Not sure if you caught that or not, but my blog title is a line from the Disney movie, Mulan. It is one of my favorite Disney movies, and so happens to be set in China, where I have spent the past 4 weeks.
My month in China looked much different than my first month in the Philippines. Instead of residing in one town, my team was given the task of traveling to 6 different Tibetan cities. Our mission was to pray for the cities, observe the culture and interact with the people as much as we could. At the beginning, we had no idea what we were doing but we soon saw that God had big plans for us in China.
The first town we traveled to, the owner of the hotel in which we were staying was extremely welcoming and gave us a personal tour of the town. We visited the university, monastery and shops where we could buy warmer clothes. We were blessed by his time and generosity. However, the first night we were there we were visited by 5 policemen who asked us to leave the hotel by the morning. We quickly found out, that as foreigners, we were not welcomed in many hotels and cities.
In another town, we met up with a monk who gave us a personal tour of a Buddhist monastery. He later invited us to his home for tea and bread. I would like to share that not only did this monk have a wall covered in photos of the Dali Lama, but he also had a big poster of Lebron James. He said his first favorite person was the Dali Lama and his second was LBJ. I thought it was so funny! But we were able to pray for the monk and again we were so blessed by this man.
In a different city, we found ourselves horse trekking through the mountains to stay overnight with a Tibetan nomadic family. We rode horses for 5 hours through the breathtaking Tibetan mountains and were received as guests in the family’s tent. They cooked for us and showed us incredible hospitality. We gave our Tibetan tour guide a bible and he read Psalm 23 out loud. As we were waiting for our bus to leave the town, Christin took out her guitar and we sang God of this City. We gained a crowd of about 20 Tibetan people standing and taking pictures of us singing.
We traveled to other cities where we walked around and prayed. We watched kids walk past us and say “Hello” and then run away laughing. In some cities, we were the first foreigners that the locals had ever seen.
In the last town, we visited an underground bible college. We walked into this office building where 16 Chinese students were worshipping and praying in Chinese. Our team sat in the classroom and listened as we heard several of their testimonies. We had the privilege of singing for the group. Tiffany suggested we get on our knees and pray over the students’ feet. “As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” Romans 10:15.
And so, there is much more to China than Mulan portrays and I feel incredibly blessed to have experienced it. If you would like to know more stories about my time in China please email me 🙂
