They Catch You Through Education: Anthony Francis Sharma's Smart Gospel Plan

In Nepal's high mountains, where Hinduism ruled and changing faith was against the law, Anthony Francis Sharma used schools to quietly bring people to Christ. Born on December 12, 1937, in a poor Hindu family in Gorkha District, Sharma shows how Jesuit schools became secret tools for sharing the Gospel. They drew people in with learning and slipped in faith lessons. His life proves: education can spread Jesus' message even where it's banned.

Sharma's story starts young, in a closed-off Hindu kingdom. Jesuit missionaries shared simple Bible stories in talks, not big sermons. This lit a fire in him. As a teen, he went to India for strong Jesuit training. Darjeeling's famous St. Joseph's School (North Point) shaped him. At 6,800 feet in the hills, this top school mixed smart lessons with deep Catholic ways. Sharma learned the Jesuit rule: "All for God's bigger glory." On May 4, 1968, he became a priest right there in Darjeeling. He was ready to share faith like a sharp tool.

The real plan kicked off when he went back to Nepal in 1984. King Birendra's rules from the 1960s stopped open preaching or church meetings. People who left Hinduism got kicked out or shunned. Smartly, Sharma worked from Catholic schools and nun houses—places okayed for teaching. These were not just classes; they were hidden faith spots. He helped small groups of workers from other countries, local Tamang and Gurung new Christians, and poor tribes. Lessons taught reading with Jesus stories mixed in. He brought nuns and brothers from India and Bangladesh. They did school by day, faith teaching at night. They helped the sick and poor too. Laws against changing faith? He went around them. Hearts were won with kindness, not fights.

Darjeeling helped a lot. As head of St. Joseph's North Point—the school that made him—he taught Nepal's kings Birendra and Gyanendra. Think of it: future kings learned right and wrong from Jesuits, carrying Jesus ideas home to palaces without knowing. Back in Nepal, Sharma's schools copied this. Parents wanted English and math for kids; kids got life-changing truth too. By the late 1980s, as top Jesuit there, he started 23 schools from Kathmandu to flat lands. In 1990, he began Caritas Nepal for help in bad times, sick care, job training—all ways to show Jesus' love and pull people close.

Big wins came fast. In 1993, the government said yes to the Nepal Catholic Society. Christians went from outcasts to real citizens. Sharma's schools changed views: Hindu parents saw better lives—kids who read, sick who got well, women with power. School broke hate; Jesus spread through growth. Numbers jumped: from hundreds in the 1960s to thousands in the 1990s—Tamang Buddhists, Chetri Hindus, Dalit poor. Pope John Paul II saw this quiet win, making Sharma church leader in 1996 and Nepal's first bishop in 2007. Even with Maoist war that ended the kings in 2008 for a free country, his schools kept going. They taught in war; houses hid scared people. As bishop, he led a church born in classrooms.

He stepped down in 2014 after guiding through Nepal's big changes—like the 2015 big earthquake. Sharma died December 8, 2015. His funeral brought Hindus, Buddhists, leaders—all praising the man whose schools hooked them for Christ without trying hard. From Gorkha huts to Kathmandu churches, Jesuit schools were his way. They pulled with books, held with care, changed with truth. Sharma says, use schools. His 23 schools still stand, quiet watchmen for evangelists’ big job, showing one class at a time wins more converts for the evangelists.