Our time in Xiahe was full of excitement. We’ve participated in Tract-Bombing, climbed mountains, and made incredible friendships. Our goal was to be led by the Holy Spirit to form as many friendships as possible and spread our Savior’s love and joy. There were many people we formed relationships with, but there were just a few that I felt the Holy Spirit calling us to, Tseta, Tenzie, and Dorjee.
Tseta is the owner and operator of the Himalaya Coffee shop. This was one of our favorite places to hang out, drink tea, order yak pizza and fried Mo-mo. He was very friendly and he always greeted us with a warm and happy smile. We were able to communicate with him because he learned English while attending school in India. As our friendship grew he began to ask two questions that proved to us that a seed had definitely been planted. He first asked our squad leader (Myles) and Ravi what the word prophecy meant. Ravi said, “We looked at each other trying to figure out how to answer the question.” The second question was “Why is there not a Jesus church here in Xiahe?” Score!!! Seed definitely planted! It’s so awesome to see how God has been using us to plant seeds in the lives of people and begin the transformation process.
Tenzie. What a story she has! Tenzie ran away from home in Canada at the age of 17, and she has traveled all over the world. She spent about 10 years in a monastery with 5,000 monks teaching English. During her time there, the Dalai Lama gave her the name Tenzie (her birth name is Crystal), which means “Holder of Truth”. While in India she met a monk’s brother named Ginger that would later become her husband. She has been living in Xiahe for about a year where she runs an art school for young native nomad adults. Her students live with her through their years in school. While in the Nirvana coffee shop, Mark and Mel ran into two of her Irish friends who were in town with her. Her friends Allen and Alister run a guitar company named Emerald Guitars. They make some of the most beautiful guitars I have ever seen. One of their customers requested they make a guitar with a genuine traditional Chinese theme (it has a specific name that I cannot remember). Allen and Alister immediately thought of Tenzie and her students. While they were with her they discovered they had no running water and a hole in the ground for a bathroom. They took it upon themselves to pipe in a water supply, a waste water pipe, a new faucet outside, and completely remodel their bathroom and install a toilet. We helped them their last two days in Xiahe. Mark and I helped them finish the piping coming out of the kitchen and into the main waste water pipe, install the new faucet, build a rock wall for a flower bed, completely backfilled the huge hole that had been dug next to their house, and cleaned their courtyard area, all in the first day. The second day we helped them focus on the bathroom. We helped the students with the backfill process under the bathroom floor. We had to backfill about two cubic yards of dirt through a one square foot hole. It was a challenge, but we did it! It was really fun to be a part of the process for making life a little better for Tenzie and her students.
Our man Dorjee! This is where the Holy Spirit had placed my heart the most! Dorjee is a 22 year old Tibetan that spent 10 years in school in India. He has been in Xiahe for about 2 months now working at a hotel/restaurant. He works 15 hours a day, 7 days a week. We met him one afternoon, when the guys and I went to the restaurant where he works. We went there to sit down in a quiet place to dive into the Word and pray for the Holy Spirit to lead us. Little did we know it was God’s plan all along for us to be there. That afternoon we sat there for hours talking to Dorjee. We talked about anything and everything you could think of! From America to China to telling jokes and of course girls! Ha! We just really had a good time with him that day, and by the end of the day he was calling us his brothers! It was really cool. We spent a lot of our time building a relationship with him, and through that we were lead by the Holy Spirit to share our faith with him. Along the way we shared little bits and pieces, but we came to realize that one of his goals is to study world religions. Perfect! We prayed and came up with explaining to Dorjee that we wanted to teach him about our religion because we practice it and we didn’t want him to possibly get any false information from a teacher that might not know much about it. Before we did that, we decided that we wanted to make him some kind of gift. We all put our heads together and decided on a pretty neat gift. We gave him some American snacks we still had, a Cliff Bar, two Fruit Snack packs, and two Kind Bars. We also included a book of FAQ’s about Christianity and another book that was written in Tibetan about Christ’s love for us. My favorite part of the gift was the journal we got him. We went out into town and found him a nice journal, and on the first page we dedicated the journal to him and signed all of our names. Next, each of the guys had one whole page to write an encouraging note and write out some bible verses. The night of 10/4/15 (our last night in Xiahe) we met Dorjee at the restaurant so we could have one final evening to minister to him. Shortly after we arrived he told us that he was off and that we could hang out. So we invited him back to our place to give him the gift. We made him some hot tea and we all sat down and talked about how much fun it was getting to know him. Mark played him a song on the guitar and after that we gave him his gift. He was very appreciative. We explained to him what the journal was for and how he could use it. While I loved getting to minister to Tseta and Tenzie I had a much deeper connection with the Holy Spirit about Dorjee. I was honestly sad to tell him goodbye, but at the same time my heart was filled with joy!
These are true stories that have happened because of the support that I have had from my supporters. I want to thank all of you that have made this first month possible. I am still just under my $13,000 deadline. October 31 is coming soon, so I prayerfully ask that you would consider donating to help create more stories like these as well as assist in spreading the love and joy of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
I apologize that there are no pictures. My internet connection is poor and I couldn’t upload any. I will do my best to get some up as soon as possible.
