thought she looked more like a drowned rat than a Christian.

His first words to her were not any gentler.

“There is no way that I am ever going to get into one of those things,” he said, pointing to the baptismal tank at the Rhinelander Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Little did he know that he would be baptized in the same place five years later — and would later become a leading Adventist proponent of Creationism.

John, the seventh of nine children, had no interest in God when he first visited the Adventist church for his mother’s baptism in 1975. He came at the invitation of his mother, who had decided to join the church after attending evangelistic meetings.

John was using drugs heavily and barely passing his university classes. It was his way of coping after his father died of lung cancer several years earlier.

“When he died, I went to ‘better living through chemistry,’” John said in an interview. “God didn’t seem to care what I did in life, so I was dealing with my depression and trauma over the loss.”

Joining the Peace Corps

John returned to the Rhinelander church four or five more times at the invitation of his mother and her new husband, Adventist physician Oliver “Ben” Bennet Beardsley. The only thing that interested him in church was “Mission Spotlight,” a series of short films that show Adventist mission work around the world. He loved geography, and the glimpses into life in other countries fascinated him.

But he didn’t much like Sabbath lunch, and he found Worthington Vegetarian Chili particularly distasteful.

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, John joined the U.S. government Peace Corps and was thrilled to be assigned to Nepal. He saw the country as a goldmine of illegal drugs, and he excitedly told envious friends about the upcoming trip.

On his last church visit, he watched “Mission Spotlight” and blurted out to his stepfather, “Are there any Seventh-day Adventists in Nepal? I’ll say ‘hi’ to them.”

Dr. Beardsley didn’t know and, after a considerable search, found a listing for an Adventist mission hospital in the “Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook.” But he couldn’t find an address.

John promised to inquire for more information at the U.S. Embassy in Nepal.

Arriving in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, new Peace Corps volunteers underwent two weeks of orientation training at the embassy. John remembered his promise to his stepfather and asked an embassy staff member whether she knew anything about an Adventist hospital. He felt relieved when she shook her head. He had done his best to fulfill his promise.

From Kathmandu, the Peace Corps volunteers traveled to a town about 20 miles (30 miles) away for two weeks of intensive language studies. Then they moved into the homes of Nepali host families for eight weeks. Every day they ate rice and lentils.

Some of the volunteers regularly gathered to socialize and take hikes. One day, during a hike, John and several others stopped gawk at a remarkably clean compound with two Land Rover vehicles parked out front.

Visiting the Adventists

The tidiness of the place left a deep impression, and the volunteers remembered the sight when they met the next day.

“That was an Adventist hospital,” one woman said.

John was startled. Eight weeks had passed since he had given up looking for the hospital.

“How do you know that?” he demanded. “The sign was in Sanskrit.”

“There was English in small letters at the bottom,” she said.

Several days later, John reluctantly made his way back to the compound. He had to keep his promise.

He was warmly welcomed by physicians John B. Oliver and Sherry (Reed) Shrestha at Scheer Memorial Hospital. Dr. Oliver quickly figured out that he had studied with John’s stepfather at Loma Linda University and invited the young American to his home for Friday supper.

John accepted. It was the end of the month, and he had no salary money left to party with his friends in Kathmandu that weekend.

Hot cornbread and Worthington Vegetarian Chili waited for him on the Olivers’ table. To John, who had eaten only rice and lentils for weeks, it was the most delicious meal in the world.

Dr. Oliver and his wife made John feel at home.

“They welcomed me and treated me like a long-lost son,” he said.

At their invitation, he attended church the next day and then returned the following Sabbath. He asked for more information about the Bible, and Dr. Oliver lent him an old set of Bible studies.

But John never returned to the hospital or gave back the Bible studies. For the next stage of training, he was sent across the country to a field school near Mount Everest. Prohibited from taking more than 40 pounds (18 kilograms) in his backpack, he left the Bible studies and a Bible that his mother had packed in storage in Kathmandu.

Read related story: Giggling Scientist Makes Student Rethink Evolution

A Mountaintop Experience

Shortly after arriving in eastern Nepal, a thunderstorm erupted as John hiked alone between two mountainous villages one evening. He quickly took shelter in his tent and listened to the pounding rain and deafening thunderclaps. 

Forty-five minutes later, it was over.

Emerging from the tent, John gazed at millions of stars shining in a now-cloudless night sky. He puzzled for a while over a mist that filled the heavens. Then he realized it was the Milky Way. He contemplated the vast expanse for two hours and reached the conclusion that it testified to the existence of God. He offered his heart to God.

“OK, God,” he prayed. “I give you a year to give me joy.”

When John announced to his Peace Corps supervisor that he had become a Christian, he was handed two options: keep silent or return to the United States. John chose to leave.

Back in Kathmandu, John found the old Bible studies and read them with his Bible in a hotel room. Tears flowed down his cheeks as he read about Jesus’ death and forgiveness of his sins.

“God had me, and I couldn’t go back to my old life,” he said.

John, 22, flew to the United States in May 1980. On the first Sabbath of June, he was baptized in the Rhinelander Seventh-day Adventist Church as his mother and stepfather watched.

“I still see those tears of joy running down my mother’s face,” John said. “My Mom was on cloud nine from that day until the day that she died.”

John graduated from the seminary at Andrews University four years later and received a doctorate in 1998. has served as a pastor and college professor for 35 years. A pastor and college professor for 35 years, he is a vocal advocate of Creationism and conducts seminars for churches and camp meetings.

“Unless you believe in God as your Creator, why would you trust Him with your recreation?” said John, now 60 and the pastor of the Bremerton Seventh-day Adventist Church in Washington state. “God is so huge, but He is also very personal.”