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.
Conversion to Christianity
While traveling with her relatives in India, she was also going through all the religious cities of Hinduism and was also partaking and fulfilling all the religious rites. But one night while staying in Varanasi she felt a desire to be a jogini (a monk) and so ran away from her home to go to Calcutta but in her way there she alighted in Patna where she was about to be sold by the people there was miraculously saved by a Christian lady and was sent to a secure place in a Mission Hospital, in Patna.
While staying in the hospital she worked as a sweeper for several months and later as a cook for couple of years. These works in her caste was never to be done but she did it without complaining and did it with full peace and joy. In her own words she said that, “God knew that I was born into a proud family and I could never accept Him in my pride, so He made me humble so that I could follow Him.” While she was working as a cook she used to write the bible verses on the cemented floor with the help of coal and tried to memorize the bible verses. In this way she had memorized the Gospel of Matthew and Mark.
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.
Nepalese Army
She became seriously ill and had TB along with high fever which doctors were unable to bring down. So later, she was sent to Almora a high country place for two years but still her fever persisted. In those days she was able to get the news letter from Nepal which made her familiar about the condition in Nepal. She remembered her country by that time because her ups and downs in her life and busy with her workloads and enjoying the luxury of India she had almost forgotten about her own country. Later she made a vow with God that if she is healed from her sickness than she will go to Nepal and miraculously from the very next day her fever was gone. So she made up her mind to go to Nepal and to serve the Lord there. Her decision made some of her fellow worker and friend to think that she went out of her mind.
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.
Roles in the Christianity of Nepal
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.