Sorry Folks,
It has been a way too long since my last update. So I will try to fill you in on what has been happening on my side of the world.
First term ended five weeks ago. Test week is always a full week with studying and term papers, cramming in this last minute Bible Memory that you got behind on, and such like. The Saturday after classes are finished we have orientation on our ministry Trips. We find out were we are going, what we will be doing, what we should not do, what to expect, ect. Then we meet with out teams and decide what our team goals are and pray about our trip. Sunday is a normal day. Then Monday is a solitude day where we spend time just praying, reading the Bible, working on our mentoring assignments and so forth. Then Tues is the day where we all say Goodbye and pray over the teams and send them on there way. It is a very exciting time and you can just feel the anticipation crackling in the air.
Tues night found my team of five headed out for China. Our goal for this trip was to find nomads and just interact with them as much as possible. We had a guide that we met in Chengdu. From there we had a lot of traveling up bumpy mountain roads in a crammed little van. We spent 14 hours straight in that thing one time.
We explored Ghanza and stayed at a hostel their for a couple of days trying to adjust to the altitude change. The altitude change was something I had never experienced before and it really threw me for a loop. You literally just wear out fast and it feels like you cannot breathe when your walking up a hill or climbing a mountain. The highest elevation that we were at was 14,000 ft. and some of the mountains that surrounded us were 18,000 to 21,0000 ft. It was so majestic and absolutely breathtaking 😉
While in Ghanza, we spent one whole day just exploring the city. Their was one really neat experience we had with some village ladies. We were walking down the street when we came upon a group of ladies moving dirt and large rocks for a house that was being fixed. Anyways, we stopped to watch for a little then someone got the bright idea to see if we could help them. So through lots of signs and wonders they got the idea that we wanted to help them work. We had so much fun and they spent a lot of time laughing at us weak, and wimpy foreigners. In their religion they were very careful not to kill any bugs or critters for fear of demons and also the fact that they believed these bugs could be a relative of theirs in the next life. Anyways, their was one time a lady pointed out a bug right close to me, which caused me to jump and yelp, and I fought an extreme urge to squash the thing. She very carefully picked it up and carried it to a safe place. Another time I saw one lady carrying a spider somewhere safe as well. The spider got out of control and took off up her arm. She screamed and shook him off and them immediately bent over and picked it up again to carry to the side. After a while, we motioned to them that we were going to leave and they immediately made us sit down and gave us apples, tons of bread and tea. They just kept feeding and feeding us, we were trying to think of some way to thank them so we sang a song for them and immediately all the cell phones got whipped out and they videoed the whole thing. After lots of hugs and chinese goodbyes (tashi-delek) we were on our way down the road.
In one picture above and the one below, you will notice a bunch of colorful flags strung out on a line. These were called prayer flags. They were everywhere. The people believed that if they write their prayers on these flags and then hang them up, when the wind blows over them it carries the prayers to the spirits. You could see these flags everywhere!!! After a while they just seemed to shatter the peaceful scenery. Every mountain, hillside and house had them strung up.
After our time in Ghana we headed to Maniganga, two hour drive away. We had a little hiccup on our way there. We were almost to Maniganga when our driver started acting a little mysterious. He was stopping vehicles passing us and asking them something but we could never figure out if this was just normal culture or strange. So we decided it was all normal and they were just a very social people:) We could see the town in the distance when suddenly the driver just whips the car off the road and into a very bumpy field with very big potholes. We bumped along with our heads almost hitting the ceiling, just laughing and assuming that this guy knew a short cut, when suddenly he whips the car around and flys back the way we had just come. Now our heads were hitting the ceiling and everything else (VERY HARD). Instantly you could sense fear in the car. The girl beside me was actually getting hurt really bad and it started getting a little emotional for her. The driver flew back onto the main road and just as fast flew back off on the other side and went back into a isolated courtyard surrounded by buildings. And we stopped and waited. Suddenly, a cop car came flying in behind us and came up to the car. He pulled the driver out of the car and started hollering at him. Nothing was making sense. At one point we were asked to get out and then as we started doing that were promptly told to get back in, so we did. Anyways, to make the story short, another cop shows upland they started hitting the driver very brutally. I think this is the point where I started freaking out. I never seen a human get hurt out of such anger in real life. Then the cops got his wallet took everything out of it and threw the wallet on the ground, jumped in their car and left. The driver came back to the car and climbed in holding his head. When we asked to get out he very emphatically told us to stay put. He then took us up the road to Maniganga and stopped and the police check which he had been trying to avoid earlier. Now everyone was calm and the cops smiled at us and checked our passports and told us to have a good day and waved us into Maniganga. I guess the driver was illegal. So ya, that was adventurous. (When I told my brother Nathan this story he told me it was about time I got out of my little bubble and in the real world 🙂
Mangiganga was a very small town but so much fun. The people there did not see many foreigners so they would holler at us, stare at us from a foot away, and touch us. I greatly enjoyed this! We stayed there for one night and the next met up with our guide and headed out into the mountains.
In the mountains there was beauty like I had never experienced before in my life. Words literally will not be able to describe it and pictures do no justice. There was bright green ground cover and colorful little flowers all around us, and then you would look up and see jagged snow covered mountains surrounding you entirely. We were worshiping the creator of the world in a heavenly sanctuary.
The weather was very pleasant during the day, no need of a sweater. At night it was very could and we would put on any layers we possibly could. We hiked for three days and slept in tents for two nights.
We were able to interact with a few different nomads. They would invite us into there tents and feed us all kinds of yak products: yak meat, yak butter, yak milk tea, Sampa, and a dessert made of moldy yak cheese, sugar, and yak butter. Most of these things I could stomach but the dessert thing I just. could. not. stomach. I took one bight and just about lost everything else in my stomach. The yak meat tasted wild and was not fully cooked and was often tough, covered in dirt and hair. But after a day hiking without much food it looked tempting. Sampa is a common tibetan food made with flour and yak butter. Sometimes they pour tea in it. You then mix it together into a ball. It has the texture of playdough and a similar flavor. I actually liked Sampa but their were others who could not eat much of it.
Their was one Nomad family that we spent a lot of time with; this was my biggest highlight form the whole trip. They made us some of the best food I had my whole time in China. They were so friendly and just accepted us in their home like we were family. They made southern hospitality look like nothing! They seemed like a very close family and their family structure was so biblical. It was so easy to forget that they were not believers because they acted so Christian. But then you would see them perform religious rituals in from of images and start chanting with their prayer beads; it was then I would be struck with the stark reality that these people were lost and and living in a dark world. I then would feel helpless knowing that we could not communicate with them except through our actions. I have never been so impacted with the fact that their are so many in the world who have know idea who Jesus is and yet so often I become complacent in my life, acting like I have control of my own life. Jesus has done so much for me and now what can I do for Him.
We hiked back into Maniganga and spent a day their. One of the girls on our team had a really neat experience hanging out with some nuns and they showed us around their monastery. There was one room that was filled with hundreds of little idols and candles. You step out of the room into a beautiful flower garden with a mountain backdrop. It was such a stark contrast.
After this we backtracked all the way to ChengDu where we then flew back home.
Living On The Precipice 