Gyani Shah

Gyani Shah lived her life fully by committing it to the Lord by serving Christ in different places and through different ways. She was not only focused to do the missionary works but she also established a school which was named after her “Gyani Shah Sishu Pathsala”. She also helped in planting a church which now has several daughter churches and is affiliated with Agape Fellowship. She slept in God in the afternoon of 8 December 2012, but she had left a legacy behind her. In her life she had really helped, encouraged and challenged many people. She was very strong willed, with strong determination and with a heart for her people. She had really challenged the women of Nepal that they can also work and contribute in the work of God. She had set her life as an example for many women and also men for the work of God and in mission.

Though her seniors and friend had tried to stop her and gave some better options and opportunity for her but she had a very strong determination to go Nepal and work for the Lord which she did. In the year of 1953, she came to Pokhara and worked in the NEB dispensary (later INF) as a nurse and later in 1955; she worked in United Mission to Nepal (UMN) for five years. After 18 years of mission services in India and Nepal she moved to a new challenge as a Matron of the Military Hospital. In this way she also became the first Nepali woman to join in an army and also to achieve the rank of captain. She was also up for the promotion to major in 1970/71 but she declined it because for it she needed to participate in Hindu Puja ceremonies which was against her own will. She had a priority toward God than other.

Gyani Shah was very active in her all works, it might be her secular professions or in her work in helping in the church growth. She was actively leading many people in Christianity in Nepal and helping in the church planting mission too. She was in the member of the first committee for the “Dilli Bazaar Fellowship”, she, Elizabeth Franklin and some missionaries from darjeeling (a missionary with Regions Beyond Missionary Union) were the founding-member of Gyaneshwor Church in the mid-1950s. She also helped to lay the foundation stone for the first church building in Kathmandu, at Putali Sadak. She also opened a branch church of Gyaneshwor in her house in Sanepa.

On August 8, 1943 she was baptized. She was baptized in the Union Baptist Church, Patna. After her baptism she went for Bible training in Shapur for a year and later went for a nursing training at BMS Hospital in Bhiwani. Two years later, she passed from her nursing training and was certified to work. She worked in the hospital in Jasidhi and also trained people on bible knowledge.

Gyaani Shah (15 June 1923 – 8 December 2012), is the first Nepalese woman to join Nepal Army. She is also known for one of the first people in Nepal to promote Christian religion in Nepal after miraculously being saved by a Christian lady. She got engaged with Evangelism in western parts of Nepal where she helped the poor and dominated by providing health-care and also practiced Christian culture there.