Day 6 - Tibet - No Air and Prayer Meeting

Long Summary:
What an exciting day! After a good nite's rest we met with the rest of the staff and missionaries from Touching Hearts. In order to protect them, and for their security, we cannot use their names, take pictures of them and post to this blog because of the "Internet Cops". So, I'll use fictitious names and their true ages: Tyrone (late 30s), Eddie (22), Sam (mid 20s), and Burt (28). Tyrone came to our hotel room to bring us to their house. Our 1st cab ride was flat out CRAZY...yet something I'd expect in China. I really wish I bought the new iPhone 3GS to take video, but traffic signals, lanes, pedestrians - they don't matter! Tyrone and Burt cooked us a delicious vegetarian meal (most of them are from North East China where they don't eat a lot of meat). It was very eye opening and humbling to learn about these 4 guys devoted to God and serving in Tibet. They have a special love and compassion for the Tibetan people and are learning to live a lot of the Tibetan ways to show respect and to build better relationships with them. The other highlight of the day was going Church at Gina and Darren's house (not their real names either). Jason re-capped that in the previous blog entry. While Jason is super healthy because he drinks a lot of water, I on the other hand was battling a mild case of altitude sickness. I had headaches on and off all day...feels like MSG headaches. I was also given extra oxygen, but by that time I was already feeling pretty good.

There's no photo album this time because I couldn't take very many pictures as we were with the staff all day.



Short/Lite Details:
This picture is a Tibetan couch that also can be used as a bed. I purposefully got Eddie's hand in the picture since that's all I can really show of him. The 2nd picture is of how the people boil water. The altitude really affects the boiling point.

I woke up with a headache, went all day with headaches, and slept with a headache. It's not painful or severe, just more uncomfortable. It comes and goes, but if you just sit there for awhile and drink a lot of water, you're all good.

Driving here is ridiculous. Again, I wish I had video capabilities to show our crazy adventures of how our taxi drivers drive in between lanes, go into head on traffic, squeeze their way in, and use the horn all the time. The horn has several meanings: "Don't even think about it. I'm coming through. Get out of the way. I'm here. Don't move, I'm passing you."

The 4 missionaries live in a house donated by the foundation. A Tibetan woman and 19yr old son also live with them. They all learn about Christianity together. Tyrone is the leader of the household and gives most of the lessons. The Tibetan woman teaches them about language and culture. It was great learning about each one's passage to where they are now and how God guided them to where they are now. They don't know of their future plans or how long they plan to serve in this capacity, but they really just turn it over to Him.

They try to absorb and blend in as much possible, taking on a lot of the Tibetan culture. One thing is that the Tibetans don't believe in killing things...even flies. So, while we were in the living room, there's a ton of flies, but they don't kill them, and just let them be. We kept swatting them away, but just let them be. Eddie said that those flies drove him CRAZY for a few weeks, but eventually learned how to coexist. The missionaries help the foundation in all capacities with taking care of the kids, managing the patient data system, caring for the families, inviting people over to their house, and doing lots of prayer walks.

Doing church in a house, in a living room was amazing. (details are in Jason's blog post) Just that it was coordinated and we were meeting in a hostile territory. It gives a sense of hope that these missionaries can indeed make a difference and reach out to so many people. It'll take a lot of time, energy, and faith, but it seems there's a bright light in store for them.

I was given the oxygen tank from another traveler at Church. I didn't need it by that time, but could've used it earlier in the day!