For the month that I was in China I was in the northern part in the mountains, in what is former Tibet. Our ministry for the month was to travel to several different cities in the region spending a few days in each, covering them in prayer and trying to find locals that were helpful towards us and that we could get their contact information. We were then to pass of the information to our contact who is a full time missionary in the region.
We first landed in Hong Kong and took a 3 hour bus ride to Guangzhou, a city in southern part of the country which is also the largest city in China. From Guangzhou we took a 32 hour train ride to Lanzhou. Lanzhou is a larger city of about 4 million people and is a known for it’s industrialism. The city is on the edge of the Tibetan Highlands, and is around 6000 feet elevation. We were able to spend one day in Lanzhou before heading out to our first place of ministry.
Our first ministry location was a town that is famous for it’s larger Tibetan Monastery. We were to spend a couple days in this town getting use to the culture and to the elevation, which is about 10,000 feet above sea level. We would be spending the rest of our time at towns at even higher elevations, all the way up to about 12,500 feet above sea level. After getting acquainted to the area we set out to our second city.
We took a bus to our second town. When we arrived we got off of the bus and were greeted by a couple of Tibetan men that wanted to help us. It was a little difficult because they spoke no English, but we got across to them that we need to get a hotel. They lead us to one hotel that ended up no able to take foreigners so the then led us to another hotel that we ran into the same problem with. After trying the two hotels they then offered to drive us to another city that was touristier and would be easier to find a hotel. And it just happened that it was the next city that we had planned to visit. So we ended up taking a ride to the next town.
We loaded up in one of the guys car and took a couple hour ride to the next town. The town is known for it’s two Tibetan monasteries and for it’s mountain view. We were able to find a hotel pretty easily. In the town we toured both of the monasteries as well as the town. The town had a spectaclur view and also was much easier to find English speakers due to the fact that there was a high number of tourists that visit the town. We found a restaurant that served good food that was fairly cheap. After spending a few days in this town we then moved on to our forth town we were to visit.
Part 2 will come shortly
