Tonight at dinner we found out a few more things about what lies ahead of us. One thing we didn’t know is that we have the longest bus ride from Jade Tree of any of the teams. As in 6-8 hours long! After the bus ride yesterday, this was not exactly welcome news. Then, we also found out that for our first day in town, we will be without a translator. That’s not as scary, because we just did it in Won Gai, and God was so faithful to us in that situation. But going to a place that even Eugene has never gone before, it would be kind of nice to have someone with us that speaks the language.
And then, the ride back is going to include a 24-28 hour ride aboard a sleeper bus, followed by a 4-hour train ride, then a 30-hour sleeper train ride, then a couple of hours on a bus, and then a four-hour flight to Thailand. So it could be as much as 68 hours of uninterrupted travel time for us! Almost three solid days!
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Our time in the village is going to include an opportunity to distribute Christian literature in Tibetan to the monasteries in town. The reason we’re targeting the monasteries is that the monks are the only ones who can read. The only thing about it is, distribution of Christian literature is illegal here in China. So, we will be forced to carry out our mission under the cover of night! Who knew that missionaries got to do cool James Bond stuff like that?
Oh, and one more thing: we have found a pseudonym for our city. At the suggestion of a friend of Sarah’s, we’re going to refer to it as Yu Mon. That way, when you e-mail us you can ask, ¡°Hey, what’s up with Yu Mon?¡±
Genius. Pure Genius.
-Gary, on behalf of Team Doulos (soon to be under-cover in Yu Mon)
