Kawagebo
Praise to the living God who is above all gods including Kawagebo of the Meili mountain range. Not even he could keep the living word from coming to his grounds. As difficult as it was, we finally found ourselves in Deqin which is a small town deep in the Yunnan Province cradled in a steep and rugged valley where the days are slightly shorter than everywhere else because the sun doesn’t shine upon it until late in the morning, and disappears early in the afternoon. Of course this week there was another light shining in the darkness of Deqin.
Our second attempt at hiring a driver/guide was successful and the driver turned out to be a good one. Maybe not the most experienced driving in snow on roads 13000 feet high (4000m) with thousand foot drops and nothing to stop you from sliding of the road but he did well. The 4wd Nissan did not do too well and broke down several times at the beginning of our return trip from Deqin. I learned that diesel fuel can freeze…and the Chinese solution to that? Build a fire underneath the gas tank. It also would have been nice to have heat driving late at night at that altitude but it was broken. The driver was nice nonetheless and even bought sodas for us on way back to Shangri-la. He even spoke a little bit of broken English which helped a lot. If you ever have a chance to star gaze at 13k it is a real treat. Actually it is more like a star glimpse because it is so very cold.
While in Deqin for two nights, we stayed in a nice hotel complete with broken lights, broken bathtub, broken toilet and broken sinks and once again no heat. Only heated blankets. Our room and blankets were not cleaned after the last inhabitants but we managed with our sleeping bags. It did have fairly hot water which was nice to wash my feet and face, but it was not possible to shower. Besides that, we really felt it would be better not to shower anyway when the room temperature was only 35 degrees F. Outside it was in the 20s. The elevation of this town was at about 11000ft.
The people of this area are predominately Deqin Tibetans who are very kind and hospitable. We were afforded many opportunities for witnessing and spreading the Gospel within the one day we were there. We presented the Gospel according to Luke to beggars, monks, bystanders, and shopkeepers. We spent the most time with a family that ran a small restaurant across the street from our hotel. We were able to show them some of the Passion of Christ movie as well. James and Joe found an opportunity to play music with the guitar on a busy street corner drawing a big crowd. Many took of the gospel tracts that were left out on the guitar case as they played and read them curiously. We visited a temple and monastery where they let us inside to see the idols and abundance of offerings of all sorts of things. There we delivered some more tracts. Some the people were glad to receive the gospels that we gave them, which was encouraging to say the least. We also spent some time at a look-out point of Mt Meili where there were numerous shrines and incense ovens where anyone could purchase a special plant or incense and burn it as an offering to the God Kawagebo (the highest peak). We offered prayers and intercession to the living God instead. It is hard to say what happens next with the truth that has landed in the hands of all these Tibetans. But I think that where this small work of ours has ended, the real work begins with prayer to God that he may complete what he has begun. And so that is our request to you, that you might join us in praying for these people to have ears to hear the truth and that the truth might set them free for the glory of God.
We were all certain that we wanted to come back to this place to spend a much longer time to hike to the villages surrounding the mountain and bring the Jesus Film in the local language along with more literature…
It was a really rough trip, probably the hardest for me due to the cold and my illness. I was more irritable than usual being so weak and deprived of energy and rest while having a non-stop migraine the entire trip, but James and Joe proved to be mighty soldiers and stuck with me and together we pulled through everything Satan could throw at us. Because of the difficulties, our time was very limited making it difficult to find time for devotions and prayer, yet God was always with us. In spite of the hard conditions and trials around every corner and on top of that my illness, my soul was satisfied to be there serving God for I knew I was called to this. I believe that there is no greater thing for us to do than what we are called to do, and that when we do it, even if it seems daunting, or becomes hard to do, our souls will be satisfied because God always satisfies us if we obey him and the satisfaction and joy is so abundant that it drowns out any hardship or pain and makes them seem as nothing. That is something that teaches me about the words in the bible, “not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit.” It is only by the soul-satisfying indwelling of the Holy Spirit that any situation, no matter how hard it is can be overcome. The idea I think is repeated in Jesus’ words, “with God nothing is impossible.” It just might be one of those defining lines that should separate the real children of God from the world. For when everything seems to be against you, do you see failure or do you see opportunity? Do you stop, or do you keep going? Are you walking, by prayer, with God, or are you walking, by lack of prayer, against God?
Those are the lessons which he has been teaching me these days. I often struggle to understand “faith” and what it is and what it means in the deeper sense. But I feel God knows this and desires to teach me about it. So, on the whole, I am satisfied in what God has done with us on the trip, and there are no regrets, but rather great memories. And right now I have joy for everything that I have, and for who I am, as I am what I am by God’s grace.