South West China (in a small Tibetan City)
Ok, so we may not be travelling a million miles – but right now as my team is travelling on a 27 hour train ride across China it certainly feels that way. To paint a picture our train car is currently holding about 250 passengers, and the limit listed at the front of the car is 112 passengers. There are people on the floor, brushing against my shoulder, and at least 5 drops of sweat are dripping down my face.
… Guess it’s blog time y’all
My good read this month
Three of my close friends have told me to read Donald Millers ‘A Million Miles in a Thousand Years’ , soI thought the world race was the perfect time to dig in. The basis of Miller’s book is all about story – more particularly the story of your life. Miller writes somewhat of a memoir describing how he realized his life was boring. Through this realization Miller kick-started his own character development; he cycles across the states, and hikes the Machu Picchu trail in Peru to name a few. He gets his heart broken in the mix, and starts an inter-city youth mentoring program. In short, Miller pushes the reader to step out of comfort zones. Plus, remember that a good story consists of not only interesting scenes, but character development though conflict and resolution.
As you can guess, this book resonates a lot with the world race, and has been on my mind throughout our time spent in our small south-west mountain city. Many alumni racers often describe how God moulded and shaped them over the course of the race, often using their past stories; the 11 months with all its adventure, and rough days strengthened their character- with a refreshed identity in Christ. I am ready to experience this, and I feel God has begun His moulding.
So, here is my ‘character development’ … Well for month 1 that is:
What happened in month one?
God showed up, huge.
Our team’s ministry task for the month was friendship evangelism.
What is that you ask?
Essentially building friendships with people in town, learning Tibetan/ Chinese, teaching english, and basically helping in anyway we could find. Our goal was to love on the people of the small mountain city we were doing work in, show selflessness, and open doors for anyone whose heart was softened to hearing about Jesus. To some this may sound like ‘lazy ministry’ work, however in our small city of about 20,000 we were the only known Christians. For this reason, our work became something none of us were exposed to in North America.
Our daily walk
A lot of our work is done in coffee shops- its a great way to build friendships. As peaceful as this as this was, I began intentionally praying for more/deeper friendships in town, and a physical task to help with. Our time however was running out and I was honestly unsure how this was going to happen.
About a week ago I was with two of my teammates, Raylene an Mark. We were on our way to go pray on a hill that over looks the large 1,600 Buddhist monk monastery in town. We decided to stop in a coffee shop to use a bathroom. As you can imagine, we stick out quite a bit here, and get MANY stares – I sure this is the closest to celebrity status I think I’ll ever get. The same works when we see/hear someone else who can speak english… we get excited. Anywho, our bathroom break turned into an hour long conversation with Alan and Allaster, two Irish men we met in the process of getting to the bathroom.
Turns out Allaster started/operates the coolest guitar company ever, Emerald Guitars (http://www.emeraldguitars.com).
A large part of Emerald Guitar’s modo is incorporating a story into their custom guitars. This company specializes in making carbon fibre guitars, and have made a guitars in the past for musicians such as Steve Vie. Currently, they were on assignment to get a guitar painted at a local art studio in the city we were staying.
The talented artist who runs this art studio is Kristel or ‘Tenzie’, who met Alaster 2 decades ago while backpacking in Ireland. Kristel is Canadian and started her backpacking journey at the age of 17. She is now happily married to her Tibetan husband she met through teaching at a Buddhist monk monastery where she was the only woman for 10 years. Together they began ‘Amdo Arts Project’ where she currently has 8 students completing a 5 year residential art degree. The students come from surrounding nomadic families, and are entitled to a a very generous portion of their art work’s earning upon graduation – setting them up for a future endeavours.
Kristel is also 1 of 2 woman in the city who speaks fluent English. Through Kristel we were able to learn, understand, and ask questions about Tibetan culture and Buddhism. For this we were very thankful.
Small world time
Kristel’s Canadian hometown is about 30 minutes from my home near Toronto. Her and I also figured out that we have ridden at the same barns back at home, AND know the same people in the horse world. To add icing to the cake, her sister also attended the same small agricultural campus as me: Kemptville College. I was like woahs.
A chance to put our hands to good work
Alaster and Alan inspired our team in two ways:
- Their guitar company puts an emphasis on putting a story behind their guitars – hence their trip to south west China.
- Their selflessness – These two Irish men dropped their plans of mountain climbing to help the art studio install running water in their kitchen, and hot water in their shower. This is a huge deal as there are 10 people living at the art studio.
Best part – our team was able to help with tail – end of this water system project.
Answered Prayers:
Friendships
Not only did we find Kristel, Alan and Alaster, but other friendships grew and deepened elsewhere in town as well.
Our friend at the coffee shop we went to daily, Tashi, truly treated us like family. He came with us on several occasions to be a translator for purchasing bus and cell phone minutes, taught us Tibetan, played badminton with us, and sat down daily with us to laugh and chat. Tashi and his family are a traditional Buddhist Tibetan family, and are refreshingly traditional. Tashi explained that even with the traditions of his country, he understands Jesus is his friend – that He is everyone’s friend … This was pretty great to hear
Our favourite coffee shop
We also had the opportunity to teach English to several locals, and a pair of monks that showed up at our apartment door one night – what great experiences.
Our monk friends who showed up at our apartment
Seeds planted
After talking with Kristel she explained a common stereo type of white people who visit the town: They are probably missionaries, are wealthy, and only come into town to talk.This was was slightly convicting to hear. Kristel explained there are many low-income families who would be blessed with any manual labour assistance. Through this, a seed has been planted for future racers – and we now have a contact to help other families around town.
Experiencing God’s Glory
As social media depicts, there were some pretty awesome mountains in our town…. and we got to hike them 3 times. Um what!? It was so cool.
I am definitely one who experiences the Holy Spirit through nature. I also had some of my biggest spiritual highs during these hikes. The word I got from God in my prayers while I was looking over our city (at 3370 m elevation) was His tender voice saying to trust in Him with the people of our town, to trust him with their hearts … their safety. Looking over the mountain range I 100% felt this truth, if He could create such awe and beauty, He can work a miracle over the town. He can work a miracle over any political oppression (Google Tibetan Chinese politics it’ll pull your heart strings), or spiritual bindings.
“If I have a hope, its that God sat over he dark nothing and wrote you and me… Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you create within it even as I have created in you” – Donald Miller
This flower only grows at the summit of our favourite mountain – its worth the climb
...And we found horses on our mountain climb, as if hiking couldn’t get any better.
Well… This blog is now almost as long as our train ride – thanks for toughing it out with me!
