Tibet: The Roof of the World. Inside the Largest Christian Revival in History (The China Chronicles) [Illustrated] 0281084130, 9780281084135

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Paul Hattaway, a native New Zealander, has served the Church in Asia for most of his life. He is an expert on the Chinese Church, and the author of Operation China, Shandong, Guizhou, Zhejiang, and many other books. He and his wife Joy are the founders of Asia Harvest (), which supports hundreds of indigenous missionaries and has provided millions of Bibles to spiritually hungry Christians throughout Asia.

Also by Paul Hattaway: The Heavenly Man An Asian Harvest Operation China China’s Christian Martyrs Shandong Guizhou Zhejiang

TIBET The Roof of the World

Paul Hattaway

Note to the reader This book is believed to be the first attempt to present an overview of all Christian activity in Tibet throughout history. “Tibet” means many things to different people. The present-day Tibet Autonomous Region contains only about two-thirds of the area inhabited by Tibetans in China. In the 1950s and earlier, vast swathes of Tibetan territory were carved off and incorporated into today’s Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces. Some ethnic groups historically located within “Greater Tibet” have not been included in this book. For example, in Sichuan Province a few dozen tribal groups, including the Qiang, Baima, and a host of others, have lived in the Tibetan border areas for centuries, but they have retained their distinctive cultures and languages, and for the most part have not converted to Tibetan Buddhism. These groups have been excluded from this book and will be covered in their respective provinces in the China Chronicles. The “Tibet” covered in the articles within this book, therefore, refers to all Tibetan areas in Mainland China. The author is not attempting to make a political statement but simply desires to document the history of Christian efforts to reach the Tibetan people. Past missionaries rarely spoke about reaching Tibetans in a certain province. They simply considered themselves ambassadors of Christ to Tibet.

Tibet

北京 “Vast West”

Map of China showing the Tibet Autonomous Region Pronounced: Ti-bet (Shee-zang in Chinese) Old spelling: Thibet Population (Tibet 2,633,732 (2000) Autonomous Region): 3,002,165 (2010) 3,370,598 (2020)

Area: Population density: Highest elevation: Capital city: Other cities (2010):

474,300 sq. miles (1,228,400 sq. km) 7 people per sq. mile (3 per sq. km) 29,029 feet (8,848 meters) Lhasa 559,423 Xigaze 703,292 Qamdo 657,505 Nagqu 462,381 Lhoka (Shannan) 328,990 Nyingchi 195,109 Administrative Prefectures: 7 divisions: Counties: 74 Towns: 692 Percent Major ethnic groups Tibetan 2,427,168 92.8 (2000): Han Chinese 158,570 6.1 Hui 9,031 0.3 Monba 8,481 0.3 Lhoba 2,691 0.1

Contents Foreword by Moses Xie The China Chronicles overview Introduction Nestorians in Tibet Antonio de Andrade and the kingdom of Guge Other early Catholics in Tibet 1880s The Moravians 1890s Annie Taylor Petrus and Susie Rijnhart 1900s William Christie 1910s Albert Shelton 1920s Sundar Singh—the Apostle with the Bleeding Feet The Jiarong Victor Plymire 1930s Frank Learner 1940s The story of the Tibetan Bible 1950s

1960s and 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s Tenzin Lahkpa The future of the Church in Tibet Appendix Map of Christians in the Tibet Autonomous Region Map of China’s Christians Table of Christians in the Tibet Autonomous Region Table of people groups in Greater Tibet Selected bibliography Contact details

Foreword Over many years and generations, the followers of Jesus in China have set their hearts to be the witnesses of Christ to the nation. Many have paid a great price for their ministry, and the brutal persecutions they have endured for the faith have often been unimaginable. The Bible commands all believers to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16.15). Many foreign missionaries responded to this command in the past, traveling to China to proclaim the Word of God. They blessed the land with their message of new life in Christ, and also suffered greatly when the darkness clashed with God’s light. Their faithful service in spite of great hardship was a beautiful example for Chinese believers to emulate as they served God. China today still urgently needs more servants and laborers to take the gospel throughout the land. God is looking for people who will stand up and declare, “Lord, here am I. Please send me!” The day of our Lord is near. May your hearts be encouraged by the testimonies of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done in China, to the praise of His glorious Name! May the Lord raise up more testimonies that would glorify His Name in our generation, the next generation, and for evermore! Lord, You are the victorious King. Blessed are those who follow You to the end! A humble servant of Christ, Moses Xie (1918– 2011)*

Notes * The late Moses Xie wrote this Preface for the China Chronicles prior to his death in 2011. He was a highly respected Chinese house church leader who spent 23 years of his life in prison for the Name of Jesus Christ.

The China Chronicles overview Many people are aware of the extraordinary explosion of Christianity throughout China in recent decades, with the Church now numbering in excess of 100 million members. Few, however, know how this miracle has occurred. The China Chronicles series is an ambitious project to document the advance of Christianity in each province of China from the time the gospel was first introduced to the present day. The genesis for this project came at a meeting I attended in the year 2000, where leaders of the Chinese house church movements expressed the need for their members to understand how God established His kingdom throughout China. As a result, it is planned that these books will be translated into Chinese and distributed widely among the Church, both in China and overseas. Millions of Chinese Christians know little of their spiritual legacy, and my prayer is that multitudes will be strengthened, edified, and challenged to carry the torch of the Holy Spirit to their generation. My intention is not to present readers with a dry list of names and dates but to bring alive the marvelous stories of how God has caused His kingdom to take root and flourish in the world’s most populated country. I consider it a great honor to write these books, especially as I have been entrusted, through hundreds of hours of interviews conducted throughout China, with many testimonies that have never previously been shared in public. Another reason for compiling the China Chronicles is simply to have a record of God’s mighty acts in China. As a new believer in the 1980s, I recall reading many reports from the Soviet Union of how Christian men and women were being brutally persecuted, yet the kingdom of God grew, with many people meeting Jesus Christ. By the time the Soviet empire collapsed in the early 1990s, no one had systemat-ically recorded the glorious deeds of the Holy Spirit during the Communist era. Tragically, the body of Christ has largely forgotten the

miracles God performed in those decades behind the Iron Curtain, and we are much the poorer for it. Consequently, I am determined to preserve a record of God’s mighty acts in China, so that future generations of believers can learn about the wonderful events that have transformed tens of millions of lives there. At the back of each volume will appear a detailed statistical analysis estimating the number of Christians living in every city and county within each province of China. This is the first comprehensive survey into the number of believers in China—in every one of its more than 2,400 cities and counties—in nearly a century. Such a huge undertaking would be impossible without the cooperation and assistance of numerous organizations and individuals. I apologize to the many people who helped me in various ways whose names are not mentioned here, many because of security concerns. May the Lord be with you and bless you! I appreciate the help of mission organizations such as the International Mission Board (IMB), Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF), Revival Chinese Ministries International (RCMI), The Voice of the Martyrs Canada (VOM Canada), and many others that graciously allowed me access to their archives, libraries, photographs, collections, and personal records. I am indebted to the many believers whose generosity exemplifies Jesus’ command, “Freely you have received; freely give” (Matthew 10.8). Many Chinese believers, too numerous to list, have lovingly assisted in this endeavor. For example, I fondly recall the aged house church evangelist Elder Fu, who required two young men to assist him up the stairs to my hotel room because he was eager to be interviewed for this series. Although he had spent many years in prison for the gospel, this saint desperately wanted to testify to God’s great works so that believers around the world could be inspired and encouraged to live a more consecrated life. Countless Chinese believers I met and interviewed were similarly keen to share what God has done, to glorify His Name. Finally, it would be remiss not to thank the Lord Jesus Christ. As you read these books, my prayer is that He will emerge from the pages not merely as a historical figure, but as Someone ever present, longing to seek and to save the lost by displaying His power and transformative grace.

Today the Church in China is one of the strongest in the world, both spiritually and numerically. Yet little more than a century ago China was considered one of the most difficult mission fields. The great Welsh missionary Griffith John once wrote: The good news is moving but very slowly. The people are as hard as steel. They are eaten up both soul and body by the world, and do not seem to feel that there can be reality in anything beyond sense. To them our doctrine is foolishness, our talk jargon. We discuss and beat them in argument. We reason them into silence and shame; but the whole effort falls upon them like showers upon a sandy desert.1

How things have changed! When it is all said and done, no person in China will be able to take credit for the amazing revival that has occurred. It will be clear that this great accomplishment is the handiwork of none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. We will stand in awe and declare: The LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118.23–24, NIV 1984)

Paul Hattaway Publisher’s note: In the China Chronicles we have avoided specific information, such as individuals’ names or details, that could lead directly to the identification of house church workers. The exceptions to this rule are where a leader has already become so well known around the world that there is little point concealing his or her identity in these books. This same principle applies to the use of photographs. Several different systems for writing the sounds of Chinese characters in English have been used over the years, the main ones being the Wade-Giles system (introduced in 1912) and Pinyin (literally “spelling sounds”), which has been the accepted form in China since 1979. In the China Chronicles, all names of people and places are given in their Pinyin form, although in many instances the old spelling is also given in parentheses. This means that the places formerly spelt Chung-king, Shantung and Tien-tsin are now respectively Chongqing, Shandong and Tianjin; Mao Tse-tung becomes Mao Zedong, and so on. The only times we have retained the old spelling of

names is when they are part of the title of a published book or article listed in the Notes or Bibliography.

Introduction

The Land of Snows Tibet—the name itself sends a shiver down the spine of many people. Mysterious, forbidden, unreachable; for centuries Tibet has been the desire of explorers, pilgrims, armies, and missionaries alike, but its seemingly impenetrable barriers have been slow to yield any treasures to those who seek them. The extraordinary walls of rock and ice that surround Tibet have successfully protected it from most outside influence. Sitting at an average altitude of 14,800 feet (4,500 meters) above sea level, Tibet’s physical challenges were vividly summed up by the French Catholic missionary Auguste Desgodins in the early 1860s: Take a piece of paper in your hand. Crumple it up and then open your hand and let it fall out! Nothing is flat—all you have are high points and low depressions—the steep, inaccessible, rugged mountains and the deep valleys, through which flow some of the largest and fastest rivers in the world.1

The sheer size of Tibet is astonishing, and it is home to a total Tibetan population in China of 6.28 million people, according to the 2010 census. The present-day Tibet Autonomous Region alone covers an area of 474,300 square miles (more than 1.2 million sq. km). When Tibetan areas now in the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai, and Yunnan are included, the overall area inhabited by the Tibetan people in China increases to approximately 750,000 square miles (1.94 million sq. km). To help us comprehend the vastness and emptiness of Tibet, the area inhabited by Tibetans in China is almost three times larger than Texas, but with one fourth as many people as the Lone Star State. By another measure, Tibet is also roughly three times the size of the United Kingdom, but the UK has a population ten times larger.

A turbulent history Much of the ancient history of Tibet is clouded in myth, but it is known that nomadic tribes inhabited parts of the Tibetan Plateau as early as the second century BC.2 The seventh and eighth centuries AD saw the emergence of a large Tibetan empire, during a period considered the “golden age” of its history. Tibetan influence at the time extended into north India, Nepal, Bhutan, and northern Myanmar; and frequent armed conflicts took place with the Chinese along Tibet’s eastern and northern borders. In 763, a Tibetan army even managed to lay siege to and destroy China’s capital city of Xi’an. As the centuries went by, China’s rulers began to eye the open spaces and natural resources of the Tibetan Plateau, and military campaigns were launched to bring the country under Chinese rule for the first time. A pivotal moment occurred in 1720 when the Chinese tore down the walls of Lhasa, stationed thousands of troops throughout central Tibet, and annexed a large part of the Kham region into Sichuan Province. Later, India and the independent kingdoms of Sikkim and Ladakh also laid claim to parts of Tibet. In addition, Mongolia and Russia increased their focus on the Roof of the World, and Tibet gradually emerged as the stage for a grand tug of war between competing powers. In 1903, a British expeditionary force under the command of Francis Younghusband invaded Tibet. The Tibetan army was hopelessly outmatched against the superior British technology, and in one skirmish more than 600 Tibetans were mowed down by Maxim machine guns. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama fled to Mongolia, where he remained for four years, but when the Chinese invaded Lhasa in 1910 he fled across the Himalayas to northern India, in a foreshadowing of the events that would follow the Fourteenth Dalai Lama several decades later.

The dark powers of Bon Although on the surface the overwhelming majority of Tibetans claim to be Buddhists,3 many observers have come to realize that Buddhism is merely a

veneer placed over the ancient, all-encompassing foundation of Chö, a Tibetan belief system that includes “all phenomena, all matter, and everything that can be known . . . The Tibetan Buddhist view of the world is not divided into compartments, but takes in all of life at once. Chö and life are inseparable.”4 Long before Buddhism arrived on the Tibetan Plateau from India in the seventh century AD, the powerful religion of Bon had prevailed for countless generations. Bon is an ancient shamanistic worldview, where dark occult practices intertwine with demonic possession and metaphysical events, creating a layer of spiritual darkness that centuries of Christian endeavor have so far failed to penetrate. Belief in the powers of the unseen world is reinforced in each new generation of Tibetans through their stories and literature: which are filled with tales of the fantastic and the bizarre. Flying demons, monks who change their appearance at will, powerful lamas who force disembodied minds into dead bodies, and a host of other strange tales are part of the literary heritage of Tibet.5

Many Westerners claim that after the Communist armies swept through Tibet, crushing hordes of people and demolishing their culture, the Chinese had cruelly dismantled an idyllic and peaceful society, but it would be remiss to ignore the fact that Tibetan society had deteriorated to such a low ebb by the 1950s that sexual disease and abuse was rampant, and millions of Tibetans were enslaved by an oppressive dictatorship.

The strong man of Tibet The spiritual realm is so real in Tibet that people’s daily lives are intertwined with and often appear inseparable from the forces of darkness. For example, most Tibetans know that the real head of state of the Tibetan people is not the Dalai Lama but the State Oracle—an individual who is possessed by a demonic spirit called Nechung. Thubten Ngodup, a man who was born in Tibet in 1957, serves as the State Oracle and also has a seat as a deputy minister in the Tibetan government in exile.

The Dalai Lama himself has left little doubt about the role demonic entities play in the authority structures of Tibet. In his autobiography, Freedom in Exile, the Dalai Lama wrote: In former times there must have been many hundreds of oracles throughout Tibet. Few survive, but the most important—those used by the Tibetan government—still exist. Of these, the principal one is known as the Nechung oracle. Through him manifests Drak-den, one of the protector divinities of the Dalai Lama . . . For hundreds of years now, it has been traditional for the Dalai Lama, and the government, to consult Nechung during the New Year festivals. In addition, he might well be called upon at other times if either have specific queries. I myself have dealings with him several times a year . . . I seek his opinion in the same way as I seek the opinion of my cabinet and just as I seek the opinion of my own conscience. I consider the gods to be my “upper house” . . . In one respect, the responsibility of Nechung and the responsibility of the Dalai Lama towards Tibet are the same, though we act in different ways. My task, that of leadership, is peaceful. His, in his capacity as protector and defender, is wrathful. However, although our functions are similar, my relationship with Nechung is that of commander to lieutenant: I never bow down to him. It is for Nechung to bow to the Dalai Lama. Yet we are also very close friends.6

This insight should be startling to all Christians. The Bible teaches us that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6.12). The Dalai Lama here has stated that not only does a powerful demonic ruler exist over Tibet, but it is embodied within a man who holds a position in the government, and who is often consulted for guidance and advice! What many Tibetans consider normal within their worldview has often been labeled as nonsense by materialist Westerners, and accounts of the stark reality of the spirit world in that land are dismissed. However, during the times when the two cultures have collided, Western onlookers have been left speechless and afraid of what their eyes have seen and their ears have heard.7 Many are the stories of dark arts practiced by Tibetan shamans and lamas, but hopefully the examples below will suffice to give readers a brief glimpse into the powerful spiritual forces that have bound the people of Tibet for thousands of years: on one occasion, Australian missionary-doctor Allan Maberly was giving injections to a group of Tibetan refugees from Kham. He recalled, “Three times I plunged the needle into one man’s

arm only to find the skin like stone, which bent the needle. The Tibetan suddenly remembered that his ‘magic’ stone was still on his belt, so he removed it and handed it to a friend. On the next try the muscle was soft as cheese and the needle went in smoothly!”8

In 1981, an American camera crew traveled to north India to film the cremation of a famous Tibetan lama. The disbelieving crew reported seeing: the top of the lama’s skull fly up into the air without coming down to earth. Later during the cremation, the lama’s eye, tongue, and heart supposedly flew out of the fire and fell at the feet of another monk. The local Tibetans took all these “miracles” in a matter of fact way.9

The three regions of Tibet Throughout its long history, Tibet was traditionally home to three main regions, with additional kingdoms and principalities within each. Although the branches of the Tibetan race have been unified in many ways by their common culture and religious adherence, significant differences still exist between Tibetans in terms of history, customs, and language.10 Many of the chapters in this book have been divided into sections according to the historic region of Tibet in which the described events took place. It is useful to summarize each of the three regions of Tibet, as follows.

Ü-Tsang Ü-Tsang has long been considered the hub of Tibetan civiliza-tion and is often referred to in English as “central Tibet.” It was formed long ago when the provinces of Ü (based at Lhasa) and Tsang (Xigaze) were combined. The name Ü-Tsang was actually artificially derived from Qing Dynasty maps, which designated Ü (Lhasa) where the Dalai Lama had his throne as “Front Tibet” and Tsang (where the Panchen Lama was based) as “Back Tibet.” In reality, however, the Dalai Lama exercised effective rule over both regions and in Tibetan minds there is little difference.

Tibetan soldiers arrayed in medieval armor in the early twentieth century Linguistically and culturally, however, there are distinctions between central Tibet and the Kham and Amdo regions. For the purposes of this book, Ü-Tsang is used to describe central Tibet, which contains around 45 percent of Tibetans in China today, and is hemmed in by its borders with India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar. Founded in AD 633, Lhasa, which means “land of the gods” or “holy place” in Tibetan, stands at a lung-busting 12,330 feet (3,660 meters) above sea level, and has long been considered the seat of Tibetan Buddhism, similar to the position that Mecca holds in Islam or Rome in Catholicism. Lhasa’s skyline is dominated by the thousand-room Potala Palace, the former abode of the Dalai Lama. The Jokhang Temple, a mile to the east of the palace, is considered the spiritual heart of the city. Lhasa remains the goal of most visitors to Tibet, including tens of thousands of Westerners who flock to the city in an attempt to satisfy their spiritual longings. Early travelers would have been astonished to learn that Lhasa would one day be seen as a place of pilgrimage for tourists, because for much of its history it was a dirty, run-down town with little going for it.

Thomas Manning provided this grim description of Lhasa in the early 1800s: There is nothing striking, nothing pleasing in its appearance. The habitations are begrimed with smut and dirt. The avenues are full of dogs, some growling and gnawing bits of hide which lie about in profusion, and emit a charnel-house smell; others limping and looking livid; others ulcerated; others starving and dying, and pecked at by the ravens; some dead and preyed upon. In short, everything seems mean and gloomy.11

Situated to the west of Lhasa, the massive Ngari Prefecture is an arid wasteland, and is also rumored to be home to many of China’s nuclear weapons. Scattered throughout Ngari are the ruins of long-abandoned civilizations that once flourished in the area, including the Guge kingdom, which dominated trade and commerce between India and China until its sudden demise in 1630. Intrepid travelers to remote parts of Ngari sometimes encounter Tibetans so isolated that they have never seen an outsider before. This had led to some uncomfortable exchanges, such as an incident in the 1980s when an Australian tourist tried to watch a Tibetan “wind burial,” where human corpses are cut into small pieces and laid on an exposed rock for vultures and ravens to devour. The tourist attempted to hide while using a telephoto lens to take photographs of the grisly scene, but: While hopping around on the skyline, he scared the birds away—an exceptionally evil omen. The irate burial squad gave chase, brandishing knives, and showered him with rocks. Another group of tourists were bombarded with rocks, chased with knives, or threatened with meaty leg-bones ripped straight off the corpse.12

Kham Filled with deep river valleys and snow-capped peaks, Kham is the traditional south-eastern region of Tibet, and the homeland of fearsome Khampa warriors—skilled horsemen who guarded the eastern Tibetan frontier and kept out unwanted visitors. For centuries, outsiders have been terrorized by the tall Khampa men—many are over 6 feet (1.8 meters) in height—as they are known for their fierceness and indiscriminate killings. Heinrich Harrer walked through Kham areas in the 1940s, giving this description of the people in his famous book Seven Years in Tibet:

They live in groups in three or four tents which serve as headquarters for their campaigns . . . Heavily armed with rifles and swords they force their way into a nomad’s tent and insist on hospitable entertainment on the most lavish scale available. The nomad in terror brings out everything he has. The Khampas fill their bellies and their pockets and, taking a few cattle with them for good measure, disappear into the wide open spaces. They repeat the performance at another tent every day till the whole region has been skinned . . . Stories were told of the cruelty with which they sometimes put their victims to death. They go so far as to slaughter pilgrims and wandering monks and nuns.13

A Khampa warrior from western Sichuan Nancy Sturrock Throughout its history, Kham was never fully under the control of the Dalai Lama but was home to more than 30 independent Tibetan kingdoms and principalities, each with its own royal family. Today, approximately 26 percent of Tibetans in China live in the Kham region, which comprises areas in today’s Sichuan, Yunnan, and Gansu provinces. Kham was gradually integrated into China’s Sichuan Province beginning in 1720. The People’s Liberation Army completed the job in the 1950s, with their tanks rolling across Kham and leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake.

Amdo

Amdo Province is the traditional north-eastern region of Tibet and is home to approximately 29 percent of Tibetan people in China. Some Amdo areas are so remote that nomads in those parts continue to live with scant knowledge of the outside world. Little has changed since the late 1920s, when a visitor wrote: “A miserable land it is, of poverty and incredible filth; a land cut off from the modern world, a region which, for uncounted centuries, has had its own forms of government, of religion and social customs.”14 The most famous landmark in Amdo is the massive saltwater Qinghai Lake, which was traditionally known by its Mongolian name Kokonor. The largest lake in China, its azure waters and backdrop of snow-capped mountains make it a favorite destin-ation for breathless travelers, many of whom struggle with the lack of oxygen as the lake sits 10,515 feet (3,205 meters) above sea level.

Amdo women near Qinghai Lake, arrayed in their festive best Nancy Sturrock Beyond the lake, a huge expanse of lush grasslands and mosquitoinfested swamps stretches for hundreds of miles, while access to central Tibet is blocked by the Amne Machen mountain range, with its razor-like peaks rising to an imposing elevation of 20,610 feet (6,282 meters). The Amdo region is home to an abundant variety of wildlife, including bears, deer, gazelles, and wolves, while among its many fascinating ethnic groups are the Golog people, a name meaning “those with heads on backwards”15 in reference to their rebellious nature. Amdo was incorporated into the Chinese provinces of Qinghai and Gansu between 1928 and the 1950s. Among the Amdo people there are several major linguistic divisions, which scholars have labeled according to the primary occupations of their speakers, such as Hbrogpa (meaning “nomad” or “herder” in Tibetan); Rongba (“farmer”); and Rongmahbrogpa, which is an amalgamation of the two. While today the Chinese government recognizes just a handful of ethnic groups in the Amdo region, researchers during the first half of the twentieth century compiled a huge list of tribes, clans, self-governing principalities, and people groups in Amdo. One source said: In the 1930s there were about 600 ethnic groups in Amdo. The political structure can be roughly described as a regionally variable mixture of large estates or small kingdoms with inherited titles and powers, towns built up around major monasteries, and open, unsettled territories claimed by groups of nomads.16

The Dalai Lama Padmasambhava, an eighth-century Tibetan sage, is reputed to have spoken the following prophecy: “When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the world and the Dharma will come to the land of the Red Man.”17 In an apparent fulfillment of this prophecy, in 1959 the Chinese army invaded Tibet and was approaching the outskirts of Lhasa. Tenzin Gyatso,

the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, fled across the Himalayas to India, where he has continued to lead a Tibetan “government in exile.”

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, exiled leader of the Tibetan people In the six decades since his departure, the Dalai Lama—a Mongolian term meaning “ocean of wisdom”—has risen to worldwide prominence, and today millions of people around the globe consider him one of the world’s great figures. He is much loved and respected by presidents, kings, and nomads alike. He has won the Nobel Peace Prize, and is regarded as a godking by some and a freedom fighter by others. This smiling monk from an Amdo farming family has become the undisputed darling of Hollywood, while at the same time he is despised as a troublemaker and separatist by the Communist rulers of China. Many Christians seem confused about how they should view the Dalai Lama, but New Zealander Hugh Kemp, who has met the Dalai Lama on several occasions, has sounded a warning bell to Christians about the insidious danger lurking behind Tibetan Buddhism and the teachings of its god-king: To the present generation of Westerners, who reject moral absolutes and despise any claim to spiritual exclusivity, it is no wonder the Dalai Lama is so popular. I’ve heard the Dalai Lama

say, with a casual wave of his hand, “If you think my message is nonsense, then forget it.” Thanks, I think I might, and I’ll stick with Jesus, the true incarnation of God.18

In relation to Jesus Christ and Christianity, the Dalai Lama has long touted a universalist worldview, insisting that no religion is better than another, and no one can claim to know the truth. He has stated: All religious teachers have beauty and unity. Jesus was a manifestation of Buddha . . . Jesus was a Great Master . . . Whether we can say there is one truth, one religion, or several religions . . . this concept is difficult . . . Religion is like medicine. One particular illness needs one particular medicine to be effective.19

William of Rubruck Uniquely, the honor of being the first known Western visitor to comment on Tibet and its customs does not belong to Marco Polo, who visited eastern Tibet in the 1270s. A few decades earlier, William of Rubruck (c.1220–93), a Franciscan missionary and explorer from the Fleming region in what is now Belgium, commenced an epic journey to the Orient. After setting out from today’s Istanbul in May 1253, William traversed the Central Asian steppes and visited China, where he interacted with leaders of the Mongolian empire, before beginning the long journey home in July 1254. William’s report to King Louis IX of France included references to Nestorian Christians he had met in the Mongolian court. This thrilled believers back in Europe, who assumed that no trace of the Christian faith would be found in the distant barbarian lands. During his journey, William collected stories about the people of “Tebec.” He wrote of Tibetan warriors and their brave attempts to hold off Genghis Khan’s armies in battle, and provided an account of yaks on the Tibetan Plateau. William wrote: Next come the Tebec—men whose custom it was to eat their deceased parents as to provide them, out of filial piety, with no other sepulchre except their own stomachs. They have stopped doing this now, however, for it made them detestable in the eyes of all men. Nevertheless they still make fine goblets out of their parents’ skulls so that when drinking they may be mindful of them in the midst of their enjoyment . . .

They have a good deal of gold in their country, so if anyone needs any he digs until he finds it, and he takes as much as he needs, putting the rest back into the ground, for he believes that if he were to place it among his treasures or in a box, God would take away from him all that is in the earth.20

Marco Polo and the “people of Tebet” The next glimpse Europe had of Tibet came from the pen of the intrepid Marco Polo, who ventured into the Kham region from the city of Chengdu in the 1270s as an emissary of the Mongol rulers. It appears that Polo traveled a considerable distance into Greater Tibet, through parts of today’s western Sichuan Province, before turning south into northern Yunnan and regions beyond, which he called Caindu. His vivid descriptions captured the imagination of astonished Europeans. Polo wrote about departing Chengdu and riding through an area surrounded by snow-capped mountains, past numerous villages that had been completely destroyed by the Mongol hordes a few decades earlier. Polo and his escorts rode for 20 days through uninhabited terrain: so that travelers are obliged to carry all their provisions with them, and are constantly falling in with those wild beasts which are so numerous and dangerous. After that you come at length to a tract where there are towns and villages in considerable numbers.21

A mural showing Tibetan officials presenting gifts to Mongol soldiers on horseback, dating from around the time of Marco Polo Marco Polo appeared to be troubled by some of the Tibetan customs he encountered, especially the rampant sexual immor-ality among the people —an aspect of life that has changed little among Tibetan nomads over the ensuing eight centuries.22 He wrote: A scandalous custom, which could only proceed from the blindness of idolatry, prevails among the people of these parts, who are disinclined to marry young women so long as they are in their virgin state, but require, on the contrary, that they should have had previous commerce with many of the other sex. This, they assert, is pleasing to their deities, and they believe that a woman who has not had the company of men is worthless . . . In this manner people traveling that way, when they reach a village or hamlet or other inhabited place, shall find perhaps 20 or 30 girls at their disposal . . . It is expected, however, that the merchants should make them presents of trinkets, rings, or other complimentary tokens of regard, which the young women take home with them. They wear all these ornaments about the neck or other part of the body, and she who exhibits the greatest number of them is said to have attracted the attention of the greatest number of men, and is on that account held in higher esteem with the young men who are looking out for wives. At the wedding, she accordingly makes a display of them to the assembly, and she regards them as a proof that their idols have rendered her lovely in the eyes of men.23

The great explorer also remarked: The people are idolaters and an evil generation, holding it no sin to rob and maltreat: in fact, they are the greatest brigands on earth . . . This province, called Tebet, is of very great extent . . . The country is, in fact, so great that it embraces eight kingdoms, and a vast number of cities and villages.24

Polo also described the dark arts of the people he met in Tibet: Among these people you find the best enchanters, who by their infernal art perform the most extraordinary and delusive marvels that were ever seen or heard. They cause tempests to arise, accompanied with flashes of lightning and thunderbolts, and produce many other miraculous effects. They are altogether an ill-conditioned race.25

Later, when he had reached the Mongol court at today’s Beijing, Polo noted the power of the Tibetan sorcerers whom the Great Khan had brought to the capital. He wrote that Tibetan astrol-ogers could control the weather over the summer palace, and described one of the acts performed by these men: When the Great Kaan is at his capital and in his great palace, seated at his table, which stands on a platform some eight cubits above the ground, his cups are set before him on a great buffet

in the middle of the hall pavement, at a distance of some ten paces from his table, and filled with wine, or other good spiced liquor such as they use. Now when the Lord desires to drink, these enchanters by the power of their enchantments cause the cups to move from their place without being touched by anybody, and to present themselves to the Emperor! This everyone present may witness, and there are oft-times more than 10,000 persons thus present.26

In reflecting upon the supernatural abilities of the Tibetans, Polo concluded: Whatever they do in this way is by the help of the devil, but they make those people believe it is compassed by dint of their own sanctity and the help of God. They always go in a state of dirt and uncleanness, devoid of respect for themselves or for those who see them, unwashed, unkempt, and sordidly attired.27

Why a Christian book on Tibet? Some may find the inclusion of Tibet in a series of books on the great Christian revival that has swept China to be somewhat anomalous, especially as Tibet has been slotted into the China Chronicles between the volume on Zhejiang Province, with its 13 million Christians, and Henan Province, which is home to 18 million followers of Jesus. Writing a book on Christianity in Tibet requires much extensive research and may be likened to mining for gold. Tons of rock and earth need to be moved before a valuable nugget reveals itself. The same could be said of trying to win Tibetans to Christ. The famous pioneer missionary Hudson Taylor once remarked: “To make converts in Tibet is similar to going into a cave and trying to rob a lioness of her cubs.”28 The genesis for this book comes from my own personal love for, and interactions with, the Tibetan people over approximately 30 years, as I have sought to introduce them to their Creator, Jesus Christ. I have always felt comfortable being around rough but friendly Tibetan nomads, and have shared many memorable experiences with them. When my wife was six months pregnant with our first son, the three of us traveled vast distances through remote areas of western China, helping to make a video on the Amdo people. We ate traditional nomadic fare, including rancid butter and sour yogurt topped with yak urine. We all survived, and are still strong and healthy today!

While living in Nepal for a short time in the early 1990s, I tried to enter the former Tibetan kingdom of Sikkim, but was refused entry. Undeterred, I gathered a large amount of Tibetan Gospel booklets and prayed over them earnestly, before mailing them to the head lama of the largest monastery in the city of Gangtok. A few years later, when I was living in Hong Kong, I saw a Tibetan lama walking down the street. When he came nearer, I smiled warmly and greeted him with a hearty “Tashi deleg!” Startled, the lama stopped to chat with me, and I playfully stuck out my tongue at him—a custom some Tibetan strangers do when they first meet. Tradition holds that demons have black tongues, so by showing that my tongue was a normal color I hoped to put the lama at ease. He laughed heartily and we began to converse. The lama happened to be from Gangtok, Sikkim, and was visiting Hong Kong for a conference on Buddhism. I respectfully asked him if he had ever heard of Jesus. “Oh yes!” he replied. “A few years ago all the monks at our monastery read the Words of Jesus, and many of us have studied more about His beautiful life and teachings.” In more recent years our ministry, Asia Harvest, has been privileged to support hundreds of Asian Christians, including dozens of Tibetan believers who endeavor to share the gospel with their fellow Tibetans. One group we support in the Himalayas has seen 17 of their converts murdered by jealous Buddhist lamas, who are determined to stamp out any signs of spiritual change before it spreads among the people they have long held sway over. Despite these horrible setbacks, the kingdom of God has continued to advance among Tibetan communities, especially when Tibetans whose lives have been transformed by Jesus Christ joyfully share their stories. In the summer of 1886, a Chicago businessman named William Blackstone preached on the subject, “The Need of the World and the Work of the Church.” As he explained that all people groups must hear the gospel before the glorious return of Jesus Christ, Blackstone stated: “God seems to be holding back Tibet to be the last field entered just before His coming.”29 Several generations have passed since Blackstone’s prediction, and Tibet remains one of the last great blocks of humanity yet to yield the glory due

to the Creator. While it’s true that there are only a tiny number of Tibetan Christians today, the Roof of the World has a long and remarkable Christian history. The courage, tenacity, setbacks, and successes experienced by God’s people in Tibet are sure to stir the soul of everyone who hears about them. Woven throughout these little-known accounts, readers may be able to discern the presence of an invisible Hand at work, guiding, shaping, and causing events that fit in with His master plan. The all-wise God has an immaculate sense of timing and possesses boundless patience. There is nothing more certain than the fact that He will, and has already begun to, bring forth a spotless bride for His beloved Son from among every tribe, language, people, and nation on earth, including every Tibetan tribe and clan. May you be touched, inspired, and challenged as you read the accounts of the many courageous and faith-filled disciples of Christ who have attempted to exalt the Name of Jesus Christ in Tibet, against overwhelming odds and in the face of powerful spiritual forces that have done all they can to hinder the advance of the gospel at every step of the way.

Notes 1 Cited in Ralph R. Covell, The Liberating Gospel in China: The Christian Faith among China’s Minority Peoples (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1995), p. 33. 2 For those interested in learning more about Tibetan history, an attract-ive new book on the historical composition of Tibet is Karl E. Ryavec, A Historical Atlas of Tibet (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015). Another good contemporary history of Tibet is Sam Van Schaik, Tibet: A History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013). 3 Today, hundreds of thousands of Tibetans consider themselves adherents of Bon, and many Bon monasteries and monks are still found scattered throughout the Tibetan world. 4 Marku Tsering, Sharing Christ in the Tibetan Buddhist World (Upper Darby, PA: Tibet Press, 1988), p. 98. 5 Tsering, Sharing Christ in the Tibetan Buddhist World, p. 99. 6 Dalai Lama XIV, Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), pp. 211–12. 7 For example, a well-publicized incident took place in 1937, when Harrison Forman—a staunch American atheist with a background in science and research—was widely mocked for his report of a religious ceremony he observed in the Golog Tibetan area which left him shocked and terrified. Forman described watching a Bon monk and his followers as they called on Yama, the

8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

king of hell, until the fearsome spirit visualized in front of them. See Harrison Forman, “I See the King of Hell,” Reader’s Digest (December 1937). Allan Maberly, God Spoke Tibetan: The Epic Story of the Men Who Gave the Bible to Tibet, the Forbidden Land (Orange, CA: Evangel Bible Translators, 1971), p. 135. Tsering, Sharing Christ in the Tibetan Buddhist World, pp. 99–100. Although the Tibetan authorities like to portray Tibetans as one unified people with one language, linguistic studies have found that the standard Lhasa Tibetan language shares an 80% lexical similarity with Kham Tibetan, and a 70% similarity with Amdo. By way of comparison, English and German reportedly share a 60% lexical similarity. Tibetan travelers from different regions often struggle to communicate with one another in their respective languages. Cited in Michael Buckley and Robert Strauss (eds), Tibet: A Travel Survival Kit (Hawthorn, Australia: Lonely Planet, 1986), p. 23. Buckley and Strauss, Tibet: A Travel Survival Kit, p. 141. Heinrich Harrer, Seven Years in Tibet (London: Pan, 1953), p. 94. Joseph Rock, “Seeking the Mountains of Mystery,” National Geographic (February 1930), p. 131. Galen Rowell, “Nomads of China’s West,” National Geographic (February 1982), p. 244. Paul Kocot Neitupski, Labrang: A Tibetan Monastery at the Crossroads of Four Civilizations (Boulder, CO: Snow Lion, 1999), p. 16. Buckley and Strauss, Tibet: A Travel Survival Kit, p. 9. Adapted from Hugh P. Kemp, “The 14th Dalai Lama: A ‘Simple Monk’ or a God?”, in Paul Hattaway, Peoples of the Buddhist World: A Christian Prayer Guide (Carlisle: Piquant, 2004), p. 166. Kemp, “The 14th Dalai Lama,” pp. 164–5. Christopher Dawson, The Mongol Mission: Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1955), p. 142. Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo: The Complete Yule-Cordier Edition, Vol. 2 (New York: Dover, 1903), pp. 43–4. A 1950s survey of the Khampa Tibetan areas “found the rate of venereal diseases was 40% in peasant areas and 50.7% in pasture areas”; cited in Paul Hattaway, Operation China: Introducing All the Peoples of China (Carlisle: Piquant, 2000), p. 631. Manuel Komroff (ed.), The Travels of Marco Polo, the Venetian (New York: Horace Liverlight, 1926), pp. 188–9. Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, Vol. 2, p. 45. Komroff, The Travels of Marco Polo, the Venetian, p. 190. Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo: The Complete Yule-Cordier Edition, Vol. 1 (New York: Dover, 1903), pp. 301–2. Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, Vol. 1, p. 301. William D. Carlsen, Tibet: In Search of a Miracle (Nyack, NY: Nyack College, 1985), p. 37. Carlsen, Tibet: In Search of a Miracle, p. 36.

Nestorians in Tibet For centuries Xining City, the capital of Qinghai Province, was considered one of the last outposts of Chinese civilization, and the start of the Tibetan empire. The Nestorians, who first established themselves in China in AD 635, were probably the first Christians to witness in Tibet. Evidence has been discovered that shows Nestorian influence in northern Gansu Province, and in a string of towns further to the north in neighboring Xinjiang. It is likely that members of the Nestorian Church (also known as the Church of the East) traveled to Qinghai and were the first to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ in Tibetan areas. The arrival of Nestorians occurred when the Tibetan empire was at its broadest extent, and when cities like Hotan, which is now a Muslim area in Xinjiang, were under Tibetan control. Although there are few or no Tibetans in Hotan today, it was in this area that Nestorian influence was most strongly felt. Scholar Martin Palmer, who has studied the spread and influence of Nestorian Christianity, places its arrival among the Tibetans even earlier. He has said: It is unclear exactly when Christianity reached Tibet, but it seems likely that it had arrived there by the sixth century . . . It seems likely that Christians first entered the Tibetan world around 549 AD, the time of a remarkable conversion to Christianity of the White Huns [a nomadic tribe of Central Asia] . . . A strong Church existed in Tibet by the eighth century. Patriarch Timothy, head of the Church of the East from 778 to 820, wrote from Baghdad in c. 794 of the need to appoint another bishop for the Tibetans, and in an earlier letter of 782 he mentions the Tibetans as one of the significant Christian communities of the Church. The Church’s bishopric is assumed to have been in Lhasa, where it is likely to have been active as late as the thirteenth century, prior to the popular extension of Buddhism.1

Another researcher on the Nestorian enterprise has stated: In a letter to Rabban Sergius, Timothy writes that in his time many monks crossed the sea and went only with staff and scrip to the Indians and the Chinese . . . Thomas of Marga tells how this indefatigable patriarch selected more than 80 monks, some of whom he ordained bishops and sent forth to preach the gospel to the heathen in the Far East. Others, we are told, preached

in the countries of . . . savage races and planted in them the light of the truth of the gospel. They evangelized and baptized many, worked miracles, and showed signs, and the fame of their exploits reached the furthest parts of the east.2

The crosses of Tibet For many centuries, the Buddhist kingdom of Ladakh in what is now northern India was considered part of Tibet. Occasionally, this barren part of the world yields clues about its past Christian influence, such as in 1906 when three Nestorian crosses were discovered carved into a huge boulder at a remote village located directly on today’s border between India and China. The boulder dominates the entrance to the Drangtse Pass, one of the main routes between Lhasa and Bactria, an ancient kingdom that was ruled by the descendants of Greeks who settled in the area following the conquest of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC. Martin Palmer has noted: The crosses are clearly of the Church of the East, and one of the words, written in Songdian, appears to be “Jesus.” Another inscription reads, “Nosfarn came from Samarkand as emissary to the Khan of Tibet” . . . The crosses bear testimony to the power and influence of Christianity in that area. Christianity was sufficiently accepted in the region to warrant carving the Christian symbol to protect travelers.3

A Nestorian cross and inscription carved into a rock on the Tibetan border, revealing Christian influence in the area dating back over 1,200 years

Notes 1 Martin Palmer, The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity (New York: Ballantine, 2001), pp. 113–14. 2 John Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise: The Story of a Church on Fire (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1928), p. 83. 3 Palmer, The Jesus Sutras, p. 114.

Antonio de Andrade and the kingdom of Guge Born in Portugal in 1581, Antonio de Andrade was the key figure in a remarkable attempt to introduce Christianity to Tibet, only for his efforts to be mercilessly snatched away when seemingly on the cusp of great success. Andrade entered the Jesuit order at the age of 16, and three years later was sent to the Portuguese colony of Goa in south India to complete his training. Andrade, accompanied by Manuel Marques, traveled to Delhi where they met a group of Hindus who were planning to cross the Himalayas into Tibet. The zealous missionaries decided to go with them, and in March 1624, disguised as Hindu pilgrims, they “outwitted hostile local officials, made their way north into the Himalayas, endured altitude sickness and snow blindness, and fought their way over a 17,900-feet [5,456-meter] pass into Tibet.”1

Antonio de Andrade Traversing the Himalayas was an extraordinary challenge, as Andrade’s 31-page journal made clear. Poorly equipped for the intense hardship and bitter cold, the vivid descriptions of the journey help explain why Christianity has struggled to gain a foothold in Tibet throughout history. He wrote: We began to climb these lofty mountains, which have not their like perhaps on the surface of the globe. It took us two days’ march to cross one. In some places the passage between them is so narrow that we could only just put one foot before the other, and for a long way we had to go first on one side and then on the other, clinging to the rocks with our hands, and at a single false step we should have been dashed to pieces.2

Swimming on the snow Andrade described another harrowing section of the journey: Immediately beyond this place there rise lofty mountains, behind which lies an awful desert, which is passable only during two months of the year. The journey requires 20 days. As there is an entire absence of trees and plants here, there are no human habitations, and the snowfall is almost uninterrupted.3

Passing through the desert caused the Portuguese priest to despair of his life. He wrote: We plunged into the desert and struggled on with difficulty, sometimes up to our waists in snow, sometimes up to our shoulders, and never less than knee deep. Occasionally we dragged ourselves at full length along the surface of it, as if we were swimming. Such were the labors of the day, and the night brought us little rest. We spread our cloaks upon the snow, and covered ourselves as well as we could with others, but very frequently the snow fell so thick upon us that we were obliged to rise and shake it off that we might not be buried. The cold was so severe, that we had lost all feeling in various parts of the body—principally the hands, feet, and face. Once when I tried to hold something, a bone came out of one of my fingers, but I was not aware of it till I saw the blood on my hand. Our feet were so swelled and numbed, that if a hot iron had touched them we should not have felt it.4

When Andrade’s report of his journey to Tibet made its way back to Europe, most people thought it was a work of fiction, or a scurrilous account of exaggeration and lies. Tibet appeared as an empty space on maps

at the time, and many years passed before later travelers confirmed the veracity of Andrade’s account. To cross the Himalayas once on foot is more than most people can endure, but incredibly Andrade completed the journey several times as he sought to establish God’s kingdom on the Roof of the World.

The wealthiest city in Asia Andrade and his colleagues struggled on for weeks, until they finally reached Zaburang, the capital of the ancient Guge kingdom in north-west Tibet. Sitting at 14,760 feet (4,500 meters) above sea level, the oxygen content in the air is only about one third of the amount at sea level. The Guge kingdom—which covered an area twice the size of the United Kingdom—had long been a crucial location in the Tibetan world. Founded in the first half of the tenth century, Guge was ruled for more than 700 years by 28 lineal kings. In 1042, the king of Guge invited the great Indian scholar Atisha to visit Tibet. Later, when many leading Buddhist monks and artisans were persecuted by Muslims in north India, they fled to Zaburang, causing it to grow into perhaps the wealthiest city in Asia. It contained some of the best art in the world, copious amounts of jewelry, and many gold mines.

The ruins of the kingdom of Guge, where the first ever Tibetan church was established in 1626 The palace at Zaburang was located at the top of a sheer cliff, the height of an 80-story skyscraper. The Guge royal family and the wealthy lived in the citadel at the top of the cliff, with peasants and laborers dwelling on the valley floor far below. Buddhist monks resided in the middle. The only way to the top of the mountain was via a narrow stairway that allowed only one person at a time to ascend. This palace obtained water via two wells that extended 200 feet (61 meters) down into the mountain, while storerooms were stocked with food and almost a thousand firearms. The fort was near impregnable and had helped the kingdom of Guge repel invading armies.

A warm welcome The party of travelers had been decimated by the rigors of the journey across the mountains and desert, and was reduced to just three sick and exhausted men who stumbled toward Zaburang. The local Guge rulers, astonished that these poorly equipped people had managed to cross the Himalayas with few supplies, sent soldiers on horseback to intercept the travelers. Andrade was afraid they had been dispatched to arrest the party, but the soldiers gave them barley, honey, and some furs to protect them from the bitter cold. A guide was provided to help bring the men safely to their destin-ation. King Chadakpo5 of Guge also supplied horses to carry them on the final three days’ journey to Zaburang. Andrade recalled: At our entrance into the town the people thronged around us, and the women rushed to the windows to gaze at us, as if we had been wonderful curiosities. The king did not show himself, but the queen was upon a kind of balcony of her palace as we passed, and we bowed profoundly to her, and then went on to a house that was ready to receive us. The king imagined we were merchants, and that we had brought him some valuable jewels, and could not conceive that any motive but the desire of gain could have tempted us to undertake so painful a journey . . . He inquired what the real motive of our journey was, and I replied that we had not come to Tibet to buy or to sell, since we were not traders; that I was very grateful for the favors that had been granted me, and I earnestly begged for an hour’s audience, during which I would explain

to him the reasons that had brought me to his dominions. I assured him beforehand they were such as would give him great satisfaction.6

An enduring friendship King Chadakpo received Andrade with great kindness and hospitality. The missionary spoke with the king in Persian, which was interpreted into Tibetan by a Muslim from Kashmir. Chadakpo appeared to comprehend little of what Andrade said, and later conversations caused Andrade to suspect that the Muslim was not accurately conveying his words. When the king was informed of Andrade’s concerns, the interpreter was dismissed and a more honest replacement was found. King Chadakpo was also made aware of the slanders that Muslims had spread regarding Christianity, and he promised he would be wary of anything the Muslims told him from that point forward. The queen of Guge soon emerged as a key figure in Andrade’s mission. At the start, whenever the king met with the missionaries, the queen hid herself behind a curtain and listened intently. Overcome with curiosity, she sent a note to her husband saying she must see these men, and soon made her appearance, asking many questions about their faith. She was present in all the subsequent audiences granted to the missionaries. God’s favor rested on Andrade, and he was allowed to present himself at court whenever he wished. The king also gave him an abundant daily allowance of provisions, consisting of rice, mutton, flour, butter, grapes, and wine, which had been imported from a fertile valley 12 days’ journey from Zaburang. After receiving such a strong welcome, Andrade might have been tempted to stay in Tibet, but mindful that the passes back to India would soon be blocked again by snow, he prepared to depart, after promising the king he would return to Guge the following year. King Chadakpo gave a remarkable letter to Andrade, which said: I, king of the great kingdom of Tibet, having felt great pleasure at the arrival of Antonio de Andrade, a Portuguese, to teach the holy law in our dominions, and regarding him as our master, grant to him full and perfect liberty to preach freely and teach our people the said law, and we forbid all persons from disturbing him in its exercise.

I command, moreover, that a piece of ground shall be given to him whereon to build a church. We consent that if there should arrive in our country any foreign merchants, the said religious man and his companions shall take no part in their traffic, in order that they may do nothing that might be incompatible with the dignity of their functions. We promise, besides, to give no credit to any reports that may be raised concerning them by the Muslims, being very sure that they who follow a law full of errors would find a sweet satisfaction in vexing those who profess the true religion. We furthermore most earnestly solicit the Grand Provincial of India to send us de Andrade again, that he may instruct our subjects.7

Andrade commenced his journey across the Himalayan divide, this time escorted by soldiers and loaded down with provisions. He reflected on the amazing events that had unfolded and was confident that many Tibetans would soon become followers of Jesus Christ. He wrote: It is easy to see that the king and his court were sorry for our departure; and in bidding us farewell, he reminded us that we were to come again as soon as possible, because we “carried his heart with us”. He had us escorted not only to the frontiers of his kingdom but even across the desert, and gave orders privately that we should be everywhere provided with as much meat, rice, and butter as we required. Three days after our departure we were overtaken by three men, who brought us from the king some baskets containing more than 1,000 peaches, which, though small, were of extremely pleasant flavor.8

After Andrade and his companions reached the Jesuit base in India, the other missionaries were filled with excitement, and many volunteered to accompany him to Tibet the following year. All were convinced that the Tibetan people were ready to convert en masse to the Christian faith.

The second journey In June 1625, Andrade and four colleagues departed on the second journey to Tibet. When they reached Zaburang, the missionaries were given a house to live in next door to the king’s son, and the king “declared his resolution of having himself instructed in all of the principal points of the Christian religion, and only desired to wait till we should have acquired the language of Tibet.”9 Andrade and his co-workers made good progress, and soon they were sharing their faith in Tibetan. Andrade wrote that when he preached on the torments of hell, “The king looked very sorrowful and the queen wept

silently. Among the 20 courtiers present, some said that it was a blessing God had caused us to be born so that we would teach them.”10 The king of Guge personally laid the cornerstone of the first church building of any description in Tibet, having paid all the construction costs. The prince appears to have been the first member of the royal family to declare his new faith openly, while King Chadakpo: was a frequent visitor to the house where the missionaries lived . . . The king never tired of asking questions about Christianity and said that when he was catechized sufficiently, he would become a Christian . . . and would not need to fear because God would be with him.11

The queen’s mother, meanwhile, also showed a keen interest in the gospel. Every day she attended the church services, listening from the veranda. Later, when the king suggested that a new residence be built for the missionaries, part of the queen mother’s home was moved to accommodate the change. Andrade expressed concern for the queen’s feelings over this, but she indicated that “she would be willing to give up her whole house and be on the street for them . . . Their houses were well built and the best in Zaburang except for those of the king.”12 King Chadakpo spared no expense in helping the missionaries to spread their message. When he learned that most churches are adorned with a cross, he arranged for wood to be brought from another country, due to the scarcity of trees in the Guge region. The king decided to completely cover the cross with brass, and he erected it at the highest point of the city, so that it could be seen from all directions when the sun reflected off it. A second cross was placed over the church and could also be seen from a distance. The royal family attended the Christmas services that year, and agreed to fast, which moved the missionaries greatly. Andrade reported that when the nativity scene was revealed at midnight, “the people shed many tears and showed great reverence to the Christ Child, prostrating themselves many times on the ground. The king returned the next day and joined the queen for several hours in front of the nativity scene.”13

Rising tensions

Andrade and the other missionaries were thankful for the liberty they had been granted and were confident that “Christianity would spread in Tibet much faster than in any other eastern mission. Andrade said he did not know of any other mission that had accomplished what the Tibet mission had in such a short time.”14 Several months passed, and while the king was happy for the queen and prince to be baptized along with any of his subjects who believed in Jesus Christ, he warned the missionaries that if he was converted it would bring a severe backlash from the Buddhist leaders. A riot had nearly ensued after the prince had appeared wearing Portuguese clothing, and the king knew that he risked being overthrown if he openly embraced the foreigners’ religion. The threat of revolution appears to have dampened King Chadakpo’s enthusiasm, and there is no record of him being baptized. At the time, the king’s brother was also the chief abbot of the large Tholing Monastery, situated 12 miles (19 km) from Zaburang. An emergency meeting was called by the monastery leaders, at which both the king’s brother and uncle were charged, in the name of Buddha, to use all their influence to steer the king away from Christianity. A short time later, King Chadakpo issued an edict in a bid to diminish the power of the monks, most of whom were forced to abandon their clerical robes and lead secular lives. The number of monks at Tholing dropped from 5,000 to fewer than 100. The battle lines had been drawn, and a serious confrontation loomed as the Buddhist hierarchy fought for its survival.

Hope extinguished When the king of Ladakh—310 miles (500 km) to the south—was informed of the discontent among the Guge lamas because of the king’s embrace of Christianity, he immediately seized on the opportunity and dispatched a massive army across the Himalayas in the summer of 1630. King Chadakpo was bound with chains and exiled to a dungeon in Ladakh, while according to Tibetan accounts the other royals were beheaded, and the women of the city were thrown over the edge of the

citadel to their deaths hundreds of feet below. Their brightly colored dresses made them look like flowers falling to the earth, causing the Ladakhi soldiers to shout for “more flowers” as the Guge kingdom was completely destroyed. Amazingly, nearly 400 years later, piles of decapitated skeletons were discovered at Zaburang, still stacked up in the place they were killed in 1630.15 When more missionaries arrived in Zaburang in August 1631, they found that the new king was not as friendly as King Chadakpo had been. The new ruler had oppressed the Tibetan Christians, and most had been forced into exile. Before the war, Zaburang had boasted a population of about 10,000, but the city had been so devastated that it now contained only about 500 people. Andrade applied to return to Tibet, but was rebuffed by his Jesuit superiors. The Portuguese missionary suddenly died in Goa in 1634, while still trying to return to Tibet. He was just 53 years old. Some accounts say he was poisoned by an enemy, while others accuse the Muslims of murder. Although he died in India, Andrade’s heart and soul were with the Tibetan people whom he loved so dearly. The Jesuits attempted to re-establish the work in Guge in 1635. Seven workers were dispatched to Tibet, but three fell sick on the way and two more died from the demands of the journey. Just two made it there alive. By 1642, only Manuel Marques remained in Zaburang. He reported that he had been attacked and injured, and a final pitiful letter from him was received at the Jesuit headquarters at Agra, in which he begged for rescue. From that point on, “the records fall silent. It is believed that he later died in prison.”16 A Christian remnant remained in the Zaburang region until the work was finally abandoned in 1650. The surviving Tibetan Christians—believed to number about 400 at the time—were singled out for retribution. They were sold into slavery, and the church building and the missionaries’ homes were demolished. By then the kingdom of Guge had collapsed, and all traces that the gospel had ever been there soon vanished.17

The legacy of the Guge mission

The extraordinary advance into Tibet by Antonio de Andrade and his colleagues had promised much and appeared to be on the cusp of a great breakthrough, but ultimately it delivered little as the missionaries had relied totally on the favor of the king. Once the king was overthrown, their work was quickly dismantled. Before the Guge mission was abandoned, the Jesuits had set their sights on central Tibet. Four men left their base in Bhutan and made it as far as Xigaze in 1626, but they were turned back by the Tibetan authorities. The missionaries had more success in Bhutan, however, where, “with the permission of the king and queen, they built a church and baptized 12 people, including the queen’s niece, who was a daughter of the king at Lhasa.”18

Notes 1 Marku Tsering, Sharing Christ in the Tibetan Buddhist World (Upper Darby, PA: Tibet Press, 1988), p. 75. 2 L’Abbé Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, Vol. 2 (London: Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1857), p. 251. 3 C. Wessels, Early Jesuit Travelers in Central Asia, 1603–1721 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1924), p. 54. 4 Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, Vol. 2, pp. 257–8. 5 Some scholars believe the name of the king of Guge was Thi Tashi Dagpa. Andrade never mentioned the king’s name in his letters. 6 Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, Vol. 2, p. 261. 7 Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, Vol. 2, p. 264. 8 Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, Vol. 2, p. 265. 9 Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, Vol. 2, p. 266. 10 Tony Lambert, “The Lost Kingdom of Guge: A Forgotten Chapter in the Evangelization of Tibet,” China Insight (July–August 2000). 11 Joseph C. Abdo, The Christian Discovery of Tibet: The Origins to the Jesuit Mission at Tsaparang (Lisbon: Tenth Island Editions, 2011), pp. 103–4. 12 Abdo, The Christian Discovery of Tibet, pp. 108–9. 13 Abdo, The Christian Discovery of Tibet, p. 115. 14 Abdo, The Christian Discovery of Tibet, p. 121. 15 In 2006 a superb documentary, Guge: The Lost Kingdom of Tibet, was produced. It gives an excellent overview of the rise and fall of the Guge kingdom, and touches on the influence exerted by Andrade and the Jesuits. The video is available on YouTube. 16 Lambert, “The Lost Kingdom of Guge.” 17 Andrade’s journals were rediscovered in Calcutta in the nineteenth century. They captured the imagination of author James Hilton, whose novels depicting Shangri-La owed much to the

Portuguese missionary’s accounts from 300 years earlier. 18 Ralph R. Covell, The Liberating Gospel in China: The Christian Faith among China’s Minority Peoples (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1995), p. 39.

Other early Catholics in Tibet

Odoric of Pordenone William of Rubruck holds the distinction of being the first European to venture into Greater Tibet in the mid-thirteenth century, followed by Marco Polo 20 years later. There was then a gap of about 50 years until an Italian Franciscan friar, Odoric of Pordenone (1286–1331), reputedly entered Tibet. After residing in Beijing for three years, Odoric: listening only to the ardour of his zeal for the propagation of the faith, resolved to go even further, and seek for souls whom he might gain over to Jesus Christ . . . Having traversed the vast province of Gansu, he got as far as the capital of Tibet.1

A Chinese depiction of Odoric of Pordenone Historians disagree as to whether Odoric made it all the way to Lhasa (although some have confidently asserted he arrived there in 1327), or if his

writings were based on stories told to him by other travelers. After returning to Italy, he wrote about the capital of Tibet, saying: It is in this city that the person dwells who is like the Pope of these countries. He is chief and pontiff of all the idol-aters, on whom he confers benefices and ecclesiastical dignities according to the rites of the country.2

Among his many comments on Tibetan customs, Odoric intriguingly noted that in Tibet “a number of Catholic missionaries were effecting numerous conversions.”3 After having been away from home for 16 years, Odoric is said to have returned to Europe after crossing the Himalayas and traveling via India and Persia, arriving in Italy in 1330. Although he was only 43, the exertions of his travels had taken a toll on Odoric’s body and he died the following year. It was said that: When he again beheld his native country, he was so changed by the sufferings and miseries he had endured, his body was so emaciated, and his face so withered and blackened by the sun that his relations could not recognize him.4

Later Europeans perpetuated a romantic narrative of Odoric’s life and ministry, with one author claiming the friar had baptized 20,000 heathens during his missionary travels, while claims were made of flourishing Christian communities “even among the nomadic tribes of Tibet, who were converted by Odoric.”5 The same source, however, lamented that when: at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, new apostles appeared in those countries, they found none of the Christians of the Middle Ages. Those missions, which once promised so abundant a harvest, had been devastated by storms, or dried up for want of nourishment, and the field was overgrown by thorns and brambles.6

Catholic rituals absorbed by the Tibetans Although no known Christian community endured in Tibet after the demise of the Guge mission in the seventeenth century, fragments of many Catholic rituals appear to have been adopted by the Tibetans. In the Bon religion and among the Nyingpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, a ritual known as tshe-

bang or “life consecration” was practiced. One scholar remarked: “The central element of this rite is the distribution by the officiating priest among the attending congregation of wafers of consecrated bread and wine sipped from a chalice.”7 Later visitors to Tibet commented on the similar rituals shared by Tibetan Buddhism and Catholicism. In 1870, one magazine article surmised: No one who ever visited Buddhist countries will be surprised at the suggestion that modern Buddhism looks extremely like a gross caricature of the Roman Catholic Church; seeing that the Buddhists everywhere have their monasteries and nunneries, their baptism, celibacy and tonsure, their rosaries, chaplets, relics and charms, their fast days and processions, their confessional, mass, requiem and litany, and—especially in Tibet—even their cardinals and their pope.8

There seems little doubt that the Tibetans absorbed many religious rituals from early Catholic visitors like Odoric, but tragically it appears those representatives of Christ did not proclaim the gospel to the Tibetan people in a way that resulted in them repenting of their sins and placing their trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.

Ippolito Desideri After the demise of the Jesuit mission in the kingdom of Guge, nearly a century elapsed before Catholics again entered Tibet. Italian missionary Ippolito Desideri and his companion Manuel Freyre succeeded in reaching Lhasa in March 1716. Freyre soon returned to India, but Desideri remained in the Tibetan capital for five years, meeting with the Mongol king of Tibet, who granted him permission to preach and also to buy a house. Desideri devoted himself to daily study of the Tibetan language, which he did from morning till night. He progressed so rapidly that on January 6, 1717, he was able to present a discourse on the Christian religion to the king and his officials. His plan was to write a Tibetan-language refutation of the errors of Buddhism and a defense of Christianity, but his progress was suddenly halted when the Qing armies marched from China and sacked

Lhasa in December 1717, putting the king and his ministers to death. Desideri fled the capital and took refuge at Takpo Khier, eight days distant.

A page from Desideri’s 1718 discourse in Tibetan For the next four years the Italian worked on his book, making great progress. Finally, he returned to Lhasa and presented his three-volume work to the leading Buddhist lamas. Having been completely cut off from the outside world for years, Desideri was shocked to learn that the Vatican had taken Tibet from the control of the Jesuits, reassigning the region to the Capuchin Fathers, a move described by one scholar as “a disastrous bungling administrative decision by the Catholic Church.”9 With his funding now cut off, he was forced to abandon his ministry just as it was beginning to make inroads. Desideri left Tibet for Nepal in 1721. Desideri’s brilliant academic mind and focus on studying the Tibetan language places him above almost all other Christian missionaries to Tibet throughout history. His works are still considered classics by both Tibetan and Western scholars. A contemporary author has remarked: In the upper left-hand corner of the first page of his Inquiry, he wrote the date June 24, 1718. He had first encountered the Tibetan language . . . just three years before. This would be akin to a Tibetan monk making his way from Lhasa to Rome without knowing Italian or Latin, and three years after his arrival writing a 400-page refutation of Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, in Latin. It borders on the miraculous.10

The mysterious church bell The first recorded Tibetan church in Lhasa was constructed by Capuchin missionaries in 1726. Twenty-seven baptized converts and 60 inquirers attended the church, but in April 1742:

A remnant from the first church in Lhasa, which was destroyed in 1742. The bell was rediscovered in the basement of a Buddhist temple in the 1980s a new convert named Pu Tsering publicly refused to bow before the Dalai Lama . . . This threw the town into an uproar . . . Twelve of the Christians were flogged with 20 lashes each. The missionaries fled to Nepal, but their church was attacked by a mob that destroyed everything except the church bell.11

For 250 years the bell sat forgotten in the basement of the Jokhang Temple —a sad reminder of the disappearance of Christianity from Tibet. When the bell was rediscovered and the story behind the Catholic mission was known, many foreign visitors to Lhasa asked to see the bell, which bears the Latin inscription Te Deum laudamus; Te Dominum confitemur (“We praise Thee, O God; we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord”).

In 1996 the bell was removed from public view by the temple officials, possibly because so many foreigners were asking to see it.

Huc and Gabet After several decades of struggle, the Capuchins were expelled in 1760, and no more Catholic missionaries entered central Tibet for nearly 200 years, with the notable exception of the French Lazarists Evariste Regis Huc and Joseph Gabet, who went against the directive of their superiors by disguising themselves as Buddhist monks and traveling across the vast Tibetan Plateau. The duo reached Lhasa in 1844, where they distributed Gospel tracts and entered into debates with Buddhist leaders. They won the favor of the Tibetan regent, who allowed them to set up a small chapel in their home for worship and to explain to visitors the meaning of their large pictures of Christ’s crucifixion. The regent said:

A sketch of Huc and Gabet Your religion is not the same as ours. It is important we should ascertain which the true one is. Let us, then, examine both carefully and sincerely. If yours is right, we will adopt it. How could we refuse to do so? If, on the contrary, ours is the true religion, I believe you will have the good sense to follow it.12

The Chinese ambassador in Lhasa was strongly antagonistic toward Huc and Gabet, however, and he had them deported from Tibet in 1846. They returned to France, where they were expelled from the priesthood for disobeying orders, and their careers ended in ignominy. Despite a fascinating history of endeavor and promising breakthroughs, most notably with the Jesuit mission to Guge in the early seventeenth century, more than 500 years of sporadic Catholic work had failed to produce a single enduring church in central Tibet.

Krick and Bourry After reaching India in 1848 at the age of 29, Frenchman Nicolas Krick searched for a way to cross the Himalayas and enter forbidden Tibet. He journeyed north through areas inhabited by the Adi, Mishmi, and Lhoba tribes, before crossing into Tibetan territory in January 1852. Krick immediately encountered fierce opposition from hostile locals. He could find nowhere to sleep and the people refused to sell him any food. In order to survive, Krick “was forced to collect grains of rice that had fallen on the ground and to scavenge for the disgusting leftovers from other people’s meals, which even dogs refused to touch.”13 After a few days he was driven back across the border into India.

Krick and Bourry, who were killed as they attempted to reach Lhasa in 1854 After recovering from his ordeal, the audacious Frenchman made plans to re-enter Tibet. He set out in 1854, this time accompanied by a young compatriot, Augustin Bourry. The duo had their sights set on reaching Lhasa, but three months later Krick wrote in his diary: For 90 days I have been marching barefoot. All my shoes are ruined . . . For two weeks we walked in non-stop rain, which poured down as from a cloudburst and completely ruined all our books. To complete this picture of misery—in the mountains you may fall prey to manifold sicknesses like fever, dysentery, rheumatism and sores from insect bites.14

Worn out from their exertions, Krick and Bourry rested at a village for a few months, where they studied Tibetan and dispensed medicine to the sick.

Then on September 1, 1854, Chief Kaisha of the Mishmi tribe attacked Krick and Bourry with a mob armed with spears and machetes. One account records: “Kaisha caught up with them and cut them to pieces. The grieving villagers buried them with honor under a cairn of stones.”15 It was later discovered that the slaying of the missionaries had been ordered by the Tibetan authorities, who were eager to prevent Christianity from gaining a foothold in their territory.16 Krick and Bourry’s courageous attempt to enter Lhasa was over, having fallen short of their goal. They were buried in a remote area in what is today the state of Arunachal Pradesh in north-east India. Their sacrifice for Christ is still remembered, however, and the Krick and Bourry Memorial Hospital was opened in the town of Injan in 2016. The area today contains many Christians, including believers from the Mishmi tribe that had killed the two missionaries more than 150 years earlier. Although Catholic work in central Tibet had stalled, progress was more encouraging in the outlying regions. A steady stream of French missionaries with the Paris Foreign Mission Society came to the Tibetan borders, especially in areas within today’s Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. In some of the most remote stations on earth they labored valiantly among the Tibetans, often enjoying marked success. By 1870, Tibetan areas in what is now China “were said to have about 900 Catholics and in 1890 a little over 1,100.”17

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

L’Abbé Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, Vol. 1 (London: Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1857), p. 369. Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, Vol. 1, p. 370. Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, Vol. 1, p. 371. Also see Odoric of Pordenone, The Travels of Friar Odoric (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001). Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, Vol. 1, p. 371. L’Abbé Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, Vol. 2 (London: Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1857), p. 16. Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, Vol. 2, p. 249. Charles Allen, The Search for Shangri-La: A Journey into Tibetan History (London: Little, Brown & Company, 1999), p. 170. E. J. Eitel, “Buddhism versus Romanism,” Chinese Recorder (November 1870), p. 142.

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17

Ralph R. Covell, The Liberating Gospel in China: The Christian Faith among China’s Minority Peoples (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1995), p. 40. S. Donald Lopez Jr. and Thupten Jinpa, Dispelling the Darkness: A Jesuit’s Quest for the Soul of Tibet (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), p. 29. Marku Tsering, Sharing Christ in the Tibetan Buddhist World (Upper Darby, PA: Tibet Press, 1988), p. 49. Cited in Ralph R. Covell, “Buddhism and the Gospel among the Peoples of China,” International Journal of Frontier Missions (July 1993), p. 133. My translation of the Biographical Note of Nicolas Krick in the Archives des Missions Etrangères de Paris, China Biographies and Obituaries, 1800–1899. Thomas Menamparampil, “In the Footsteps of Murdered Mission Heroes: Mountain Quest for Lonely Spot Where Martyrs Died,” Mission Today (Spring 2003). Menamparampil, “In the Footsteps of Murdered Mission Heroes.” An account that pieces together the story of Krick and Bourry’s ill-fated journey is François Fauconnet-Buzelin, Mission Unto Martyrdom: The Amazing Story of Nicolas Krick and Augustine Bourry, the First Martyrs of Arunachal Pradesh (Shillong, India: Don Bosco Centre for Indigenous Cultures, 2001). Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christian Missions in China (New York: Macmillan, 1929), p. 328.

1880s

The first Evangelicals For approximately 600 years the Roman Catholics were the only representatives of Christ in Tibet. This finally changed in 1877 with the arrival of the first Evangelical missionaries. Earlier that year, the magazine China’s Millions, published by Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission (CIM), had prepared readers for news that some members of the organization were about to penetrate the closed land of Tibet: Tibet has been, and still is, left undisputed in the hands of the destroyer, so far as Protestant Christians are concerned. Shall it continue so? . . . We are thankful to say that two of our number are looking forward to Chinese Tibet as their future sphere of labor. But not without our prayers will the long-closed walls of Jericho fall down.1

James Cameron

The honor of being the first Evangelical in Tibet belongs to James Cameron, a shipbuilder from the town of Jarrow in north-east England. After quickly becoming proficient in the Chinese language, Cameron relocated to Sichuan Province, where he joined George Nicoll, until a riot caused the duo to flee the town in March 1877. Cameron, Nicoll, and an American Presbyterian named Charles Leaman traveled toward Chengdu. Nicoll and Leaman fell ill from exhaustion, but Cameron refused to turn back, and set his sights on entering eastern Tibet. Cameron traveled mostly on foot, only riding his mule for short distances. He sold Christian literature as he went, and kept a journal of his travels, filled with detailed observations of people and places. When he reached Litang in the Kham region, Cameron asked, “When shall ‘Christ and Him crucified’ be preached to the multitudes who speak Tibetan?”2 Cameron continued to Batang, which for centuries had been considered the gateway to central Tibet. He crossed a pass 16,570 feet (5,050 meters) above sea level, which left him out of breath. As he sank into deep snow, the Englishman’s shoes fell apart, but he pressed on. Having finally reached Batang after weeks of grueling travel, Cameron was turned away by innkeepers. Faced with the choice of heading further west into sparsely populated areas of central Tibet, or turning south toward Yunnan Province, Cameron chose the latter option, as “ignorant of the language, and therefore unable to preach to the people or to make the best of the situation, any such attempt would have been as useless as dangerous.”3 He was also keen to get a sense of how far Tibetan influence stretched to the south. When he reached the Tibetan town of Deqen in northern Yunnan, Cameron fell seriously ill with a high fever, and for weeks he was close to death. Believing it was better to keep moving, he mounted his mule and continued his journey. The further south he went, the more he was able to communicate in Chinese, and he preached in teashops along the way. He finally exited China into Burma (now Myanmar), and made his way back to south China by sea. The Evangelical world rejoiced to hear that one of its number had finally set foot in Tibet. His journey was seen as a great breakthrough, and many others were encouraged to follow in his footsteps.

In August 1882, after seven years of doing little else but traveling in unexplored parts of China, James Cameron left for England for a muchneeded break. During his extensive travels he had failed to visit just one Chinese province—Hunan. Amazed by his tenacity, people began calling Cameron the “David Livingstone of China.” Although he was just 38 years old, Cameron was exhausted from his journeys, and in 1883 he moved to New York to study medicine. After earning his degree he returned to China, where he died from cholera in 1892, having lived his 47 years to the full.

Kham The 1880s saw the first Evangelical missionaries arriving to reside in Kham areas, following James Cameron’s visit in 1877. Many of the early pioneers were surprised to discover how deeply the Catholics had already put down roots in the region. They had established churches and schools in most of the main towns, and many of their priests had already laid down their lives on Tibetan soil. Jean-Baptiste Brieux was one of several French missionaries murdered in the Kham region in the 1880s. The leader of the mission, Alexandre Biet, investigated the incident and concluded: The murder is not a simple act of banditry. The plot was woven in advance and I do not hesitate to believe that our dear brother poured out his blood for his faith, and that his assassins were paid by the Tibetan lamas. They committed this mortal sin not because we are foreigners, but because we preach a religion that is not Buddhism . . . The assassins were only instruments of the real culprits: the lamas and monks of the Batang monastery . . . The death of Brieux is a terrible blow for our poor Mission, so frequently and harshly tested. I relied much on this excellent missionary . . . This apostle has sprinkled the ground of Batang with his blood. May this invaluable sacrifice advance the hour of God’s merciful visitation, when Tibet opens its arms to us and the gospel!4

The murder of Brieux and the subsequent Chinese retribution added to the problems in Kham. The first resident Evangelical missionaries arrived in the area in the middle of this conflict, and quickly had to learn how to live and minister amid the tension.

Although many people think of Tibetans as respectful of all life, especially human life, murder was commonplace in Tibet, with violent men regularly plundering, raping, and killing the innocent. One nineteenthcentury visitor was appalled to discover the cheapness of life on the Tibetan Plateau: In Tibet nearly every crime is punished by the imposition of a fine, and murder is by no means an expensive luxury. The fine varies according to the social standing of the victim . . . 80 bricks for a person of the middle class, 40 bricks for a woman, and so on down to two or three for a pauper or a wandering foreigner. There is hardly a grown-up man in the country who has not had a murder or two to his credit.5

Amdo Further north, in the Amdo region, Evangelical missionaries traveled vast distances on horseback throughout the 1880s, exploring the land and learning all they could about the people of the vast territory, much of which had been depopulated by a Muslim rebellion which ravaged Amdo from 1861 to 1870. Incredibly, one reputable source estimated: During those terrible years a considerable part of the population was wiped out and the whole country was overrun and laid waste. A Chinese authority states that in this Muslim rebellion the population of Gansu [which then included Qinghai] was reduced from 15 million to one million inhabitants.6

Although the dispute was chiefly between Hui Muslims and the Han Chinese, Tibetans were inevitably caught up in the atrocities. Countless Tibetan communities were completely obliterated, with hundreds of corpses piled up and set on fire by the rebels. It is believed that this and subsequent massacres in later decades are why so many Amdo areas remain sparsely populated to the present day. Thanks to a Christian organization that pledged to send free Tibetan Gospel tracts and Scripture to any missionary who needed them, literature distribution was a focus of most missionary activity. On one journey, a missionary sold or gave away hundreds of Tibetan and Mongolian Gospel

tracts as he rode around the perimeter of Qinghai Lake. After stopping at one town, he reported: I showed a Tibetan gospel to a lama on the street. He wished much to possess it, but had no ready cash. Later on I showed a copy to one of the chief lamas of a neighboring temple; he was so pleased with something he read that he bought it at once, and warmly thanked me for it. I had previously sold five copies to a shopkeeper, who wanted to give them as presents to his best customers. There was now a rush for them . . . I had to part in the end with even my own copy to a lama who came rather late, so that I was sold out. If all the monasteries are visited a very large number will be required.7

George Parker and the mission uproar In 1876, George Parker of the China Inland Mission had become the first Evangelical to live in Gansu Province. Although he had a full schedule reaching out to the unreached Han Chinese and Hui Muslims in the city of Lanzhou, he nevertheless found time to conduct extensive journeys throughout the Amdo area. Parker had come to China as a single man, and he fell in love with a teenage Chinese girl named Shao Mianzi, whom he had met while she was studying at the CIM school in Yangzhou. Their relationship erupted into a furore in the mission community. Hudson Taylor was in London when a batch of letters arrived from distraught missionaries, urging him to interject himself into the situation and stop the relationship. The missionaries were afraid that if Parker married the girl, the ramifications would be widespread, and Chinese parents would be reluctant to send their daughters to Christian schools.

George and Shao Mianzi Parker Parker and Shao were determined to marry, however, and they rebuffed all attempts to stop them, including strenuous efforts by Taylor to help Parker “see the error of his ways.” Missionaries were divided down the middle; some thought Parker should be allowed to make his own decisions, while others threatened to resign from the ministry if the marriage went ahead. Many Chinese believers, meanwhile, struggled to understand what the fuss was about, and suggested the controversy smacked of racism, as the rules pertaining to a Westerner marrying a local appeared starkly different from those applied to marriage between two Westerners. In the end: It was Mianzi’s father who volunteered an acceptable solution: compensation for his expenditure on her since her birth. He willingly signed a document agreeing to the marriage, and absolving George from all claims. Eight months later, in February 1881, “Miss Minnie Shao” married Parker, thus becoming the first Asian member of the China Inland Mission. Later that year the Parkers had their first child, Johnnie, and soon there was hardly a lane or courtyard where they were not known and welcomed.8

In 1883, the Parkers set off on a 2,000-mile (3,240-km) exploratory journey through southern Gansu, riding through regions under the control of the Choni Tibetan prince. Minnie proved a great asset to the ministry, while her

dark complexion helped her easily fit in with the local Tibetan women. A report of their trip said: Parker was able to take his wife and Miss Hannah Jones to the Tibetan town of Choni, and leave them there while he went on to Labrang. Till we come to Lhasa there is no Tibetan town of equal importance to Labrang, and it has never before been visited by a missionary. At Choni, Mrs. Parker and Miss Jones mixed freely with the Tibetan women, and also visited the wives of some of the principal residents who were in positions of authority. These and many other opportunities were had on the journey to and from Choni for reaching Tibetans and Chinese women, to whom previously the words of life had never been spoken.9

The Parkers remained deeply committed to the Lord and to one another for the rest of their lives. George finally passed away in China in 1931, shortly after he and Minnie had celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Minnie Shao Mianzi and her son Johnnie returned to England, where he became the Chief Electrical Engineer of the Greater London Underground. Only eternity will reveal the impact that the early ministry of the Parkers and other missionaries had for the kingdom of God among the Amdo Tibetans. In the same town of Choni that they frequently visited, a strong church emerged a few decades later, which grew to become one of the largest Evangelical fellowships of Tibetan believers anywhere in the world to the present time.

Parker served in China for 55 years

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

China’s Millions (January 1877), p. 5. A. J. Broomhall, Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Six: Assault on the Nine (London: Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1988), p. 148. “Through Eastern Thibet,” China’s Millions (August 1879), p. 101. My translation of the Jean-Baptiste Brieux Obituary in the Archives des Missions Etrangères de Paris, China Biographies and Obituaries, 1800–1899. “What It Costs to Murder in Tibet,” Chinese Recorder (August 1891), pp. 358–9. Milton T. Stauffer (ed.), The Christian Occupation of China (Shanghai: China Continuation Committee, 1922), p. 183. G. Parker, “Notes of a Journey in Kan-suh,” China’s Millions (September 1885), p. 114. Broomhall, Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Six, pp. 248–9. China’s Millions (July 1883), p. 78.

The Moravians For centuries the small kingdom of Ladakh, in north India, has been on a key Tibetan trading route, and was a natural gateway for travelers heading across the pass to the boundless Tibetan Plateau beyond. Jesuit missionaries had first ventured into Ladakh in the 1620s on their way to the Tibetan kingdom of Guge. By the nineteenth century, Ladakh—which had gained the nickname “Little Tibet”—emerged as a vital gateway for ministry to Tibet. With the door to Tibet firmly closed and north India much easier to access since it was part of the British Empire, the influence of Ladakh’s Moravian Christians led to the translation of the Tibetan Bible, and their witness has endured to the present day.

Heyde and Pagel, the first Moravian missionaries to the Tibetans The first Moravian missionaries to live in the area were Wilhelm Heyde and Edward Pagel, who left Germany in July 1853, just two months before the great missionary statesman Hudson Taylor first sailed to China. The

Moravian duo initially attempted to reach Mongolia, but finding their access blocked by the Russians, they headed for India. For a time the missionaries tried to find a way to travel across Tibet to reach their beloved Mongolia, but they were sternly warned against the idea by the local governor, who told them they would be immediately arrested and jailed if they sought to enter Tibet. Realizing God had closed the door to Mongolia, Heyde and Pagel accepted His will and settled down in the Tibetan village of Kyelang. There they spent the rest of their lives focusing on the great needs of the Tibetan people. Incredibly, Wilhelm Heyde and his wife Maria lived in Kyelang for 48 years without ever returning to their homeland. For decades Maria proved to be a great asset in the mission as she ministered God’s love to women and children. Most of the work seemed to be accomplished in the bitterly cold winter months, when the Christians came down from the mountains to live in the town. She led a school of 40 girls, whom she also taught to knit socks. Between 400 and 500 pairs were sold each year, which helped finance the running costs of the school. Decades later, at the start of the twentieth century, a visiting missionary was so impressed by the quality of the Moravian work that she was moved to remark: The converts meet for instruction and discussion twice daily, and there is daily worship. The mission press is kept actively employed in printing parts of the Bible which have been translated during the summer, as well as simple tracts written or translated by Mr. Heyde . . . All honor to these noble German missionaries, learned, genial, cultured, radiant, who, whether teaching, preaching, farming, gardening, printing, or doctoring are always and everywhere “living epistles of Christ, known and read of all men”.1

Another Moravian base was established in the small town of Poo (also known as Spuwa), in the present-day north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, just 8 miles (13 km) from the Tibetan border, but a painstaking 438 miles (705 km) from Ladakh. Surrounded by massive snow-capped mountains, Edward Pagel and his wife served at Poo for 30 years, until they died within a few days of each other in 1883. The Moravian work in north India employed multifaceted strategies that were designed to serve the entire community holistically, presenting Christ to meet people’s spiritual and physical needs. The missionaries opened

medical clinics and established the first boys’ and girls’ schools in the region.

Wilhelm and Maria Heyde and their small congregation at Kyelang in 1896 Over time, many of the Ladakhi children who attended the Moravian schools secured good government jobs, and the gospel gained a firm foothold as the graduates grew up and took jobs of influence in the community. As they had learned to work hard and honor God with their resources, the Christians also became wealthy compared to most other Ladakhis, establishing a trend that continues to the present day. The Moravian work experienced a boost when a gifted German linguist named Heinrich Jaeschke joined the mission. He proved to be a major catalyst in the crucial task of translating the Scriptures into Tibetan—a remarkable story which is detailed in a later chapter of this book. Although the Moravians baptized their first Tibetan converts in 1865, the work grew slowly, as wave after wave of attacks from the Buddhist hierarchy battered and bruised the fledgling body of Christ. A breakthrough occurred in the 1880s, when a Tibetan evangelist named Nathanael shared the gospel in all the villages around Leh. His powerful preaching and uncompromising witness led many people to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. As is still the case today throughout the Tibetan world, baptism was the true mark of a person’s decision to follow Christ. Finding “believers” was

not too difficult, but when someone decided to be baptized, the entire community and spirit world seemed to rise up against him or her. Consequently, many new Christians were intimidated into abandoning their newfound faith. By 1908, after 43 years of tireless endeavor, the Moravian Mission numbered only 139 baptized members.

The Moravians today Although the Moravian work never mushroomed into a large movement of Tibetan believers, the faithful and self-sacrificial service of the missionaries and their disciples planted the seed of the gospel deep in the hearts of many Ladakhi Tibetans. Over the years hundreds of Buddhists renounced their sins and professed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, making the Moravian mission one of the most effective of all Evangelical initiatives among the Tibetan people. Today, more than 160 years after Heyde and Pagel first entered Tibetan territory, a Moravian Christian community remains in Ladakh, numbering a few hundred believers. Their influence continues to have an impact on Tibetan communities across the border in Tibet’s Ngari Prefecture, where small pockets of believers reside.

Notes 1

Isabella L. Bishop, Among the Tibetans (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1904), pp. 155– 6.

1890s Christians continued to be barred from central Tibet at the end of the nineteenth century, causing missionary efforts to focus on the perimeter of the Tibetan world. Occasionally, however, courageous believers dared to break through the barrier and travel into central Tibet, heading for their desired destination of Lhasa. Their deeds are legendary, but also filled with sorrow and pain as Satan threw everything at them to stop the light of the gospel being shared in the Tibetan capital.

Kham In the Kham region, a steady trickle of Evangelical missionaries began to make their presence felt. James Hutson of the CIM later reflected on the changes that had taken place among the Kham during the 1890s. He wrote: When I first went to those districts the Tibetans used to stand about 30 yards from me and stare at me. If I attempted to approach them they ran away, and it was no use trying to run after them, because they simply ran faster. The only thing to do was to stand and let them stare until they were satisfied that I was a human being, and then to go again the next week, and next year; and so gradually get closer to them. I well remember the first Tibetan who ever took a printed copy of the Scriptures out of my hands. His first act was to smell it. After he had smelt it he threw it far from him. The smell was too much for him. He thought that there was something uncanny about the smell of the paper and the printing press . . . As the years have gone by a great change has come over the Tibetan people, and now it is not a matter of our running after them, or their throwing the Gospels away. We can hardly get enough to supply the demands of the people . . . One evening, I happened to be giving away Gospels when a Tibetan passed by the front of our chapel and I gave him a catechism in Tibetan and a Gospel. He put out his tongue, which is the Tibetan method of saying, “Thank you,” and went on. A few moments afterwards I looked up the street and saw several of these Tibetan people running toward the preaching hall . . . with hands held out to receive the printed Word of God.1

Amdo For countless centuries the Amdo region of north-east Tibet had sat undisturbed by the servants of Jesus Christ. That all started to change in the 1890s, however, when several intrepid Evangelical missionaries entered Amdo. William Christie and William W. Simpson arrived in Gansu in 1892, commencing long and distinguished missionary careers that would result in thousands of Amdo Tibetans hearing God’s plan of salvation for the first time. Several years later, in 1896, two Swedish brothers, Martin and David Ekvall, arrived in the area and set up base at Minxian in southern Gansu—a strategic location straddling the border of the Chinese and Tibetan worlds. Simpson served energetically with the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) for the next two decades, but when he attended a conference in 1912 he had a Pentecostal experience and admitted that he had spoken in tongues. This practice was incompatible with CMA beliefs, so Simpson resigned from the denomination and joined the Assemblies of God. For many years the Christie, Simpson, and Ekvall families served among the Tibetans with great courage and tenacity. Their children were born in this forgotten corner of the earth, and tellingly, when they grew up most of them also chose to serve Christ among the Tibetans. David Ekvall wrote an excellent account of the work among the Amdo Tibetans in 1907,2 before he unexpectedly received his call to heaven five years later. His son, Robert, grew up to become a key figure in the evangelization of the Amdo, and surpassed his father by writing numerous books on various aspects of Tibetan life; several of these included accounts of Christian work in the region.3

Cecil and Eleanor Polhill Among the Evangelical missionaries living among Tibetans were the China Inland Mission’s Cecil and Eleanor Polhill.4 Cecil and his younger brother Arthur were two of the famous “Cambridge Seven”—students from

Cambridge University who surrendered their lives to missionary service in remote areas of the world after being convicted by the preaching of the famous American evangelist Dwight Moody.

Cecil and Eleanor Polhill After Cecil reached China in 1885, he moved to Qinghai Province and focused on the needs of the Amdo Tibetans. He married Eleanor Marsden in 1888, and they later moved to the walled town of Songpan in north-west Sichuan. For the first few months all seemed to be going well, and they made many Tibetan friends as they traveled around the region. The Polhills’ progress suddenly stalled in July 1892, however, when the people of Songpan rioted and nearly killed the couple. A severe drought had afflicted the region, and the spirit-priests blamed the change of weather on the presence of the missionaries. As each day passed without rain, the rancor grew stronger. Then unexpectedly on July 29: A mob seized and beat Cecil with boards taken from a paling. They bound him hand and foot, and threw him down in the blazing sun while they stood round and cursed. Eleanor suffered almost like treatment, but the children were rescued by friendly neighbors. Their two Chinese servants were also bound and beaten, and then all of them were led through the streets and out of the city gate to be tied up till the rain came.

They were finally rescued by the magistrate, but the crowd would not be satisfied till the two Chinese servants offered themselves to be beaten till their flesh was raw, after which large wooden collars were put on them. The crowd then dispersed, and two days afterwards the little party left the city under an escort.5

The believers, including Eleanor, had been stripped to the waist during the beatings they endured, and their two Chinese Christian servants, Wang and Zhang, were flogged, beaten with sticks, and placed in cages to boil in the hot sun. Zhang considered the persecution a great blessing from God, and later remarked: “I couldn’t help smiling . . . When we were being marched through the town with wrists tied, we were in a very small way like our Master, Jesus Christ.”6 Years later, an elderly Christian man told a missionary that he had witnessed the persecution at Songpan and was so impressed by the Christians’ attitude that he decided he must look into the faith, and he too became a believer. Although the Polhills were forced to leave Songpan, the town was such an ideal location for outreach to Tibetans that it was not long before new missionaries arrived to take their place. The Polhills had a total of six children (three sons and three daughters), and continued to serve on the northern edge of the Tibetan world at Xining until the outbreak of the 1900 Boxer Rebellion, when the British Consulate ordered them to leave. Eleanor died in 1904 after an illness. In the last few weeks of her life, when it became apparent the end was near, her devoted husband asked if she regretted marrying him because of all the troubles, hardships, and deprivations they had experienced together. Eleanor immediately replied: “No, we have had a lovely time together!”7 Cecil was a highly regarded Anglican missionary, but after returning to England he received a large inheritance and embraced Pentecostal theology. In 1908, he traveled to America and participated in the Azusa Street revival, and he wrote a large check which paid off the mortgage on the Azusa Street building. Pentecostalism was considered a heresy by many conservative Christians at the time, and Polhill was forced to resign from the Anglican Church. He subsequently became the first president of the Pentecostal Missionary Union.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

J. Hutson, “Among Chinese Tibetans, Aborigines, and Muslims,” China’s Millions (July 1918), p. 64. See David P. Ekvall, Outposts, or Tibetan Border Sketches (New York: Alliance Press, 1907). See Robert B. Ekvall, God’s Miracle in the Heart of a Tibetan (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1936); Robert B. Ekvall, Gateway to Tibet (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1938); and Robert B. Ekvall, Tibetan Sky Lines (New York: Farrar, Straus & Young, 1952). For much of the early years of his missionary career he was known as Cecil Polhill-Turner, but he dropped Turner from his name and was thereafter referred to as Cecil Polhill. Ebe Murray, “Missionary Effort for Tibet,” China’s Millions (August 1897), p. 103. A. J. Broomhall, Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Seven: It Is Not Death to Die! (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989), p. 165. China’s Millions (February 1905), p. 21.

Annie Taylor

A “most troublesome child” Of all the heroic stories of missionaries who spread the gospel of Jesus Christ in Tibet, few are as intense and compelling as that of Annie Taylor, a single woman whose rugged individualism and boundless determination resulted in her being the first recorded Western woman to set foot in central Tibet. Born in Cheshire in 1855, Annie was the daughter of a wealthy English businessman. She later described herself as “a most troublesome child, and very full of mischief.”1 After being diagnosed with a heart valve disease at the age of seven, Annie nearly died two years later from an attack of acute bronchitis. The doctors were sure she would not live to see her teenage years, so her parents left her alone to do as she liked.

Annie Taylor in Tibetan clothes After she converted to Christ at the age of 13, the Holy Spirit deeply touched Taylor and she desired to give herself to missionary service, much to the dismay of her well-to-do parents, who were proud of their high positions in British society. They threatened to cut Annie out of their will, but she was determined to follow God. When Annie was 28 years old: Her father required her to renounce Christian work, but she steadily refused. Finally he gave an ironical consent to her missionary plans, of which she availed herself immediately by entering one of the London hospitals for an elementary medical course. The consent was immediately withdrawn, and there was soon an open rupture at home. Allowances ceased. She sold her jewels, and with the proceeds paid her way at the hospital, while supporting herself in cheap lodgings, till reconciliation took place.2

Annie forged ahead and applied to join the CIM. She sailed to China in 1884, and was appointed to the town of Taozhou (now Luqu in Gansu Province) on the border of Tibet.

The new recruit soon proved to be a handful to her missionary colleagues, who found her personality abrasive and rude. Hudson Taylor realized he had a potentially explosive problem on his hands. In 1890, he wrote of “dear Annie Taylor having a very hard time of it,” and described her as “an individualist so bad at harmonious relationships with colleagues that she would have to be returned to Britain or stretched to her own limits.”3 Faced with a choice of going home in disgrace or continu-ing as an independent missionary without the support and encouragement of a team, Annie chose the latter option. First, however, her health had taken a turn for the worse, and she traveled to Australia for a time of recuperation. Thinking they had seen the last of her, the members of the missionary community were surprised when Annie Taylor took advantage of her father’s wealth to relocate to the southern side of the Himalayas. She established herself at Darjeeling, India, close to the Tibetan border. She often traveled north into Sikkim, where she gazed wistfully at the perennially snow-capped peaks, beyond which lay central Tibet, and the forbidden city of Lhasa, just 220 miles (356 km) to the north. While studying Tibetan, Annie led a 19-year-old Tibetan boy named Pontso to faith in Christ, after he received medical treatment from the missionary. Pontso had: never seen a foreigner before, but the kindness and care with which Miss Taylor nursed him in his sufferings completely won his heart. He became a believer and . . . devoted himself to the service of his benefactress, justifying the trust she had placed in him by his unfailing courage and fidelity.4

Annie’s time in Darjeeling was far from easy. When the Tibetans learned of her intentions to evangelize Tibet, curses were placed on her, and many locals did all they could to dissuade her from her plans. When none of that worked, she was invited to dinner by a Tibetan chief’s wife. Thinking it was a wonderful opportunity to establish a new relationship, Taylor went along and was fed an appetizing meal of rice and eggs. Almost as soon as she had swallowed the first mouthful: she fell seriously ill, with all the symptoms of aconite poisoning. On her recovery she wisely left this district, and settled down to live a life like the natives in a little hut near the Tibetan monastery of Podang Gompa.5

The first Western woman in Tibet A deep-seated desire to be the first Evangelical Christian to set foot in Lhasa spurred Annie on, but realizing the border between India and Tibet was firmly locked, she launched an ambitious plan to reach Lhasa via the Amdo region in northern Tibet. In September 1892, with the harsh winter months approaching, Annie decided it was time to leave on the 1,000-mile (1,620-km) journey to Lhasa. Taylor—accompanied by her faithful helper Pontso, a Chinese Muslim and his Tibetan wife, and two other men—set out with 16 pack horses carrying food and equipment. The expedition soon ran into trouble. Annie’s Muslim guide twice attempted to murder her so he could steal the provisions and animals, and only the attentiveness of Pontso spared her life. As they passed through the territory of the wild Golog Tibetans, some of their horses and equipment were stolen. Taylor had adopted typical Tibetan dress and shaved her head in a bid to disguise herself as a Tibetan nun. She refused to give up, and they soldiered on. She slept out in the open air, trusting God to protect her from both murderous men and the many wolves and wild beasts that roamed the area. Each day the journey became more chaotic, with one source saying: Bandits stole their tent and clothing and killed most of their animals. One of the workmen died, and another turned back. The Chinese man demanded money, and when she refused, he brought accusations against her to the Tibetan authorities that led to her arrest.6

After interrogating her, the Tibetan officials wrongly assumed that Annie would realize the futility of her plans and return to China. She would not be stopped, however, and continued to press on into central Tibet, where she reported traveling for two months without seeing a single dwelling. During that time she was unable to change her clothes, but stumbled on in a state of exhaustion, refusing to give up. From time to time the travelers came across settlements of nomads, but this was no blessing, as the bloodthirsty men had never seen a white woman before, and they often looted and killed strangers who were foolish enough to venture into their territory. In one place, a large group of bandits

surrounded Annie and her tiny group, threatening to kill them. They launched a sudden attack, which Annie later described: A force of 200 bandits surrounded our feeble party, and the whist-ling bullets spattered the stones with blood. They were traveling with a company of Mongols and laden yaks. The beasts stampeded; several of them were shot, and with them fell two men, face downwards, whose muffled bodies were left lying still and cold for the oncoming night to cover and the pitiless rain to pelt.7

A sketch of the attack on Annie Taylor’s convoy as she rides past them on her horse Finally, after months of agonizing travel, Annie Taylor, Pontso, and a Tibetan helper named Sigju were just three days from Lhasa! Every trail into the city was tightly guarded, however, with the Dalai Lama’s soldiers instructed, under penalty of death, to stop all travelers attempting to reach the golden city. Permission had to be granted before anyone, even Tibetans, could proceed. The Tibetan soldiers were shocked to discover that the three travelers were led by a single Englishwoman whose provisions had run out. The officials ordered her to turn back to China, but she strongly argued that if they went back they would surely die, and their blood would be on the officials’ hands. A huge white tent was erected so that the Tibetan officials could discuss what to do with their prisoners. Investigations were conducted, and a report

was dispatched to the Potala Palace for the Dalai Lama to read. Annie knew that the trial would determine the fate of her life. For 15 long days: Taylor stood at bay, fighting for her life and the lives of the two Tibetans . . . They knew their fate hung on the judgment of those tea-drinking chiefs . . . In the center sat the woman on whose account all this fuss was being made—a foreigner, and therefore guilty of criminal trespass; a prisoner, unarmed, and absolutely without provisions.8

When a letter from the Potala Palace arrived and Annie saw the grim countenances of the two officials, she knew there was no chance she would be allowed to enter Lhasa. Always one to press the boundaries, she began to argue vehemently that she be permitted to bypass the city and cross the border to India. When this proposal was also steadfastly rejected, “she wrung from the chiefs, as compensation for this refusal, a tent, horses, and provisions sufficient for the return to China.”9 Months passed as the audacious missionary and her two colleagues staggered toward Kangding in the Kham region, beyond the borders of central Tibet. One account said: The cold was almost unspeakable, and the food they tried to cook over their dung fires was often eaten half raw and little more than half warm . . . For 20 days at a stretch they had to sleep on the ground in the open air, the snow falling around them all the while.10

Annie and her two Tibetan friends finally reached Kangding in April 1893, seven months and ten days after they set out on their historic journey.

A predictable ending Although Annie Taylor’s brave attempt to reach Lhasa had failed, she had come closer than any other Evangelical Christian in history, and the gospel of Jesus Christ had been preached along the way.

Annie Taylor (middle) with her two trusted Tibetan friends Pontso and Sigju When news of Taylor’s trip trickled back to Europe and America it electrified people, and for a time she became a celebrity. Meetings were hastily organized, in both churches and secular institutions, where people gazed with admiration on the first Western woman to have visited Tibet. Many Christians were deeply challenged, and Tibet became the subject of people’s conversations and the focus of prayer meetings. Many men expressed shame that a single woman had displayed more daring and gone further into Tibet than any male missionary. Buoyed by the attention, Annie established the Tibetan Pioneer Mission, and in a short space of time a group of 14 eager male missionaries traveled to India, hoping to enter Tibet through Sikkim. Those who knew the region well, however, could see a disaster about to happen. Taylor herself had failed to enter Tibet through Sikkim on numerous occasions, and mission leaders were concerned that the name of the new mission would give the impression that for the first time Evangelical work was being conducted in central Tibet. The new mission’s first publication openly encouraged the false impression that the work was based inside Tibet, through a series of half-truths. The Tibet Pioneer Mission’s statement said:

The field of operations is the country of Tibet itself, as far as entrance can be obtained into it, rather than the border tribes, among whom work is already commenced. Tibet, which lies north of India and west of China, is a large country . . . and as yet we are the only Protestant missionaries (so far as known) within its borders.11

The members of the short-lived Tibet Pioneer Mission in 1894, with Annie Taylor seated in the middle Soon after arriving in north India, the men saw there was a wide gap between the reality of Annie Taylor’s leadership and her character. Predictably, dissent soon broke out, and within a few months the illequipped recruits realized they were way out of their depth, and all but one resigned from the fledgling mission. They began to head home, confused and bewildered by the shambolic experience. Annie would not be deterred, however. Although her new mission was about to be dissolved, she wrote to churches in Britain, asking them to send female workers, because “the Tibetans respect women and do not even in time of war attack them.”12 She remained in Sikkim, accompanied by her faithful servant Pontso and a few women who had responded to the call to join her. They continued to share the gospel with many Tibetans who crossed the border, and large quantities of Gospel literature were taken back into Tibet and spread far and wide. Letters from some of the missionaries on the border provide insight into the effectiveness of this literature ministry. In 1895, Taylor reported:

Every evening there are from four to 14 fresh encampments, with an average of six Tibetans to each camp. I go out and bid them welcome, and they invite me to sit with them around the fires, which I do; and then after giving each of them a Scripture card, I tell them the old, old story of Jesus and His love for poor lost sinners. They generally listen most attentively, and as they come from all parts of Tibet with the wool, the message is carried far and wide into Tibet. I have given nearly 3,000 cards, and they are much appreciated. But the more thoughtful of them want something more. One man, a lama, said to me when I gave him a card, “Can you not give me a book?” So I gave him a copy of one of the Gospels. I have been able to give away over 500 Gospels in Tibetan, which I hear are being read by the lamas in various monasteries, even in Lhasa.13

Annie Taylor, the unique and abrasive pioneer missionary who doctors said would not reach her teenage years, finally returned to London in 1904, and passed away in 1922 at the age of 67.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Annie R. Taylor, Pioneering in Tibet (London: Morgan & Scott, 1895), p. v. William Carey, Travel and Adventures in Tibet Including the Diary of Miss Annie R. Taylor’s Remarkable Journey from Tau-Chau to Ta-Chien-Lu through the Heart of the Forbidden Land (New Delhi: Naurang Rai for Mittal Publications, 2002), p. 148. Ruth A. Tucker, “Unbecoming Ladies,” Christianity Today (Fall 1996). John C. Lambert, Missionary Heroes in Asia (London: Seeley, Service & Co., 1925), p. 122. Lambert, Missionary Heroes in Asia, p. 121. Tucker, “Unbecoming Ladies.” Carey, Travel and Adventures in Tibet, pp. 140–1. Carey, Travel and Adventures in Tibet, p. 141. Carey, Travel and Adventures in Tibet, p. 142. Lambert, Missionary Heroes in Asia, pp. 132–3. Taylor, Pioneering in Tibet, p. 76. At the time, Annie Taylor was based in the Chumbi Valley, which was under the jurisdiction of British-controlled India. Today, however, the valley is disputed, with both India and China claiming ownership. Tucker, “Unbecoming Ladies.” Taylor, Pioneering in Tibet, pp. 52–3.

Petrus and Susie Rijnhart The story of Annie Taylor’s bold bid to reach Lhasa was still reverberating around Christian circles when another attempt was made to enter the forbidden land from its northern borders. In 1898, two independent Dutch-Canadian missionaries, Petrus and Susie Rijnhart, hoped to receive permission to preach and conduct medical work in Lhasa. For years the Rijnharts had shared the gospel with Tibetan monks, and frequently visited monasteries near Kumbum (now Ta’er) in the Amdo area. The 1890s was a time of fierce conflict between the Han Chinese and the Hui Muslims, with thousands of Tibetans being drawn into the conflict. To safeguard the missionaries, a lama invited the Rijnharts to live within the safety of the monastery walls. This afforded Petrus an excellent opportunity for evangelism, while Susie used her skills as a doctor to treat the wounded from the conflict. After one major battle, Petrus angered both the Chinese and the Tibetans when he went to the Hui headquarters and treated the Muslim wounded. Susie recalled:

Petrus Rijnhart It had been misunderstood that because we had helped the Chinese and Tibetan soldiers, we also must share their hatred of their enemies and could not possibly have a kind thought for them. When they saw that the missionary was just as kind and tender to the Muslims as to themselves, they were utterly amazed. The law of Christian kindness impelling love and mercy even for one’s enemies was vividly brought to their attention.1

While they were living at Tangar (now Huangyuan in Qinghai Province), the Rijnharts treated many Tibetan patients, and made friends with four “kushoks”—representatives of the Dalai Lama who looked after his interests in the Amdo region. Perhaps buoyed by these connections, in 1898 the fearless couple, with their infant son Charlie, set out on an epic monthslong journey toward Lhasa, despite being warned against going by friends and co-workers. Lhasa lay 800 miles (1,296 km) to the south-west, across arid deserts and snow-bound mountain passes up to 16,000 feet (4,900 meters) above sea level. It was a journey no team of strong men had been willing to undertake because of the dangers and difficulties, but the young married couple, with their infant son, set out into central Tibet, accompanied by three guides and

pack animals carrying a huge supply of food, which the Rijnharts estimated would last them a year. Petrus and Susie were determined to make it to Lhasa no matter what, but it turned out to be a disastrous trip, with two of the three Rijnharts losing their lives. Not long after their departure: Anything that could go wrong did go wrong! They were faced with incredibly bad weather, bad trails, and the suspicions of religious leaders who did not know them and had no reason to accord them the respect they had had in Kumbum or Tangar. Their guides deserted them and then, to add misery upon misery, their one-year-old son, carried on his father’s back, died suddenly. They had the sad task of burying him under rocks along the trail.2

Susie later wrote about the heartbreak she felt at the death of her son: Our only child had brought such joy to our home, and had done so much by his bright ways to make friends for us among the natives. To leave his body in such a cold, bleak place seemed more than we could endure. As we stood over the grave, the little box was lowered . . . and the cold earth of Tibet, the great forbidden land, closed over the body of the first Christian child committed to its bosom—little Charles Carson Rijnhart, aged one year, one month and 22 days. Mr. Rijnhart rolled a large boulder over the grave to keep wild animals from digging it up.3

The Rijnharts were paralyzed with grief at the loss of their beloved son, and decided to turn back along a southerly route. A gang of robbers trailed them, however, looking for an opportunity to strike. After noticing the men, Petrus decided to go and talk with them, hoping a direct approach would show them he was not afraid and was not worth robbing. No details emerged to reveal what happened next, but Petrus simply never returned to his waiting wife. The robbers had presumably murdered him. Petrus Rijnhart was only 32 years old. For days Susie patiently waited for her husband to return, before realizing he was probably dead. Now alone and stuck in the middle of Tibet surrounded by violent men and wild animals, she clung to her faith, and later recalled: I must admit it was a faith amid darkness so thick and black that I could not enjoy the sunshine. Evening found me still alone with God, just as I had been the night before. My undefined fear had shaped itself into almost a certainty, leaving me with scarcely any hope of ever seeing my husband again, and with just as little hope of my getting away from the same people who had seemingly murdered him . . . I sat down once more and reviewed the situation, when the thought came: “I can never get away from here safely anyway. I will never be able to get out of the country, and I am so far from the border that I may as well be killed . . . and go where my precious husband has gone.”4

Susie realized she couldn’t proceed to Lhasa, but the only other option was to head hundreds of miles toward one of the Tibetan border mission bases. She put her pain and grief aside and courageously continued eastward, without shelter, and with little food after some of the pack animals escaped. She employed local guides to help, but they turned against her, and she was forced to threaten the men with a revolver to prevent them from raping and killing her. For two months she advanced, one step at a time. When she finally reached the CIM base at Kangding in Sichuan Province, the resident missionaries Edward Amundsen and James Moyes mistook her for a Tibetan beggar due to her filthy sheepskin clothes and her skin having turned almost black from exposure to the sun. Her feet were frostbitten, and it took months for her to recover from the harrowing ordeal.

Susie Rijnhart Susie returned to Canada in 1900, where a close friend observed that she had “changed from a bright, dark-haired girl into a quiet, white-haired

woman.”5 She was asked if it would be a cross to return to Tibet. “No,” she replied, “it would be a cross not to return.”6 She traveled back to Kangding in 1902 as a medical missionary with the Foreign Christian Missionary Society and married James Moyes, one of the two men who had met her after her harrowing journey four years earlier. As she recovered, Susie Rijnhart shared her experiences in a book, which was called “one of the most stirring missionary sagas of the early twentieth century.”7 In February 1908, she gave birth to a son while back in Canada, but her health was poor by that time, and the stress of childbirth caused Susie’s death a few days later. She was just 40 years old.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Susie Carson Rijnhart, With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple: A Narrative of Four Years’ Residence on the Tibetan Border and of a Journey into the Far Interior (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1904), pp. 100–1. Ralph R. Covell, The Liberating Gospel in China: The Christian Faith among China’s Minority Peoples (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1995), p. 71. Rijnhart, With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple, p. 250. Rijnhart, With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple, pp. 315–18. Covell, The Liberating Gospel in China, p. 71. James and Marti Hefley, By Their Blood: Christian Martyrs of the Twentieth Century (Milford, MI: Mott Media, 1979), p. 145. Hefley, By Their Blood, p. 146.

1900s

Ü-Tsang As the twentieth century got underway, the Chinese rulers in faraway Beijing were talking about turning Tibet into a province of China, and in the following decades the number of Han people living in the border areas greatly increased. Although it was to be another 50 years before the Chinese achieved their goal, when Communist tanks rolled across central Tibet, this 1908 report foretold what a later generation would experience: The Chinese have great changes in view, and contemplate forming the whole of Tibet into a Chinese province . . . No doubt the Dalai Lama will be shortly asked to return to his own country. All this portends a speedy and far-extending change over all Tibet.1

Although they didn’t attempt to reach Lhasa, in July 1906 a small group of three CIM missionaries set out from Kangding in Sichuan Province. They entered Ü-Tsang, or central Tibet, only to find sparsely populated grasslands with occasional tents of nomads dotting the landscape. The missionaries, however, were full of hope for future prospects, with Theo Sorenson of Norway reporting: Tibet cannot now be looked upon as entirely closed to missionary effort, as this journey is a practical proof of the possibilities which now lie before the Church. Barriers, hitherto considered insurmountable, have now been removed, and the glorious possibility of possessing the land for the Lord Jesus Christ need not alone be left to the prayer of faith.2

The group continued across swollen streams and were drenched by driving rain and midsummer snow for six days, until they reached a small settlement. Wanting to share the gospel with the local nomads, one of the missionaries and his Tibetan co-worker approached the tents, only to find that: the occupants were too frightened to either buy or accept our books . . . It is impossible to approach these tents in any other way than on horseback, as the occupants would set the dogs on to you, suspecting you had come for some evil purpose.3

Several days later they reached the village of Dawo, where they happily reported: Today Dawo has received the true Light, not preached but distributed, for scarcely a single house will be without a copy of the Gospel. May He from whom the true light shines, cause it to shine in many of these hearts and lives, and hasten the day when the truly awful power of the devil may be broken. Altogether 300 Gospels were distributed . . . During the afternoon a great many monks came to see us, sometimes there being as many as a dozen in the room at one time. All accepted Gospels.4

When they reached Qamdo (also called Chengguan) on July 25, they were the first white men anyone had seen. The group was still 370 miles (600 km) east of Lhasa, but after distributing 300 more Tibetan Gospel tracts they were content with their exploratory journey, and turned back toward Sichuan, arriving at Kangding 28 days after the start of their trip. They were welcomed back with open arms by the “little church of some 14 Christians, Chinese and Tibetans.”5

Amdo The town of Dujiangyan (formerly Guanxian) in north-west Sichuan Province was strategically placed on the edge of the Tibetan frontier. Each summer, Tibetans from many tribes and clans visited the town to gather supplies, before returning home.

Two Amdo monks, Sen-ce and Sang-Je. The younger man became a Christian in 1906 James Hutson of the CIM lived in Dujiangyan during the early twentieth century. In 1906, he told a gripping story of how a single Gospel tract had helped open the hearts of people in one Amdo area: Several years ago I sold a Gospel to a Tibetan who lived 15 days’ journey northwest of the city. He took it home and gave it to the lama in charge of one of the monasteries. This lama happened to be the brother of a Tibetan chief. He took the Gospel to the chief, and the two looked at it and talked about it. They said to themselves that this was only one portion of a volume, and they would like a complete copy. So they sent that man back, 15 days’ journey from the Tibetan border, to get the whole New Testament in Tibetan . . . That book is today a light in the midst of the darkness in a place where a missionary has never yet penetrated. Later on there came an invitation to go and preach the gospel to those people.6

During the first decade of the twentieth century the Tibetan Border Mission of the Christian and Missionary Alliance grew significantly, boosted by the arrival of several new recruits. The missionaries’ goal was to reach the dozens of unevangelized Amdo tribes and clans scattered throughout the region. The Golog were one such tribe, with a dozen or more subgroups in their midst. Little was known about the mysterious Golog people, except that when they ventured into Labrang or one of the other monasteries to celebrate festivals, other Tibetans were terrified of them. Later historians retraced the history of the Gologs, finding that:

A gathering of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Tibet Border Mission In the seventh century, the Tibetan king dispatched his fiercest warriors, ancestors of the present-day Gologs, to guard the country’s mountainous northern frontier against Chinese invasion. When the Tibetan kingdom eventually collapsed, the Gologs stayed in their mountain retreats, defiant of outside authority.7

Kham Further south in the Kham region of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, the work of Catholic missionaries continued to advance, and by 1907 their flock numbered 2,050 believers (both Tibetan and Chinese), meeting in 14 churches.8

A succession of French missionaries and their Tibetan converts were called to lay down their lives during the decade, including Henri Mussot and Jean-André Soulié, who were viciously murdered by Tibetan lamas at Batang in April 1905. The barbaric head lama had Mussot imprisoned in the monastery, where he was “tortured with spikes, and finally shot. His torturers cut off his head and displayed it like a trophy above the entrance of the monastery.”9

Eleven Tibetan martyrs Many people around the world who are fascinated by Tibet are unaware that one corner of the vast territory has a rich Catholic heritage which survives to the present day. The small town of Yanjing, nestled just within the border of the present Tibet Autonomous Region, has long contained Catholic believers. The church was established there in 1865 after their community at Bonga had been pillaged and burned to the ground. The French missionaries “led their faithful followers to Yanjing and established themselves on a few bits of ground, thanks to the connivance of the local populace and the silence of the native chiefs.”10

The Tibetan Catholic church in Yanjing where the Dalai Lama instigated a massacre in 1905 Julian Hawken By the start of the twentieth century, this burgeoning group of more than 200 Tibetan Catholics did not go unnoticed by the leaders of Tibet. The Dalai Lama dispatched men from Lhasa to force the Christians to renounce their faith. The believers at Yanjing respectfully listened to the Dalai Lama’s edict, but politely replied that they would not change, for they had found the one true religion. In response, the Dalai Lama’s emissaries: shot several Christian families in a field that is called the “Field of Blood” to this day. Instead of intimidating the believers, this cruel act solidified their faith and caused them to permanently turn away from Buddhism. Yanjing has remained Catholic ever since, and by 1922 there were a reported 1,610 Tibetan converts in the area.11

Another account of the persecution at Yanjing says: The lamas and their paid assassins pillaged and burned the mission at Yanjing. Since the stars were unfavorable that day, they were afraid to attack the living and so, like sinister hyenas, they dug up the missionary graveyard and threw the bones into the Mekong River . . . Eleven Christians were bound to the pillars in the chapel. The next morning, April 18, 1905, they were

dragged out into a field which from then on was to be called “the field of murder.” They refused the offer to apostatize, and a hail of bullets cut them down. Their bodies were thrown into the river.12

A Tibetan believer from Yanjing Julian Hawken On July 23, 1905, the French mission was struck by yet another outbreak of violence at Deqen in Yunnan Province, in the southernmost part of the Kham region. The heads of three martyrs, along with the heart and liver of 46-year-old Frenchman Pierre Bourdonnec, were carried like trophies to the large Deqen Monastery, where they were presented to the head lama. The depraved man, with a broad grin from ear to ear, commended the murderers for successfully completing their assignment. Most of all, the head lama was overjoyed when he was presented with the head and organs of Jules Dubernard. For more than 40 years the Frenchman had loved the Tibetan people and was much more highly respected than the lama. The missionary had sacrificially served thousands

of needy people without demanding anything in return, whereas the local monastery was known as a den of iniquity and the abode of lazy and corrupt lamas. Dubernard’s head was triumphantly hung on the monastery gate as a warning to the people not to follow Christ. The Church in this remote area suffered only a temporary setback, however. More workers soon came to replace those who had been martyred, and the local church survived and grew. By 1998, there were a reported 9,500 Tibetan Catholics in northern Yunnan and southern Tibet, in areas where Dubernard, Bourdonnec, and the other martyrs had laid down their lives.13

Evangelical progress The early twentieth century saw an influx of many new Evangelical missionaries into the fringes of the Tibetan world, and a growing awareness arose that unreached Tibetans lived across a vast area of China. Even towns as distant as Dali and Lijiang in Yunnan Province were visited by hundreds of Tibetans during festivals and fairs, and the missionaries in those places eagerly shared the gospel by distributing Tibetan Scriptures.14

Three barefoot Tibetans who visited the CIM medical clinic at Dali The Evangelical enterprise in the Kham region showed signs of progress in the 1900s. Cecil Polhill reported from Batang: It will be remembered that when we left Kangding in 1900, there were no enquirers and the work was not particularly encouraging, but when our brothers went back two years later, after the Boxer troubles, and reopened the station, they found a great change in the state of affairs, so that in a few months’ time 150 names of enquirers were enrolled . . . The king of the Tibetans showed great friendliness and gave our brothers the use of his summer palace at Litang for their holiday. The inhabitants of the large monastery near this town had hitherto shown themselves to be bitterly hostile. This is all so changed that there is now a wide opening for work there.15

In 1907, Edward Amundsen—a surviving member of Annie Taylor’s failed mission—traveled extensively throughout the Kham region, sharing Christ with Tibetans wherever he went. The following excerpts from Amundsen’s diary reveal both the tense spiritual atmosphere and the openness to the gospel at the time:

In Kangding I went about and chatted with the friendly lay people and a few portions of Scripture were accepted as gifts! The lamas would not even speak with us. They are strictly looked after. The day I stayed there, no less than three monks were carried out dead, having been beaten to death for acts of immorality. Being told by the abbot to shun me, they would shun me; being told to befriend me, they would be friendly; being told to kill me, they would do so—of course all in the interest of religion.16 On May 10th I left Kangding again, for Litang, Batang and the west . . . On the third day I reached my former Tibetan home at Golok. The people were delighted to see me after eight years absence. Seasoned and buttered tea and “tsamba” were offered, as well as cheese and milk . . . They gathered round my inn and chattered till late . . . How readily these people would accept the gospel were there no lamas to forbid them! I left a number of Gospels with my host to be given away as he had opportunity.17 At Litang we had a great time distributing Gospels to the monks and others; in all 145. They were eager to get them. Not long ago they would ask foreigners to pass on at once and would scarcely allow them to stay a night even outside the monastery. Now I was able to go unhindered all through the great building which they say can accommodate 3,700 lamas. I do hope these books will work mightily among this great multitude of spiritual leaders!18

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Cecil Polhill, “Some Notes on a Journey to the Tibetan Border,” China’s Millions (August 1908), p. 124. A. H. Sanders, “Forward into Tibet,” China’s Millions (January 1907), p. 6. Horace S. Sanders, “Forward into Tibet,” China’s Millions (March 1907), p. 44. Horace S. Sanders, “Forward into Tibet,” p. 46. Polhill, “Some Notes on a Journey to the Tibetan Border,” p. 128. James Hutson, “The Station of Kwan Hsien,” China’s Millions (July 1906), p. 113. Galen Rowell, “Nomads of China’s West,” National Geographic (February 1982), p. 244. Bertram Wolferstan, The Catholic Church in China (St. Louis, MO: Sands & Co., 1909), p. 451. My translation of the Henri Mussot Obituary in the Archives des Missions Etrangères de Paris, China Biographies and Obituaries, 1900–1999. Robert Loup, Martyr in Tibet: The Heroic Life and Death of Father Maurice Tornay, St. Bernard Missionary to Tibet (New York: David McKay, 1956), p. 68. Milton D. Stauffer, The Christian Occupation of China (Shanghai: China Continuation Committee, 1922), p. 282. Loup, Martyr in Tibet, pp. 147–8. See Alex Buchan, “Catholic Church Hangs On in Tibet,” Compass Direct (September 1998). For example, see W. T. Clark, “Gospel Work amongst Tibetans,” China’s Millions (December 1909), p. 186. Cecil Polhill, “Notes of the China Inland Mission Tibet Band,” China’s Millions (March 1905), p. 34.

16

Edward Amundsen, “The Diary of Journeys through East Tibet,” Chinese Recorder (December 1907), p. 651. 17 Amundsen, “The Diary of Journeys through East Tibet,” p. 653. 18 Amundsen, “The Diary of Journeys through East Tibet,” p. 658.

William Christie

The “Apostle to Tibet” Of all the brave and faith-filled Evangelical missionaries to work among the Tibetan people, few were as fruitful for God’s kingdom as the Scottish-born American William Christie, who served more than three decades in remote parts of the Amdo region in today’s Gansu Province. Christie’s stellar career was mostly spent “flying under the radar” of acclaim, as he served with what was then the little-known Christian and Missionary Alliance.1 Despite Christie’s relative obscurity, his reputation as a man of God, and his thorough knowledge of all things Tibetan, meant that other missionaries of his era didn’t hesitate in referring to him as the “Apostle to Tibet.”

William Christie, dubbed the “Apostle to Tibet” Born in the small Scottish town of Turriff in 1870, Christie migrated to the United States when he was 19. Trained as a stonemason, he quickly gaining a reputation as a skilled worker in New York. However, the course of his life was dramatically altered in October 1891, when he attended a missionary convention at the Gospel Tabernacle. Many decades later, near the end of his life, Christie reflected on his call to service: I was impressed by the spiritual warmth there . . . I was soon convinced of the need of complete surrender to Christ . . . At the altar I made the surrender and sought for, and received, the Holy Spirit. The results were an increase in my love for the Word of God, delight in prayer, and witnessing to others for Christ. At the October 1891 convention, I was present on Missionary Sunday. As the opening hymn was sung, I was suddenly thrilled from head to foot with a great emotion. Accompanying this came a deep desire to give my life for missionary work . . . I prayed earnestly for the next two months for guidance as to what to do. As a result, I was led to give up my trade as a stone setter ...

I was greatly moved by an appeal made by Dr. A. B. Simpson for volunteers for Tibet. After several days of prayer and thought, I told him of my desire to go to Tibet . . . Looking back on the 58 years and more since then, I have every reason to believe that my call was of God.2

Although he was just 21, Christie was already wealthy because of his lucrative profession. He kept his money and other items hidden in a box under his bed, but after accepting the call to God’s service he turned his money over to the CMA treasurer, who applied it to his support on the field. Christie was able to live off the proceeds for years to come. The CMA paired Christie together with William W. Simpson, who hailed from the hills of Tennessee. Before they sailed for the Orient in March 1892, Christie wrote: “By the grace of God I will spend and be spent for my Savior and the salvation of those who are sitting in awful darkness and sin and misery.”3 After their ship docked in Shanghai, the new recruits met up with Hudson Taylor, who warmly welcomed them. It was when the veteran statesman heard that Christie and Simpson had Tibet in their sights that he uttered his famous quote: “To make converts in Tibet is similar to going into a cave and trying to rob a lioness of her cubs.”4 After a long period of studying Chinese, Christie and Simpson were assigned to the northern Tibet border, in the Amdo region. Christie traveled extensively throughout the area, sowing the seed of God’s Word among hundreds of the untouched Tibetan villages. This report from 1907 summarized one of his typical years: “I was away from home 166 days out of the year, and 69 full days of this number were spent in the saddle. I rode 1,700 miles [2,754 km] in the year.”5

Young recruits William Christie (21) and William Simpson (22) prior to leaving for Tibet in 1892

Stretched to the limit In such an isolated part of the world that was largely devoid of law and order, it was no surprise that trouble soon found William Christie. On one occasion a prolonged drought had blighted the region. After consulting the gods and sorcerers, a group of Tibetan lamas announced that the drought was due to the presence of the Christians. A mob of bloodthirsty Tibetans suddenly stormed the gate of the mission at Baonan (now Jishishan). The other young missionaries were unable to speak either Chinese or Tibetan, but William Christie was a gifted linguist. In a calm manner consistent with how he treated all people: He immediately went to meet the men and inquired what they wanted. He soon learned that they represented the 12 Tibetan clans of the drought area who blamed the missionaries for their misfortune and had come to kill them. The uproar of the mob made ordinary conversation impossible. But realizing their fanaticism and knowing their murderous intentions, literally with his back to the door of the house, Christie did his utmost to pacify and dissuade them. First he reasoned with the mob in the Tibetan tongue. In the same breath he ordered his servant in Mandarin to run to the Chinese fort for help. Without ceasing his Tibetan argument he shouted to the young missionaries in English, describing the danger, urging them to pray, and prepare to defend themselves if attacked. Throughout this tri-lingual barrage, Christie searched the faces of the angry men. One seemed strangely familiar to him. Could he not have met that man somewhere? Suddenly it dawned on him. He recalled a nomad encampment on a windswept plateau. Out from a great black tent a Tibetan had come to welcome him. Weeks previously this same man had visited the mission house and Christie had entertained him for the night . . . By the law of Tibetan hospitality your host for a night becomes your friend for life and must assist you in every time of need. Knowing full well the power of the Tibetan code, Christie identified himself to his Tibetan host and claimed his help. He insisted that according to tribal custom, his friend should not only refuse to take part in the murderous attack, but also must do his utmost to prevent it . . . This turned the tide. Even before the troops arrived, Christie had won and saved the missionaries’ lives.6

On another occasion, Christie and David Ekvall wanted to establish a mission in the key monastery town of Labrang, which at the time housed

more than 4,000 monks. In preparation, the duo visited Labrang during one of the largest Buddhist festivals of the year. After they shared the gospel with many monks and pilgrims, a crowd of troublemakers agitated the people: Soon the threats gave way to flying clods of dirt and stones. One missionary broke his umbrella while trying to fend off missiles, and the other received a cut on his face. Suddenly two monastery guards charged into the mob with drawn swords and took the foreigners into protective custody. The high lamas received the missionaries as objects of curiosity and gave them places of honor in the grandstand to watch the entire “devil dance” that was to rid the community of evil influences for the coming year. When the dance concluded, the two white men were informed that they were part of the menace that the community wanted to be rid of.7

Meanwhile, the owner of the inn where the missionaries had spent the night: was beaten and driven out and his property was confiscated. The Gospels and tracts left by the missionaries were publicly burned. Worse still, an official proclamation was posted, warning that nobody should ever again house a preacher of the Jesus religion even for a night. Thus the door to Tibet, opened for so short a moment, was violently slammed shut . . . They made two more short trips to Labrang. On the last, their Gospels were thrown back into their faces, the innkeeper who housed them was beaten, and the higher lamas ordered them to leave or be thrown into the river.8

The lamas had made their intentions clear. They would not tolerate any rival religion in their domain. A further 25 years elapsed before the rulers of the Labrang Monastery allowed a missionary to live in the town.

A God-ordained union For seven long years William Christie had labored in remote Amdo as a single man, but God was preparing a young woman named Jessie MacBeth, who shared his call to pioneer missions. Years passed as she undertook medical training and joined the CMA, but finally the day arrived when the two met: Jessie visited the remote Tibetan mission station and encountered Christie for the first time. More than a century later, their grandson Bill Conrad remarked:

One would love to know what the response from William Christie, himself single, must have been when he was first informed that a single female missionary from northern Scotland was . . . preparing to join the Gansu-Tibetan Border Mission of which he was field chairman! . . . Christie was assisting in the butchering of a sheep at the mission compound in Lintan on the day Jessie MacBeth arrived, and he was terribly embarrassed to be seen all blood-spattered by this “bonnie Scottish lassie!”9

William and Jessie fell in love, but their wedding plans were delayed when the Boxer Rebellion broke out across China in the summer of 1900. They were finally married in Shanghai on June 17, 1901.

Jessie MacBeth After finally reaching their new home on the Tibetan frontier, Jessie got to work, helping the sick and injured. Although Jessie knew that the medical needs of the local people would be great, she had not anticipated how highly treasured her skills would be among her fellow missionaries, many of whom were frequently ill in a region with no hospitals or doctors. It was said of Jessie: The God-sent nurse came like an angel from heaven . . . With scanty medical supplies, inadequate equipment and limited technical knowledge, but with unbounded faith and unfailing

courage, Mrs. Christie performed daring operations which, by the blessing of God, turned out to be life-saving miracles. Day after day her hands were immersed in strong antiseptic solutions, until her wedding ring crumbled from her finger.10

A precious family Barely a year had elapsed since the wedding when Jessie gave birth to their first child, Robert. A second son, William, was born in December 1903. As if living in one of the wildest and most remote places on earth wasn’t challenging enough, William was born with cerebral palsy. His nephew Bill Conrad later remarked:

The Christie family in 1907 with sons Peter, Robert, and William William C. Conrad His body and speech were markedly affected for all of his 84 years, but his mind remained brilliant, and his commitment to God total until the very end of his life. Even his very severe physical handicap did not keep him from a life of godly service, as he served many years under the CMA as a missionary in the Philippine Islands.11

One day, as the Christies passed through Lintan, an incident took place that was to have lasting effects for Christianity in the area down to the present day. As they traveled through the town, Jessie saw a small child lying in a pile of ash on the side of the road. The young girl was almost five years old. She: had been thrown away and left to die by her parents. Apparently, her family had encountered many instances of extreme difficulty, and their “religious advisor” had told them that the family problems were because of demon possession in this young child. The family had been advised that needles were to be driven into her eyes to “drive the demons out!” When this action did not solve the bad circumstances, they were told they must get rid of her . . . Jessie brought the girl home, where she was able to nurse her back to health. One eye had been destroyed completely by the needle and subsequently had to be removed. The other eye, fortunately, retained useful (though diminished) vision for the remainder of her life. This little girl was named Gao Man Ying. She was formally adopted by the Christies so that her family would have no further claim upon her. Subsequently, Man Ying became a fine Christian.12

A third son, Peter, was born at Choni in 1906. He later contracted the polio virus during a visit to America, causing both of his legs to be totally paralyzed. When Jessie experienced complications during her fourth pregnancy, the pressure on the Christies reached breaking point. William three times submitted resignation letters to the CMA headquarters, but the leaders refused to accept them, and the Christies continued in their isolated service for God. Their only daughter, Hazel, was born without further problems. The entire Christie family went on a much-needed furlough to the United States in 1908, and stopped in Scotland on the return journey to China, affording William and Jessie the opportunity to meet each other’s family. As they headed back to their base after weeks of arduous travel, the most difficult part of the journey occurred. The Christies’ grandson, Bill Conrad, described the vivid scene: Imagine the picture of father William carrying six-year-old William (cerebral palsied), Jessie carrying three-year-old Peter (recently paralyzed from polio), seven-year-old Robert carrying new-born Hazel, and hired porters at each stop along the way carrying the needed baggage for a seven-year term of missionary service!13

Despite their overwhelming hardships and extreme challenges, God had the Christie family on the edge of the Tibetan world just as He wanted them— weak, and of little reputation in society; a family whose members needed to

rely on Jesus for their daily needs. It was clear to everyone that any good fruit resulting from their service would be a work of God’s grace, not the result of human effort.

Breakthrough at Choni An opportunity had opened in the monastery town of Choni, about 40 miles (65 km) south-east of Labrang. For almost a thousand years Choni had been ruled by a succession of Tibetan kings and princes, and the Christies lost no time in making the acquaintance of the prince, who ruled over 48 districts. The prince, however, was vehemently opposed to having foreigners live in his realm.

Jessie and William Christie at Choni

In the end, there was just one residence in Choni available to the Christie family—a house that was widely believed to be haunted after a murder had occurred in it. The townspeople stayed clear of the property, and it appears the prince may have allowed the missionaries to live there only because the locals believed a terrible catastrophe would befall anyone who resided in that house. The Christies were unconcerned, and bought the property for a very cheap price. After moving in they discovered a human skeleton, and realized that a murder had indeed taken place there. After praying against any demonic influence, William and Jessie committed their family to the Lord Jesus, and to the amazement of the locals they appeared happy and healthy as they established their home and ministry. The house served as the Christies’ base for many years, proving a great launching pad as they shared the gospel with Tibetans throughout the area. Decades later, William Christie summarized their activities at Choni: Christ and His salvation were proclaimed to prince, priests and people. In the town and monastery, as well as in the surrounding villages, the gospel reached all classes. A number accepted Christ, many being won by personal dealings in the guest room, and baptisms were held publicly in the Tao River. Full Tibetans, half Tibetans and Chinese were immersed before great crowds. A church was organized and regular services were held . . . Excellent work was done among the children of the town, and even those of the prince’s family attended the Sunday school. Mrs. Christie conducted a school with the equivalent of eight grades, and added a knitting class for girls . . . Many of the girls were converted and married pastors, evangelists and other Christians. They are mothers and grandmothers in today’s churches. Promising boys were sent to the boarding school at Lintao. Upon graduation they entered the Bible Training School to become pastors and evangelists. One was called as pastor of the Choni church, which developed into a self-supporting congregation with an effective witness for Christ throughout the town and surrounding area . . . And such was the power of the gospel in the one-time citadel of Satan.14

The years went by, and in 1922 Christie wrote about the potential for the gospel to spread more widely among other Tibetan groups from their strong base in Choni. He appealed for new workers with these heartfelt words: Our Tibetan field in western Gansu is immense and we have hardly touched the fringes. The Prince of Choni alone governs 48 clans and we can easily travel among these clans, as the prince is friendly and would protect us. In other parts where his jurisdiction does not reach, it is difficult to secure adequate protection . . . If we had the workers to employ, we would press

toward the west from the line we are now occupying . . . I think we could easily employ one dozen foreign missionaries in places that are now accessible to us . . . In sending out missionaries for work among the Tibetans, candidates with a strong constitution should be chosen, as work in Tibet is more strenuous than in most places. Missionaries that are afraid to expose themselves to hardship and even danger should not be sent.15

The prince, who had originally allowed the Christies to reside in his kingdom, later appeared to regret his decision, especially when he discovered that his own family members were opening their hearts to the gospel. Not long after the prince started persecuting the fledgling church, judgment befell him. Christie recalled: The Choni prince, a secret foe of the gospel, resorted to threats and intimidation to prevent his people from becoming Christians, and was often unjust and cruel. But his sins overtook him, for his own people finally assassinated him, dragged his corpse out of the town and covered it with a heap of stones. In contrast the Church of Christ lives on, a memorial to the spiritual unity which is possible between two different races within the fellowship of the gospel.16

Another missionary, M. G. Griebenow, remembered the Choni ruler this way: The prince had been friendly and kind to the missionaries, a fact we greatly appreciated, but he never became a Christian, even though the Christies and the Hansens made every effort to win him to the Lord. He continued to live in sin and to be extremely cruel to his subjects. He had hundreds of men shot or beheaded and their heads displayed in public places. Finally his own officers, fearing for their own lives and the lives of their families, brutally murdered him but spared his wives and children.17

Almost a century has passed since William and Jessie Christie first moved into their haunted house and established the kingdom of God among the Choni Tibetans, and the Church of Jesus Christ has lived on. In 1997, a church building was constructed for Choni Tibetan believers in nearby Lintan, where one church member reportedly “sold her hair, and another family sold their TV to help build the new church.”18 Today it is estimated that between 300 and 400 Choni Tibetans continue to trust in the Living God, with an even higher number of Han Chinese believers living in the town and surrounding districts. More Tibetans have probably been won to Christ at Choni than at any other Evangelical base in the Tibetan world.

Christie buys a monastery In 1907, William Christie was presented with a remarkable opportunity that he couldn’t ignore. In an act that many Tibetan Buddhists today would find repugnant, the missionary was able to purchase a small Buddhist monastery in the village of Luba, just 5 miles from Lintan. The Christies had struck up a good relationship with the elderly lama in charge of the Luba Monastery. Deep into the night the lama had often sat up asking questions of Christie and the other missionaries, although he never bowed his knee to become a disciple of Christ. The lama traveled all the way to Mongolia, hoping to attract donations for the upkeep of the monastery, but after a long absence it was discovered that he had died during the journey. The local landowners, not wanting to maintain the buildings themselves, asked Christie if he was interested in buying the monastery and surrounding land for a fraction of its actual value. The agreed price for the monastery was just $1,000 (worth about $27,000 today). After much prayer, the board of the CMA in New York allowed Christie to proceed with the purchase, and “the buildings, fields, forests and grazing lands of the Luba Monastery became the property of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Thus the Buddhist monastery became a gospel mission station.”19 A period of extensive cleaning and alterations ensued, transforming the idolatrous property into one suitable for Christian work. When it was ready, the CMA missionaries celebrated the purchase by holding their annual mission conference at Luba. Robert Ekvall reported on the memorable meeting: Blessing came to the local Tibetan and half-Tibetan community. The sick were healed, demons were cast out, and Tibetan homes were cleaned of every vestige of idolatry. Salvation flowed into the village of Luba. Idols were burned, idol scrolls were destroyed, and the rubbish of charms and shrines was tossed into the Tao River, carrying away the wreckage and becoming the waters of baptism for those who publicly confessed their Lord.20

Man Ying, the little girl rescued by the Christies from the side of the road, became one of the precious living stones of the Luba church. Many years later, almost a quarter of a century after William Christie had retired from

the mission field, he tenderly reminisced about the great things God had accomplished in Luba: The work at this center has been much blessed of God. A national pastor continues to serve the congregation and witness for Christ in all the surrounding territory. Here the Lord has manifested His grace and power in healing the sick and casting out demons. How pleasing to God it must be to receive the worship of these sincere souls from the different races—Chinese, Tibetan, and half-Tibetan. The former Buddhist monastery was truly transformed. Now it possessed a Christian church, an evangelistic commission and spiritual power. Little Luba has become the springboard for missionary advance into Tibet.21

In 1987, the Christies’ grandson, Bill Conrad, visited Luba, hoping to find out what had happened to his adopted aunt (the little girl the Christies had found lying in a heap of ashes). Conrad was shocked by what he found. He wrote: We met my two adoptive cousins living in Luba along with 30 members of their extended family on that trip. There was still an active church in Luba in 1987, and the family of those two adoptive cousins of mine were a large part of it. All 30 of them were Christians!22

During Conrad’s brief trip to Luba, three Public Security officers were alerted to the American’s visit and immediately rode out on motorcycles to investigate. Conrad was in discussion with his newfound relatives when the officers arrived, and he expressed concern for their safety. They responded: “Don’t worry about us! We don’t fear them! But we worry about you Christians in America. We have heard that you have grown soft in your faith because you have never been made to go through persecution!”23

Believers at Luba in 1987 William C. Conrad

Power encounters William Christie was not a Pentecostal missionary, but he trusted the God of the Bible, and he saw that the pages of God’s Word were bursting with accounts of the miraculous. In order to meet the deepest needs of the people he was called to reach, Christie realized he needed to pray against the demonic strongholds that held Tibetan men and women captive; otherwise his witness would be of little effect. On one occasion he was summoned to a village near Choni, where a Tibetan woman was out of control. As he entered the room: the woman shrank into a corner and screamed, “Oh! That man in white beside you! Take him away! Take him away!” This she repeated again and again, until quieted by Christie’s prayer and command for the evil spirit to leave. No human being in white was present. Christie himself was dressed in blue.24

Another time, Christie was talking with a demonized Tibetan man when the spirit unexpectedly spoke, with a diabolical guttural sound coming from the man’s mouth. Christie, who was a conservative Scottish Christian, testified

that the demon refused to leave the man, protesting: “If my more powerful friends were here they would help me resist you.” Christie asked where the more powerful demons had gone, and was told they were in Europe helping white men kill one another. The Apostle to Tibet noted: This was astounding, for the First World War had just begun, but it was weeks before the Chinese officials or the missionaries on the Tibetan border knew that hostilities had commenced. There was no way by which that ignorant Tibetan villager could have known about Europe, let alone the war, except by spirit intelligence.25

Many incidents of demonic deliverance caused the gospel to advance, as stunned eyewitnesses told others what they had seen and heard. Tibetans were well aware of the power of the lamas and sorcerers to place curses on people, but nobody had ever heard of a power that could set demonized people free. As a result, the Name of Jesus Christ became greatly revered throughout parts of Amdo. The Christies continued to serve God wholeheartedly as they raised their four children in Amdo, even though numerous attacks and threats were made on their lives. On one occasion a band of 170 Tibetans from the wild Tebbu tribe came down from the hills to murder Christie and destroy the mission. The Tebbu sorcerers had gone into a trance to consult their powerful spirits. Unsurprisingly, the demons instructed the lawless men to kill the Christians, but another miraculous intervention spared the family. In 1918, during their third furlough, the Christies made the heartwrenching decision to leave their four children with friends in Montana so they could further their education, while William and Jessie returned to Tibet alone for another term of seven years. After boarding their ship to the Orient, the couple sat down and openly wept for some time. Their call had cost them everything they had, but with tears in their eyes they rededicated themselves to the Lord Jesus and His service. Jessie returned to the USA to be with her four children in 1920, while William soldiered on alone in Tibet. When he finally left the area for the final time in 1924, many believers wept bitterly as the Apostle to Tibet rode off after nearly 33 years of sterling missionary service in one of the most difficult places on earth. After being reunited with his family in the United States, Christie continued to serve with the CMA, and for the next 20 years he preached

nearly every weekend. He finally retired at the age of 77, and went to his eternal reward in January 1955 at the age of 84.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

To indicate the modest size of the Christian and Missionary Alliance at the time, when Christie returned to the United States on furlough in 1899 he was able to visit and speak at every church in the denomination. Howard Van Dyck, William Christie: Apostle to Tibet (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1956), p. 28. William C. Conrad, Sent to Open Eyes: Physical and Spiritual Sight for West China’s Blind (Abbotsford, WI: Life Sentence Publishing, 2014), p. 8. William D. Carlsen, Tibet: In Search of a Miracle (Nyack, NY: Nyack College, 1985), p. 37. Cited in Conrad, Sent to Open Eyes, p. 19. Van Dyck, William Christie, pp. 17–18. Carlsen, Tibet: In Search of a Miracle, pp. 39–40. Van Dyck, William Christie, pp. 47–8. Conrad, Sent to Open Eyes, p. 13, partially quoting Van Dyck, William Christie, p. 50. Van Dyck, William Christie, pp. 54, 57. Conrad, Sent to Open Eyes, p. 16. Conrad, Sent to Open Eyes, p. 17. Conrad, Sent to Open Eyes, p. 20. Van Dyck, William Christie, pp. 66–8. Milton D. Stauffer, The Christian Occupation of China (Shanghai: China Continuation Committee, 1922), p. 281. Van Dyck, William Christie, p. 67. Blanche Griebenow, Called to Tibet: The Story of M. G. and Blanche Griebenow (West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing, 2009), p. 89. Global Chinese Ministries (March 1998). Van Dyck, William Christie, p. 73. Van Dyck, William Christie, pp. 75–6. Van Dyck, William Christie, p. 77. Bill Conrad, personal communication, December 2017. Conrad, Sent to Open Eyes, p. 80. Van Dyck, William Christie, p. 125. Van Dyck, William Christie, p. 125.

1910s

Kham It was hoped that the 1910s would continue to see a rapid expansion of Evangelical work in Tibetan areas. In Sichuan Province, however, the hoped-for infusion of new missionaries did not occur because of a lack of suitable candidates, while constant violence meant that travel in the Kham region was too dangerous to consider. Frustrated by the lack of progress, in 1912 John Muir highlighted the differences between the Evangelical and Catholic efforts among the Khampa Tibetans at that stage: In all our territory we have never had more than two Evangelical mission stations. Today the one at Batang is without missionaries, on account of the disturbances, and at Kangding there is only one. When we were first acquainted with this district in 1906, we found that there were four Catholic mission stations in this territory. They took advantage of every opportunity that has been presented since then, and have now added three more, while we stay practically where we were . . . Ought we to be less zealous than they? Or shall we permit them to be the teachers of the Tibetans?1

A Tibetan noblewoman with a ceremonial headdress, 1910s The few Evangelical missionaries stationed in Kham bravely carried on the work, although they frequently battled discouragement, and saw almost no fruit despite their faithful and consistent sowing of God’s Word. Every now and then, however, something would happen to lighten the missionaries’ burdens and boost their faith. One such incident occurred in 1917, when the Norwegian missionary couple Theo and Cecile Sorenson received a letter from a living Buddha (a person considered a reincarnation from a lineage of lamas, who is charged with perpetuating a particular school of Tibetan Buddhist teaching). This man had heard the gospel for the first time during a visit to Kangding. In part, the letter said: I, your humble servant, have seen several copies of your Scriptures, and having read them carefully, they certainly made me believe in Christ. I understand a little of the outstanding principles and the doctrinal teachings of the One Son, but as to the Holy Spirit’s nature and essence, and as to the origin of this religion I am not at all clear, and it is therefore important that the doctrinal principles should be more fully explained, so as to enlighten the unintelligent and people of small mental ability.2

The long-established Catholic work in the Kham region continued to experience harsh persecution. On June 12, 1914, Tibetan bandits ambushed and murdered French missionary Théodore Monbeig and his servant Bang Tunjrou, as they rode toward Litang. When Monbeig’s body was examined, his fellow missionaries noted “13 wounds, almost all mortal: five blows from a rifle, six blows from a sabre, and two stone blows.”3 All the foreigners living in Batang, including the Evangelical missionaries, attended the funeral and offered their respects. Monbeig had been stationed among the Kham in northern Yunnan Province, where he had: wanted to have a church like one that is found in France. It had to be made out of stone, and contain a bell-tower with a beautiful bell. He knew the enemies of the gospel would find demolishing a stone building more difficult than the flimsy ones they had previously constructed, and so he set about the extraordinary task of obtaining the necessary materials to realize his dream.4

The Cizhong Tibetan Catholic cathedral—a slice of France on the Tibetan Plateau Julian Hawken The Tibetan Catholics welcomed Monbeig’s audacious plan when they heard about it, for the Buddhists had often mocked their poor church buildings compared to the ancient citadels of wealth and power that were the Buddhist temples and monasteries. After many years of labor the new French-style cathedral was completed. It still sits today at Cizhong, southeast of Deqen, and serves as a reminder of the decades of selfless service performed by Catholic missionaries in that remote location.

Amdo The Buddhist lamas and monks of the famous Labrang Monastery in Amdo territory encountered many difficulties throughout the 1910s, after Gansu Province came under the control of a Muslim general. Disputes over land resulted in the monastery being burned to the ground by the Hui Muslims, and hundreds of monks were put to death in the ensuing carnage. At this crucial time, Tibetan leaders approached a CMA missionary in the area, J. P. Rommen, and asked him to mediate with the general on their behalf, and to plead with him not to destroy the surrounding Amdo communities. When he spoke to the Muslim general, Rommen “not only represented the Tibetan cause, but also spoke of the freedom he hoped he would now have to travel about where Buddhism had been so devastated and do missionary work.”5 Although the Amdo region is primarily located in today’s Chinese provinces of Qinghai and Gansu, parts of north-west Sichuan also fell under the domain of the Amdo rulers. The remote Amdo area known as Ngapa (Ngawa in Chinese) was later incorporated into Sichuan Province and renamed Aba Prefecture. The Evangelical missionaries who served in Ngapa in the early twentieth century recounted this fascinating story of a brief encounter with an unknown tribe:

A deputation from Ngapa came with a request for pith helmets, guns, and Bibles. Their interest in the gospel, like the order, seemed mixed, but . . . 11 years later, a prince from Ngapa greedily bought up 500 Scripture portions. The prince said: “They are not for sale. My people are interested in this gospel.”6

Buoyed by such incidents, Christians continued to distribute Tibetan Gospel booklets to as many people as would accept them. Interestingly, missionaries in Tibet often found that people were attracted to one gospel story above all others—the Prodigal Son. Tracts and posters were printed to help tell the story, which invariably left the Tibetans transfixed and seemingly able to relate to the various characters. Men sighed when they thought about how their lives had followed the same pattern as the wayward son, while others saw in their own family members the character of the older son. All were touched by the father’s willingness to forgive and embrace his lost child. This afforded an opportunity to share the gospel more deeply, and many Tibetans heard of the forgiveness of God toward all who are willing to repent of their sins and place their trust in Him.

French Ridley CIM missionary Harry French Ridley served among the Amdo Tibetans for many decades from his base in Xining. Born in the English county of Northumberland in 1862, Ridley came from a strong Methodist family, with relatives renowned throughout the area as mining engineers. Ridley was called to mission work when he was 17, although it took a further 11 years before he finally sailed for China as one of 35 new CIM recruits in 1890. His first posting was to the Hui Muslim region of Ningxia in north China, where he met and married a single missionary, Sarah Querry. Immediately after their marriage the newlyweds moved to Xining on the edge of the Tibetan world, where they were appointed to lead the work by veteran missionary Cecil Polhill.

French Ridley in his Tibetan clothes After initially receiving a hostile reception, the Ridleys’ standing in the community greatly improved in late 1895, after 18 Muslim villages rebelled and conflict broke out. A steady stream of refugees came into Xining, and although the Ridleys had no medical training and Sarah had just given birth, they set to work treating up to 200 wounded people each day. One account says: Ridley himself nearly died of diphtheria. The dead were simply thrown into the streets . . . Hundreds of wounded thronged the Ridleys, brought on stretchers or carried on men’s backs. Mrs. Ridley stayed alone in the house with her child, treating those who came to her, while her husband went out to work on their 2,000 patients.7

The incredible self-sacrificial actions of the Ridleys earned them a newfound respect, and for the remainder of their years in Xining the people treated them well.

Western China at the time was rampant with disease and danger, and three of the Ridleys’ four sons died in childhood, with two perishing from scarlet fever. Through many years of pain and suffering, French and Sarah continued to serve God faithfully, and they were finally encouraged when locals began to repent of their sins and place their trust in Christ. China’s Millions reported “nine baptisms in February 1906, six in March 1907, and another 15 in December 1907.”8

The living Buddha and the Dalai Lama The Ridleys continued to reach out to Tibetans whenever they could, and in 1911, French shared a story about a living Buddha who dropped by when he visited Xining each year: We entered into conversation with him, and I gave him a copy of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. He took the books away, like many others have taken a book away. But the following year he came back again and after a conversation he said, “I read those books that you gave me last year. I saw what was said in them about Jesus Christ and I am very much interested. Would you like to give me some more books?” I gave him the Gospels of Luke and John. He read the books, understood what he read, and he came back the following year again and said, “I enjoyed those books very much indeed . . . I should like to have a copy of Acts and of Revelation.”9

Ridley wasn’t sure how the living Buddha knew about the other parts of the New Testament, but he wrote to the British and Foreign Bible Society and purchased an entire Tibetan New Testament to give to his inquisitive friend. The man was overcome with emotion when he received the gift. Ridley recalled: He sat down on the pavement, with his back against a pillar, and I saw him peering over this book, his whole face beaming with smiles . . . He said, “Is this really for me?” “Yes,” I said, “it is for you. Take it away . . . I want you to take it down to the monastery and read it through carefully” . . . He took it to the monastery, some four days’ journey distant, and I believe that day after day, and every day, that man is looking carefully through the book. Let us pray that this living Buddha may soon find the living Christ.10

The Ridleys also came into contact with an even more famous Tibetan, after the British military seized control of Lhasa in 1904, causing the Thirteenth

Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, to take refuge in the Kumbum (now Ta’er) Monastery in Amdo for one year. The Dalai Lama and Ridley got along well. Reporting on one of their conversations, Ridley said the Dalai Lama told him that “Christianity is a progressive force and Buddhism would decay before it.”11 The Englishman also “had the joy of giving him the four Gospels in Tibetan, well bound.”12 French and Sarah Ridley settled in for what they expected would be many more years of service among the Amdo Tibetans, but plans were derailed when Sarah suddenly contracted typhus and died in August 1913. French deeply grieved the loss of his wife, but he continued in the work, loved by the people of Xining. It was said that “the Xining people took a special pride in him because he spoke their strange dialect, and its weird expressions and tones could be recognized wherever he went.”13 Ridley increasingly invested his time among the Tibetans, and was thrilled when the first Tibetan believer was baptized in 1923, a full 33 years after he had first arrived in China. In 1932, French Ridley finally retired to the peaceful countryside of Northumberland, having spent 38 years of his life in China. He died in 1944 at the age of 82.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

John R. Muir, “Tibet’s Condition and Need of Workers,” China’s Millions (August 1912), p. 98. China’s Millions (November 1917), p. 120. My translation of the Théodore Monbeig Obituary in the Archives des Missions Etrangères de Paris, China Biographies and Obituaries, 1900–1999. Théodore Monbeig Obituary in the Archives des Missions Etrangères de Paris. J. P. Rommen, “Another Foothold for the Gospel in Tibet,” The Alliance Weekly: A Journal of Christian Life and Missions (June 7, 1919), pp. 168–9. Milton D. Stauffer, The Christian Occupation of China (Shanghai: China Continuation Committee, 1922), p. 277. A. J. Broomhall, Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Seven: It Is Not Death to Die! (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989), p. 236. “My Great Great-Uncle: Missionary to China,” China Insight (March–April 2002). Although the ethnicity of these believers is not mentioned, it is likely that most or all were Han Chinese. H. French Ridley, “Then and Now in Siningfu, Kansu,” China’s Millions (July 1911), pp. 102– 3. Ridley, “Then and Now in Siningfu, Kansu,” p. 103.

11

Mrs. Howard Taylor, The Call of China’s Great North-West, or Kansu and Beyond (London: China Inland Mission, 1923), p. 136. 12 Ridley, “Then and Now in Siningfu, Kansu,” p. 102. 13 China’s Millions (May–June 1944), p. 23.

Albert Shelton

Prince of Tibetan missionaries Born in Indianapolis in 1875, Albert Shelton was a member of the Disciples for Christ in America and a medical doctor. At the height of his ministry, Shelton was so respected in Evangelical circles that he was dubbed the “Prince of Tibetan Missionaries,” even though he never learned to read or write the Tibetan or Chinese scripts. In March 1904, shortly after arriving in the remote town of Kangding on the border between Tibet and China, Shelton and his wife Flora were shocked by the reality of life in a war zone where fierce conflict could erupt at any moment. Their new home was described as:

Albert Shelton a wild and dangerous place where brigandage and battle were inextricably woven into a unique culture of warriors and monks. Decapitated heads ornamented the trees and gateposts. Severed hands festooned the government buildings. The Chinese and Tibetans skinned men alive, chopped them into chunks, and boiled them to death in giant cauldrons.1

Soon after arriving on the mission field, Albert and Flora adopted a destitute half-Chinese, half-Tibetan orphan boy named Li Guiguang, whom they found living on a street near their home. They raised him with love and care, treating him the same as their two biological daughters.

A full-service ministry After several years in Kangding, the Sheltons and another missionary family, the Ogdens, moved 17 days further west to set up the first ever Evangelical mission in the extremely remote town of Batang, which at the time was home to 350 Tibetan families. They threw themselves into their work, adopting a “full-service ministry” to reach the Tibetans by any means possible. A summary of their work said: They ran a kindergarten, as well as a school for older students. A hospital was erected, and from this base Dr. Shelton and other doctors did mobile clinic work in the surrounding area. A church was quickly formed, and Sunday classes for both Chinese and Tibetan children were commenced. One missionary led the Chinese class on one side of the room, and Dr. Shelton led a Tibetan class on the other side. The wives did visitation in many country homes, seeking to win the women and children. Missionaries engaged in efforts to help the poor, the beggars, and destitute children to acquire a vocation from which they could make a living. To achieve this goal they taught people to weave rugs, to make soap, to make shoes, and how to farm and garden. Early results from these varied ministries were good.2

The medical work often faced a shortage of supplies due to the remote location and inability of patients to pay for treatment. Albert and the other missionaries plunged all their personal resources into the work, often putting their own needs to the side in order to show the love of Christ to the people around them. Shelton’s biographer remarked: By American standards, the medical fees Shelton received were laughable—about a nickel for everything from a sword wound to a leg amputation. One year Shelton’s fees totaled a quantity

of eggs, meat, yak butter, gunnysack cloth, a few wolf skins, and 96 rupees—less than $25 . . . One afternoon a band of frostbitten Chinese soldiers came to the dispensary. That day Shelton amputated 31 fingers and toes.3

On one occasion a Tibetan leper knelt down before Shelton as a way to show his appreciation for the doctor’s help. The missionary immediately took hold of the man’s arm and lifted him to his feet, firmly saying: Get up from there. We do not allow anyone to get down on their knees to us. Before God, one man is no more and no less than another, whether he is a beggar or leper or no matter who he is.4

His humble attitude helped Albert to be at ease with everyone he met— whether government officials, Buddhist lamas, or peasants. Shelton soon realized that for the kingdom of God to take root among the people of Batang, help would need to be provided to alleviate their chronic poverty. The Batang countryside was extremely dry and desolate, but the missionaries came up with a plan to transform the area. While continuing to share the message of eternal life, under Albert’s leadership the Americans dug an irrigation canal 5 miles (8 km) long to bring water from the upper reaches of the Xiaoba River. The locals named it “Foreigner Channel” in the missionaries’ honor. A total of 165 acres of land was transformed and became fertile, and the valley became a garden of Eden in a barren landscape. Apple, apricot, and peach orchards sprang up throughout the area, adding much-needed variety to people’s diets and generating income that lifted the grateful people out of poverty.

Zenas Loftis Although the list of Catholics who had died in the Kham region had grown to a considerable length, the Evangelicals suffered a blow when 28-year-old Zenas Loftis, from Gainesboro, Tennessee, died just a few months after arriving at Batang in 1909. For years Shelton had been asking God to send a missionary-doctor to join the work, and he was overjoyed when Loftis volunteered to join them.

Zenas Loftis After graduating as a medical doctor from Vanderbilt University, Loftis had started a career in the pharmaceutical business, before the love of Christ compelled him to give up the comforts of his homeland and spend his life for the Tibetan people. After reaching Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, the young recruit spent more than two weeks on horseback as he made his way west. En route, Loftis visited the grave of the China Inland Mission’s William Souder, who had died of illness in 1897 at a remote place two days from Batang. Souder’s humble gravestone carried a powerful message: “I would like to have lived a little longer, but Thy will be done; only send another to take my place. Take up the torch and wave it wide: the torch that lights life’s thickest gloom.”5 That night, Loftis was unable to sleep. He felt as though the Lord was asking if he too was willing to suffer death as a martyr in this forgotten land. The young missionary arose in the middle of the night and wrote in his diary: Sleep on, thou servant of the living God. If it be Thy will that I, too, should find a grave in this dark land, may it be one that will be a landmark and an inspiration to others, and may I go to it

willingly if it is Thy will.6

Loftis soon found his doctor’s surgery in Batang overwhelmed with visitors when a smallpox epidemic broke out just weeks after his arrival. When patients began to die from typhus, he refused to leave the area, believing his call compelled him to remain at his post and treat the sick regardless of the risks. Despite vaccinating himself, Loftis caught both smallpox and typhus, and died six weeks later on August 12, 1909.7 The other Batang missionaries were shocked that the young doctor for whom they had prayed so long was so quickly cut down. Shelton described the impact that Zenas Loftis’ short ministry had on the mission: We in Batang were stupefied and asked the eternal question, “Why, why?” And in an endeavor to find the answer to this question, we got closer to the Lord than we had ever been. In so doing, the Spirit of the Lord was enabled to work and use us as He had never been able to do before. The school grew in numbers and in effectiveness, and a great many people that had never come near the church before began coming.8

When Loftis’ death was announced in his home church, a young Christian doctor named William Hardy immediately offered to take the place of his fallen brother. Hardy was joined by other missionaries, and the Evangelical work among Tibetans in Batang grew rapidly, and over time a number of solid converts were won to the faith.

Fruit after many days When a revival broke out in many parts of China in 1911, its influence spread all the way to Batang. The results were overwhelming, with one report saying that more than 200 (mostly Han Chinese) people at Batang had: confessed their sins of robbery and murder, were trying to quit opium and wine-drinking, and had asked the missionaries to go into their homes and tear down idols, which they gladly did, leaving in their places the Lord’s Prayer. Church services were always crowded, but as with every other group and its audience and converts, Chinese usually outnumbered the Tibetans.9

Missionary James Ogden excitedly wrote about the amazing growth that occurred in the Batang church after the visitation of the Holy Spirit:

Today at our regular service the house was jammed full of Chinese, Tibetan women, and children. There was hardly room to breathe, but the talk was listened to with deathly silence. Certainly we are getting a chance to sow some seed. May it spring up and grow!10

Shelton’s long-term dream was to establish a hospital in Lhasa, the capital and spiritual stronghold of the Tibetan world. For years he tried to send a message to the Dalai Lama, seeking permission to travel to Lhasa and set up a medical clinic there. The Dalai Lama finally responded: “I know of your work and that you have come a long way to do good. I will put no straw in your way.”11 Before Shelton could start out for Lhasa, however, the political situation deteriorated and bloodthirsty bandits ruled the countryside.

Shelton and his two daughters enjoy a picnic with Tibetan friends at Batang in 1913

Albert Shelton with his good friend, the head lama of Batang The Shelton family returned to America on their first furlough in 1910, taking 89 days to travel from Batang to San Francisco. Realizing that the struggling economy in the United States was placing a great strain on his mission organization’s budget, Shelton had collected numerous Tibetan works of art and antiquities, which he sold to the Newark Museum.12 Although the family’s return to Batang was delayed until 1913 because of war and instability in the Kham region, when they finally reached their home, Shelton had sufficient finances to construct a large mission compound, which included a medical clinic and residence. For years the gospel went out to thousands of Tibetans in the surrounding areas, with Shelton riding hundreds of miles each year on the back of his trusted mule. In 1920, while traveling with his wife and daughters, Shelton was kidnapped by bandits who demanded a $25,000 ransom for his release. The rest of his family, though badly shaken, were allowed to go free. Hauled off into the mountains, Shelton was held for 71 days. During the whole time he refused to cooper-ate with his captors’ demands, telling them, “You can kill me or do whatever you wish but I will not be ransomed.”13

The Shelton girls, Dorris and Dorothy, with their Tibetan friends While being held, Shelton lovingly treated the bandits who were sick and wounded, and they gradually came to view the missionary as their friend. After more than ten weeks in captivity, Shelton’s body was so emaciated that he was unable to stand up. In an act of compassion, the bandits “left

him by the side of the road where they knew he would be found by the government troops who had been following them.”14 At the start of 1922, with his wife and daughters back in the United States, Shelton planned the long and dangerous journey to Lhasa, intending to take up the Dalai Lama’s invitation. By now the American missionary was 47 and was worried that his time was running out. He told a friend, “A man’s ability to ride a mule over 17,000 feet [5,181 meter] mountains declines rapidly after he is 50-years-old.”15 When the bandits who had kidnapped Shelton a year earlier heard of his intended journey, they devised plans to kidnap him again. This time their intention was to keep him as their doctor. In February 1922, he commenced the long journey to Lhasa with three Tibetan companions. On the 16th, the other missionaries at Batang were told that a group of 20 bandits had ambushed and shot Shelton at a pass just 6 miles (10 km) away. Russell Morse and William Hardy rushed to the pass and found Shelton unconscious. They gave him an injection of morphine and carried him back to Batang.

Albert Shelton prior to his fatal trip in 1922 His colleagues did all they could to revive him, but at 12:45 on the morning of February 17, 1922, Albert Shelton passed into glory. The small mission community at Batang was grief-stricken, and one of their members wrote: “His death is a great blow, piercing the very heart of the mission. He was truly an outstanding evangelist, and a tireless physician and surgeon. But more than this, he was our encourager, our joy, our constant inspiration.”16 Due to difficulties in communication at the time, weeks passed before news of Shelton’s murder made it to the outside world, and unfortunately Flora and the two girls first heard the news from the American media. A funeral service was conducted by Li Guiguang, the orphan boy whom the Sheltons had adopted 18 years earlier. Li had matured into a fine Christian man and was an effective evangel-ist among both the Tibetans and

Chinese living in the Batang region. After Shelton’s death, churches in America established a memorial fund in his name, “raising over $100,000 for the purpose of founding new mission stations in the Tibetan territory that he had so loved and for which he gave his life.”17 As news spread about Shelton’s life and death, many young people volunteered to take his place on the mission field, including 28 from Enid, Oklahoma, alone. An historian summarized the stellar contribution Albert Shelton made to the work of God’s kingdom among the Khampa Tibetans: Skilled as a surgeon, fluent in Tibetan, compassionate in his ministry to people, he ministered to both Chinese and Tibetans in many war situations and was respected equally by all, who recognized him as a man of God. Some of these contacts gave him hope that he might be able to establish a hospital in Lhasa. Before this became even remotely possible, he was gunned down by brigands.18

Although they had lost their influential leader, the remaining missionaries in Batang bravely soldiered on, and by December 1925 it was reported: Attendance at the Tibetan Sunday school averaged around 170, with the lowest at 148 and the highest at 188 . . . The day before Christmas, 647 of the poor people of Batang were given a good dinner and a Gospel sermon by our chief evangelist . . . The story of Jesus was retold by Li Guiguang. He also gave a good dramatization of The Prodigal Son to the audience of 600 or 700 people.19

Part of the large crowd who gathered for a Christmas service at Batang in 1925

Despite these encouraging signs, the other Batang missionaries struggled to move forward after Shelton’s death, and constant conflict between the Tibetans and Chinese resulted in the mission hospital and other dwellings being reduced to rubble. Finally, internal friction among the missionaries caused the mission to close in 1932, after 28 years of evangelism on the Tibetan frontier. The Batang church had dwindled to just 16 believers.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Douglas A. Wissing, Pioneer in Tibet: The Life and Perils of Dr. Albert Shelton (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 1–2. Ralph R. Covell, The Liberating Gospel in China: The Christian Faith among China’s Minority Peoples (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1995), pp. 74–5. Wissing, Pioneer in Tibet, p. 74. Flora Beal Shelton, Shelton of Tibet (New York: George H. Doran, 1923), p. 165. Cecil Polhill, “The Tibetan Border,” China’s Millions (December 1908), p. 198. James and Marti Hefley, By Their Blood: Christian Martyrs of the Twentieth Century (Milford, MI: Mott Media, 1979), p. 146. A little-known book containing Loftis’ diary entries was published two years after his death. See Zenas Sanford Loftis, A Message from Batang: The Diary of Z. S. Loftis, M.D., Missionary to Tibetans (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1911). Albert L. Shelton, Pioneering in Tibet: A Personal Record of Life and Experience in Mission Fields (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1921), p. 77. Covell, The Liberating Gospel in China, p. 75. Flora Beal Shelton, Sunshine and Shadow on the Tibetan Border (Cincinnati, OH: Foreign Christian Missionary Society, 1912), p. 123. Hefley, By Their Blood, p. 147. Shelton’s artifacts are still on display at the museum today. The wisdom of a missionary selling many of these items should be questioned, as for decades they have helped attract people to Tibetan Buddhism. Gertrude Morse, The Dogs May Bark, but the Caravan Moves On (Chiang Mai, Thailand: North Burma Christian Mission, 1998), p. 27. Morse, The Dogs May Bark, p. 27. Wissing, Pioneer in Tibet, p. 179. Morse, The Dogs May Bark, p. 50. Morse, The Dogs May Bark, p. 59. Covell, The Liberating Gospel in China, pp. 72–3. Morse, The Dogs May Bark, p. 91.

1920s

Ü-Tsang For centuries, Christians had dreamed of setting up base in Lhasa, but only a few courageous souls had managed to enter the land. There had been promising signs that missionaries would soon be granted greater access to central Tibet, but the 1920s once again saw the door slammed in the faces of those who sought to take the gospel to Tibetans. Conflict between Tibet’s two giant neighbors, China and India, brought unrest, and a lengthy tug of war ensued as the world’s superpowers jostled for influence on the Roof of the World. As a result, the authorities in Lhasa once again denied access to foreigners, as they have done at numerous times throughout history. One of the most daring Evangelical missionaries of the 1920s was Theo Sorenson, from Norway, who set off on frequent journeys into central Tibet, carefully documenting his travels and experiences. In 1922, he left his base in Kangding determined to reach Lhasa, accompanied by a caravan of 17 mules and horses, 10 of which were loaded down with Gospel literature. Two of the six men Sorenson recruited to help him on the journey were baptized Tibetan Christians. For months the group slowly made their way toward Lhasa, distributing about 50,000 Tibetan Scripture booklets to people they encountered along the way. On this trip, Sorenson ventured further into central Tibet than previously, but when the travelers were just two days from Lhasa, the Norwegian reported: We were ordered not to proceed further by a messenger sent from the Lhasa captain . . . He would not allow us to come into his district and told us, through other messengers, that it would mean the loss of his head if he did so. I sent him my passports and letters of introduction from lamas and the native prince of Gyantse. I also sent him a present and samples of our Christian literature. The letters he forwarded to the Lhasa general and asked me to wait for his reply, which came about 10 days later. Two lama messengers arrived with letters from the general and the captain in which I was asked to turn back, as they had instructions from their government that no foreigner was

allowed to travel in the Lhasa-governed parts of Tibet. The two lamas told me the instruction came from the Indian government.1

Sorenson and his colleagues were compelled to turn around and retrace their steps all the way back to Sichuan Province, feeling deeply discouraged. The iron gates to the heart of Tibet remained firmly shut throughout the rest of the 1920s, and the Christian world went on praying for the day when the land would truly open to the gospel.

Amdo The kingdom of God continued to spread throughout the Amdo region during the 1920s, although the unstable envir-onment in China at the time meant that progress was slow and difficult. The decade was also notable for the formation of the Chinese province of Qinghai in 1928, when a vast area of Amdo territory was annexed and incorporated into China. At the main Amdo monastery town of Labrang, constant ethnic and religious tension between the Tibetans, Han Chinese, and Hui Muslims regularly spilled over into open bloodshed. Hostilities between the three groups had simmered for centuries, with a dispute over the price of bamboo poles leading to the Hui Revolt of 1895–6, which spread to other provinces and resulted in the slaughter of millions of people. Although the dispute was primarily between the Hui and Han, Tibetans were also drawn into the carnage as rival warlords massacred the populations of entire districts. The ethnic conflict continued into the twentieth century, and in 1919, when the Hui sacked the Labrang Monastery, they burned to death hundreds of monks, dumping their charred corpses on the temple grounds. Throughout the 1920s, tensions erupted at regular intervals as each side aired its grievances against the other, with thousands of Tibetans being slaughtered. When explorer Joseph Rock visited Labrang in 1929, he witnessed the carnage of one battle between the Amdo and the Hui, which was reported in National Geographic:

154 Tibetan heads were strung about the walls of the Muslim garrison like a garland of flowers. Heads of young girls and children decorated posts in front of barracks. The Muslim riders galloped around the town, each with 10 or 15 human heads tied to his saddle.2

Unsurprisingly, mission progress in Amdo largely stalled during the conflict, although the CIM sent a small team of medical missionaries into the white-hot cauldron. A clinic was established at Hualong, where the missionaries were able to minister to the physical and spiritual needs of many nomadic Tibetans when they visited the town to barter for goods. A second small team of missionaries affiliated with the CIM set up base at Guide in Qinghai Province, assisted by a Chinese Christian doctor named Gao. In addition to dispensing medicine, the workers distributed large quantities of Tibetan and Chinese Gospel literature to locals and pilgrims. These intrepid evangelists also ventured on horseback deep into the interior of the unexplored Golog Tibetan territory, sowing the seed of God’s Word wherever they went.

This man with severe sword cuts to his head was brought to the mission for medical treatment Unmarried British women Mildred Cable and sisters Evangeline and Francesca French were three of the most famous Evangelical missionaries of their era. For decades the trio lived in north-west Gansu Province, at the juncture of the Chinese, Muslim, and Tibetan worlds. They frequently traveled among all three peoples, telling gripping stories of the people they

met and the events that unfolded. In 1927, they told of a Tibetan lama they met who had traveled hundreds of miles, prostrating himself on the ground every few steps. The weary devotee had already traveled for six months, and was heading for Lhasa, more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) distant. The ladies recalled: We handed him a copy of St. John’s Gospel, in which he at once read aloud the opening words, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The happy expression used in the translation gripped him at once, and he listened with profound attention while we preached Jesus to him. His face lit up and he said, “I know about this. This Jesus, of whom you speak, has been greatly troubling me lately in my dreams. I know I shall have to believe in Him!”3

M. G. and Blanche Griebenow In 1921, Marion Grant Griebenow—a “tall, gangly farm boy” from Minnesota who preferred to be called by his initials M. G.—and his fiancée Blanche, a native of Delaware, sailed for the Orient on separate ships one month apart, as it was the policy of the Christian and Missionary Alliance that engaged workers not spend time together until they were married. The new recruits “promised that [they] would go, study the Tibetan language diligently, and make no plans for marriage until after [they] had passed two examinations in that language.”4

M. G. Griebenow sharing the gospel with Bon monks at Labrang M. G. had first heard God’s call to Tibet when the veteran missionary William Christie visited Crown College, where Griebenow was studying. Christie didn’t sugarcoat the challenges anyone wishing to reach Tibet would face, and told the class that: Each time he stood in the open marketplace and distributed pamphlets in the Tibetan language, the monks, who alone were literate, read them and immediately tore them to shreds, shouting angrily. They chased him down the road, stoned him, and ordered him never to return!5

Christie’s challenging message kindled a fire in the young man’s heart, and he consecrated his life more fully to Christ, promising he would willingly go to the most backward and difficult mission field if God desired. M. G. learned all he could about Tibet, but found that no other students shared his interest. His classmates were being trained to reach American youth, and many found it strange that a young man with such potential would “waste” it in a dark, little-known corner of the world. M. G. and Blanche were finally married at Choni, and became the first missionaries granted permission to live at Labrang (now known as Xiahe in Chinese). As they studied the Amdo language with the help of a local monk named Aki Dgom Chok, they were reading part of the Bible aloud when their teacher suddenly exclaimed, “That’s it! That’s it!” He had just read Jesus’ promise that He would never leave nor forsake His children but would be with them to the very end of the age. The missionaries were confused about his reaction and asked for an explanation. The monk made a startling confession: Many of us were afraid that you were getting too popular in Labrang. People were visiting you and inviting you to their homes, even the nomads for miles around. They came to you when they were sick, and you made them well. When they had problems, you helped them. When you preached, they listened. Maybe you would cause trouble, so the sorcerers decided to gather in the temple and chant curses on you. We kept it up day and night. But when we sent someone to see the results, nothing had happened to you. He reported that you were up at the open market, preaching to a crowd of Tibetans, and your wife was visiting some women in the town. The house had not burned down, and the horses in the courtyard seemed to be fine. In fact, nothing had been disturbed. We decided that more sorcerers were needed, and we sent a messenger to bring them from another area to help us with the chanting. Again we kept at it for many days and nights, but with no results. We could not understand it. We knew those demons. We could call them by

name right up from the ground! That was the very first time they had ever failed us. When people hired us to put a curse on their enemies, we called up demons to kill their animals, and whole herds were wiped out. Even the people grew sick and died . . . Now I know why our curses never worked on you. You are protected by a great power that we did not know about. Apparently, demons cannot prevail against the Creator of heaven and earth!6

The Griebenows established strong relationships with the leaders of Labrang, and they became close friends with Apa Alo, the head of the most prominent Amdo family in Labrang. A large part of the Griebenow family’s success and longevity in the Tibetan stronghold was their humble attitude and ability to mingle with the local Tibetans in a way that few Western missionaries have been able to achieve either before or since. Their oldest son, George, provided insights into the extent to which he had integrated into the local community:

M. G. and Blanche Griebenow with three of their sons who were raised with Tibetans I enjoyed growing up there and I trusted these kids and they trusted me. There were no cultural or racial prejudices. It was all I could do to compete with them on horseback and firing a rifle and getting along with them. The Tibetan children were very charming, very lively, full of games, full of fun, full of mischief, very optimistic . . . They were athletic, acrobatic, very good at gymnastics, but above all the Tibetans had a great sense of humor. They loved practical jokes, and unless you could give and take in the field of practical jokes and story-telling and narrative, you were not very well accepted.

I remember being very well accepted and being able to compete at the level of the Tibetans, and they no more thought of me as an invader or a person with a Christian religion . . . I spoke their language and dressed like they did, I accepted them and they accepted me . . . The Tibetan people won my open admiration and I did not consider them in any way inferior or superior to myself as human beings. I was born there, I grew up with them, I saw them have children, I suffered with them, and I enjoyed them.7

The Tibetans had grown to love and respect the Griebenows to such an extent that, on one occasion, after the couple had provided medical treatment to a badly injured bandit and nursed him back to health, the man asked M. G. to become his “blood brother.” This would involve the two men drawing and mixing their blood, thus binding themselves for life. The bandit told the missionary that if he should be killed in an upcoming battle, “My wife will become your wife, my parents your parents, and my sheep, oxen, yaks—everything will become yours.”8 M. G. took the opportunity to share the gospel powerfully with his Tibetan friend, explaining another blood covenant that the Son of God had made with the human race. The man withdrew from the battle and reportedly was persuaded that he didn’t need to offer his wife and possessions to keep his close friendship with M. G.

M. G. distributing Gospel literature on the streets of Labrang The common assumption was that M. G. and the bandit had not proceeded with the blood covenant, but decades later, Griebenow’s daughter Lois revealed: The Tibetans’ loyalty was just as intense as their ferocity. After dad helped a bandit leader back to health after a near-fatal stabbing, the bandit sliced open his finger and mixed blood with the man who saved his life. Dad was then considered a blood-brother for life. Years later, dad’s party was ambushed by this very bandit pack. He called out the name of his blood brother and the attack was called off.9

The Griebenows continued their outreach among the Amdo throughout the 1930s and 1940s, until their long service came to an abrupt end when they were forced to flee before the advancing Communist army in 1949, after 27 years in Labrang. By that time the Griebenows had been joined at Labrang by Wayne Persons and Mac Sawyers and their wives, and the departure of the whole team was a severe blow to the gospel in the area.

M. G. and Blanche became missionaries in Jerusalem for a time, and were then stationed in Hong Kong. For years they petitioned the Indian government for permission to live in north India among the Tibetan refugees, but their applications were continually rejected and they never again worked among the people they loved so dearly.

The Tebbu Further south, in the shadow of the Minshan Range, the Tebbu Tibetans (who had once sent out 170 bloodthirsty men in an attempt to murder missionary William Christie) heard the gospel from CMA workers Edwin and Carol Carlson, who served in the Tebbu (Tewo in Chinese) area from 1922 to 1948. Their son, Bob Carlson, recalled the history of Christian outreach among the Tebbu tribe: It can be said that we were not received there with open arms, for my father was able to rent a house only because the landlord was having a dispute with the rest of the village, and figured the most spiteful thing he could do was to rent to foreigners. When we came on furlough in 1934, the men of a nearby village got together and burned the house to the ground . . . We were never able to live there again, although in Dragsgumna our landlord came to the Lord. Four or five years later his wife, a certified battle-axe of a woman, came to the Lord and was baptized in Choni, where we were living at the time. Because of her changed life her two adult sons also believed.10

Robert Ekvall lived for a number of years in Lhamo, which is better known on today’s maps as Langmusi. Bob Carlson noted: He had many friends among the Tebbus. In 1940, as the direct result of the death of his wife Betty, a majority of the people in one Tebbu village became Christians. My dad had some contact with the believers up until 1948. What became of them is something I would dearly love to know!11

Kham Evangelical work among the Khampa Tibetans had commenced in 1897, and by the 1920s missionaries had established hos-pitals, schools, and orphanages, but had seen little lasting fruit. Despite their efforts, by 1922

the mission at Batang counted only ten converts,12 while the Kangding station numbered “just two or three Tibetan Christians” in 1926.13 One missionary at Kangding shared his frustrations at the difficulties he encountered when trying to help people understand the gospel:

Never having been trained to sit for more than one minute in one position or accustomed to listen for any duration beyond 60 seconds, you can well imagine how difficult it is to get after their minds . . . How to pack into two or three minutes enough gospel to save a man’s soul: “God loved—Christ died—Jesus saves—you believe” . . . The Tibetans have acquired the ability to look you straight in the face without any effort whatever to listen to what you are saying. How utterly and entirely we are dependent on the Spirit of God in this great work!14 In contrast, the Catholics had continued to expand their work throughout the Kham areas of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. By 1924, their mission based at Kangding boasted “two bishops, 15 French missionaries, three indigenous priests, and 4,800 baptized converts. More than one-half of these were Chinese, about two-fifths were Tibetans and Nu, and a few were Nepalese.”15

Notes 1 2

3 4 5 6

Theo Sorenson, “An Itinerating Journey in Tibet,” China’s Millions (January 1923), p. 7. Joseph Rock, “Seeking the Mountains of Mystery,” National Geographic (February 1930), pp. 143–4. On a trip to Labrang in 1995, the author observed there were still simmering tensions between the Amdo and Hui. The Amdo were incensed at plans to build a large mosque, which would have been higher than the monastery roof, and threatened to demolish the mosque if the construction proceeded. Mildred Cable and Francesca French, Through Jade Gate and Central Asia: An Account of a Journey in Kansu, Turkestan, and the Gobi Desert (London: Constable & Co., 1927), pp. 152–3. Blanche Griebenow, Called to Tibet: The Story of M. G. and Blanche Griebenow (West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing, 2009), p. 10. Griebenow, Called to Tibet, p. 6. Griebenow, Called to Tibet, pp. 134–5.

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Cited in Paul Kocot Neitupski, Labrang: A Tibetan Monastery at the Crossroads of Four Civilizations (Boulder, CO: Snow Lion, 1999), pp. 59–61. Neitupski, Labrang, p. 61. Lois Kemerer, cited in Neitupski, Labrang, pp. 61–2. Bob Carlson, personal communication, February 2001. Bob Carlson, personal communication, February 2001. Milton D. Stauffer, The Christian Occupation of China (Shanghai: China Continuation Committee, 1922), p. 278. R. Cunningham, “Camping Out among Tibetans,” China’s Millions (May 1926), p. 72. Cunningham, “Camping Out among Tibetans,” p. 72. Ralph R. Covell, The Liberating Gospel in China: The Christian Faith among China’s Minority Peoples (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1995), p. 50.

Sundar Singh—the Apostle with the Bleeding Feet Sundar Singh, the son of a wealthy Sikh landowner, was born in north India in 1889. Considering his background, nobody would have predicted that this man would one day be remembered as the most famous Indian evangelist of the early twentieth century. As a young man, Sundar’s mother took him every week to sit at the feet of a sadhu—an ascetic Hindu holy man—who lived in a remote forest. When their son was old enough, his parents wanted Sundar to have the best education, so they sent him to a Christian school run by missionaries so that he could learn English. However, when Singh was 14 his mother suddenly died, plunging the teenager into deep despair and enmity against anything to do with religion. He began to hate the missionaries, and openly:

Sundar Singh persecuted their Christian converts, and ridiculed their faith. In final defiance of their religion, he bought a Bible and burned it page by page while his friends watched. The same night he went to his room determined to commit suicide on a railway line. However, before dawn, he wakened his father to announce that he had seen Jesus Christ in a vision and heard His voice. Henceforth he would follow Christ, he declared.1

Sundar later shared what happened on the night when he decided to kill himself: Jesus came into my room. As I was praying for the last time, a bright cloud of light suddenly filled the room . . . and out of the brightness came the face and figure of Jesus. He spoke to me . . . “How long will you persecute Me? I have come to save you. You were praying to know the right way; why do you not take it? I am the Way.” He spoke in Hindi, and He spoke to me.2

Sundar’s family did not share the excitement of his new faith. His enraged father, Sher Singh, held a “farewell feast” where he publicly disowned Sundar, pronouncing him “dead.” Several hours after the feast Sundar became violently ill, and he realized he had been poisoned by his own family. He rushed to a nearby Christian hospital, and his life was spared.

On his sixteenth birthday Sundar was publicly baptized at Simla in north India. A year later, in October 1906, he shocked everyone by appearing in a yellow robe and turban—the dress of a sadhu. He declared: I am not worthy to follow in the steps of my Lord, but, like Him, I want no home or possessions. Like Him I will belong to the road, sharing the sufferings of my people, eating with those who will give me shelter, and telling all men of the love of God.3

Sundar’s zeal for the Lord soon became legendary. He was known to pray for several hours each day and to fast for weeks at a time. He took a vow of poverty and decided to hold nothing back from the cause of Christ. His travels took him not only to Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist settlements throughout the Himalayas, but also to Europe, America, Australia, and various Asian countries, where he invariably spoke to large audiences. In all the places he visited, Sundar wore the garments of a sadhu, and Christians gave him the nickname, “the Apostle with the Bleeding Feet.” On many occasions he was arrested, beaten, and stoned. He faced incredible hardship, yet he carried on, a trophy of God’s grace in one of the harshest spiritual climates in the world. Sundar Singh had numerous admirers, but also many critics. For many of the missionaries in India, his ways were just too radical to embrace. Those who enjoyed safe Christianity felt threatened by the intensity of his commitment and methods of operation. At one stage, missionaries persuaded Sundar to enroll at a Bible college to be “equipped for the ministry.” He graduated and was ordained, but in 1911 he had a change of heart, handed back his preacher’s license, and returned to the simple life of a sadhu.

Called to Tibet The mysterious land of Tibet had attracted Sundar since he was a young boy, and he made his first preaching trip there in 1908, after spending some time learning basic Tibetan in the town of Poo, 8 miles (13 km) from the Tibet border, where the Moravian pioneer Edward Pagel and his wife had first settled down almost 60 years earlier. In 1912, Singh decided to preach the gospel for several months each summer in Tibet, and Tibetan areas in today’s Nepal and north India. He

encountered much opposition in those dark places, and many attempts were made on his life. Three of the methods of torture employed by Tibetan lamas at the time included being sewn into a wet yak skin and left in the sun to be squeezed to death as the skin tightened; being smothered with cloth filled with leeches and scorpions to sting him and suck his blood; and being tied to a tree overnight as bait for wild animals.

Angelic deliverances Sundar Singh’s accounts of his journeys into Tibet became very popular and were widely distributed around the world. On several occasions he found himself in deep peril, only for God to send angels to rescue him. Once, he came to a raging river that was too swift and deep to cross. Night was falling, and the sounds of wild beasts filled the nearby forests. He looked across the river and saw a man warming himself by a fire. “Don’t worry, I will come and help you!” the man shouted, and he fearlessly stepped into the water and came across to help the evangelist. As the man carried him on his shoulders to the other side, Sundar thought to himself: He must live here, and so be used to crossing. I must tell him the Good News about Jesus . . . On arrival at the other bank Sundar slipped off his rescuer’s back, glanced around to get his bearings, then turned around to speak to him—but the man had disappeared. Neither was there any trace of the fire.4

On another occasion, Sundar reached the Tibetan town of Razar, where he was arrested and sentenced to death by the head lama. Buddhists are forbidden to take life, so the lama had Sundar cast into a well, with the iron cover securely locked until he had perished. The smell of the putrid water made the evangelist’s soul recoil: The bottom of it was covered with dead men’s bones and rotting flesh, and the stench was almost overwhelming . . . It was far worse than anything he had ever experienced before . . . He was in that well for two days and nights, and on the third day he heard a sound above. The cover of the well was being removed and then a rope was let down and a voice told him to take hold of it . . . As he breathed in the fresh air, he felt himself strangely revived . . . but he was alone. There was no sign of his rescuer . . .

The following day, back in the village, news reached the head lama that the sadhu who had been thrown down the well was out and about preaching. Again Sundar was brought before him. The head lama demanded to know how he had escaped, but all Sundar could tell him was what had happened, and that he had seen no one. Furiously, the lama asserted that someone must have stolen the key to the well, and ordered that a search be made for it. No one was more taken aback than he when it was eventually found on his own girdle.5

Katar Singh One of the more fascinating parts of Sundar Singh’s ministry occurred as he traveled into Tibetan areas. On several occasions angry lamas shouted at him, “If you don’t leave here we will treat you the same as we treated Katar Singh!” Sundar had never heard of such a person, and he began to piece together information. He learned that Katar Singh had been a young Sikh from the same part of India that Sundar hailed from. He too had converted to Christ and received a call to preach the gospel in Tibet, probably in the 1880s. Katar Singh learned to speak Tibetan and made his way to the town of Tashigang, in today’s state of Himachal Pradesh near the Tibetan border. He remained there for three months, preaching the gospel to everyone who would listen, but the head lama of the Tashigang Monastery threatened to kill him. Katar showed no fear, and told the lama that for him, to die was gain as he would receive his eternal reward and be with the Lord Jesus Christ forever. Katar Singh’s response infuriated the head lama, who sentenced him to death. He was: taken up a hill and there sewn into wet yak skins and left in the sun. He said, “I shall rise to heaven and be with my dear Lord.” Having sewn him into the wet yak skins the executioners left, but returned from time to time to see what effect it was having on him, and were amazed and puzzled when they found him singing and praying . . . For three days they came and at last they saw him die—praying the Lord to receive his spirit and to forgive his enemies . . . The chief secretary of the lama who had sentenced him obtained possession of Katar’s New Testament . . . and was convinced of the truth, to the extent that not only did he put his trust in Jesus Christ, but told the lama he had done so. The lama was furiously angry and passed on him the same sentence as on Katar. In this case, however, he was not left in the yak skins long enough to die. He was cruelly tormented with red hot skewers thrust into his body, then dragged through the streets by a rope tied around his body and eventually thrown on a dust heap outside the town and left to die. But he did not die.

Gradually he recovered enough strength to crawl away, and recovering from his awful ordeal, returned to the town where people were so over-awed at seeing him alive and strong that they dared do nothing further to oppose him.6

Later, Sundar was preaching in his hometown when he retold the story of the mysterious Katar Singh. As he spoke, he noticed an old man on the outskirts of the crowd weeping. It was Katar Singh’s father.

Controversies While there were many Christians around the world who loved and respected Sundar Singh, and he had many close friends who vouched for his integrity, as his fame spread he also had a growing number of detractors. Although many of his accounts of miraculous escapes were believed, Sundar lost a lot of credibility in the Western world when he returned from a trip to Tibet in 1912 and claimed to have met and shared deep fellowship with a 300-year-old Christian hermit, the Maharishi of Kailash, who lived in a remote Tibetan cave. The hermit declared that he had been born in Alexandria, Egypt, and that he was a member of the Sanyasi Mission, which had 24,000 secret believers scattered throughout the darkest areas of Asia. Sundar later told a trusted missionary colleague that he had met with leaders of the Sanyasi Mission, and that he believed they were the descendants of believers left behind by Antonio de Andrade’s outreach to the Guge kingdom in Tibet in the 1600s. One account of Sundar Singh’s life said: “At times he had been rescued by members of the Sanyasi Mission— secret disciples of Jesus wearing their Hindu markings, whom he claimed to have found all over India.”7 Sundar’s stories about the Maharishi of Kailash caused many to question his veracity, and even his sanity. The evangelist, however, was unconcerned, and refused to enter into arguments or protracted correspondence on the matter, preferring instead to focus on preaching the gospel as he traveled around. Later in life, Sundar Singh was accused by some of being a universalist, believing that ultimately God will save all people, regardless of their belief.

He was also accused of believing that hell was not eternal, but that a soul was capable of working its way out of the torment over time. Perhaps the Scottish missionary Daniel Smith best summed up the enigma of Sundar Singh with these words: One would not wish to diminish any influence the sadhu had in setting before men the love of the Savior. But the spiritual legacy left behind by him was not the best. He was a man who made much of ecstatic visions, and the idea became widely believed in India that no real assurance of God’s acceptance of us was possible without some confirmatory vision. Time and again I had to deal with this, and the peril is that it places faith in visions rather than in the finished work of Christ on Calvary’s cross.8

A mysterious death Sundar Singh’s life had been shrouded in intense mystery, so it was not surprising that his death would follow the same pattern. By the early 1920s, Sundar’s health was beginning to deteri-orate from the hardships he had endured, even though he was only in his early thirties. He made another trip to Tibet in 1923 and returned home exhausted. For the next several years he continued to preach, while refusing to belong to any denomin-ation or to start one himself. During those years he turned his hand to writing books, which enjoyed great success and were translated into numerous languages.9 In 1927, he again attempted to enter Tibet through the Niti Pass, but was forced to turn back due to illness. Finally, in June 1929, he disappeared while inside Tibet and was never seen again.10 He had told friends of his intention to go back to the Mount Kailash area, and possibly to visit Razar, the town east of Lake Manasarovar where he had been thrown into the well years earlier. Singh had heard there were a few Christians living there, and he wanted to go and see if it was true. Just how Sundar Singh died remains a mystery, but rumors circulated that he had been put to death by enraged Buddhist lamas. A biographer of the Apostle with the Bleeding Feet wrote: Reports of his disappearance appeared in newspapers all over the world, and wild speculations as to what had happened to him ranged from murder, to his having retreated to a remote cave to

spend the rest of his life in solitary prayer like the Maharishi of Kailash. He might have had a heart attack, or slipped off a narrow mountain path. The most likely explanation of what happened . . . is that he died in the cholera epidemic that swept away many of the pilgrims along the Ganges Valley at that time, whose bodies were thrown into the river, no record concerning them being possible . . . There is nothing in the death he died to distract attention from the outstanding influence of the life he lived. He founded no work, established no order and was of no political significance, yet his name is still remembered, and books about him continue to be written 60 and more years after his disappearance.11

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10

11

John Woodbridge (ed.), More Than Conquerors: Portraits of Believers from All Walks of Life (Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1992), p. 148. Cyril J. Davey, The Story of Sadhu Sundar Singh (Chicago: Moody Press, 1963), pp. 32–3. Woodbridge, More Than Conquerors, p. 148. Phyllis Thompson, Sadhu Sundar Singh: A Biography of the Remarkable Indian Holy Man and Disciple of Jesus Christ (Carlisle: OM Books, 1992), p. 74. Thompson, Sadhu Sundar Singh, pp. 75–6. Thompson, Sadhu Sundar Singh, pp. 78–9. Woodbridge, More Than Conquerors, p. 150. Daniel Smith, Pilgrim of the Heavenly Way: The Autobiography of Daniel Smith, Christian Missionary to Asia (Hannibal, MO: Granted Ministries Press, 2010), p. 112. Apart from the books cited in these Notes, other books written on Sadhu Sundar Singh’s life include A. J. Appasamy, Sundar Singh (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1958); Dayanandan Francis (ed.), The Christian Witness of Sadhu Sundar Singh (Alresford, UK: Christian Literature Crusade, 1989); Burnett Streeter and A. J. Appasamy, The Sadhu: A Study in Mysticism and Practical Religion (London: Macmillan, 1923); Janet Lynn Watson, The Saffron Robe (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1975); and T. E. Riddle, Vision and Call: A Life of Sadhu Sundar Singh (Auckland: Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, 1950). Whether Singh died while inside today’s Tibet, or in Tibetan areas on the Indian side of the border, has not been determined. He was last seen passing through Simla in today’s Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, heading toward the Tibetan border. It is known that three times he managed to go as far as Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar, inside today’s Tibet Autonomous Region. Thompson, Sadhu Sundar Singh, pp. 182–3.

The Jiarong The Khampa Tibetans share their region with many other ethnic groups, including 250,000 Jiarong, who are distinct from Tibetan people on account of their vastly different language, dress, and customs. The Jiarong inhabit isolated areas in western Sichuan, and consider Mount Gongga (Minya Konka in Tibetan), an imposing mountain 24,790 feet (7,556 meters) high, to be their spirit-queen and protective guardian. Most Jiarong people who live in strongly Tibetan areas have adopted Tibetan Buddhism as their religion, while others share the polytheistic beliefs of their Qiang neighbors. Overlaying the Jiarong worldview is a belief in the ancient Bon religion, and their communities contain many Bon temples.

A Jiarong woman in traditional dress Midge Conner

For countless centuries the Jiarong have inhabited isolated valleys within the vast Aba Prefecture in north-west Sichuan Province. Before the Communist takeover of China in 1949, the Jiarong were distributed among 18 small kingdoms that were virtually inaccessible to the outside world. Today, the Jiarong have five subgroups with significant dialect differences. This separation appears to have come about after a war in the 1760s, when the 18 kingdoms were divided into five colonies by the queen of the Jiarong. The history of Christians trying to reach these fascinating people has also fallen outside the scope of normal Tibetan mission efforts. Evangelicals first engaged the Jiarong in the early 1900s, when the American Baptists and the Border Mission of the Church of Christ in China set up bases in the area, but mission work among the Jiarong was dominated by just one exceptionally tough man.

Huston Edgar The difficulties and extreme isolation of work among the Jiarong took a toll of many prospective missionaries, but for the first three decades of the twentieth century, efforts to reach the Jiarong were spearheaded by a resilient New Zealander, James Huston Edgar. Born in 1872, Huston, as he was known to friends, grew up in the rugged mountains and fresh air of the Central Otago region in New Zealand’s South Island. After leaving home at the age of 14, the rugged bush life and hard work that Edgar experienced proved to be ideal preparation for a rugged life among the Jiarong. After Edgar married newly arrived Australian missionary Lily Trudinger at Chengdu in October 1902, the couple made their way to the strategic border town of Kangding, which was to be their home for most of the next 33 years. It was said of Edgar:

A rare picture of Huston Edgar, missionary to the Jiarong for 33 years Death held no fear for him; his quiet blue eyes often looked in its face. Lawless brigands, angry lamas, savage dogs and intense cold—none of these things could make him turn aside from his purpose . . . His ambition as a missionary was to do something extraordinary, something that possibly no other missionary had done before. If no missionary had been there before, well, he wanted to go.1

Huston Edgar was a tireless servant of God, often trekking over mountain passes up to 18,000 feet (5,486 meters) above sea level. He was a rugged individualist, and once when asked if he liked working alone, he replied: “Yes! I prefer being by myself, for various reasons. It is a very rough life which few can stand, and it would often have increased my difficulties to have had another missionary with me.”2 Edgar also had an aversion to publicity, and despite his long career which spanned more than three decades, no photograph of him was published in any mission publication, nor was his image to be found in a small book he wrote in 1908.3 So remote were some of the areas Edgar

wandered through, it is believed he was one of the first foreigners to see giant pandas in their natural habitat in China.4 Edgar’s unique call was distinguished by many remarkable escapes from danger, and a relentless drive to share the gospel with everyone he met, mostly by distributing Gospel literature. He was often in peril, was threatened by armed bandits on numerous occasions, and frequently came across the decapitated bodies of murder victims on the remote trails he used. The pioneer had boulders rolled down hills at him, was often pelted with rocks, and on more than one occasion the Tibetan lamas set their savage attack-dogs on him. Through these and countless other incidents, God preserved His servant and enabled him to continue to spread the light of the gospel to thousands of lost people. The New Zealander’s annual reports make interesting reading, and provide glimpses into his grueling schedule. In 1914, Edgar reportedly “traveled 2,025 miles [3,280 km], and sold more than 13,000 Scripture portions and other Christian booklets, about one-fourth being in Tibetan script.”5 Missionaries at the time tended to sell Christian literature if possible, as they believed that people would appreciate it more if they paid than if it was just handed to them for free. Charging a nominal sum assured that the recipient actually wanted the item and was not merely taking it to be polite. The literature was sold at well below cost, so it was not a money-generating exercise for the missionaries. Edgar’s 1915 annual report revealed yet another punishing year of exertion for the sake of the gospel: I have been on the road nine months out of the twelve, and traversed more than 3,000 miles [4,850 km] on foot and about 1,500 miles [2,430 km] on horseback . . . The fiery little revolution . . . left me unhurt, but the midnight snows nearly froze me to death . . . It is easy to prove that the Tibetan portions are valued, for some years ago it was not uncommon to see the leaves attached to poles and doing duty as prayer flags. But it is quite safe to say that this idolatrous homage to the Scriptures is a thing of the past; the people now understand their mission and take them to read or have them read.6

Over time, Huston developed good relationships with Jiarong people in diverse locations, and they often rejoiced when he came to visit. He always did his best to share Jesus Christ with his hosts, but language barriers made

the distribution of literature vital in order to communicate the truths he so desperately sought to convey. He explained: “I am careful only to leave annotated Gospels and simple tracts, and I am confident much of the literature is understood.”7 At the start of 1916, Edgar set out on another long journey through regions he described as “the most dangerous part of the most dangerous corner of China.” He was loaded down with Gospel literature that he planned to distribute to lamas and monks he met along the way, as they were usually the only people who could read. After passing through several villages he reported: “I was out after lamas, and the fact that I left with 160 Tibetan books and came back without any shows that I found them . . . I was well treated, and everyone was very eager for Tibetan literature.”8

Locked up with a lunatic Huston Edgar was a very tough and determined man, and no risk was considered too great to take, as long as it involved sharing the gospel with those who had never heard. In a rare interview in 1919, he recalled a few of the more extraordinary situations he had found himself in during almost 20 years of service: On more than one occasion I have gone straight forward into central Tibet, even for hundreds of miles, without interference. One tour I made down south was in quite unexplored territory; this part of the country was even prohibited by the Chinese, and if found there without permission, the penalty was death . . . In an unknown principality,9 I was book-selling when a prince shut me up in a tower with a raving lunatic, who was unchained, hoping thus to get rid of me. Fortunately, instead of attacking me, the maniac smashed down the door and broke away, and I was liberated the following day. Then again, in another principality, floods came, for which I was in some way supposed to be responsible, and the lamas incited the people to attack me. They trooped along the road in pursuit, but were held up by a broken bridge, which had been washed away by the flood. I escaped by climbing over a mountain.10

As he neared the age of 50, the seemingly indefatigable missionary continued to lead an exciting, high-energy life among the Jiarong and other unreached groups, while each year he lamented the departure of countless

young missionaries who were unable to sustain the pace or endure a fraction of the hardships that Edgar had endured for so many years. Among the many extraordinary events in Edgar’s life, in 1920 he told of a time when he inadvertently: walked into a camp of 400 brigands. They were armed to the teeth and were as alert and efficient as any set of men I have ever seen . . . I walked into their camp and began to sell books to them, and the local joke is that I made them pay! I arrived at Fengzhou without incident, and the next day at noon the brigands attacked the town and robbed it clean.11

Every day, for many years, Huston Edgar continued his lonely ministry on the Roof of the World, trusting God that His Word would not return void but would bear good fruit for the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Once, he shared his motives and hopes for the strategy of literature distribution that he had tirelessly pursued: Bible selling is an especially arduous form of mission work. You cannot guess what awaits, and you must walk long distances, selling as you go. The noise of the chattering, shouting, tramping crowds is peculiarly distressing to many—myself included. Headaches and vertigo invariably follow, and often at night in troubled dreams the work is feverishly continued. Inns, too, are dirty and noisy, while the food is made palatable by hunger and long experience. Book-selling is lonely work. Every man you see is a stranger, and multitudes are always staring . . . or insulting the “man with the Book” . . . We are here today because the Bible is no ordin-ary book. It is God’s message to man, and as such has a unique power behind it. Bible distribution is like shelling a fortified area; put in enough missiles and vital damage will be done.12

A change of pace Edgar was also a family man, and in 1920, Lily gave birth to their fourth child, a son named Oscar. The locals loved him, and even veteran lamas seemed more receptive to the gospel because of the presence of the bubbly boy. As Huston grew older, and with the needs of a young family to consider, the pace of his ministry slowed down and he spent more time near his base in Kangding. The wisdom of this change was reinforced by an incident in 1924 when Oscar was kicked in the head by a horse, suffering a deep gash. The Edgar family was ten days’ journey from the nearest doctor, but the

Lord kept the open wound from becoming infected. Oscar carried a scar on his forehead for the rest of his life.

Four-year-old Oscar Edgar with some of his Tibetan friends While in Kangding, Edgar continued to reach out to Tibetan pilgrims who passed through the strategic hub, some of whom had traveled over a month from far-flung parts of the Tibetan world. He humorously noted: I have made an effort to put literature in the hands of all vis-itors to Kangding, and I imagine the Tibetan who returns home without literature is exceptionally elusive and has specialized, as it were, the art of dodging round corners! My heart is set on Litang, but permission has not been given for me to visit the highest town on earth. But its nomads often come to Kangding. They are gloriously wild and smell like smoked hams seasoned with herbs! But I get in touch with them and bring them at times right through our house! This annoys my wife but interests them greatly, and I am sure the bread cast upon the waters will return in God’s time. Indeed, even now nothing but smiles and nods of friendly recognition greet me as I pass along the streets of Kangding.13

Scripture for the Jiarong As the years progressed into the 1930s, reports from the Edgars became less frequent, as Huston was determined to produce the first ever Gospel literature in the Jiarong language (using the Tibetan script), to help the people know the love of God. After much hard work, the Gospel of Mark in Jiarong was published in 1932. A mission leader who did a tour of the region with Edgar reported: Thousands of Scriptures were distributed, in many cases sold, and it is the simple truth to say they were seldom refused. One of the thrills of the trip was the occasion when for the first time in his life an old man read a tract, the first and only literature ever published in his own Jiarong tongue. The shock of surprise that came over his face as he read and cried out, “Oh, I understand!” was something not soon to be forgotten.14

By 1934, Edgar and other missionaries had distributed 10,000 copies of the Jiarong Gospel of Mark,15 while two new couples with the CIM—Edward and Marjorie Beatty, and Howard and Merle Jeffrey—were appointed to carry on the work at Barkam, in the heart of the Jiarong region. They were soon joined by Arthur Pocklington and Norman Amos. The new recruits understood that reaching this remote group would cost them everything they had, with Jeffrey noting: We are not blind to the fact that for a person to open the gates of this barricade and allow the Spirit of the Lord Jesus to enter will probably mean death and almost certainly severe persecution for that person.16

A mighty tree falls Huston Edgar was deeply loved by his peers, and younger missionaries gravitated to him and enjoyed his down-to-earth personality. He had been laboring in one of the world’s toughest spots for so long that he had gained an indestructible reputation, but age began to slow him down, and in 1934 he revealed his frustration at his diminished output that year, the result of instability caused by the Communist troops as they passed through the region, slaughtering thousands of people along the way.

Kangding was completely cut off from the outside world, causing Edgar to lament: “This is my worst year, as regards numbers, for more than a decade; and it will live in my memory as the most arduous and irritating in my frontier experience.”17 The following year, in November 1935, reports emerged that Huston Edgar was ill with heart trouble. A doctor immediately set out on the long journey to Kangding to treat the veteran missionary, but he reported: On arrival I found, as I had feared, that Mr. Edgar had a dis-ordered heart. He had a heart attack when I arrived. Mr. Edgar had to pass through an extremely trying time while Kangding was open to the “Reds.” Unable to escape, and past being able to walk any distance, with no reliable person to help him, he had nothing else to do but sit in the house expecting the “Reds” to enter at any time.18

A few months later, the 64-year-old Huston Edgar passed into the glorious presence of Jesus Christ, while his wife and their four children were in Australia. Despite his long and distinguished career in the Kham region, Edgar remained unknown to the wider Christian world. His death brought few acknow-ledgments, although one tribute to the pioneer said: It would not be inappropriate to term him an apostle to the Tibetans. His knowledge of the people and their almost unexplored country was unrivalled . . . but it was a source of regret to him that his knowledge in a specialized field had not been made more available to readers. A unique and lovable personality, he gave himself with utter devotion to the exploration and evan-gelization of Eastern Tibet.19

The Edgars’ only daughter, Elsie, was born on the mission field in 1905. She became a nurse and later spent decades serving God among Aborigines in Australia, and she also worked in Korea. She subsequently became the head matron of the Paton Memorial Hospital in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). In 1965, Elsie was awarded an MBE (Member of the British Empire) for her sacrificial service, before retiring from the mission field in 1973.

The demise of the Jiarong work The missionaries among the Jiarong were shocked by Edgar’s death, but they soldiered on, vowing to continue building on the solid foundation that

had been laid by the New Zealander. After an exploratory journey through the Jiarong region, Howard Jeffrey wrote: “The doors are open! Chogschi, with a population of 10,000 Jiarong families, is wide open to us and we are informed we could rent a property there if required.”20 Despite the hopeful outlook, mission work among the Jiarong reached its peak during Huston Edgar’s life, and it gradually eroded after his death. In 1934, some sources had listed 34 Jiarong believers,21 but many subsequently fell away from the faith after the vicious Communist invasion. Many thousands of Jiarong were slaughtered by the Red Army, and the survivors were left deeply traumatized. It is estimated that up to two thirds of the Jiarong population perished in the brutal carnage. The missionaries didn’t give up, however, and continued to share the gospel. In 1935, Howard Jeffrey and Norman Amos reportedly befriended a key Jiarong lama, who gladly received Tibetan Gospel books from the missionaries and offered to teach them Tibetan.22 Three years later, in 1938, Jeffrey reported that he had made contact with a Jiarong prince who had formerly been kindly disposed toward Edgar. Jeffrey hoped that “his sympathy would do much to smooth out difficulties inherent in gospel advance among the Jiarong people.”23 Alas, reports from the Jiarong missionaries gradually ceased, and the work came to an end long before the Communists officially expelled missionaries from the region. One source lamented: “Social ostracism of possible converts, and persecution to the extent of the placing of severe curses by the lamas, or poisoning through family members, were other hindrances to spreading the gospel.”24

Recent efforts to reach the Jiarong After six decades of no known Christian work among the Jiarong, at the start of the twenty-first century members of a Chinese house church mission once again attempted to take the gospel to the Jiarong. They found a number of receptive people, and a small fellowship emerged. Almost immediately, however, the lamas rose up in opposition. The Christians were severely beaten and persecuted, and the Han Chinese missionary was jailed

for a time, before he went missing. No one knows if he died or returned to his home province, but the fledgling Jiarong church was decimated. On May 12, 2008, a massive earthquake struck the Jiarong region, centered on the town of Wenchuan. A total of 88,000 people from various ethnic groups were killed, with another 18,000 missing and presumed dead. Thousands of homes were destroyed, and many Jiarong went into eternity without ever having heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. Today it is thought there are a very small number of Jiarong Christians, but they are scattered across a wide area and have little or no fellowship with one another. The courageous and sacrificial efforts of Huston Edgar and others have yet to bear lasting fruit among the Jiarong, but the King of kings has not forgotten them, and the day will surely come when the Name of Jesus Christ is glorified among this unique and precious group.

Notes 1 2 3

4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Marcus L. Loane, The Story of the China Inland Mission in Australia and New Zealand, 1890– 1964 (Sydney: Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1965), p. 87. “Interview with Mr. J. H. Edgar,” China’s Millions (January 1919), p. 7. See J. H. Edgar, The Marches of the Mantze (London: China Inland Mission, 1908). The book was a commentary on the Tibetan area where he lived, and did not primarily refer to his missionary work. Edgar later wrote Tibet: The Land of Mystery (London: China Inland Mission, 1930). The first foreigner credited as having discovered the giant panda was French Catholic missionary Arnand David, who noticed the hide of a panda on a farmhouse wall in 1869. He asked the farmer to take him to the place where he had shot the animal, and subsequently wrote about the discovery in European journals. China’s Millions (April 1915), p. 60. J. H. Edgar, “Pioneering among the Kin Ch’wan Hordes,” China’s Millions (May 1916), pp. 60–1. China’s Millions (April 1915), p. 60. China’s Millions (April 1916), p. 56. Later accounts placed this incident at Drozur, a remote area in the north-west of the Jiarong area, and the buffer between the Jiarong and the wild Golog Tibetan region of Qinghai Province. See J. Howard Jeffrey, “In Eastern Tibet,” China’s Millions (May–June 1941), p. 43. “Interview with Mr. J. H. Edgar,” p. 7. George W. Gibb, “The Distressed West,” China’s Millions (January 1921), p. 11. J. H. Edgar, “‘Thy Word Is Truth’: Report of Church Work and Bible Distribution in Kwanhsien District during 1921,” China’s Millions (September 1922), p. 134. J. H. Edgar, “Among the Tibetans,” China’s Millions (May 1923), p. 77.

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

J. R. Sinton, “The Open Lands of Tibet,” China’s Millions (March 1933), p. 47. China’s Millions (May 1934), p. 91. China’s Millions (May 1934), p. 91. China’s Millions (August 1934), p. 148. China’s Millions (November 1935), p. 209. China’s Millions (May 1936), p. 97. J. Howard Jeffrey, “Where Christ’s Name Had Not Been Heard,” China’s Millions (July 1935), p. 128. It is unclear if the 34 believers were Jiarong people, or believers from various ethnicities living in the Jiarong area. Norman J. Amos, “A Land of Strongholds,” China’s Millions (February 1935), p. 32. J. R. Sinton, “Mowkung and the Kiarung,” China’s Millions (August 1938), p. 119. Audrey Muse, “A Profile on the Jiarong People of China,” unpublished report, May 1996.

Victor Plymire Undoubtedly one of the greatest ambassadors of Jesus Christ ever to set foot in Tibet was the American Pentecostal missionary Victor Plymire, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1881. As a newborn baby he fell seriously ill and was at death’s door for many hours. A doctor was summoned, and he declared there was no way the child’s life could be spared. Plymire’s mother, Laura, carried her little son’s limp body into the bedroom and closed the door. She laid Victor on the bed and cried out to the Living God for mercy, making a covenant with the Lord that if He would heal the boy, the rest of his life would be dedicated wholly to God’s service. The color returned to the baby’s face and within days he had returned to normal.

Victor Plymire When he was 16, Plymire committed his life to God after hearing the gospel at a street meeting. He became a preacher with the Gospel Herald Society and led several churches in his home state. After being sure the Holy Spirit was calling him to overseas service, Plymire applied to join the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He was promised a monthly allowance of $25, and departed the United States for China in February 1908, sharing his cabin with another new recruit, Ivan Kauffman. After months of travel, Plymire arrived at the town of Lintan in Gansu Province, which was to be his new home base. His first concern was to study the Amdo language, and to get to know the local people and their customs. The new missionary soon discovered it would be no easy task,

however, for the locals had been threatened with severe punishment if they taught their language to the white man. Undeterred, Plymire rode his horse for two days until he came across an old Tibetan man, with a large sword dangling at his side, who agreed to tutor the missionary. The teacher had a rugged look and sported scars across his face from past battles. God placed his favor on their friendship, however, and their bond proved invaluable, as Plymire gradually acquired the Amdo language. One day Plymire told his tutor that he was leaving the next day to visit a nomadic area further west. The battle-scarred man drew Plymire close and whispered: I am the leader of a robber band which hides out along the route you wish to follow. If you insist on going so soon, it will be fortunate for you if you ever come back alive. If you will wait, I will send word to my men so that they will not harm you as you pass by.1

Although he loved being among the Tibetans, Plymire struggled with loneliness, and was thrilled to announce his engagement to fellow missionary Grace Harkless in 1914. Numerous obs-tacles and delays stood in their way, however, and five years elapsed before their wedding finally took place on New Year’s Day, 1919.

God’s favor at Labrang In April 1916, Plymire was praying when he strongly sensed that he should visit the large Tibetan monastery town of Labrang. The town had a notorious reputation; missionaries like William Christie had been attacked and driven from the area in the past. Plymire and a Tibetan Christian guide stayed in a small inn on the outskirts of Labrang, but the moment they attempted to distribute Gospel booklets, “the street ahead of them was filled with angry monks who demanded that they leave at once. Brandishing clubs, they drove the two men back to their inn with threats of violence.”2 Plymire possessed a never-say-die attitude, and he returned just a few days later to try again. He even stayed at the same inn. The next morning he learned that a living Buddha had recently moved to Labrang and had asked to see the missionary. Two men came to the inn to escort Plymire to the

monastery. He couldn’t help but feel amazed at the gracious favor of God as he walked right past some of the lamas who had ordered him to leave the town just a few days earlier. The living Buddha warmly welcomed Plymire, and an elab-orate 16course dinner was served. It emerged that the man was the personal attendant to the Grand Lama of Labrang. The living Buddha arranged a meeting, at which Plymire and the Grand Lama struck up an instant friendship. The missionary, not forgetting his call, asked permission to distribute Gospels to the thousands of monks living in the monastery. The Grand Lama replied: “Yes, you may do so. And since there are so many people you may take as many as ten days to do as you have requested.”3 Overjoyed at the golden opportunity, Plymire got to work as quickly as possible. Thousands of booklets were distributed to the monks, most of whom had never previously heard the gospel. After ten days, resentment began to arise from the other monastery leaders, and the Grand Lama ordered Plymire to leave Labrang before there was an outbreak of violence. That evening a young monk discreetly approached Plymire at the inn and warned him to leave as soon as possible at daybreak. Just minutes after he departed for home, a group of fiercelooking men gathered outside the inn seeking to kill the missionary, but God had helped him escape.

Baptized in the Holy Spirit Although they loved each other’s company, Victor and Grace felt isolated in their work, and they often cried out in prayer for God to send co-laborers to join them. Few Christians, however, showed any interest in serving in such a remote and dangerous part of the world. By 1920, the Plymires felt a need for more spiritual power in their witness to the Tibetan people. Although Victor had faithfully served the Lord for years, he knew a dramatic change was required if the gospel was ever to be widely believed among the thousands of towns and villages where Christ had yet to be named.

While on furlough back in America, the Plymires attended a Pentecostal meeting and were baptized in the Holy Spirit. This experience made their positions untenable with the conservative CMA, so they resigned from the organization and Victor and Grace joined the Assemblies of God.

Fruit at Tangar The Plymire family entered the most fruitful season in their ministry after their return to Tibet in 1922. From their new base at Tangar (now Huangyuan in Qinghai Province), they established an Assemblies of God mission station. They also entered into a deeper consecration in their walk with God at this time, and when they found it would cost $6,000 to build the mission base, the Holy Spirit urged them to liquidate all their possessions to finance the construction. Victor surrendered all the savings he had, while Grace used the inheritance she had received prior to their marriage. God honored their sacrifice, and the new church and mission center were opened at Tangar. The devil didn’t take this progress lying down, however, and rumors quickly spread among the people that anyone who entered the missionaries’ home or church would never be seen again. It was reported that: The white man would kill those who came, remove their eyes and their hearts and use them for making medicine. The crowds dwindled rapidly, and for a long time no one came at all. Day after day, the missionary stood at the entrance of the church, inviting the Tibetans to come in; but they would not.4

The Plymires continued to trust God for a breakthrough, and in 1924, after 16 long years of labor, Victor baptized his first Tibetan convert: a woman who was married to a Han Chinese man. Her journey to salvation began after her husband attended a church service and became a Christian. This caused her to fly into a rage and threaten to kill him if he didn’t recant. Her brother, a Buddhist lama, encouraged her to do everything to destroy her husband’s faith, but he remained steadfast in his commitment to Jesus Christ. One day the Tibetan woman yielded herself to the devil in such a way that she became demon-possessed. Her behavior was so violent that the

lamas were called in to chant over her in a bid to exorcise the evil spirits, but she only seemed to get worse. The next day the Plymires visited the family, only to find the woman lying on the floor in a trance. They immediately entered into spiritual battle for her soul, as a group of terrified relatives looked on. When Victor shouted, “In the Name of Jesus, I command you, evil spirit, to leave!” the woman was instantly released from her torment. The shocked onlookers said that: they saw a loathsome, beastlike creature come out of the woman on the floor. One bystander in the doorway was knocked down as the demon left the place! Again Christ had triumphed. The Tibetan woman was now free—and converted at the same moment!5

Ga Lo, chief of the Kantsa tribe For years the Plymires had heard about the Kantsa tribe, one of many Amdo groups living in the vast region. They had asked God to grant an opening for the gospel to penetrate the Kantsa people, and one day as he was working on the roof of the church, Victor looked down to see a strong young Tibetan man smiling up at him, beckoning him to come down. Victor quickly descended the ladder, and was shocked to discover that the visitor was none other than Ga Lo, the chief of the Kantsa tribe! The two men established a lasting friendship, and just like the bandit who bonded with M. G. Griebenow at Labrang, the Kantsa chief: requested that the two make a blood covenant. This ceremony, to be made as priests chanted out to their gods, would result in Plymire and Ga Lo cutting their wrists and mixing their blood to seal their covenant. Ga Lo then promised that the entire tribe would be open to the Christian faith. Although he refused this attractive offer, Plymire tried to keep the doors of friendship open.6

Ga Lo was not offended by Plymire’s refusal to enter into a blood covenant with him, and he invited the missionary to instruct his people. The Kantsa lived about 80 miles (130 km) west of Tangar, on the other side of Qinghai Lake. The chief asked to be notified of any travel plans in advance, so that he could send a letter throughout his realm to allow the foreigner to pass peacefully through the wild territory. When news arrived that the Golog

Tibetans had also invited Plymire to bring them the gospel, much thanksgiving to God arose from the Christians at Tangar.

Tragedy and despair As 1927 commenced, the Plymires were more excited about prospects for ministry among the Tibetans than ever before, but their plans were soon in tatters. In the first week of January a Tangar resident died of smallpox, and within a few days several more people had perished. On the evening of January 9, five-year-old John Plymire suddenly became ill with an intense fever. His parents cried out for God’s deliverance, but the Creator had other plans. Victor later wrote to his sister in America: We were always comforted in prayer, but the sickness did not leave him. On the third day the smallpox appeared, turning dark almost immediately. We prayed so earnestly for the dear little boy—but Jesus wanted him. During the first seven days of the child’s illness my dear wife never spared herself. We prayed together. On the seventh day she had to give up: the smallpox had broken out on her also . . . On January 20th, at 8:30 in the morning, Jesus took our boy to be with Him . . . In soft, sweet whispers, before he went to be with Jesus, he told me he loved Him. A little later he said softly, “Daddy, Jesus loves me. I have no more pain”. This was the last he said—then he was gone.7

With tears streaming down his cheeks, Victor placed John in a small wooden casket and nailed down the lid. Despite her body being wracked with pain, Grace attended the funeral service. A further week passed until the morning of January 27, when Victor and Grace read together from the Bible and sang their last hymn together. Victor recalled: She asked me to help her to sit up. For a very short time she rested in this position, then she began to sing in such sweet tones, “Jesus is Coming for Me.” Then her head fell against my right arm. The very dearest on earth to me had gone to be with Jesus.8

Victor Plymire, with a heavy heart, also nailed down the lid of his beloved wife’s coffin, as an awful sense of loneliness and despair wracked his soul. The next morning a Chinese friend offered a plot on the outskirts of Tangar. When Victor went to dig the two graves, however, the frozen ground proved

almost impossible to penetrate, and it was decided to place both coffins in the same grave. The agony felt by the dedicated missionary comes through in this letter he wrote to his relatives back home: On January 29th I followed my two loved ones to this lonely spot on the Tibetan mountains. My dear wife and little boy were placed in one grave. Why these dear ones were called away I do not know. I do not question. They were so earnest in trying to evangelize this vast region . . . It is so very hard in the natural: now entirely alone. For several years we prayed for help . . . We begged for someone to help my wife in the work and to be a companion while I was out among the Tibetans. But no one came. Has someone failed God?9

A daring undertaking Victor Plymire soldiered on in his isolated corner of the Tibetan Plateau. The deaths of his cherished ones made eternity even more real to him, and he was more determined than ever to share the gospel as widely as possible. An even greater intensity came over Plymire when he was told that the volatile political situation in China meant all missionaries might soon be ordered to leave the country and never return.

The coffins of Grace and John Plymire, buried on a remote hillside David V. Plymire

Motivated by a new sense of urgency, he launched prepar-ations for a daring undertaking—he would take the gospel across the entire Tibetan Plateau, and would preach Jesus Christ in Lhasa, the forbidden stronghold of Buddhism, before crossing the Himalayas into India. Plymire knew that many Evangelical missionaries had failed in their attempts to enter Lhasa, and he was acutely aware that many had perished while trying to fulfill the dream. He was not put off by the challenge, however. Even if the endeavor would cost his life, Victor no longer put his hope in this world. He was willing to die in the pursuit of lost Tibetans. Although for years Plymire had suffered a great deal from rheumatism, he pressed ahead with plans for the grueling expedition. He purchased 47 hardy yaks to carry Tibetan Bibles, 74,000 Gospel booklets, and 40,000 simple Gospel tracts. Finally, a supply of food was carefully measured out to last the duration of the journey for himself and his colleagues. Five 100pound (45-kg) bags of roasted barley flour were purchased, and packed along with 75 pounds (34 kg) of yak butter. Strips of dried meat were stuffed into sacks together with dried fruit and vegetables, and a pound of American candy. On the eve of his departure into the unknown, Victor once again visited the grave of his wife and son. He had a quiet word with his Lord and Savior, and his journey commenced on the morning of May 18, 1927, accompanied by two Tibetans and three Chinese helpers. As they rode to the west, the small town of Tangar soon faded into the distance until it was out of sight. On the first day, five Tibetan families were presented with the good news of Jesus Christ. The reality of the challenges ahead came into focus on the second day, when several of the yaks collapsed from exhaustion as they crossed a snowbound pass at 13,000 feet (3,960 meters). Despite the challenges, Plymire went to sleep happy that night, for six more Tibetan families had received a gospel witness. Early the next morning the men were jolted awake with a severe rumbling. It seemed as if even nature itself was conspiring against the expedition as a strong earthquake shook the ground. Plymire ordered the party to get up and advance. They found grass for the yaks to graze, and rested for a few days while the tired animals were traded for stronger ones. Victor took advantage of the break to write to his parents:

This will likely be my last letter till I reach India . . . Thus far the Lord has blessed me. I am troubled with rheumatism but God has wonderfully helped me . . . We have already been delayed beyond my plans, and our food supplies may run short . . . I have tried to give the gospel so that all may hear it at least once.10

The letter, dated June 5, 1927, took eight months to reach his parents in the United States. During that time nobody knew if Victor Plymire was dead or alive. Many assumed he had perished like so many other missionaries before him. All records of the remainder of the journey came from Plymire’s personal journal, and from the trusty camera he took with him wherever he went.

Into the unknown Much of Plymire’s journey from this point on was across the vast, unexplored expanse of central Tibet, through regions that remained blank spots on maps of the world at the time. After struggling to cross a desert that was inhabited only by a few Mongols living in tents, neither men nor animals had a sip of water for a full day, and three of the yaks dropped dead from exhaustion. Plymire rode on ahead of the group, and when he came to a stagnant pool covered in scum and mosquitoes, in desperation he got down on his hands and knees and drank deeply to relieve his thirst. Next, they soldiered on across a barren, windswept 250-mile (402-km) plain, when one of the horses suddenly fell into a bog and sank in up to its bridle. Plymire couldn’t afford to lose a horse, and he eventually extracted it from the miry pit after much effort. Although many people have seen Tibetan yaks, few are aware of the massive size and danger posed by wild yaks on the plateau. Standing 6 feet (1.8 meters) at the shoulder and weighing over 2,000 pounds (907 kg), these impressive beasts can easily kill a human being. Plymire set out to shoot a wild yak so that his men could eat fresh meat, but when he opened fire and missed, the yak came thundering toward his assistants. Fumbling desperately: Plymire managed to get a cartridge in place and pulled the trigger. If he missed this time, the game would be up. The badly frightened men watched as the huge animal came to a halt only

50 yards from them—and fell dead.11

For weeks Plymire and his colleagues continued to inch their way across the Tibetan wilderness toward Lhasa, while leaving a gospel witness with every person they met along the way.

The council of death As Plymire’s group slowly pushed on through the huge Ngari region of northern Tibet, a man rode into their camp and demanded to speak privately with the missionary. He informed him that a local chief named Goma Kushuk was aware that they had entered his territory and was sending some of his men to kill them. Plymire discerned that the man was telling the truth, and he dropped to his knees in fervent prayer.

Plymire’s men standing over the wild yak that attacked them The next morning Plymire set out with his two trusted Tibetan friends, No Ga and Ka Zong, and discovered that the chief had already convened a “council of death,” and that a letter the missionary had written to the Dalai Lama in Lhasa had not been sent on. By destroying the letter, the chief

planned to murder Plymire and his men without the authorities in Lhasa having any knowledge of their intended journey. God was at work behind the scenes, however, and the Dalai Lama heard about the group from a trader who announced that a white man was approaching the capital. The Dalai Lama immediately wrote a letter to Goma Kushuk, reprimanding him for not informing the palace of the men’s journey, and warning him that if any harm came to the group then the chief would be executed. A runner departed Lhasa with the letter at the same time that Plymire and his men entered the village of Shidapen Gonpa to meet the bloodthirsty chief. As Plymire and his colleagues arrived, crowds of onlookers watched in silence, aware that the visitors would soon be executed. The men were ushered into a large council tent, where Goma Kushuk stood with three bodyguards, each brandishing a sword. The missionary’s Tibetan helpers were immediately sentenced to death and berated by the chief for having the audacity to guide a white man into the forbidden land. Plymire, realizing his own life would not be spared, pleaded for mercy for his Tibetan friends, which only seemed to infuriate the chief even more. Meanwhile, as the runner approached Shidapen Gonpa with the letter from the Dalai Lama tucked in his coat, the Holy Spirit woke an elderly intercessor on the other side of the world in Olympia, Washington. A sense of urgency overwhelmed her, and the Holy Spirit suddenly gave her a striking vision of a group of men gathered together in a tent. As she studied the strange men intently, wondering what the vision meant, she recognized the white man as a young missionary she had once heard speak in a church service. He was going to Tibet, and she had prayed for him many times without knowing what happened to him. Although the intercessor couldn’t remember the man’s name, the Holy Spirit whispered to her, “Pray for Mr. Plymire. His life is in great danger.” She immediately cried out fervently, asking the Lord Jesus Christ to intervene and spare the lives of Plymire and his co-workers. Back on the Roof of the World, Plymire’s protests were dismissed, and Goma Kushuk announced his verdict: “Cut off the heads of all three!” No Ga and Ka Zong were to be killed first, and the white man last. The three bodyguards moved toward the prisoners, who were bound on the

floor. At the exact moment the executioners raised their swords to carry out their orders, the runner from Lhasa arrived! He: rushed into the tent and snatched the letter from his garment, and presented it to the chief. There was heavy silence in the tent as Goma Kushuk slowly opened the letter and studied its contents. As he read, Plymire noticed the proud look on the man’s face change to one of consternation. Attempting to appear unshaken before his men, the chief continued with the letter until he had finished. It was indeed an embarrassing situation for him. If he permitted the executions to go ahead as ordered, it would be only a matter of time until he himself would suffer the same fate. But if he obeyed his superior’s orders he would be making a fool of himself. Deciding that embarrassment was preferable to death, he gruffly addressed the guards: “Release the white man and his two helpers! There will be no execution!”12

In Washington, the elderly intercessor received assurance that her prayers had been answered. Months passed before Plymire received a letter from her, telling of her intense experience. She described the vision and even included a sketch of what she had seen, including the positions of all the men in the tent. She even accurately described the clothing each man was wearing. Plymire remarked: “If a photographer had been present he could not have made a more accurate picture of the situation.” The relieved men returned to their camp with songs of praise on their lips. They knew their lives had just been spared by the supernatural intervention of the Almighty God.

Goma Kushuk, the chief who attempted to kill Plymire and his men

On to Lhasa After their near-death experience, Plymire realized there was no way his caravan of men and animals could reach Lhasa without further incident. The helpers were ordered to retrace their steps back to the Amdo region, but the American would not be deterred in his attempt to become the first Evangelical missionary to set foot in Lhasa. In later years Plymire refused to confirm or deny if he had successfully reached his desired destination. When asked, he would always say: “I cannot tell. The men who were my guides might suffer if I told.” What is known is that Victor Plymire said farewell to his colleagues, disguised himself as a pilgrim, and headed toward Lhasa along a little-

known trail through the mountains to the north of the city. After leaving Tibet, Plymire wrote a letter to his mother in which he mentioned he was just 15 miles (24 km) from Lhasa, and shortly before his death he told his daughter Mary: “From where I stood I could see the golden palace roof shining in the sun.” He also had in his possession a photograph and negative of the Potala Palace in Lhasa. Before he commenced the long journey months earlier, Plymire had carefully arranged a collection of special Gospel materials which he was determined to present personally to the Dalai Lama. He returned without the package. In one of his last diary entries, the pioneer wrote: “The most interesting part of my trip . . . must remain a secret. Suffice it to say that I carried the gospel where no other had ever been able to go.”13

Across the Himalayas After his intriguing detour, Plymire caught up with his men and supplies. They took a route further west than the one they had come by, passing through the town of Gar, not far from where the Catholic missionary Antonio de Andrade had established a church with the blessings of the king of Guge more than three centuries earlier. Despite nearly losing his feet to frostbite on the homeward journey, the courageous American stumbled on, still pained by severe rheumatism. Finally, on February 26, 1928—after walking or riding nearly 2,000 miles (3,240 km) across the most inhospitable landscape on earth—Plymire led his triumphant group across the border into India, where they distributed the last of their Tibetan literature. After traveling for nine months and eight days, the exhausted apostle wrote: We were able, with the help and guidance of the Lord, to give the gospel to Tibetans from one end of the country to the other—from the extreme northeast down into the very heart of the country and on through western Tibet. The headman of each district through which we passed was given a New Testament. For all this I praise God. This was the object of our venture.14

No Ga At the start of the journey, Plymire’s Tibetan guide No Ga had been sympathetic to Christianity but remained unconverted. After personally witnessing God’s mighty power, however, No Ga bowed his knee and dedicated his life to Jesus. When No Ga’s family heard about his conversion they were infuriated, but none of their threats of violence moved him, and he remained a faithful follower of Christ. A number of years later, the elders of his village constructed a shrine atop a mountain in order to placate a deity. No Ga explained that as a Christian, his beliefs did not allow him to assist with the project. The elders were furious, claiming that his decision had angered the gods and they would not be held responsible for whatever fate befell him. When his own brother-in-law threatened to kill him if he would not participate in the building of the shrine, No Ga replied: “I am not afraid. I know Jesus will be with me.”15 Several days later his brother-in-law left the village and was seen buying a packet of poison from a store. That evening:

No Ga, a Tibetan martyr for Christ He called on No Ga and . . . prepared a bowl of hot tea. He drew the packet from the fold of his garment and emptied the contents into the tea. Then he brought the deadly liquid to No Ga. The unsuspecting man thanked his brother-in-law and drank every drop. In a few moments faithful No Ga lay still in death. He had paid the supreme price for his faith in Christ. Were human eyes capable of beholding the invisible, they might have seen the soul of No Ga, the Tibetan Christian, taking its flight upward past the hills and above the snowenshrouded mountains. Now, beyond all suffering and danger, he stood in the presence of the One he loved more than life itself. And he could stand there unashamed, for he had been faithful unto death.16

Wracked with guilt, No Ga’s brother-in-law confessed to what he had done, although he refused to accept Christ. A short time later he was afflicted with severe pain. On the gruesome night of his death: those standing about the dying man claim that they heard demons pounding on the window. Mysterious voices called out of the darkness: “We have come to take you to hell!” With a wild scream the wretched man, now in the very clutches of Satan, went out into everlasting darkness.17

The final stretch As he recovered from his arduous journey, the 47-year-old Plymire contemplated what God might have planned for him. Although his strength was diminished, he still yearned to share the gospel with all Tibetan people. After leaving India and returning to China, Victor renewed his acquaintance with Ruth Wiedman, a missionary who was studying Chinese at the time. They were married in August 1928, and left for Tangar a few weeks later. The church at Tangar continued to prosper, with four new converts baptized on Christmas Day, 1929, while the following March another 24 believers were baptized. Decades of exertion had taken a toll on Victor’s body, however, and in 1930 he suffered a heart attack. His condition was critical, but the believers at Tangar immediately prayed with all their hearts for their beloved pastor, and God once again spared His servant’s life. When he was strong enough to travel, the Plymires left for the United States for a period of rest and recovery. To the surprise of many, they returned to Tibet three years later and recommenced the work God had called them to do. The years rolled on, until Ruth Plymire also suffered a heart attack in 1943. It was decided that she and their children should return to the United States, while the intrepid Victor, now in his sixties, remained on the mission field. In the summer of 1948 the veteran pioneer William W. Simpson—who was then 78—visited Tangar and held a series of revival meetings. The Spirit of God moved on the people, and many hearts reached out to embrace Jesus Christ. The visitation of the Holy Spirit caused a rapid increase in the number of believers in the town, and soon the church boasted 250 members. Although most of them were Han Chinese, a significant number of zealous Tibetan Christians also attended. In 1949, it became apparent that the Communists would soon seize total control of the country, and missionaries would not be welcome in the new China. In April that year, Victor Plymire set out on his final evangelistic tour. He met an old Tibetan pilgrim, and tried to share the gospel with him. After listening intently, the man suddenly shook his head and said:

I cannot comprehend. I cannot understand. My mind is too old and dark. Had someone told me this when I was younger, I believe I could have understood. But now I am old. It is of no use for you to tell me anymore.18

Plymire was heart-struck by the pilgrim’s reply. To him, the man’s words represented a cry emanating from the entire Tibetan race. If only more workers had come to shine the light of God’s love in Tibet!

Tibetan believers at the Tangar church Realizing that the new political situation in China meant he could no longer remain in the place he loved, the spiritual warrior made his way back to the United States, leaving behind a flourishing fellowship and multitudes of Tibetans who had heard the gospel during his 41 years of faithful and courageous service. The Plymires settled down in Springfield, Missouri, where Victor worked for the Assemblies of God mission board. He continued to preach in churches and never tired of presenting the needs of his beloved Tibet to everyone who would listen. One of the greatest Tibet missionaries had completed his race, and Victor Plymire went to his eternal reward in December 1956 at the age of 75.

Notes

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

David V. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet: The Life and Labors of Pioneer Missionary Victor Plymire (Ellendale, ND: Trinity Print’n Press, 1983), p. 25. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, pp. 47–8. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, p. 51. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, p. 64. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, p. 65. Ralph R. Covell, The Liberating Gospel in China: The Christian Faith among China’s Minority Peoples (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1995), p. 70. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, pp. 70–1. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, p. 73. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, p. 74. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, p. 79. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, p. 86. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, pp. 107–8. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, p. 114. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, pp. 130–1. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, p. 192. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, pp. 192–3. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, p. 197. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet, p. 217.

1930s

Ü-Tsang Two well-known Pentecostal pioneers—Lester Sumrall of the United States and his British colleague Howard Carter—would later have far-reaching ministries that impacted the lives of millions of people. In the late 1930s the duo found themselves in Tibet, where they attempted to preach the gospel with the help of a local guide and interpreter. Although the exact location of their trip to Tibet is unknown, Sumrall wrote in his autobiography: We saw highland villages completely destroyed and ancient Buddhist lamaseries burned, their thousand-year-old books ripped apart and fluttering in the wind. Pools of blood formed grisly lakes where massacres had killed entire hamlets.

Lester Sumrall (left) and Howard Carter on their first mission trip to Tibet As we were nearing a pass, Brother Carter and I dismounted to drink from a spring, and then walked on, chatting together, easily keeping up with the slow-moving mules. When we turned a sharp curve around a huge boulder, three men stepped out from the high grass and trees, leveling guns on us . . . Brother Carter and I just stood there. We didn’t put up our hands or anything. Then, in their language, the armed men ordered us to “March!”1

One of the bandits stepped up and pointed his rifle directly at the missionaries. Sumrall recalled what happened next: As we marched along in silence, the devil began to fill me with fear, saying, “You’re going to die. They’re going to kill you.” I glanced back at the gun barrel behind my head. “No, I’m not going to die,” I answered silently. “I didn’t come up here to die.” After about three hours, however, I couldn’t stand it any longer and asked, “God, did I come to Tibet to die?” He said, “No . . . Your answer is in Revelation 19:6.” So I slipped my hand up to my vest and took out the little New Testament that I carried in my pocket . . . The verse said: “Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: ‘Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns.’” That line came alive, and I began to laugh. I turned around and laughed in the bandit’s face. He was so startled that the gun barrel pointed at my head dipped to the ground. He just stared at me. Through my interpreter I screamed at him, “What do you want, anyway?” . . . We gave them a box of food—rice and beans and so forth . . . I just got on my mule and rode away, followed by the rest of our group. The bandits stared after us in disbelief, and then went into the forest and were gone. We rode down the side of a mountain on a path that came down into a village. The people came out to greet us, shouting, “You’re alive! . . . Everybody else got killed today on that road. They met robbers and they’re dead.”2

Kham Meanwhile, in the Kham region, both Evangelical and Catholic missionaries employed creative new strategies to take the gospel to the Tibetan people. At the Latsa Pass in northern Yunnan Province, Swiss Catholic missionaries from the Grand St. Bernard Order commenced work among the Kham Tibetans. The strategy of the St. Bernard monks “was to minister to all in need who traveled over the high mountain trails in trade and commerce. Their most valuable helpers were huge St. Bernard dogs—half

Swiss and half Tibetan.”3 The dogs were trained to rescue people trapped in avalanches. This unique form of ministry was greatly appreciated by the local people, many of whom owed their lives to the missionaries and their four-legged helpers.

A Tibetan hermit who had lived in a cave for 18 years hears about Jesus At remote Batang, the Evangelical work had struggled to survive after the murder of Albert Shelton in 1922. Before Russell and Gertrude Morse left the area, they had the joy of seeing a Tibetan pilgrim come to faith in Jesus Christ. The man had been guilt-stricken since his youth for having murdered a man, and had visited many sacred Buddhist sites in Tibet and India in a bid to find peace for his troubled soul. The pilgrim was attracted to the Christians, and followed them around as they shared the gospel. After he was thoroughly converted and surrendered his life to Jesus, the missionaries remarked:

He proclaimed the one God and His Son, Jesus Christ, among the Tibetans of Batang as he met them personally. He even learned the hymns and their tunes. The precious seed of the gospel found fertile soil in his heart. He not only believed, but vowed to preach about the truth of Christ thereafter. He witnessed on the streets of Batang with other Tibetans about this Truth.4

Amdo The work in the Amdo areas of northern Tibet continued to advance, although each step forward seemed to be met by countless setbacks. The frequent turnover of missionaries caused the work to stagnate, with many choosing to go home after having invested years learning the Amdo language. Although a steady trickle of new recruits did arrive in the region, most soon gravitated toward the much easier Chinese work.

Missionary children and a Tibetan minder at the CMA retreat in Labrang in the early 1930s Discouragement and loneliness were the main reasons why so many workers abandoned Tibet. In 1938, Robert Ekvall lamented: The Tibetans seem by all the forces of demonic influence, by all the powers of that ancient subtle faith, and by their own sinfulness, thrice sealed against the gospel. And for long years hope for the gospel to break forth among the Tibetans was a hope deferred.5

Those who patiently endured the challenges of life in Amdo often later experienced wonderful advances in the work. Vaughan Rees and his wife were CIM medical missionaries based in southern Gansu. In 1932, Rees was invited to visit the king of Ngawa in neighboring Sichuan Province. Sensing a great opportunity for the kingdom of God, Rees asked the experienced Ekvall family to travel with him and his co-workers across the Min Mountains. The Ekvalls enthusiastically agreed, and Rees reported: With tents, food, and all our movables on 12 yaks and our party of 11 mounted on horses, we set out from the Chinese border on June 3rd, and thence for three weeks across mountain, torrent, river and upland, plain and swamp until the Principality of Ngawa was reached . . . At Ngawa, where we spent three weeks, the whole of the supply of literature was exhausted and hundreds heard the gospel from Mr. Ekvall, who speaks Tibetan well. Hundreds of patients were seen, the King himself consulting Dr. Rees medic-ally, and more than 30 surgical operations were performed. As a result of this visit, the King and Queen of Ngawa offered Mr. and Mrs. Ekvall land for a mission station, provided that they themselves would occupy it. The Queen also asked Mr. Ekvall for a New Testament in Tibetan.6

The town of Lhamo was identified as a strategic base for reaching further into the unexplored regions inhabited by the Golog Tibetan tribes, who dwelt in the shadow of the imposing, razor-like Amne Machen Range. The missionaries made many friends in Lhamo, and people loved to visit the mission base and sing songs about Jesus. Robert Ekvall described the unique scene: Shepherds, herders, traders, robbers, murderers, and braves; they sit in the circle, their faces touched with a strange bewilderment, their lips moving as they follow phrases that have caught their fancy, and the rosaries and prayer wheels of their day-long religious observance forgotten as they hear of the Savior . . . In a village on the fringe of nomad country two or three young people have made a profession of faith.7

Will Simpson William Ekvall Simpson, the son of missionary pioneer William W. Simpson, had grown up among Tibetans. Living in a volatile area where the Chinese, Muslim, and Tibetan civilizations collided, the rugged life was the only one Simpson had ever known.

Will E. Simpson, who was martyred in 1932 At a young age “Will,” as he was commonly known, experienced tragedy when his baby sister died, followed by the loss of his beloved mother. After returning to the United States for education, Simpson longed to return to Tibet, where he spoke several Tibetan dialects and felt at home among the people. Simpson realized that marriage was not an option for him if he was to be faithful to his calling. He won the respect of Buddhist lamas, who allowed him to lease a plot of land at Labrang. From that base, Simpson made numerous journeys into surrounding areas, sharing the message of God’s salvation with everyone he met. After one exhausting trip, Simpson wrote to the Assemblies of God Foreign Mission Department, saying: All the trials, the loneliness, the heartache, the weariness and pain, the cold and fatigue of the long road, the darkness and discouragements, and all the bereavements, temptations and testings, seemed not worthy to be compared with the glory and joy of witnessing to these “glad tidings of great joy.”8

Few Christians had ever covered such a vast area of Tibet as Will Simpson. In one 12-month period he rode 3,800 miles (6,156 km) on horseback. Thousands of nomads had come to love and appreciate the American. Each summer, the locals were used to watching as: Simpson’s yak caravan started out from Labrang to lose contact with the outside world for months and to push even farther among the untouched, unreached, and even unknown tribes of northeast Tibet. And each time he came back not only were there fewer white spots on the map, but less of uncertainty and more of detailed knowledge of the great task that was yet ahead for all of the Tibetan missionaries.9

On June 25, 1932, Simpson was attacked by a horde of Muslim army deserters who swooped down on him near the town of Huining. He was killed instantly, and went to meet his Maker at the age of just 31. A Chinese tax collector found Simpson’s father and told him where his son’s body lay. As he picked up his son’s mutilated body, “he noticed a Sunday school paper smeared with blood lying nearby. The printed words, IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME, seemed a fitting testimony of why the young missionary had died.”10

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Lester Sumrall and Tim Dudley, The Life Story of Lester Sumrall: The Man, the Ministry, the Vision (Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Press, 1993), p. 114. Sumrall and Dudley, The Life Story of Lester Sumrall, pp. 115–16. Ralph R. Covell, The Liberating Gospel in China: The Christian Faith among China’s Minority Peoples (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1995), p. 51. Gertrude Morse, The Dogs May Bark, but the Caravan Moves On (Chiang Mai, Thailand: North Burma Christian Mission, 1998), p. 93. Robert B. Ekvall, Gateway to Tibet (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1938), p. 153. Dr. and Mrs. Rees, “From the Front Line,” China’s Millions (November 1932), p. 217. Ekvall, Gateway to Tibet, p. 185. James and Marti Hefley, By Their Blood: Christian Martyrs of the Twentieth Century (Milford, MI: Mott Media, 1979), p. 147. Ekvall, Gateway to Tibet, p. 180. Hefley, By Their Blood, p. 148.

Frank Learner One of the most effective missionary couples in the history of Tibetan work were the British pair Frank and Annie Learner, who invested more than three decades of their lives in the Amdo Tibetans. Frank was born in 1886 to a farming family from Norfolk, England; while Annie Baxter arrived in China in 1910, a year before Frank. They were married in Sichuan Province in February 1914, and after studying Chinese they headed west to the Tibetan border, which was to remain their home for many years.

Frank Learner in Tibetan attire, complete with sword For the first few years the Learners focused their efforts on reaching the Han Chinese in Xining, but that started to change in 1916, after Frank accompanied French Ridley on a trip to the famous 600-year-old Butter Lantern Festival at the Kumbum Monastery—where they mingled with tens of thousands of Tibetans from far-flung areas. Learner remarked: Mr. Ridley and I had a splendid time preaching during this little visit. We set up a book and preaching stall in the busiest part of the fair, which we made our headquarters . . . We both had splendid sales. What a great change has come about with regard to these Tibetans. In past years they would have nothing to do with our books, and would not have them even as a gift. Now they seem quite willing to buy a Gospel. I also distributed a great many picture tracts, which were very willingly received. Praise God! I would specially ask prayer for the work among these people. To see the intense interest and earnestness of these poor heathen is truly impressive. O that we Christians, who worship the living Christ, were even half as earnest as these heathen people who worship a dead Buddha!1

One afternoon while he was at Kumbum, Learner felt deeply burdened for the Tibetan people. He climbed a hill overlooking the monastery, and the Spirit of God deeply touched his heart. He later recalled: Sitting on the grassy slopes, I gazed at the mountains which separate China from Tibet. Their peaks were sparkling in the afternoon sun, and as my eyes rested on the purity of their whiteness, the question, “What is beyond?” thrust itself upon me. I thought of the millions of lips uttering meaningless prayers, millions of bodies daily bowed in prostrations, awaiting the blessing of men who call themselves living Buddhas. And so little was being done to bring the Light to them! Suddenly it seemed as if a voice was speaking! “I want you to do something for these people!”2

Not long after returning from a trip to a nomadic area, the Learners’ little son Alfred suddenly died from whooping cough. Annie was pregnant at the time, and just six months later they announced the arrival of a second son, James. Frank continued to travel widely as he spread God’s Word among the Amdo, and at the start of 1918 he reported: We have sold about 600-odd Tibetan Gospels, and truly this is very much to praise God for. Whereas in previous years, the Tibetans would not have a Gospel as a gift, now they are willing to put out cash, and very willingly too. A great change is coming over this people.3

Literature distribution continued to be a major part of Frank Learner’s ministry among the Tibetans, and in 1920, when he reflected on his work, he remarked: During the past six years while we have been living in Xining . . . we have sold about 1,000 Gospels yearly in the Tibetan language, besides a great quantity of pictures and tracts being given away. Journeys have been made over the border into Tibet itself, and on the whole we have been well received by the Tibetans, having been to their tents, and they in return visiting us. On such occasions, Gospels and tracts have been exchanged for butter and milk, etc.4

The Tibetan Gospel Inn Although Frank Learner had distributed Gospel literature widely among Amdo Tibetans, as well as the Han Chinese, Hui, Tu, and other ethnic groups, a more effective method of evangelizing was about to open up for the energetic missionary. One day, during prayer, the idea of operating a Tibetan “gospel inn” came to his mind. He immediately saw the great possibilities that such a place would provide—an inn where Tibetans from all over the region could stay and be exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time. As the Learners prepared to depart on a scheduled trip back to Britain, they prayerfully asked God to put all the plans together and to provide the necessary funds to purchase a strategically located facility. Frank later recalled how God answered their prayers: In talking to Mrs. Learner, I remarked that “It would be very encouraging if we could see one Tibetan showing real interest in the gospel before we go home to England at the end of the year.” I even went further and said, “Oh that one Tibetan could be baptized before we go home! I would take it as a definite encouragement from God.” Little did I know that the answer was so near. There came a knock on the door. I called out, “Come in,” and to my surprise in walked a Tibetan. I invited him to sit down and drink some tea and partake of some of my meal. He did so, and we had a long talk together . . . Ji Fajia has since entered his name on our books as an enquirer. He also persuaded his uncle to do the same.5

The Learner family completed their furlough and returned to Xining with a renewed vision for the evangelization of Tibet. They also returned with a larger family as a daughter, Mary, had been born in London during their

time away. Sadly, tragedy struck when Mary died from scarlet fever in February 1924, aged just three. Ji Fajia, meanwhile, had grown in knowledge and grace, but his commitment to Christ had not come easily. Learner said of his colleague: He is the first Tibetan who became interested in the gospel in Xining . . . The dear man has suffered very much for the sake of the gospel, but through it all has remained steadfast. He has been beaten unmercifully by the lamas for not continuing his false worship. On more than one occasion he has been imprisoned in the lamasery prison, being chained down to the ground, so as to not be able to either sit down or stand upright all night; a most painful position indeed. He has been in several other ways persecuted, but how I praise God that He has given him strength to bear it all. To hear him tell the story brings tears to my eyes, and I wonder if I would be as firm should the test come. He has destroyed all his idols, which meant much to him, but he did it joyfully . . . His wife and sons are also quite interested, and I hope it will not be long before I have the joy of baptizing them too.6

Plans came together by the providence of God, and the Tibetan Gospel Inn was opened—the first of its kind anywhere in Tibet. After much prayer and searching, the small district of Maobosheng, north of Datong, was chosen as the location for this unique project. It was an area frequented by Tibetans, Hui, Han Chinese, and members of the Mongolian-speaking Tu ethnic group. Learner described the property: The compound comprises three courtyards, one leading into the other, the whole length being about 45 yards. The lower courtyard is used for stable accommodation, for no Tibetan comes without his animal, be it horse, mule, camel, donkey or yak. This stable will hold about 30 animals, but it often proves too small. (One day a Mongolian prince arrived with a caravan of nearly 100 camels.) Around the lower courtyard are kitchens and outhouses. Next we come to the central courtyard where we are at once attracted to the chief building of the premises—the brightly-painted chapel . . . Its walls are decorated with Bible pictures and large sheets of colored texts in Tibetan. The building will seat about 50 people. On leaving the chapel, we follow through to the upper courtyard around which are most of the guest rooms.7

A large shipment of Bibles, New Testaments, and other Gospel literature in several languages was ordered, and Learner was determined that no person would visit the inn without hearing the gospel. News soon spread throughout the Tibetan world of the warm hospitality provided there, and lamas, pilgrims, and bandits from a vast area came and stayed at the inn. Every evening, after dinner, the gospel was shared with the guests, and many loved to sing the simple hymns in their native tongues. Each guest received Gospel literature, which was taken back home, often

hundreds of miles away, to be read and reread by friends and family members. The inn proved an immediate success, with Learner noting: “In our first year, we received as many as 800 visitors, and since then numbers have been on the increase. None go away without having heard of Jesus Christ.”8

Visiting Tibetan Christians While Frank Learner was responsible for overseeing the Gospel Inn, his soul continued to yearn for the unexplored Tibetan regions, and often for weeks at a time he would visit Tibetan, Han Chinese, and other scattered believers. In 1927, he returned from one trip and filed this joyful report: We visited several of the outstations and lonely centers, and rejoiced to find that the great majority of the Christians had remained faithful . . . Over ten places were visited, and 73 homes where there were either one or more Christians living. We had the joy of staying in the homes of two of our Tibetan Christians, and found them well and rejoicing. Oh, the kindness of those dear people! They did all that they possibly could to make us happy and comfortable, even turning out of their own bedrooms to make way . . . In closing I must mention the Tibetan Gospel Inn . . . During the past few months the place has been packed out. We have had all kinds of guests, from the Incarnate Buddha to the common lama, or cattle farmer. All are treated alike, and all are made as comfortable as it is in our power to make them. There are nine people now whom we can claim for God. Three have been baptized, while six are counted as enquirers . . . We have had two rather remarkable conversions. One, a man who lives on the other side of the great Kokonor [Qinghai] Lake, had been staying with us for some weeks. He had attended the Tibetan services, and evidently had been taking in much more than we realized. At the end of one of the evening services he left his seat and came to the front, taking his khata (scarf of blessing) in both hands, and presented it to the God of Heaven, for, said he, “You are the true God, and I will serve You until the end of my days.” I brought him along to my room afterwards, and soon found that he really meant what he had said. This old man, now 70 years of age, has now gone back again to his home over the border, and we pray that he may be able to live the Christian life among his heathen friends and relatives.9

Learner later received news that the old man, whose name was Lha-jar, had remained true to the faith. The missionary added: “We were told also of the change in his life. Formerly he had been known as a robber and even a murderer, but now he was a new creature in Christ Jesus.”10

Despite the turmoil affecting hundreds of millions of people throughout China in the 1930s due to the civil war, the work of the Gospel Inn continued to have a far-reaching impact throughout the Tibetan world. In 1934, the inn celebrated its tenth year, with Learner reflecting: During this time, some 10,000 Tibetans have passed through its doors. Some come for shorter periods, some for longer. The great aim is that every Tibetan who makes use of the inn shall hear about the Lord Jesus Christ. Many have heard of Him there for the first time. Tibetans from all over Tibet visit us. Whereas before they had to stay at Chinese Inns, and were at the mercy of Chinese innkeepers, who fleeced them at every turn, now they come to a place where they feel they have friends, who are willing to help them. The inn is free, for accommodation and service are free. They bring their own food, and also fodder for their horses, for no Tibetans travel on foot. They either have horses, mules, yaks, or camels. The chief feature of the inn is the little chapel which, when filled to overflowing, will hold about 60 Tibetans . . . Believe me when I say it is the gospel, and the pure gospel, that is preached, and this must and does bear fruit . . . We distribute God’s Word in Tibetan freely, and we have heard of some portions even filtering through to Lhasa . . . What friendliness we find when traveling among these dear Tibetans, and what hospitality is shown! We count them among our dearest friends and they in turn treat us as friends also.11

With the little Dalai Lama In 1939, Learner heard that the newly appointed Fourteenth (and current) Dalai Lama, who was just four years old at the time, was residing at the Kumbum Monastery. Such was the deep respect Learner had gained among the chief lamas there that when he asked if he could meet the young boy, his request was immediately granted. The missionary told how: The little lad was brought to the large guest hall where I was waiting, and was presented to me. What a dear wee chap he was. He was not in the least afraid, but most friendly. I won his friendship right from the first by presenting him with some color Tibetan Gospel cards, which he eagerly accepted. His parents are just common Tibetan farmers. I felt sorry for the wee fellow, for I thought he should have been with his mother. In a short time he will be taken to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. I wonder if he will take the Tibetan Gospel cards with him when he goes! I sincerely hope so.12

Frank Learner with the current Dalai Lama, who is holding his Tibetan Gospel card Despite the outbreak of the Second World War, and with China in turmoil due to civil war, Learner’s passion to share the gospel with the Amdo Tibetans remained undiminished. In 1944, he made yet another trip to the Kumbum Butter Lantern Festival, which proved to be his last. Frank Learner had wholeheartedly served the Lord and had come to be widely respected by the people of Xining and surrounding districts. With the society plunging deeper into chaos, the Learners were finally forced to leave China in 1945, leaving behind many committed Tibetan believers.

Three senior lamas with the Dalai Lama in 1939. The lamas did not hesitate to let Frank Learner share the gospel with the young boy Frank hoped to remain involved in missions by speaking in churches and mobilizing new workers, but the arduous journeys had taken a toll on his body, and he passed away in March 1947, soon after his sixty-first birthday. Annie Learner continued to live until 1973, when she went to her eternal reward at the age of 88.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

F. D. Learner, “A Visit to the Tibetan Sacred City of Kumbum,” China’s Millions (January 1917), p. 5. Frank Doggett Learner, Rusty Hinges: A Story of Closed Doors Beginning to Open in NorthEast Tibet (London: China Inland Mission, 1933), p. 142. F. D. Learner, “Tibetan Work in the District of Sining-fu, Kansu,” Chinese Recorder (February 1918), p. 137. Chinese Recorder (October 1920), p. 690. Chinese Recorder (October 1920), pp. 691–2. F. D. Learner, “Advance in Tibetan Work,” China’s Millions (May 1924), p. 71. Learner, Rusty Hinges, pp. 147–8. Learner, Rusty Hinges, p. 149. F. D. Learner, “In Nothing Affrighted by the Adversaries,” China’s Millions (July 1927), p. 106. Learner, Rusty Hinges, p. 154. F. D. Learner, “Work in the Far North-West,” China’s Millions (March 1935), pp. 54–5. F. D. Learner, “The New Dalai Lama of Tibet,” China’s Millions (September 1939), p. 138.

1940s The 1940s saw an increase in the number of Tibetan Christians as the large amount of faithful sowing of God’s Word finally began to reap a harvest. In a culture steeped in black arts and demonism, strong opposition to Christians was to be expected. One new Tibetan Christian, a man named Chepel, excitedly returned home to share his new faith, only to be murdered by his own friends and family members.1 With central Tibet still locked behind spiritual iron gates during the 1940s, the gospel could only whittle away at the great stronghold from the perimeter, and literature distribution represented the main way the message of Jesus Christ reached people’s hearts on the Roof of the World. In 1947, two female missionaries, Mildred Cable and Francesca French, wrote about the impact that Gospel literature was having in Tibet:

This Tibetan family was successfully treated at a mission hospital for the large goiters around their necks The Gospels which are carried off into Tibet are never left unread, for even where an illiterate man accepts them, he takes them back to his encampment and hands them over to his kinsmen

at the lamasery, where all the lamas will listen while one reads aloud to the assembled disciples and to any herdsmen who may gather round. Very often the people in one settlement will all have heard the gospel before the living Buddha decides it is a dangerous book, which may cause headaches to anyone who reads it. This is by no means always the case, and some lamas have even made it their business to put Christian literature into circulation. There is one lama who still wears the maroon shawl of his order, who is known to be traveling about Tibet preaching Christ wherever he goes.2

Amdo One unexpected challenge that confronted the missionaries in Amdo occurred when the large population of Muslims in the region decided that they, too, could convert Tibetans to their religion. Aided by Muslim officials, they attempted to attract Tibetans to Islam by building roads and other infrastructure for them. Because the Muslims’ message was without hope or power, however, their efforts soon faded, but for a time the environment was made more difficult for the missionaries. The 1940s also saw a changing of the guard in Amdo as a number of veteran missionaries who had given their all to reach the Tibetans retired and were replaced by new recruits. A former American naval officer, Virgil Hook, came to live among the nomads in Qinghai, and a short time later reported that he was having a tough time, and was: enduring great hardships among the 40,000 Tibetan nomads; intense cold at over 13,000 feet [3,962 meters] above sea-level, life in a tent amid raging snowstorms, the constant discomforts of bugs, fleas and lice, and the doubtful delicacies of buttered tea and ancient cuts of meat.3

A breakthrough occurred in a place known as “robber valley” in Amdo territory, following the death of missionary Betty Ekvall, who perished after contracting anthrax. The Ekvalls’ son, David, was attending school in Vietnam at the time and was not aware of his mother’s sickness until he had a vision in which he saw her standing beside the Lord Jesus Christ, who turned to her and lovingly said, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” A supernatural peace engulfed David, and when news finally reached him of his beloved mother’s death, his heart was at rest.

Robert and Betty Ekvall with their son David in 1939 Several years earlier when she had suffered another sickness, Betty had prayed to God, asking that her life might be spared to bring Tibetans to faith in Jesus and that her death might also serve the same purpose. Robert Ekvall was heartbroken at the passing of his wife, but a short time later he visited Drongwa, where he was welcomed into the home of an old Tibetan man. The Ekvalls had shared the gospel with this man many times, but he always seemed incapable of grasping the message. When the Tibetan asked Ekvall where his wife was, the missionary replied, “She is in heaven with Jesus.” The question and answer were repeated three times, because: The old man wanted to be very sure he was hearing correctly. Convinced, he immediately replied, “I must believe,” and then prayed, “God, be merciful to me a sinner and save me for Jesus’ sake.” He then asked his son and grandson if they wanted to follow in the Jesus way, and they gave their affirmation. This was the beginning of a spiritual breakthrough in “robber valley.” During

the following months the missionary’s heart was encouraged as he saw family after family turn to Jesus. Hostility was turned to acceptance and goodwill as non-Christians saw the changed lives of their neighbors. As the Christian community grew, the missionary had to warn overzealous Christians not to force or coerce those who had not accepted their faith, but to win them by their transformed lives characterized by love, joy, and hope. So it was that in a most unlikely place, “robber valley,” a new prayer was heard: “Our Father who art in heaven.”4

The Borden Memorial Hospital Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province, was the site of a wonderful Christian hospital that served the people from 1934 until it was taken over by the Communists in 1949. The hospital was named after a young American missionary, William Borden, whose family had made millions of dollars mining silver in Colorado. He offered his life for missionary service in north-west China, and was studying Arabic in Egypt en route to China when he was struck down with congenital meningitis and died at the age of 25. Although the young man never made it to his desired destin-ation, his will had set aside a large sum of money, which was used to construct the Borden Memorial Hospital at Gaolan, just north of Lanzhou. Although the hospital mainly catered to Han Chinese and Hui patients, a steady flow of Amdo Tibetans also came for treatment, and over the years hundreds who arrived in Lanzhou for physical care were also presented with the gospel. Soon the Christians had gained an excellent reputation among the Tibetan people, and many hearts that had formerly been hesitant were now open to the claims of Christ.

Part of the Borden Hospital, where hundreds of Amdo Tibetans heard the gospel The most lowly and despised members of society at the time—people suffering from leprosy—also heard about the hospital and came in their desperation to seek help from the missionaries. When they heard that Jesus Christ loved lepers and wanted to grant them eternal life, many Tibetans stricken with this disease repented of their sins and placed their trust in the Savior. It was reported in 1935: Lepers are coming in such numbers now from Tibet that we have had to seriously consider not receiving them because of shortness of funds. After discussion in our business meeting, it was decided that we could not do this, and so they are still coming. Some of the most sincere Christians among them have died within the last few months, but we praise God that their place is being taken by others, for 12 have just confessed the Lord.5

Christian outreach among the Tibetan lepers enjoyed sustained success, with a visitor to one of their church services reporting in 1950: The fervor and reverence the leprosy patients produced and the accuracy with which they recited Scripture portions from memory showed unmistakably that to many of them these things were real, more real than their deformities and aching leprous bones. Some have found refuge in Jesus, and will be granted free and glorious entrance to the streets of the New Jerusalem. Others of them still resist their only hope of salvation, proudly going their own way, in danger of becoming outcasts from heaven itself.6

Many Tibetan nomads arrived at the hospital seeking treatment for goiters, some of which grew to an enormous size around their necks. This affliction

affected many nomads because of their smoky, unventilated tents, and the lack of iodine or fruit and vegetables in their diets. The People’s Liberation Army took control of Lanzhou in August 1949, and the Borden Hospital was taken over. Much frustration was felt by the missionaries as they believed they were on the cusp of a great breakthrough among the Tibetans when the Communists brought a sudden end to their work. Although it only functioned for 15 years, the facility had made an impact on the lives of thousands of people, healing their physical ailments and meeting their spiritual needs. Most of the missionaries associated with the hospital evacu-ated to the coast, but one member of the medical staff, Dr. Rupert Clarke, was placed under house arrest by the Communists and accused of manslaughter for failing to save the life of a dying man.

The end of the missionary era At Hualong, on the Amdo frontier, a new 12-bedroom mission hospital had been constructed exclusively to treat Tibetans. News of the facility spread far and wide after a living Buddha, “with his entire encampment, arrived with 50 men requiring treatment and 40 needing operations.”7 Visitors to the Hualong Hospital included a sorcerer of the Bon religion. This man sought help for his wife La Mou, who was suffering from two large internal cysts, one ovarian and the other in her liver. One of the missionary-doctors recalled what happened during the woman’s recovery after the surgeries: We gave the sorcerer gospel literature in his own language, and he seemed really interested. I often saw him sitting by his wife’s bedside poring over these tracts and Gospels, or reading them aloud to her and to the other Tibetan women in the ward . . . Every morning, before the doctor began his round, there was a short Chinese service in the ward. Sometimes more than half of the patients in this ward were Tibetan and they may have understood very little of the service, but La Mou used to sit up most reverently and try to join in the hymns . . . Before La Mou and her husband returned to their home far away on the grasslands of Qinghai, she said she was going to be a Christian. Alas, one knows that back in their own country, Tibetan converts are almost certain to meet a persecution of such fierce intensity that few have come through it alive.8

The Hualong Hospital was also shut down by the atheist Communists, who despised all religion and saw no value in keeping the Christian facility open. The Evangelical missionary era in Amdo, which had started with George Parker more than 70 years earlier, was rapidly coming to a close. In 1950, in a sign of things to come as the baton was transferred from foreigners to the Chinese Church, a group of Chinese Christians shared the gospel in Labrang with great power, “resulting in 20 professions of faith. The event was so newsworthy that it was reported by Tibetans in India.”9 The era concluded with great joy, however, when two sets of married CIM workers—George and Dorothy Bell of Canada, and Norman and Amy McIntosh of New Zealand—baptized two Tibetan women who possessed a true faith in Jesus Christ. The Bells had been on the mission field since 1927, and the McIntosh family since 1936, but after much sweat and prayers these faithful servants of Christ had finally seen their first Tibetans become children of God. A few years later, Amy McIntosh wrote a booklet entitled Daughter of Tibet: The Story of Drolma,10 which was a gripping tale of how the Tibetan woman had accepted Christ.

Kham Life in the Kham region was deeply affected by the chaotic conditions that prevailed throughout the 1940s. The decade saw the Catholic missionaries in Kham continue their long legacy of dying as martyrs.11 French missionary Michel Nussbaum, who had served at Yanjing for 32 years without a furlough, was murdered by bandits in September 1940; while Maurice Tornay from Switzerland and a Tibetan convert named Dossy were shot dead by four Buddhist lamas in August 1949, just weeks before Mao Zedong formally established the People’s Republic of China.12 Evangelical missions went through a painful transition as the foreign missionary enterprise wound down.

Robert and Euphemia Cunningham retired to the United Kingdom in 1942 after investing 35 years of their lives in the Kham region. Robert, who died soon after returning home, had been a leading gymnast prior to becoming a missionary, and “his magnificent physique enabled him to remain for practically the whole of his missionary career at Kangding, over 8,000 feet [2,438 meters] above sea-level.”13 Euphemia, meanwhile, was a gifted linguist, and while other missionaries struggled for years to acquire a useable level of Tibetan, she spoke Kham so fluently that she often had crowds of Tibetan women and children gathered around her as she shared Bible stories with them. At the start, local Khampa women sometimes touched her lips as she spoke, so amazed were they that a white woman could speak their language. Occasional stories emerged from Kham to encourage believers in the 1940s. One report from Kangding told how: Slides on the life of Christ provided a great attraction, and sometimes as many as 100 people at a time stood to listen and watch: men with long swords, picturesque garb, and typical Tibetan swagger listened intently . . . A census showed that almost every province of Tibet was represented; some having traveled for months to reach Kangding. Access to people from all parts of Tibet was in this way gained. Even Lhasa-trained monks, conscious of their special prestige, talked earnestly about the Lord Jesus Christ . . . In 1948 an old Chinese lady and a Tibetan girl boldly confessed Christ in baptism.14

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

David V. Plymire, High Adventure in Tibet: The Life and Labors of Pioneer Missionary Victor Plymire (Ellendale, ND: Trinity Print’n Press, 1983), p. 219. Mildred Cable and Francesca French, The Bible in Mission Lands (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1947), p. 94. Leslie T. Lyall, A Passion for the Impossible: The China Inland Mission 1865–1965 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1965), p. 142. William D. Carlsen, Tibet: In Search of a Miracle (Nyack, NY: Nyack College, 1985), pp. 53– 4. D. Vaughan Rees, “Visits from High and Lowly,” China’s Millions (March 1935), p. 53. Keith Cameron, “Lanchow: Medical Outpost of Central Asia,” China’s Millions (March 1950), p. 28. Lyall, A Passion for the Impossible, p. 144. H. D. Laycock, “The Sorcerer’s Wife,” China’s Millions (September–October 1948), p. 53. Lyall, A Passion for the Impossible, p. 144.

10

11 12 13 14

Amy McIntosh, Daughter of Tibet: The Story of Drolma (London: China Inland Mission, 1951). McIntosh also wrote a 50-page booklet entitled A Tale of Tibet: The Man in the Sheepskin (London: China Inland Mission, 1950). Although these stories were based on fictional Tibetan characters, they were nevertheless an accurate portrayal of the missionaries’ struggles and victories as they endeavored to reach out to Tibetans in Qinghai. These two booklets are extremely difficult to find today. Accounts of these and hundreds of other inspirational Christian martyrs in China can be found in Paul Hattaway, China’s Book of Martyrs: Fire and Blood, Vol. 1 (Carlisle: Piquant, 2007); and Paul Hattaway, China’s Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Monarch, 2007). See Robert Loup, Martyr in Tibet: The Heroic Life and Death of Father Maurice Tornay, St. Bernard Missionary to Tibet (New York: David McKay, 1956). “In Memoriam: Mr. Robert Cunningham,” China’s Millions (January–February 1943), p. 8. Lyall, A Passion for the Impossible, p. 143.

The story of the Tibetan Bible How the Tibetan Bible came into existence is one of the most remarkable accounts of struggle and victory in the history of Christian missions. It is a story that deserves to be widely shared, and it highlights the level of spiritual opposition that Christian work in this dark part of the world attracts. From the start, the Moravian missionaries in north India knew that the translation of the Scriptures into Tibetan would be one of their major projects, and they gave themselves fully to the task in 1856. Incredibly, it was to take nearly a century to complete, with the first full Tibetan Bible finally being published in 1948.

A Tibetan monk intently reading a Bible

The Gergans—a family of peace After the pioneer Moravian missionaries Heyde and Pagel found their way to Tibet blocked, they searched for a suitable location from which to base their work. After traveling for a week they entered the sparsely populated Luba Valley, where God led them to a “man of peace,” Tempu Gergan, who showed kind hospitality to the two wandering Germans. When the missionaries told their new friend of their desire to travel across the border into Tibet, Gergan was alarmed and warned them: I don’t think you will ever get there. The government is determined to keep foreigners out. Even if you did get through yonder pass, it is many months of hard traveling to reach Lhasa. Long before you get there you will be seized and thrown back over the border. Why don’t you stay here for a while? Many Tibetans now live in this valley.1

Pagel asked Gergan, “Would you help us learn your language and help us write our Holy Book in the Tibetan script if we stay?” He replied, “Yes, I will be happy to do that,” and so began a long and enduring relationship between Christians and the Gergan family. This is a bond that continues to the present day, and has seen hundreds of Tibetans come to a living faith in Jesus Christ. Tempu Gergan died after falling ill in 1897. Although he himself had not openly professed faith in Christ, his 12-year-old son Sonam had listened attentively to all the discussions between his father and the missionaries, and he boldly decided to confess Jesus as Lord and Master. Sonam’s decision angered the local lamas, and great pressure was applied in a bid to make him abandon his new faith and return to the Buddhist fold. He rebuffed their threats, and later that year he was publicly baptized and adopted the new name of Yoseb (Joseph). Yoseb had inherited his father’s wealth and land, and after obtaining a good education, the young man faced a difficult decision. Part of him wanted to be a merchant, and he knew he would enjoy great riches as his valley emerged as a key trading hub in the region. On the other hand, Yoseb desired to follow Jesus Christ no matter what, and to help provide the Word of God to his fellow Tibetans. As he pondered what to do, Yoseb had a powerful dream in which he saw a caravan of mules stop outside his home. The merchants unloaded an

array of expensive treasures: jade from China, wood carvings from Nepal, costly garments, and other exotic treasures. The leader of the caravan exclaimed: “These are your treasures, master, and more are yet to come!” Yoseb Gergan woke up in amazement. The experience had been so vivid that he was surprised to find it was only a dream. Tibetans believe that all dreams have a meaning, and as he contemplated the message he dozed off and had a second dream. This time: A few Tibetans sat in a humble church listening as the minister read from a great volume spread out on the desk. Leaning closer, Yoseb was amazed to see that it was a Tibetan Bible. The pages were written in letters of fire. The man preaching seemed shadowy and indistinct, but the voice was his own! Looking around, he saw the little group listening with close attention. Now the voice spoke again: “Which way shall you choose, my friends? One way offers wealth and luxury, but no hope of eternal life. The other is hard, but leads at last to a golden city with joys forevermore.” Yoseb awoke from his dream and pondered the message. God had spoken—of that he had no doubt. Slipping to his knees, he asked God to forgive him for his covetous spirit. Life in the valley would lead to great riches, but that was not the way God wanted him to go. As soon as possible he would leave all this behind and join the struggling work. He divided the great estate among the servants who had cared for it through the years. When all was settled he rode out of the valley headed for Leh, leaving his old life forever.2

Help from above The task of translating the Bible into Tibetan received a great boost when God sent a gifted linguist to the Moravian Mission. When the 40-year-old Heinrich Jaeschke arrived on the Tibetan border in 1856, he could already speak several European languages fluently, including Greek. He also possessed a smattering of Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit. He immediately immersed himself in the local community, and was soon able to converse in Hindi and Urdu. To achieve his goals, Jaeschke enlisted the help of two former Buddhist lamas. Finally, after a painstaking struggle, the Gospel of John in Tibetan was published in 1862. Although a portion of the Bible was now available, it was not well accepted by Tibetans, who struggled to understand the words and concepts it contained, causing many readers to give up in frustration. Years of

discouragement ensued as the Tibetan Christians and missionaries tried to share God’s Word with local Buddhists, only to encounter uniform apathy and disinterest. From the start, the translators had struggled with what terms they should use to portray Christian concepts and names to a completely non-Christian culture. Long discussions and prayer meetings were held over what Tibetan words to use for “God,” “Savior,” and “sin,” among many others. Each word that was tried had Buddhist connotations, and it seemed impossible to find terms that were unique, yet communicated the beauty of God’s Word to a people steeped in superstition and a completely different worldview. Another major hurdle to overcome was the choice of which Tibetan script to use. Should they translate the Bible into classical Tibetan, as used by the lamas, or into the language of the common people? The problem was a double-edged sword. If they chose the common script, the Bible risked being disrespected by the Buddhist hierarchy and viewed as an unholy book. On the other hand, if they chose the classical script, only those men and women who had been taught to read in Buddhist monasteries and convents would be able to understand it. One morning, feeling frustrated and defeated, Yoseb Gergan set out on a long walk to a Tibetan village north of Leh. By lunchtime the intense heat caused him to rest in the shade with his back against the wall of a small Tibetan temple. As he rested, he idly listened to the resident lama chant and beat his prayer drum. Suddenly, as if jolted to life, the lama’s words registered in Yoseb’s mind: Could it be true? The lama was reciting from some ancient book that seemed to contain the very phrases the translators had searched for. Rushing into the temple, Yoseb begged to see this strange book . . . Reverently the old lama lifted the faded pages for Yoseb to see. “You ask where this book came from? Only the gods know. My father read from this book, and his father before him. It was written by the gods themselves” . . . The language, written in an almost forgotten dialect, amazed Yoseb. He saw at once that this language was the key for which they had searched. Here was the word for “God” which they had so diligently sought, a good word for “prayer,” and other difficult phrases. The language, much simpler than classical Tibetan, could be adapted so that the modern Tibetan would understand it clearly—even the simple people of the hills.3

Yoseb eagerly begged the elderly lama to let him borrow the book, and the old man replied:

Never have I allowed another to touch that book. It has been a treasure carefully guarded. No stranger could ever take my book—and yet, somehow I feel you ought to have it. I do not know why I do this, but I want you to take the book and share it with others. Soon my spirit will escape from this shell, and there is no one to take these books from me. Take it, my son, and may the gods be with you.4

Finally, in the most unexpected way, the translators had been given the key to unlock an effective Tibetan Bible translation. The work continued at a new pace, with the books of Hebrews and Revelation next to be completed. When the entire New Testament was ready for publication, the final proofs were sent to Jaeschke in Germany, where he made some corrections before it went to press. Unfortunately, the health of the linguistic genius had broken down, and he went to be with Jesus Christ in September 1883, aged 66. More years elapsed as the entire translation underwent a revision. The New Testament was finally completed in 1903, and Yoseb Gergan immediately commenced work on translating the Old Testament. Although the publishing of the Tibetan New Testament did not cause an outbreak of revival, it greatly strengthened the small remnant of Tibetan believers, and the profile of Christianity was greatly enhanced among the Buddhist hierarchy now that God’s Word was available for them to read. In 1926, the abbot of one monastery told the missionaries: “I have read all the New Testament. Is it true that there is an Old Testament? If so, will you kindly send me all the books? I am much interested in Christianity.”5

The cover of the first two books of the Tibetan Old Testament, printed in 1905

Wrestling with the devil Many more years went past until finally, in 1935, Yoseb Gergan laid down his pen. He had on his desk the first draft of the complete Tibetan Bible! He let out a deep sigh. Now, the Holy Bible would be available to reach the millions of Tibetans living on the vast plateau beyond the passes.

Incredibly, another 13 years of intense struggle elapsed before the full Tibetan Bible finally saw the light of day, as a succession of extraordinary events threatened to totally destroy the decades of work. It seemed as if every demon in hell had gathered to prevent the Word of God being available in Tibetan. First, the workers at the Bible Society in India were unable to print the manuscript because they didn’t possess the technology to do so. At a time long before computers or photocopy machines, the precious manuscript was carefully placed inside a crate and sent to the headquarters of the Bible Society in Britain. The Tibetan Bible arrived in London, but as Hitler’s forces swept across Europe, the Bible Society was concerned that the valuable manuscripts in their vaults might be destroyed by a Nazi bomb, so they arranged to transport the documents to safer rural locations. The Tibetan manuscript was placed in an underground vault inside the ancient cathedral at Ripon, 200 miles (324 km) north of London. As the Battle of Britain raged: One 2,000 pound [907 kg] missile from the skies landed on a roadway beside Ripon Cathedral and came to rest against the wall of the church without exploding. Four feet away, inside the church’s wall, lay the Tibetan manuscript. Gingerly, a bomb demolition crew defused the bomb. The firing device seemed faultless, and they could not understand why it had failed to explode.6

By the time the Second World War ended, Yoseb Gergan was 60 years old. For a decade he had waited patiently for news about when his Tibetan Bible would be printed. With Europe in disarray and no sign of progress, he asked that the manuscript be returned to India, hoping that new technology there would allow it to be printed closer to home. Alas, the printers in India shook their heads, saying the manuscript had been written on cheap Tibetan paper and the type could not be reproduced. The entire manuscript would need to be rewritten on special white paper. Years after sending them off, Gergan received his precious manuscripts back, and he asked God to give him the strength to complete the massive undertaking.

Yoseb Gergan translating the Tibetan Bible Two more years passed, and Yoseb felt his strength was beginning to ebb as he continued working on his life’s task. Then disaster struck. After days of feeling dizzy as he worked from sunrise to late at night, he fell to the ground, gasping for breath. Yoseb Gergan had suffered a heart attack. The members of the small Tibetan church in Ladakh cried out to the Living God, asking Him to have mercy. They had never imagined that their beloved pastor would die before the Bible was in circulation. God heard their prayers, and Yoseb experienced a surge of strength. A special table was constructed so he could continue the work from bed, and two Tibetan scribes were employed to do most of the writing, with Yoseb overseeing their work and making corrections. Finally, on August 11, 1946, Yoseb Gergan wrote down the Tibetan words for the final verses in the Bible: “Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen” (Revelation 22.20–21 KJV). Five days later, Yoseb Gergan closed his eyes one last time, and went to his eternal reward. Ninety years had passed since the Moravian missionaries first took up the task of producing the Bible in Tibetan—and 84 years had elapsed since

the Gospel of John was published—but now the translation of the entire Tibetan Bible was complete!

A soggy pulp Unsurprisingly, more demonic opposition and roadblocks had to be overcome before the Tibetan Bible was finally printed. The rewritten manuscript had to be taken on the back of a mule across the steep mountain passes to Leh, the capital of Ladakh, and a young Tibetan named Sandrup was employed to deliver the manuscript. The journey to Leh was expected to take 50 days, and from there the manuscript would be sent on to the city of Lahore, where the Indian Bible Society was headquartered. Months went by without any word from Sandrup. He, and his precious cargo, had simply vanished in the remote wilderness. The believers worried that he had been murdered by bandits or had encountered some other disaster. Thankfully, another set of proofs had been made by Yoseb Gergan. They were given to a Christian named Bahadur, who retraced the steps of the missing Sandrup. As Bahadur crossed a mountain pass, a massive electrical storm came rolling up from the valley below. He pulled his horse behind a large boulder and squatted close to the ground, waiting for the storm to pass, as hailstones the size of eggs smashed into his back and neck. Suddenly: There was a searing flash of light followed by the crash of thunder. The horse tried to bolt into the darkness, but Bahadur restrained it with tremendous effort. Flash after flash of lightning glanced off the rocks around them, filling the air with the heavy smell of scorched earth. The thunder roared as though the demons of hell had gathered to defy the terrified traveler. Torrential rain followed the hail, pouring from the heavens like a waterfall . . . “Oh God,” he cried, “help me now. Deliver me from Satan and his evil host. Protect your Book!” His shouted prayer was answered by another flash of lightning, which laid him out insensible on the ground. When consciousness struggled back, the storm had passed. He noticed that all was quiet, and he suddenly realized he was stone deaf . . . It would be weeks before he would hear a sound, and then only faintly, as the storm had split his eardrums.7

Bahadur bravely soldiered on and finally reached the Christian chapel in Leh. The scribes came running out to welcome him, but when the saddlebags were opened, a soggy mass of paper fell to the ground. The storm had succeeded in filling the bags with water. Bahadur “tried to pick up the sticky mess, but it was no use. His journey had accomplished nothing. He called God to witness what the devil had done to the precious papers.”8

One final effort The staff members at the Bible Society realized they were in an intense spiritual battle that required a far greater power than mere human effort to overcome, and they petitioned Christians in many nations to intercede for the success of the Tibetan Bible project. After another delay, a third set of proofs was successfully sent to Leh, and the final draft was sent for printing. Meanwhile the body of Sandrup, the first courier, had been found at the bottom of a steep cliff. He had perished in an avalanche. Due to the outbreak of war, which would lead to the formation of Pakistan as a separate country in 1947, it wasn’t safe to send the manuscript to Lahore. It would have to be personally carried across the dangerous mountains, and one of the Tibetan scribes, Gappel, volunteered to undertake the months-long journey. He entered the war zone, and for months not a word was heard from him. Four months later, as the Bible Society workers were giving up hope of ever seeing Gappel or the manuscript again, news emerged that he was holed up in a little hut in Kashmir. His way to Lahore was blocked by soldiers, and he could not return to India because of the advancing Indian army. However, after another series of divine interventions, the manuscript finally arrived in Lahore, where Gappel began to put the finishing touches to the work. The searing heat and humidity of Lahore soon made Gappel fall ill, as he had spent his whole life in the crisp air of the Himalayas. Two large fans

were installed in his room, and 50 large blocks of ice were placed in front of the struggling Tibetan. His spirit was immediately revived by the cool environment. With Gappel working up to 20 hours a day to finish the task so he could return home, progress was swift, and the wonderful day finally arrived in August 1948 when the first ever copy of the full Tibetan Bible rolled off the press!

God’s Word goes forth As soon as his job was done, Gappel hastily headed back to his home in the mountains, while an initial print-run of 5,000 Tibetan Bibles was dispatched to expectant missionaries and Tibetan Christians on both sides of the Himalayas. One recipient of a new Tibetan Bible was Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth (and current) Dalai Lama, who had fled from Tibet into north India. When a missionary presented him with a brand-new copy of the Holy Bible, the Dalai Lama exclaimed, “Thank you! I have heard about this Book, and have seen it only once before . . . I am told it speaks of the great God who became a man and lived on earth.”9 After the Communists took control of Tibet, hundreds of thousands of Buddhist monks were arrested and sent to prison labor camps, where many died after facing horrific cruelties. A Bible reached one imprisoned lama, who after being deeply touched by the words he read, penned a letter in beautiful flowing Tibetan: Dear unknown friends. The book you have sent over the mountains has come to my lonely cell. My soul is strangely stirred as I read these words. Light has come to my poor darkened soul. Please send me more light.10

Notes 1

Allan Maberly, God Spoke Tibetan: The Epic Story of the Men Who Gave the Bible to Tibet, the Forbidden Land (Orange, CA: Evangel Bible Translators, 1971), p. 69.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Maberly, God Spoke Tibetan, pp. 84–5. Maberly, God Spoke Tibetan, pp. 88–9. Maberly, God Spoke Tibetan, p. 90. Marshall Broomhall, The Bible in China (London: China Inland Mission, 1934), p. 121. Maberly, God Spoke Tibetan, pp. 95–6. Maberly, God Spoke Tibetan, pp. 103–4. Maberly, God Spoke Tibetan, p. 104. Maberly, God Spoke Tibetan, p. 140. Maberly, God Spoke Tibetan, p. 143.

1950s

Ü-Tsang Tibetan dreams of becoming an independent nation came crashing down in the 1950s, as massive upheavals struck every part of Tibetan society, and hundreds of thousands of people were mercilessly slaughtered by the Communists. Between 1913 and 1950, the Tibetan government in Lhasa had tried to assert its authority as a separate country, issuing its own flag, passports, and currency. A Tibetan stamp was printed in India, bearing the image of the Dalai Lama, although as one source pointed out:

A Tibetan banknote, used in Tibet from 1942 to 1959 These were rejected by the Tibetans . . . The Dalai Lama could not be placed on a stamp as it might get trodden underfoot, which would bring dishonor to him. Besides, who was going to strike his head with a great metal franking hammer?1

Life in Tibet experienced a sudden and dramatic shift after a Chinese general declared in 1951: “Efforts must be made to raise the population of

Tibet from two million to more than ten million.” This new policy was to be implemented by waves of Han Chinese migrants moving to the Tibetan Plateau. Unsurprisingly, the Tibetans were alarmed and indignant when they heard about the new initiative. Christians with a burden to reach Tibet were divided in their views of the Chinese takeover of the land. While some lamented the influence the atheistic regime would have on the Tibetan people, others looked through eyes of faith and saw an opportunity for the gospel to knock down the iron gates that had kept Tibet firmly shut off to Christianity for centuries. Missionary Edward Beatty wrote in December 1950: Today the armies of Communist workmen are building a motor road across Tibet on which tenwheel trucks already are moving toward Tibet’s capital, Lhasa. We believe, hope and pray that this road, in the wisdom and power of God, will become a way of advance for those who proclaim the Christian gospel and way of life. But will Western Christians be permitted to enter in? So long as the Lord has need of them, He will enable His chosen ones to enter the land. In Chinese Tibet we one day listened spellbound to a small group of recently arrived Chinese Christians thanking God that He had reserved Tibet as a special field of service for the Chinese Church.2

George Patterson One of the most controversial of all missionaries among the Tibetan people was George Patterson, a Brethren believer from Scotland. He lived in the Kham region from 1947 to 1952, siding with the Khampas in their struggle for survival against both the Chinese army and other Tibetan factions. Instead of simply preaching the gospel to the Tibetans, Patterson soon found himself caught up in a complex situation. One historian explained:

George Patterson He hoped to gain a political and military victory over both the reactionary government in Lhasa, and the approaching armies of the People’s Republic of China. Such a strategy, deplored by most of his missionary colleagues in Kangding, would produce justice for the Tibetans, he claimed. Furthermore, he thought it would enable him as a missionary to develop a new foundation for Tibetan culture, one that would have the gospel as an essential ingredient. The plan did not work.3

Many in the mission world were aghast as Patterson plunged into the murky world of political intrigue. Fully convinced he was on the right path, he even persuaded Khampa warriors to take him along so that he could film an ambush where they massacred a group of Chinese soldiers.4 Further controversy followed when Patterson helped the Dalai Lama to flee Tibet in 1959. This act convinced many missionaries that Patterson had fallen into deception, a view that was only reinforced by his own testimony,

in which he claimed to have come to Asia after hearing an audible voice in his home country, telling him to go to Tibet. Patterson admitted: I knew nothing about Tibet, except that it was a remote country with unusual customs. But I was intrigued enough to begin reading about Tibet, and to begin a personal dialogue with God on the basis that he was the one who had spoken to me.5

George Patterson helped the Dalai Lama to flee to India just before the Chinese forces arrived in Lhasa with plans to either capture or kill the Tibetan leader. The successful escape caused great celebration among Tibetans and has sustained the cause of Tibetan Buddhism to the present day. Many Christians, understandably, have questioned the wisdom of a professing missionary helping the survival of a man considered by millions of Tibetans to be a living god, but Patterson, as always, remained unapologetic, saying he was doing God’s will and would have no hesitation in doing so again. Patterson also fled to India and then later returned home to Scotland. Until his death in 2012 at the age of 92, he: continued to press for Tibetan rights before international bodies, with full assurance that it was God’s will. Tibetan leaders outside of China, including the Dalai Lama, have indicated that Patterson has been a better friend to them than the United States, Great Britain, or India.6

Geoffrey Bull George Patterson had traveled to China with a Brethren missionary named Geoffrey Bull. The duo intended to spread the gospel among Tibetans, but whereas Patterson went on to become a famous and divisive figure in the mission world, Bull was arrested in the Kham region and spent three years in prison for his faith, before the Communists declared that he had confessed his “crimes against the people” and expelled him from the country. Bull recalled the emotions he felt as his train made its way toward the Hong Kong border and freedom: Year after year, I had lived for this day. God knows all that it had meant. With blow after blow, I had been spiritually and psychologically bludgeoned, until I was dazed and broken in mind and spirit, but none had been able to pluck me from my Shepherd and His Father’s hand.

In the crisis, I had found my faith and love at times too weak to hold Him fast, but the final triumph was not to be in my hold of Him, but in His hold of me. His love would never let me go. He would keep that which I had committed to Him. In His own time and way, He was determined and able to make me all the man that He had planned that I should be. I was broken, but I had proved His Word unbreakable.7

Geoffrey Bull Upon returning to Britain, Bull gradually recovered from his ordeal and told his story in a bestselling book, When Iron Gates Yield. He married in 1955 and subsequently served as a missionary in Borneo (now part of Malaysia). Geoffrey Bull continued to be a leading Brethren teacher for decades until his death in 1999 at the age of 78.

Kham The 1950s saw Khampa society decimated by Mao’s forces as they invaded the region, leaving a trail of destruction in their path. Life in Kham was never to be the same again. In 1950, the Chinese captured the town of

Qamdo without firing a shot. The Khampa fled in terror when the People’s Liberation Army set off a huge fireworks display on the outskirts of the town. The Tibetans had never seen fireworks before and presumed they were being bombarded with a new weapon. In late 1955, the Communist authorities ordered the lamas of the large Litang Monastery to make an inventory of the monastery’s possessions for tax assessment. When the lamas refused to oblige, soldiers laid siege to the monastery, which was defended by several thousand monks and farmers, many of whom were armed with farm implements. Chinese aircraft were called in to bomb Litang, destroying the monastery and killing hundreds of people. The Tibetans, outraged by the attack, spread the conflict to the surrounding towns of Dege, Batang, and Qamdo.8 They fought for their very existence, not caring whether they lived or died, but their efforts were no match for the Chinese tanks and well-drilled army.

The People’s Liberation Army marching across Tibet in the early 1950s Rocked by the savagery of the attacks on his people, the Dalai Lama set up a commission which documented some of the atrocities that had been committed by the Chinese against the Tibetan people: Tens of thousands of our people have been killed, not only in military actions, but individually and deliberately. They have been killed, without trial, on suspicion of opposing Communism,

or of hoarding money, or simply because of their position, or for no reason at all. But mainly and fundamentally they have been killed because they would not renounce their religion. They have not only been shot, but beaten to death, crucified, burned alive, drowned, vivisected, starved, strangled, hanged, scalded, buried alive, disemboweled, and beheaded. These killings have been done in public. The victims’ fellow villagers and friends and neighbors have been made to watch them, and eyewitnesses described them to the Commission. Men and women have been slowly killed while their own families were forced to watch, and small children have even been forced to shoot their parents. Lamas have been specially persecuted. The Chinese said they were unproductive and lived on the money of the people. The Chinese tried to humiliate them, especially the elderly and most respected, before they tortured them, by harnessing them to plows, riding them like horses, whipping and beating them, and other methods too evil to mention. And while they were slowly putting them to death, they taunted them with their religion, calling on them to perform miracles to save themselves from pain and death.9

The Chinese had a markedly different view of the conflicts, however, with one account declaring: The imperialists and a small number of reactionary elements in Tibet’s upper ruling clique could not reconcile themselves to the peaceful liberation of Tibet and its return to the embrace of the Motherland . . . Contrary to their desires, this rebellion accelerated the destruction of Tibet’s reactionary forces and brought Tibet onto the bright, democratic, socialist road sooner than expected.10

In 1950, just prior to the curtain being permanently drawn on foreign Christian work, missionary Edward Beatty provided a final glimpse into the state of Christianity throughout the Kham region: In the town of Kangding there are four full-blooded Tibetans who are Christians; one is a gifted artist who was formerly engaged in the lucrative work of idol painting. There are also four or five Christian women of Chinese-Tibetan parentage, more Tibetan than Chinese. Finally, there were three other Tibetans called of the Lord, for a time, to the preaching of the gospel, who are now in His presence in glory.

A 1955 Chinese propaganda poster of smiling Tibetans after being “liberated” by the Red Army Workers of another mission living in the small town of Garze were privileged to see four or five Tibetans baptized on confession of their faith in the Lord Jesus. Also in several villages of Chinese Tibet there are other Christian Tibetans.11

Due to the godly influence of missionaries like Albert Shelton, the remote town of Batang had become a hub of Christian activity in the Kham region prior to the chaos of the 1950s. Years later, a Tibetan Christian using the pseudonym “Andrew” detailed the impact the gospel had made there: I was born into a Christian Tibetan family. By God’s favor I was led into His presence in my early childhood and became part of the Christian flock. Through the teaching of church members I grew up to become a servant of Jesus Christ. God blesses and preserves me all the time. Thank you Lord! I will glorify and serve Him all my life . . . Many Tibetans became believers in those days. People repented after hearing the Word of God, and began living by the truths of the gospel. They accepted the Lord’s redemption,

proclaiming Jesus as the only God, who came to earth in bodily form as a human being. Tibetans followed and served the Lord with faithful hearts. Many of them were baptized as well. When Christianity was prevalent in Batang, there were more than 100 believers. God blessed us abundantly.12

The long Catholic missionary era in Tibetan areas also came to an end in the early 1950s. The Kham region, with thousands of converts, had seen the strongest results for Catholic work among Tibetans, with even a rival Evangelical scholar admiring their commitment and strategic approach: Catholic missionaries lived simple lives among nomads and learned well the life and culture of the people. They were prepared to dialogue philosophically with the lamas or to deal directly with village people on their fears of the spirit world. Seeking wherever possible to promote people movements, they were able to establish Christian communities to which they then ministered through hospitals, schools, seminaries, and institutions of compassion. Their work on both sides of the China–Tibet border has proved to have more lasting quality than any of the many ministries engaged in by Protestant missionaries in the same areas.13

John Ding It was not only Tibetans who felt the full force of Communist fury. Han Chinese evangelists who had given their lives to reach the Khampa Tibetans also faced years of savage persecution because of their love for Jesus Christ. Two little-known heroes of the faith were John Ding and his wife Ju Yiming, who were serving in Kangding when the People’s Liberation Army swept through the area. Ding, a native of Shanghai, thought God might be calling him to Tibet when he met a beautiful young Christian lady named Ju Yiming. His cautious nature resulted in him taking his time before asking Ju to be his wife, and when he finally mustered enough courage he said, “Perhaps I’m not what you would want in a husband. You’re like a Mary while I’m more like a Martha. I’m Mr. Fix-it, while you are a scholar.” “Those differences could complement one another,” Ju replied. When Ding told her that he thought God might be calling him to a life of missionary service among the Tibetan people, Ju replied, “Well, if you are my husband, I’ll certainly go where you go. And if that means Tibet, so be it.”14

When the newlyweds arrived in Kangding in 1949, they were amazed to see the variety of believers in the town’s thriving church. Ding recalled: We had an assembly of great variety: Han Chinese, Westerners, and some Tibetans; Christian workers, a few old believers, many new converts, and some inquirers. Never before had this church had such a harvest as this, and never before so many workers in the harvest.15

The years passed, and all foreign missionaries were expelled from China. After several years of relative calm, November 29, 1958, proved to be a horrible day for Ding and Ju, when several soldiers burst into their home with their guns drawn. They dragged the couple away, as Ding looked at his beloved wife and said, “The time has come. Hallelujah!” She responded: “Yes, the time has come; praise the Lord!”16 Many years later, John Ding recalled the events of that fateful evening: One of the men demanded: “Where are your guns? We know you have them!” I picked up my Bible. “This is my weapon,” I said quietly. They ignored this but roughly told us: “We’re taking you to prison. Get a quilt and any other necessities and be quick about it!” Yiming whispered to me, “Take a Tibetan gown. It will keep you warm.” Following her advice, I chose my grey wool robe; little realizing that it would stay with me for the next 22 years, though by that time somewhat threadbare.17

Ding discovered that he was one of the few Han Chinese inmates in the prison, and that almost all the other men were Khampa warriors who had been labeled separatists and counter-revolutionaries by the Communist authorities. After a few weeks, the Tibetans saw that Ding was different from other Chinese. He was humble and seemed to genuinely care for them. They treated Ding like one of their own, which brought great comfort to Ding once his hardships began in earnest. He recalled: I was beaten; I was strung up by ropes and pummelled. What I particularly remember was that when I was thrown back into my cell, still filled with Tibetans, the lamas clustered around me, examined my bruises, got out some of their precious yak butter, and gave me a gentle rubdown ... In turn, I did my best to help the other prisoners when they came limping back after torture. Sometimes we had to witness brutal treatment right in our cell, like the time when one trader had wet yak hide tied around his head and left to dry. When that process seemed to be going too slow, a guard took a chopstick and began to twist the thongs tighter and tighter. The man shrieked in pain. It was appalling and shook us to the core. Of course, that is why we were forced to witness it.18

Months after his arrest, Ding learned that his wife was working as a cook for the wives of the prison staff. He also heard that she was getting into trouble by boldly sharing the gospel with everyone she met. The time slowly passed, until it had been three years since Ding and Ju had seen each other. John often imagined what his beloved wife now looked like, but one day while he was working outside on a mountain slope, he was shocked and delighted to see her coming up the trail with a basket on her back. He quickly seized the moment, asking how she was. Ding later recalled their precious conversation: [Ju had replied:] “There have been some bad days. I got reported for witnessing, and the guards beat me for that. Some of the staff women are Christians, and I urged them to be faithful. That got me into trouble. But God has been so good all along.” Then hearing footsteps on the path, she said, “Someone’s coming.” “I love you, Yiming,” I whispered. “I pray for you so much!” “And I pray for you, John, that your faith will fail not.” And with that she moved slowly up the hill.19

John Ding was overjoyed with the brief interaction he had that day, not realizing it was the last time he would see his wife again in this world. The years rolled on, with John Ding remaining in prison because of his faith in Christ Jesus. Seasons of harsh persecution came and went as China lurched into chaos under Mao’s cruel policies. On one occasion, Ding was called into the prison torture room, where his hands were tightly tied behind his back and a bucket of human excrement was emptied over his head. The guards cruelly left him in that position for days: never giving him a chance to clean himself. He was given food, but with his hands tied behind his back, he had to lie on the floor and lick it up like an animal. The food had to pass through soiled lips. He still did not deny his faith, and refused to admit to crimes he had not committed . . . The inmates were told they would all be kept like this indefinitely unless they forced him to comply with the demands of his interrogators. To survive, these criminals now competed in torturing him day and night.20

In 1960, Ding was suddenly transferred to a prison in the city of Chengdu, where he spent the next seven years. He was surprised to find that the new facility was also filled with Tibetans, and noted: “All along I had marvelled at the mysterious ways of God in continuing my ministry to Tibetans. I probably talked to more Tibetans in prison than I did while I was outside.”21

Ding was befriended by many of the Khampa inmates. One day the prison warden commanded the Tibetans to cut off their long braids of hair. The order was so loathsome to the Khampa warriors that they were on the verge of rioting in protest. Ding, “who was also a barber, persuaded them to let him cut off their hair by arranging to have each braid labelled and placed in storage with the prisoner’s possessions.”22 John Ding had received no further news about his wife until one day, during questioning, his interrogators casually remarked: “Your wife was just like you. She wouldn’t stop praying, and we had to put her in a struggle session. She wouldn’t give in, even when she was beaten. After that she died.”23 John was crushed by this news and was angry when he discovered that his beloved wife had been dead for three years before he was notified. A short time later Ding wrote a confession of his “crimes,” much to the glee of his captors. He went back and scratched out large portions of it, however, which led to him being sent back to the Kangding prison for another ten years. Ding was finally released from prison in 1981, after more than 22 years in captivity. He had remained faithful to the Lord, and after moving back to his home city of Shanghai he became a friend of Wang Mingdao, the great Chinese house church patriarch, who had spent 25 years in prison for his faith. The two disciples had much in common. One day John Ding received a letter from the government, which stated: “We have been re-examining your case, and have come to the conclusion that there is no substance to the charges against you.”24 Ding sighed, fell to his knees as he had done countless times before, and recommitted his life to His Savior, Jesus Christ. After such prolonged hardship, the last part of Ding’s life could scarcely be imagined. He married a Christian widow, and when his criminal record was erased he procured a passport and was able to visit the United States in the late 1980s at the invitation of some of his former missionary friends. He finally went to his eternal reward in the 1990s.

John Ding in America in the late 1980s David Woodward

Amdo Massive loss of life was also experienced in the Amdo region, as the Communist “liberation” machine marched through the grasslands and valleys, slaughtering entire communities as they pleased. The Dalai Lama listed 49,049 deaths from battles within Amdo territory, in addition to 121,982 deaths from starvation.25 After all foreign missionaries had been systematically expelled from China, some Han Chinese believers courage-ously volunteered to take their place. In 1950, a seminary graduate moved to Xining, hoping to carry on the decades of sterling service given by stalwarts of the gospel like French Ridley, Frank Learner, and Victor Plymire. He made long journeys into the newly “liberated” Amdo areas, searching for any believers he could find. His report brought great encouragement to the expelled missionaries:

Mao Zedong flanked by the Dalai Lama (right) and the Panchen Lama (left) in 1954 In the country, village Christians are maintaining a testimony and strengthening one another’s hands in the Lord. At one remote place I found four Christian farmers who had had no contact with other Christians for four or five years but, in spite of persecution, they still confessed the name of Christ. Thirty miles farther on, I found one isolated Christian continuing faithful in prayer and Bible reading. Elsewhere I found the Christians meeting twice daily—in the morning for Bible study and in the evening for prayer, and tithing their money for the Lord’s work. Not far away I was warmly received by a family of Tibetan Christians! At one Tibetan center, the little group of Christians had been revived and backsliders had been restored.26

The “Back to Jerusalem” Tibet mission In the 1940s, a small number of Han Chinese missionaries received a call from God to labor in Tibet. Among them were some of the first workers

with the “Back to Jerusalem” movement. Li Jinquan was born into a Muslim home. Her parents died while she was young, and she went to live with her grandmother. When just 12 years old, she ran away from home and fell into a life of sin, but when she heard the gospel for the first time at the age of 20, she believed and was saved. In 1941, Li attended a Bible school, and three years later she joined a short-term outreach to Gansu, where she met Tibetans for the first time. Li testified that: The Lord touched my heart to see the pitiful need of the Tibetan people . . . The appeal constantly presented itself before me, and I could not but accept this challenge from God . . . The Lord put the load of Tibet on my heart.27

In March 1947, she joined other Back to Jerusalem missionaries and headed west, becoming part of the movement’s Tibet mission. For years she lived in a small mud home in Tulan (now Ulan in Qinghai Province), where she preached the gospel and loved the Tibetan people, until she and the other Chinese missionaries were expelled from the area by the authorities.

Li Jinquan (right) and her co-worker Grace He Enzheng outside their mud home at Tulan Foreign missionary work among the Tibetans was brought to a close. The magazine China’s Millions summarized the history of Evangelical work in the Amdo region with this somber analysis:

There are perhaps 200 in the fellowship of the Church of Christ scattered throughout the eastern part of Qinghai, and though there have been a handful of conversions from Islam and Lamaistic Buddhism, there is no Muslim or Tibetan in the church today.28

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Michael Buckley and Robert Strauss (eds), Tibet: A Travel Survival Kit (Hawthorn, Australia: Lonely Planet, 1986), p. 25. E. E. Beatty, “Tibet: A Notable Observation,” China’s Millions (December 1950), p. 126. Ralph R. Covell, The Liberating Gospel in China: The Christian Faith among China’s Minority Peoples (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1995), pp. 79–80. See George N. Patterson, Patterson of Tibet: Death Throes of a Nation (San Diego, CA: ProMotion Publishing, 1998), p. 383. “How God Helped Save the Dalai Lama of Tibet,” Assist News Service (January 1, 2001). Covell, The Liberating Gospel in China, p. 80. Geoffrey T. Bull, When Iron Gates Yield (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1955), pp. 250–1. See Michael Peissel, Cavaliers of Kham: The Secret War in Tibet (London: Heinemann, 1972). The Dalai Lama, My Land and My People: Memoirs of the Dalai Lama of Tibet (New York: Potala Corporation, 1962), pp. 221–2. Beijing Review (June 27, 1983). Beatty, “Tibet: A Notable Observation,” p. 125. Andrew, “The Lord’s Grace: The Establishment of Batang Church,” self-published report, no date. Ralph R. Covell, “Buddhism and the Gospel among the Peoples of China,” International Journal of Frontier Missions (July 1993), p. 134. John Ting with David Woodward, “Welcome the Wind (Witness of a House Church Pastor): The Secret of Survival in a Rough World,” unpublished manuscript, 1990, p. 70. Ting with Woodward, “Welcome the Wind,” p. 74. Ting with Woodward, “Welcome the Wind,” p. 113. Ting with Woodward, “Welcome the Wind,” pp. 113–14. Ting with Woodward, “Welcome the Wind,” p. 120. Ting with Woodward, “Welcome the Wind,” p. 122. DC Talk and The Voice of the Martyrs, Jesus Freaks: Stories of Those Who Stood for Jesus, Vol. 2 (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2002), p. 271. Ting with Woodward, “Welcome the Wind,” p. 130. David Woodward, “Examining a Significant Minority: Tibetan Christians,” The Tibet Journal (Winter 1991), p. 65. Ting with Woodward, “Welcome the Wind,” p. 130. Ting with Woodward, “Welcome the Wind,” p. 155. Vanya Kewley, Tibet: Behind the Ice Curtain (London: Grafton, 1990), p. 392. Leslie T. Lyall, Come Wind, Come Weather: The Present Experience of the Church in China (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1961), p. 70. Paul Hattaway, Back to Jerusalem: God’s Call to the Chinese Church to Complete the Great Commission (Carlisle: Piquant, 2003), p. 10.

28

Leonard Street, “Chinghai Province,” China’s Millions (September–October 1948), p. 55.

1960s and 1970s When the era of foreign missions in Tibet and China came to an abrupt end in the early 1950s, all news emanating from the Tibetan world fell silent behind the Bamboo Curtain. Many missionaries, still reeling from having had their careers suddenly terminated, had no way of receiving information about the converts they had left behind. Despite the silence, the seed of the gospel that had been planted by many faithful servants of God had been sown deep into the soil of Tibet. The veteran missionary Leslie Lyall remarked in 1965: The early missionaries to Tibet dared to believe that the conversion of Tibetans was possible. There are now Christians and possibly even one local church in Tibet. The unconquerable kingdom has already been politically conquered. Highways are carrying men and merchandise from China into the heart of Tibet. Could these also become highways of the gospel as Chinese Christians, too, travel over the highways—a highway for our God?1

A group of Tibetan women near Lhasa receive Gospel literature With practically no Christian information emerging from Tibet during the 1960s and 1970s, snippets of information only came to light decades later

about incidents relating to Christianity on the Roof of the World in those dark years. For example, decades passed before missionary Brother David shared a story about a Nepali Christian he worked with in the mid-1970s. This man had a burden to preach the gospel inside Tibet, and the missionary bought him a sturdy vehicle to help him fulfill that vision. He frequently traveled from north India across the border and deep into Tibet. Brother David recalled: He and his father had been traveling all the way to Lhasa. They always carried Tibetan Bibles with them, and gave them to the small number of believers they were in contact with. On other occasions they took in Chinese Bibles and sent them on to believers in other parts of the country. Then, on one of his trips, the Chinese authorities discovered the Bibles, and they hung him upside-down from a tree and beat him to death. This was around the end of the Cultural Revolution, when things were tense all over China.2

Nyima Chothar—a Tibetan monk’s story I am a Tibetan and this is my story.3 West of Lhasa is the province of Tsang—home to the city of Xigaze and the famous Tashilhunpo Monastery, which was founded by the First Dalai Lama, Gedyn Druba (1391–1472). It is the seat of the Panchen lamas, and the bodies of all the Panchen lamas are buried there.

A Tibetan monk China Advocate I was born into a family of farmers in the fire-serpent year (1917), in the little village of Chum in Namling County. When I was small, I used to play at being a monk: beating the drums, blowing the white conch shell, setting up the special offerings called “tormas,” and imitating the sacred dances. My parents encouraged me by giving me red and yellow clothing, just like the monks. Before I was seven, my mother and father wanted me to enter the monastery, as it is considered a great honor to a Tibetan family when a son becomes a monk. My uncle enrolled me as a novice monk, even though, according to the monastery rules, I should have been seven. Since I was still only six, my uncle told me: “You must say that you are seven. If you don’t, you can’t stay in the monastery.” The two of us then went to meet the abbot. He asked me: “Are you younger than seven years old?” I replied, “I am just six, but my uncle told me to say that I was seven.” The abbot looked at my red-faced uncle and laughed, and then told me, “Since you have spoken truthfully to me, you are worthy to be a monk. In

the future you will grow up to be an honest man.” Then the abbot gave me my new name—Nyima Chothar. At the time I had no idea what the monks did. I just knew they wore nice clothes and ate good food. Because I was still so young, for a year I did no study, but just played. Our monastery was on a hill, and the monks had to carry me on their shoulders as they went up and down the stairs. From the time I was 8 until I was 11, I studied the Tibetan language and I also took an examination on the Gyan Juk (a Buddhist philosophy book). Out of the 60 boys who took the exam, I had the good fortune to receive the first prize—a khata, or Tibetan ceremonial scarf. Although I studied hard, I was often disobedient, and my uncle and teacher punished me many times. Some of us would run away from the monastery, but our parents would catch us and take us back. Two of my friends and I fled to the top of a high mountain and stayed there for some time. When our food ran out, we ate birds’ eggs. When we finally came down from the mountain our parents caught us and returned us to the monastery, where we were severely whipped. Later, I asked my parents for permission to go to Lhasa, and I prepared clothes and food for the nine-day journey by horse and mule. When I reached Lhasa I stayed in Sera Monastery’s Je College, where about 30 monks were studying Buddhist philosophy. For two years I stayed there, diligently studying the Buddhist scriptures and commentaries. During the Tibetan New Year holiday, when monastery rules were more relaxed, the monks gambled with dice and were allowed to play various games. The other monks were much smarter than me, and I gambled away all my money and possessions.

From the Potala Palace to Bhutan One day my teacher came to me and asked: “The Dalai Lama’s bodyguard at the Potala needs a servant. Will you go?” I stayed about a year with the

bodyguards. Most people found it almost impossible to meet the Dalai Lama, but I saw him every day. At that time I was 13 years old. The monks at Tashilhunpo liked to go to the park and gamble, and my friends and I used to go with them. If the Pon Po (monk in charge of discipline) came along, we would all run away. If we couldn’t get away and he caught us, he would whip us many times. Tired of the punishments, three of us fled from the monastery to the country of Bhutan, where I remained more than a year. The Bhutanese people received us warmly. Wherever we went they offered us food and free places to stay. Even families living far away would invite us to stay in their homes. A few families even asked us to serve as their personal lamas. In February 1950, one of my fellow monks decided to live with a Bhutanese woman. I thought to myself, “I would never do that,” but one evening all of us got drunk and we broke our monastic vows with women. I felt deep regret, knowing I had brought shame on my parents, and I didn’t want to stay there anymore.

A strange new teaching In January 1951, I moved to Phari, near the border between Tibet and Bhutan. I got a job carrying loads of wool across the Himalayas from Phari to Kalimpong, and hauling kerosene back in the other direction. After a year the man I was working for went out of business, and I moved to Calcutta to work as a cook. It was so hot there that I lost my strength. I contracted malaria and was unable to work. I intended to return to Tibet by way of Bhutan, so I put on monk’s clothes and went out to recite the Buddhist scriptures in return for alms. My condition worsened, however, and I became very sick. There was a Christian hospital in the town of Baxaduars, run by a Finnish mission. A lady named Hellin Hukka gave me good treatment, and

after a month I regained my strength. Miss Hukka exchanged the Buddhist books from which I’d been reading for a big book called a Bible. I was still going out and reciting scriptures in people’s homes to earn some money, but Miss Hukka encouraged me not to go, and offered me a job teaching her Tibetan for an hour each afternoon, and she taught me English. While I stayed with the Christians at the mission hospital, every morning and evening I attended their little worship service. I opened the Bible, and read about a God who created the sky, the earth, the ocean, the trees, and all that is in the world. The Bible said that God made the first man and woman, but they disobeyed His command. Their sin spread to all humankind, making us all sinners. This new teaching was strange to me. According to our Buddhist religion, the world arose by itself. A monkey, the emanation of the god Chenrezig, was the father of all people; and a rock demon was the mother of all. That was the way the human race began. I had to decide about which story was true. I was shocked when I read in the Bible that idols are worthless and that making sacrifices to them is pointless. I thought, “If this is true, then all the religion I’ve practiced so far is worthless. This Christian religion is unsuitable for Tibetans,” and I stopped reading the Bible. One day a Bhutanese girl named Sangey came to the hospital with a foot infection. Her sore smelled awful, but nevertheless I washed it and applied medicine, and after a month it was healed. Sangey and I liked each other and we decided to live together, but Miss Hukka discovered our plans and sent Sangey to Darjeeling. I was upset and immediately traveled to Darjeeling, convinced that Christians were nasty people who liked to interfere in other people’s business.

The teaching follows me

While I was on my way to Darjeeling, Miss Hukka phoned ahead and called Sangey back to Baxaduars. When I discovered she was gone, I was broken-hearted. I visited the local market, where I met a tall Englishman named Ernest Shingler, who offered me a job. He arranged a small room for me to stay in, and every afternoon I taught him and his wife Tibetan. One day he asked me if I’d heard about the Jesus religion. I told him I had, and he gave me another Bible, just like the one I’d left behind in the mission hospital. It felt as though I couldn’t escape hearing about Jesus! I thought maybe it was my fate, so I began to read the Bible and pray. Although I thought I was a Christian, and others said I had become one, I was really just going through the motions and my heart had not changed. Because I’d studied Buddhism for so many years, I couldn’t leave it. Occasionally I still said mantras and recited texts, and I still believed in the Buddhist gods and idols. The Christians I met were very devout, but I wondered why they made no offerings to their God. One day, as I was reading the book of Isaiah, I came across these words, which shook my faith in the Buddhist gods: All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame. Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit nothing? People who do that will be put to shame; such craftsmen are only human beings. Let them all come together and take their stand; they will be brought down to terror and shame . . . Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself . . .

(Isaiah 44.9–11, 20) Mr. Shingler kept coming for his Tibetan lessons three times a week, and each time I prayed with him I felt much better. God deepened my understanding and brought about many changes to my way of thinking. I stopped wandering about at night and quit many of my former bad habits. A short time later I fell ill with a fever, and a Pentecostal preacher from south India came to the hospital. Through his prayers a number of the

patients were healed, and he asked me if I believed in Jesus. “Yes, I believe in Jesus,” I replied, and the evangelist was glad. He then asked, “Do you believe that if you pray to Jesus your illness will be healed?” “I do,” I replied. He placed his hands on me and prayed in a loud voice, much to the amazement of the other patients who were looking on. Some of the other patients were healed by the power of his prayer. The following day I felt the fever had left my body and I had peace in my mind. I believed in Jesus and had been healed.

God gives me a new heart When I returned home and Mr. Shingler and his wife saw me, they asked how I had been released from the hospital so quickly. I told them the whole story, and they were very happy and praised God. Later that evening I read in the Bible: You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

(Ephesians 4.22–24) I was deeply touched by the beauty of these words, and I received a new heart. I turned away from adultery, drinking, and other sins. I confessed them to God and He washed them away by the blood of the Lord Jesus. Now I was a real Christian! Because I had studied Buddhism for so long, it had taken me three years to come to faith in Christ. In November 1955, I was baptized at the Finnish Mission in Darjeeling. Because it was cold, the church members poured a great deal of hot water into the baptismal pool, but the air was so

cold that it had little effect. Everyone was excited because I was the first Tibetan ever to be baptized there. After my baptism many people asked what kind of work I was going to do. “I don’t know,” I replied. “I’ll do whatever God tells me.” Soon after, I got a job in a restaurant, where I met a young Tibetan woman from Lhasa named Rigdzin Wangmo. We liked each other and, after arranging matters with our friends, we were married in the restaurant. A few months later, Rigdzin and I left for Calcutta. While we were there, in February 1957, both the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama visited the city, and we met with them at the Grand Hotel. The Dalai Lama asked us about our future plans, and many other questions. “We plan to return to Tibet,” I told him. But he said: “If you go back to Tibet it won’t do any good. Keep on doing the very thing you’re doing now. Don’t steal or fight; live peaceably with others; be diligent; and you’ll be happy.”

My wife believes in Jesus After Mr. Shingler and others shared the gospel with Rigdzin, she repented and believed in the Lord Jesus. She was baptized in 1957, and we had a second wedding ceremony in church, now that both of us were Christians. In 1959, the Chinese invaded Tibet and large numbers of Tibetans fled to India. Many church people helped the refugees, and because we were Tibetan Christians they invited us to join them. We gave out Christian books, and whenever we saw monks we would talk to them about Christ. This is my story of how God saved a Tibetan monk and made him His child.

The Lord has been good to us all these years. In February 1960, God gave us a son, whom we named Yacob. For many years my family continued to serve the Living God among Tibetans throughout the Himalayas. We taught in schools, treated the sick, preached the gospel, and started a home for Tibetan refugees. The Lord Jesus graciously intervened on my life journey and set me on a new path to heaven. Please pray for my fellow Tibetans, that they too would have their eyes opened to see that Jesus Christ is the one true Savior that they inwardly long for.

Notes 1

Leslie T. Lyall, A Passion for the Impossible: The China Inland Mission 1865–1965 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1965), pp. 144–5. 2 Personal interview with Brother David, September 2005. 3 The remainder of this chapter has been adapted from a booklet, A Tibetan Monk’s Story (Kathmandu, Nepal: Samdan Publishers, 1995). A version of the testimony is also given in Thomas Hale, A Light Shines in Central Asia: A Journey into the Tibetan Buddhist World (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2000).

1980s

Ü-Tsang In the 1980s, a trickle of Western Christians returned to Tibet for the first time in three decades, and like the generations of missionaries before them, most focused their attention on Lhasa. A brief window of opportunity for unofficial Christian witness in Lhasa opened when Tibet’s capital entered into a “sister city” partnership with Boulder, Colorado. When the city of Boulder sent a delegation to Lhasa in 1987, it included Bill Conrad, the grandson of pioneer missionaries William and Jessie Christie, who had served in Amdo territory nearly a century earlier.

The spiritual atmosphere in Tibet changed in the 1980s with the arrival of many Han Chinese Christians

RCMI Conrad, a qualified ophthalmologist (eye doctor), used the trip to build relationships with officials, and he ultimately gained their permission to perform free surgeries for poor Tibetan people in Gansu Province. Conrad’s ministry flourished from 1990 until his retirement in 2012, performing a total of 6,543 successful eye surgeries, while sharing the gospel with many unreached Tibetans for the first time. The 1980s was also the decade when the Han Chinese house churches— which were experiencing powerful revival in other parts of China—became more aware of the great spiritual needs of the Tibetan people. Some of the first Chinese evangelists humbly sought ways in which they could reach the Tibetan people by serving them. Others, however, were shocked at the level of hostility they encountered, having initially believed the propaganda spread by the Chinese government that the Tibetan people appreciated being brought into the warm embrace of the motherland. Such notions were quickly discarded, and the Chinese Christians realized it would take a long, determined, and prayerful effort to reach Tibetans. For those missionaries who had labored faithfully among Tibetans for many years until their expulsion in the early 1950s, news of renewed interest in the gospel among the Tibetans was like water to a dry and thirsty land. Letters from Tibetan inquirers even began to appear in some Western mission publications, including one from Sichuan Province in 1988, which said: I feel very excited. I am Tibetan and I believe in God. Concerning my religion, I am a Buddhist. Buddhism does not conflict with Christianity, does it? Can you give me an answer? I am very willing to become a Christian.1

By the late 1980s, a small number of foreign Christians had made it back into Tibetan areas, some for the first time since they were expelled from China nearly 40 years earlier. Veteran missionary David Woodward was amazed to see the changes that had taken place in many Tibetan regions, and he saw that God was working to bring the gospel to central Tibet, not just to the peripheral areas. Woodward wrote in 1989: Since the Communist invasion, an enormous process of resettling Chinese has been going on in Tibet, particularly in the east. Among these Chinese are thousands of Christians . . . There are

now Christian groups worshipping in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, while around the Kumbum monastery in northeast Tibet, formerly hostile territory for Christians, there are now about 1,000 Chinese believers in about a dozen house churches . . . The Tibetan population has many reasons for disliking these new Chinese arrivals. Tibetans have always called themselves “insiders” and others “outsiders”. In spite of this, though, the Chinese have been very successful at adapting and integrating into the Tibetan culture. I believe Chinese Christians living in Tibet need our prayers to uphold them in their special opportunity. Pray the Holy Spirit will give these Chinese a longing to share Jesus with Tibetans and to build bridges across the barriers . . . Tibetans need the gospel message. God’s commission is to the world He loves, and that includes taking the gospel to resistant lands. Tibet has been claimed by Buddhism. It has been claimed by Communism. But it is God who holds the title deed.2

Amdo A well-known house church leader from Henan Province, Peter Xu Yongze, told the author how his church movement’s work started among the Amdo Tibetans: Our first workers arrived in Qinghai in 1985. They were two young women who had not been through any of our training schools, but they had a passion to serve the Lord and a burden for souls. The following year we sent some more workers to join them at Golmud. By the grace of God, over time a foundation was laid, and we had Christian families living at every train stop between Xining and Golmud. Our workers actively shared the gospel with Tibetans everywhere. It was not an easy ministry, but after years of consistent witness we saw the walls between the Tibetans and the Han slowly come down. The Tibetans were more receptive to the gospel, although only a few became steadfast believers in Christ.3

The house church workers in Qinghai faced many personal difficulties and often went hungry for extended periods. Xu recalled: I remember one young sister had no money or food, so she went to the train station and collected small pieces of coal that had fallen from the steam trains. She then tried to sell the coal for a few pennies, just so she could survive. This was the kind of commitment our workers in Qinghai displayed. Another team ran out of money and food while they were preaching the gospel. They stood in the desert and prayed for God’s help, and then moments later they noticed wild onions growing out of the barren soil. They gathered them up and ate them. New onions continued to appear every day while they had no option but to depend on God for their survival. After a while a small fellowship was established. Those believers took the responsibility to house and feed the evangelists, and from that day forth the onions no longer appeared!

Ministry in Qinghai has many challenges. In winter, temperatures can drop to minus 20 degrees Celsius or colder. The people are very poor, and most have never previously heard of Jesus. Many times our workers have been beaten by locals or chased by the police. Through many difficulties, our workers have persevered and now a steady flow of people are being saved into God’s kingdom.4

As the number of Christians living among the Tibetans increased, their influence spread, and the Word of God was accompanied by signs and wonders which broke down walls of unbelief and sin. Whereas in the past only a few individual Tibetans had come to Christ, now groups of Tibetans were being confronted by the reality and power of the gospel. In 1985, a dramatic letter was received from a woman in Qinghai. It told of her journey from despair, descent into demonization, and ultimately her deliverance: I am 45 years old and the mother of four sons. When I was about to have my fourth child, I burnt incense and prayed to Buddha, as I wanted a daughter who could be close to me and look after me . . . When my fourth child turned out to be another boy, I was very angry that my prayers had not been answered by Buddha. I felt tricked, and lost all self-control. When the baby was born I put him on the ground and refused to wrap him up, leaving him to freeze to death. My husband came and took care of him, and he gradually grew bigger . . . The devil really took me over. Every day I wanted to die, and I didn’t want to see my children or husband. I tried to hang myself but was discovered just in time by our neighbors . . . I became just like a madwoman. My husband took me to see many doctors, but all to no avail. He even sought help from the idols but it was no use—my madness went from bad to worse . . . I was tormented for six years. Some Christians urged my husband to trust in Jesus, but he paid no attention. Then one day, a Christian in our village came and said, “There’s a meeting underway in a brother’s house near here. Go quickly!” With no other hope, my husband balanced me on a bicycle, and with my sons’ help I was wheeled to the meeting. Just before we went inside, I spotted a well nearby and attempted to throw myself in, screaming, “I can’t bear any more!” The Christians were having Sunday worship, but when they heard me they all united in prayer and called on the Lord’s Name to drive out the demon. It was amazing! From that instant until the present time I have not been ill. I know that when they prayed, the devil was immediately cast out. A great weight lifted from me, and my nerves calmed down. From that moment I have never missed a meeting. My home is now full of joy as Jesus is the Head of our household.5

In 1987, another report told of a remarkable breakthrough among the Amdo in Gansu Province:

During the joyous New Year’s celebrations a number of Christian households joined together for worship. Suddenly a group of Tibetans appeared and told the Christians that they were to stop meeting together as it was not pleasing to their god . . . When they refused to disperse, the Tibetans began to physic-ally attack them. They knocked them to the ground and beat some of them severely. The Christians did not retaliate. The next morning the Tibetans found their sheep, cows and horses were sick and dying. These were their most precious possessions, and for many of them their livelihood. What was worse, some of their family members became violently ill and appeared to be near death. It did not take long for the Tibetans to equate their sudden illnesses to their attack on the Christians. A delegation was sent to the Christians’ homes, and with tears in their eyes they begged for forgiveness and asked the Christians to pray that God might lift the curse. The believers agreed to pray for the sick and dying, and they were made well. More than 100 Tibetans in that village became Christians. Theirs had been a confrontation with a more powerful God than their own.6

Foreign Christians also began to revisit the Tibetan border areas during the 1980s. In some cases, missionary children who had grown up in Tibet returned to their old homes to see if any fruit remained from their family’s labors. In 1908, Ivan Kauffman had arrived in Tibet as a missionary with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. On the long sea voyage he had shared his cabin with Victor Plymire, who went on to have a long and distinguished career among the Tibetan people. Now, eight decades later, Kauffman’s son Paul had founded a mission organization called Asian Outreach, which was active until the early part of the twenty-first century. In the late 1980s, he returned to the Amdo region where he had spent part of his childhood, and shared the good news of Jesus Christ with as many people as possible.

Kham As the 1980s unfolded, Tibetan customs in many areas were changing, some by force as the Chinese government outlawed practices it deemed inconsistent with its vision for a “liberated and harmonious Tibet.” Some traditions were slow to change, however, and in the Kham area of Muli County in Sichuan Province, a 1981 survey of 131 households found that 52 percent of marriages engaged in monogamy, 32 percent practiced polyandry

(brothers sharing a wife), and 16 percent practiced polygamy (sisters sharing a husband).7

Missionary Ivan Kauffman presents a Bible to a Tibetan lama in the 1910s (above); and his son Paul Kauffman followed in his footsteps in the 1980s (below)

Stories occasionally emerged from the Kham region, telling of wonderful deliverances of oppressed and sin-bound individuals. One

woman testified that her family had worshipped Buddha for many generations, but when she became critically ill and was in total despair in 1987, a voice called to her. In her own words she recounted what happened: [The voice told me:] “You have been on the wrong path worshipping idols. God is a good God. He is merciful and holy. You must not pray to false gods and idols for prosperity or long life. You must repent of your sins and accept his Son Jesus Christ into your heart.” I replied: “I am not a sinner. I am a good person. I am conscientious in doing good deeds and I recite the Buddhist scriptures. I do not have any sin.” Then the voice continued and made what I later discovered to be the Ten Commandments clear to me. It made me see that I had indeed sinned against God and that I must confess my sins and believe in Jesus Christ. This I did with much weeping. A strange and wonderful peace came over me. As I wiped the tears from my eyes and looked around, I found that I was the only one in the room. I continued to repent of my sins and decided that I would no longer be a self-seeking person. My health gradually improved even though the doctors had concluded my case was hopeless. How grateful I am that God did not give up on me! Today I am a happy and active follower of Jesus Christ.8

By the late 1980s, small groups of Christians had emerged at many different places on the Tibetan Plateau. A study of 32 Tibetan believers was conducted, and provided interesting insights into the patience needed to bring Tibetans to faith in Christ. When the subjects were asked how long it had taken from the moment they first heard the gospel to actually becoming a follower of Jesus, the average length of time was ten and a half years: They were also asked, “Was there anything related to your Tibetan history, culture, or religion which heightened your interest in Christianity?” Eighteen percent listed “parallels in the sacrificial system” while 12 percent also listed “religious doctrine” and “family structure” as the most significant factors.9

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6

Pray for China (August–September 1988). David Woodward, “God’s Strategy for Tibet,” Asian Report (March–April 1989), pp. 12–14. Personal interview with Peter Xu Yongze, October 2003. Personal interview with Peter Xu Yongze, October 2003. “Living Buddhas or the Living Christ?” Pray for China (January–February 1985). Paul E. Kauffman, Piecing Together the China Puzzle (Hong Kong: Asian Outreach, 1987), pp. 122–3.

7

Ruxian Yan, “Marriage, Family and Social Progress of China’s Minority Nationalities,” cited in Paul Hattaway, Operation China: Introducing All the Peoples of China (Carlisle: Piquant, 2000), p. 103. 8 Kauffman, Piecing Together the China Puzzle, pp. 123–4. 9 Caris Sy, “A Study of Tibetan Culture and Religion and of Potential Redemptive Analogies,” thesis, International School of Theology, Manila, Philippines, 1987, p. 132.

1990s

Ü-Tsang The 1990s continued to see much tension throughout the Tibetan world, especially in 1995 surrounding the appointment of the Eleventh Panchen Lama. As is the custom, the Dalai Lama announced that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was the reincarnation of the Tenth Panchen Lama, who had died in 1989. Three days later the Chinese government spirited the six-year-old boy away, before his supporters had a chance to take him to India. His location has never been divulged. China has said he is being taken care of “for his own safety,” while human rights organizations labeled Nyima “the youngest political prisoner in the world.”

Two happy Tibetans receive Gospel booklets and cassettes Julian Hawken In 2015, on the twentieth anniversary of Nyima’s disappearance, Chinese officials stated: “The reincarnated child Panchen Lama is being educated, living a normal life, growing up healthily and does not wish to be disturbed.”1 The Communist authorities, meanwhile, appointed five-year-old Gyaincain Norbu as their choice of Panchen Lama. He received his early education in Beijing, before being moved back to Xigaze. Almost all Tibetans and the world community have rejected the Chinese choice of Panchen Lama, who had been used as a pawn in the long struggle between China and Tibet. The 1990s saw the launch of a Tibetan radio program called Gaweylon, which means “Good News.” Produced by Tibetan believers in India, programs in the central Tibetan language were broadcast throughout the

Himalayas, making an impact on many people, not only in Tibet but also in neighboring Nepal, Bhutan, and India. The spread of the gospel in Tibet was also boosted in the 1990s by the release of new evangelistic resources, including translations of the Jesus film into the central Tibetan, Amdo, and Kham languages. Tibetans generally love to watch movies, and many were enthralled to find these films in their own language. A trickle of Han Chinese house church missionaries continued to enter central Tibet throughout the 1990s, although they experienced numerous hardships along the way. The senior house church leader Peter Xu Yongze reflected on the progress that evangelists from his church network enjoyed in central Tibet: Our first workers were sent to Lhasa in 1986. Each subsequent year we sent more reinforcements, and we ended up with quite a large team in Tibet, spread out in different towns and counties. They have planted churches in Lhasa and Linzhi, mostly among Han people but also Tibetans.

A Tibetan listening to a gospel radio broadcast

Julian Hawken In 1997, a large group of 800 Tibetan lamas was heavily persecuted by the government. When our evangelists preached the gospel to them, most of the 800 lamas said they were willing to become Christians. We weren’t sure if they were sincere about surrendering their lives to Jesus, or if it was just a plan to try to avoid being persecuted, but when our leaders went to follow this up it seems we had already missed the opportunity. Our workers in Tibet are always under a lot of pressure. They face opposition from the Buddhists, opposition from the police and army, and they are in the midst of a fierce spiritual battle. Many of our missionaries have been struck with sudden diseases.2

Although Lhasa had come to be seen as an impenetrable citadel against Christianity, encouraging cracks appeared in the 1990s, with one report noting: Today there are several small house churches in Lhasa, attended primarily by Han migrants but also by a handful of Tibetan converts. Dozens of Chinese house church evangelists have moved to Lhasa, from where they pray and witness at every opportun-ity. Some have had good success, despite the obvious Tibetan hostility against Han people, while others have been beaten and at least one killed by Tibetan monks after he tried to witness inside the grounds of a temple.3

Zayu County, in the south-eastern corner of the Tibet Autonomous Region, is an almost inaccessible area where the countries of China, India, and Myanmar meet. Inhabiting a picturesque area with deep gorges and thick pine forests that rise to snow-capped peaks, the little-known Deng ethnic group makes its home in Zayu. Never converted to Tibetan Buddhism, for centuries the Deng lived in isolation, worshipping local deities and the forces of nature. In the 1990s, when a foreign Christian managed to visit Zayu, “he and the other tourists helped lead their Deng tour guide to Jesus. When he came back a couple of years later he was able to help lead her family to Jesus.”4 Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama’s portrayal in the West as a joyful, nonthreatening religious figure was lapped up by celebrities and politicians alike. He almost single-handedly created a false impression that all Buddhists are peace-loving and gentle, but the reality for Christians in Tibet was starkly different, with one report saying: In Mainland China many house churches confirm that the most difficult harvest field is Tibet— because the monks chase, beat, and even kill evangelists . . . Although the Dalai Lama presents to the world a message of tolerance and peace, many of the monks he left behind remain

uncompromisingly militant. One house church leader said: “Since 1988 we have had five evangel-ists stoned to death by Tibetan monks in the provinces of Tibet, Qinghai and Gansu.”5

Amdo In the 1990s, mission organizations around the world placed an emphasis on completing the Great Commission before the year 2000, by taking the gospel to every unreached tribe, language, and people group on earth. This emphasis resulted in new research in remote parts of the Tibetan world. As a result, many previously unknown Tibetan groups emerged, as intrepid researchers traveled far and wide in search of those who needed to hear of Jesus Christ. One new group to emerge in the Amdo region was the small Wutun tribe, numbering just a few thousand people in Qinghai Province. Speaking a language distinct from all other Tibetan vari-eties in the area, the Wutun were found to be almost completely unaware of Christianity, although in 1996, a 74-year-old Wutun man bluntly told a visitor: When I was a small boy I heard something about this Jesus religion, but I did not understand. We only believe in Buddhism. We are not interested in any new religions because we know that we have the best and only true religion in the world.6

Tibetan breakthroughs Sister Feng, a Han Chinese Christian, came to faith in Jesus in 1990 after many miracles took place in the church she attended, including exorcisms and the healing of cancers. After receiving a clear call from the Lord, Feng moved to Qinghai Province in 1993, joining a team of evangelists among the Amdo Tibetans. Two years later, she was caught preaching the gospel and was sentenced to one year in a prison labor camp. This experience failed to deter her, and she shared her faith with the other inmates at every opportunity. Immediately after her release she continued her ministry in central Tibet. By the end of 1996, Sister Feng and her co-workers had started ten house churches with a total of about 100 believers—but just a single Tibetan

Christian was among them. The team members cried out to the Lord, asking Him to give them more power so they would bear more fruit for the kingdom of God among Tibetans. In 1997, five Tibetan teenagers attended a meeting where they were deeply convicted of their sins and received Jesus Christ. A short time later in Lhasa, another ten Tibetans came to faith.

A baptism in Tibet VOM Canada By the end of the twentieth century, the fame of Jesus Christ had spread, and small pockets of Tibetan believers had emerged in many locations. Reports of breakthroughs surfaced from time to time. One report noted: Two evangelists shared the gospel with 50 people in a mountain village in Tibet, and two people made public decisions for Christ. Two days later, in another village, two Buddhist monks accepted Christ. In a third village, 70 people gathered to hear the gospel and four made public decisions. Other villagers, however, said they were afraid to publicly declare their commitments to Christ. “We have faith in the Lord Jesus, but the villagers will persecute and excommunicate us,” one believer explained. “If we must leave the village, where will we go?” . .. An evangelist in Tibet was seized by Buddhist monks and sewed into the skin of a yak. They left him behind on a rock in the sun. After a few hours, vultures swept down and started to peck at him. The skin protected him and the vultures were only successful in loosening the stitching, which came undone and released him!7

In 1999, a German mission organization shared a stirring testimony about the work of a Chinese evangelist in Tibet: When Chen was sent to a Tibetan labor camp, he was aware that he might only have a short time left to live. Chinese prisoners, particularly Christians, are the subject of much hate in these camps. However, the overseer of Chen’s cell was a Buddhist who promised to protect him. One day, a Muslim prisoner grabbed Chen and threatened him, saying, “Your protector will die soon, and you won’t live much longer than he.” Every inmate knew that the overseer was suffering from incurable cancer, and that he only had three months to live. Chen, though, had a plan. From memory, he wrote out the biblical passage in Acts 28 when the Apostle Paul prayed for a sick man. His only writing tools were a roll of toilet paper and the blood from his own fingertips. Chen gave the paper to the overseer, and a few days later, he was called into the man’s office. “Does Paul’s God still heal today?” the overseer asked. Chen said that he did, and offered to pray for him. One week later, Chen was again called to the overseer’s office, and found him completely healed. All the inmates heard that the Christian God had healed the man, and many decided to follow Christ.8

Letters from Tibet We conclude this chapter by reprinting a selection of letters that were received from Tibetan areas of China by various Christian ministries during the 1990s. These precious communications provide insights into the daily lives and personal struggles of Tibetan believers and inquirers as they sought to follow Jesus Christ.

1996 My marriage lasted less than a year, and as a woman I had to face much criticism from the society. I am not happy at work and do not have any real friends. I used to hang a Buddha pendant around my neck in order to feel protected. After listening to your programs I became convinced that God is my Savior. I want to believe in Him.9 I live on a remote plateau where there are no evangel-ists. Needless to say, we have neither church buildings nor Christian gatherings. Most people here are Buddhists who worship idols. Before hearing your broadcast, nobody knew that the universe was created by an Almighty God. Thankfully, some have now received Jesus Christ as their Savior. However, they have many questions that I don’t know how to answer. The only thing I can do is suggest they listen to your broadcast. Some are willing to pursue the truth. They pray and sing hymns regularly,

and I usually read the Bible to them, although I am limited by my education and I don’t understand some verses. Please pray for the believers here and please help us.10

1997 My father sent me to be trained as a monk when I was 12. At 18, I was already in charge of a temple. One day I heard your broadcast by chance, and was attracted to it. I listened every day and invited other people to do so. A year later, I visited two preachers and I received Christ. Now my family is facing persecution. Please pray for me.11

1998 Our area is very poor and backward. We have not believed in Jesus for long. Also, we face persecution from the government and ridicule from unbelievers. We have no pastor or preacher, but we recently started meeting every Saturday and Sunday, although we lack Christian books.12

1999 I am a Tibetan girl. Two years ago I accidentally tuned in to your gospel channel on the radio and I was instantly hooked. Your joyful conversations and friendly voices attracted me very much. With you as my daily companion my worldview and values have changed and corrected. I could not write to you sooner because I work in an area where atheism is the philosophy.13 My wife and I have retired. She often visited temples and worshipped Buddha with incense. In recent years, because of misfortune, illness and other problems, my wife suffered from mental illness. Once she lost her temper and broke a Buddha statue. Afterwards she regretted what she had done and was very frightened. She continued to worship Buddha ceaselessly and confessed her sins in front of the idols. Every day she worried that the sky god would not forgive her and would punish her. At the time we began to have contact with Christians, and recently my wife and I attended a local church for the first time. She was enlightened by the Lord and is willing to believe in Christ. However, she is still afraid of making Buddha and the god of the sky angry. She is puzzled and frightened. Can one believe in Buddhism and Christianity at the same time? Is the sky god the same deity that Christians believe in? We sincerely hope you can answer our questions.14

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

“China Says Panchen Lama ‘Living a Normal Life’ 20 Years after Disappearance,” The Guardian (September 6, 2015). Personal interview with Peter Xu Yongze, October 2003. Paul Hattaway, China’s Unreached Cities, Vol. 2 (Chiang Mai, Thailand: Asia Harvest, 2003). Global Prayer Digest (April 1999). Alex Buchan, “Buddhist Leaders Fail to Reckon with Persecution,” Compass Direct (April 24, 1998). Paul Hattaway, Operation China: Introducing All the Peoples of China (Carlisle: Piquant, 2000), p. 543. Open Doors (August 1999). Deutsche Bibel Liga (German Bible League), in DAWN Friday Fax (December 3, 1999). Far East Broadcasting, May 1996. Far East Broadcasting, October 1996. Far East Broadcasting, December 1997. Compass Direct, December 1998. Far East Broadcasting, December 1999. Trans World Radio, November 1999.

2000s

Ü-Tsang In the new millennium, the Spirit of God continued to move on the hearts and minds of Tibetan people, and the Chinese Church made more progress in its vision to reach Tibet. In 2003, several key house church leaders summarized their efforts to reach Tibet for Christ: The Tibetans and other strong Buddhist groups are in a sense even more difficult to reach than Muslims, because Buddhists have absolutely no concept of a Creator God or of personal sin. Yet we have many evangelists working among Tibetans. Just in Lhasa City alone, we have almost 100 house church evangelists.

Tibetan nuns reading a Gospel booklet Julian Hawken While it is true that not many Tibetans have believed, a few small Tibetan fellowships have been established, and God is teaching our workers how to pray and work more effectively. They have learned that strategies used in other parts of China will not necessarily work in Tibet, so they are seeking God for revelation about how to win the Tibetans. When God gives the key, the door will open!1

Many of the Han Chinese missionaries sent to Tibet struggled because their sending churches had little or no structure in place to take care of their needs. Some were sent to Tibet on one-way tickets and a promise to pray for them when the Holy Spirit brought them to mind. Not surprisingly, without adequate care and support, many did not last long. A 2006 article shared the experiences of a Han missionary from Henan Province, and how he ultimately found a way to engage in effective ministry among Tibetans: This young man was sent by his church network as a missionary to Tibet with only a one-way ticket in his pocket and a heart full of passion and love towards the people. He spent almost a year there without prior training or support of any sort, and very soon he found himself begging for food on the streets of Lhasa in order to stay alive . . . A situation like this is definitely not intentional; rather, it is a painful reality when facing the lack of resources and expertise for cross-cultural missionary training. In spite of all the problems, the story of this young missionary to Tibet has a happy ending; the experience did not crush his spirit nor alter his calling. He was more committed to crosscultural missions than ever before. When I met with him again about a year later in Henan (he went back home after the ordeal in Tibet), he had brought with him a young lady who is also committed to missions. They want to get married and receive training together before heading to the mission field again! When I prayed with this couple in that little hotel room, I felt I had a glimpse of the spirit of resilience and steadfastness that carried the house churches through all those years of persecutions and hardships. At that moment, the room became a sanctuary and prayer turned to worship!2

The Lisu connection For over a century the Christian world has marveled at the special work of grace among the Lisu people of south-west China and northern Myanmar. Famous missionaries James Fraser and Isobel Kuhn were two who served among the Lisu, and today there are an estimated 350,000 Lisu Christians in China alone. Few people outside the region realize that the Lisu live alongside Tibetans in many locations and frequently interact with them. Mixed marriages are common in northern Yunnan and across the border in southern Tibet, while it’s a little-known fact that there are nine villages of Tibetan people in the northernmost tip of Myanmar.

In this strategic location, where the Buddhist Tibetans meet the Christian Lisu, many Tibetans have heard the gospel in recent years, and more than a few have believed in Jesus Christ. In 2004, one Christian organization reported: A man named Chang has been a Christian for eight years. His mother is Tibetan and his father is Lisu. He has started 16 churches, containing 50 baptized Tibetan believers and 865 Lisu believers. Chang showed the Jesus film to a Tibetan lama who accepted Christ. This lama is now busy teaching his fellow Tibetans how to read the Tibetan Bible.3

Amdo As Han Chinese Christians continued to witness throughout the Amdo region, the Spirit of God blessed their work and started to produce a harvest. One pastor left his home province and had labored in the mountains of Qinghai for ten years, being financially supported by a group of elderly Christian women who earned money by carrying loads of water on their backs for a dollar a day. A breakthrough finally occurred when: He met the local people carrying an idol and praying for rain. Immediately he went among them and pushed the idol into the river, telling the villagers that this was a false god and he had come to introduce them to the true God. The villagers thought he was insulting their god and locked him up. But as he prayed, things turned around, and now almost all the people living in that village believe in Jesus. Ten years after he began his work, God has greatly blessed his ministry and many churches have been established.4

The Jesus film in the main Amdo dialect proved to be an effect-ive tool, especially when coupled with increased prayer for the salvation of Amdo Tibetans. One 2003 report said: There are now at least four different house church groups known to be sending people specifically to reach the Amdo, up from zero just several years ago. Some are already living among the Amdo and others are in training, soon to be sent out. Some are already learning the Amdo language. Outreach is beginning directly from the Chinese to the Amdo! The number of verified, known Amdo believers has grown from 1 to 46 in the last decade . . . While many of the Amdo believers are scattered in ones and twos across the countryside and towns, at least three larger fellowships are forming. One group of ten believers in south Gansu has formed quickly over the last year . . . We should rejoice in Amdo believers fellowshipping with Han Chinese brothers and sisters, but pray toward true Amdo churches

conducting their worship, Bible teaching, prayer fellowship and outreach in their heart language.5

Meanwhile, small teams of foreign Christians traveled to the Amdo region to pray for the salvation of the people and to share the gospel when opportunities arose. One prayer team reported: A friendly, elderly monk came back to our hotel room to drink tea with us. The Chinese speakers began to witness to him. As we shared the joy of forgiveness of sins and the blessing of a personal relationship with God through the Lord Jesus, the man’s face lit up. We led him in repentance and receiving the Lord, and then prayed for him to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I will never forget the expression of joy on his dark, lined face . . . On another occasion, one of the team members remained in her room for warmth. When the maid came in to change the bedding, she began to witness to her. Soon there were six Tibetan girls listening avidly as our team member shared Jesus with them. Before the bus departed, all six had received the Lord as their personal Savior. On our way back through that town, we were able to visit the hotel again. All six were rejoicing in their new-found faith.6

A few years later, another mission team visited the Amdo and participated in the God-orchestrated salvation of a Tibetan monk. The story began when a team member met a young Buddhist monk and presented him with a Gospel of John in the Tibetan language. He didn’t seem particularly interested, but asked for copies of photos taken during their lunch together. After returning home, the believer sent the photos but the monk didn’t respond, so it was assumed he was not interested in the gospel. A year or more later, however, news emerged from the area that a monk had become a wholehearted Christian, and a worker was dispatched to visit him. The visitor discovered that: After the monk had been given the Gospel of John, he read it and the Holy Spirit opened his eyes to the emptiness and deception of Buddhism. He became very restless. A few months later he attended a Buddhist conference in a nearby town with most of the monks from his monastery. At the same time, the Holy Spirit spoke to two South Korean Christians and told them to go to that same town and book into a hotel. There they would be directed to a Buddhist monk whom God was going to raise up as a Paul among his people. The Koreans jumped on a plane and flew to the town as directed. As they walked down the street, the Holy Spirit pointed out this monk (from among all the others) and said he was the one . . . They invited him to their room for a cup of tea, and they told him about Jesus. The monk was so surprised, and the Koreans led him to the Lord . . . Every day the monk is now taught by Christians. He is aware of his new calling and he said at the right time he will return to the monastery to evangelize the other monks . . . People are

attracted to him and will just walk up to him and talk. He tells them about Jesus and they become believers! His face shines with the Spirit.7

Kham The kingdom of God also continued to expand among the Khampa Tibetans in western Sichuan Province, in many of the same areas where godly missionaries like Albert Shelton had laid a foundation for the gospel in past decades. A missionary’s newsletter in 2002 gave an insight into the kind of low-key but effective work being carried out at the time: More than 90 children have heard the gospel for the first time. Pray the young believers there would withstand persecution. Several Tibetans have recently received Christ in one city. One young girl stands alone in her town, and an older man in the same place has heard the gospel.8

A Khampa man intently reading Gospel literature Julian Hawken Shortwave gospel radio broadcasts in the Kham language also proved an effective tool for reaching the Khampa Tibetans. Many are enthralled to hear their own language being spoken over the airwaves, and throughout the region people gather around their radios to learn about the Living God who loved them and sent His Son to bear their sins.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Paul Hattaway, Back to Jerusalem: God’s Call to the Chinese Church to Complete the Great Commission (Carlisle: Piquant, 2003), p. 102. L. K. Chiu, “A Piece of the Puzzle: Training Mainland Chinese to Be Cross-Cultural Missionaries,” ChinaSource (Spring 2006), p. 8. Christian Far East Ministry (August 2004). Antioch Missions, China Prayer Update (November 2002), p. 3. Confidential mission report, June 2003. Antioch Missions/CCSM, “Reaching the Mission Field on Our Knees,” China Challenge (no. 11), p. 11. Antioch Missions/CCSM, “You Never Know What God Might Do!” China Challenge (no. 20), pp. 13–14. Prayer Update for the Khambas (January 2002).

2010s

Ü-Tsang The early missionaries to Tibet could never have imagined the positive reputation now enjoyed by Tibetan Buddhists in the Western world. Indeed, many politicians, Hollywood actors, and other celebrities regard the Dalai Lama as their hero. As a result of this newfound status, many Westerners, including even some professing Christians, respond with disgust when they hear of anyone trying to lead Tibetans to Jesus Christ. Tibetan society itself faces an interesting and volatile future because China is poised to name the next Dalai Lama when the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, dies. He was 84 years old at the time of writing this book. In 2019, the Chinese government adopted a hardline stance against the Dalai Lama’s succession plans, threatening to appoint its own handpicked replacement who is sympathetic to the Communist Party, as it did when appointing the Eleventh Panchen Lama in 1989.

Tibetan monks appear fascinated by a Bible story comic book VOM Canada

The Dalai Lama immediately pushed back against the Chinese threat, saying his successor may be “found” in India after his death, before adding: In the future, in case you see two Dalai Lamas come, one from here, in a free country, and one chosen by the Chinese, then nobody will trust, nobody will respect the one installed by China. So that’s an additional problem for the Chinese.1

In the 2010s, some pro-Tibetan independence activists began to target Christians more aggressively, using political connections to shut down their work in countries like Nepal, India, and Bhutan, while in China they spent much time and money warning Tibetans about the supposed threat that Christianity posed to their culture. As a result of this additional pressure, Christians who desire to share the love of Christ with Tibetans on the Chinese side of the Himalayas face threats from several different sources. They are threatened by Communist officials who don’t want Christianity to spread in the area; they are opposed by Tibetan lamas who fear a loss of power if their people embrace the gospel; and more recently, they have been attacked and exposed by proTibetan Westerners who are skilled at identifying Christian workers among the Tibetans. The Western media has occasionally joined the chorus of hostility against Christian efforts to reach Tibet. In 2013, the Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom published an extensive article, detailing strategies employed by undercover missionaries in Qinghai Province. In part, the article stated: Tibet is the K2 of the Evangelical Christian world—missionaries see it as a formidable yet crucial undertaking, a last spiritual frontier. Of the 400 foreigners living in Xining, most are missionaries . . . Techniques have become more sophisticated over the past few decades. Some [foreign evangelists], like Chris and Sarah, have secured long-term Chinese visas by opening coffee shops, boutiques, restaurants and guesthouses. Others are charity-minded doctors and aid workers. Evangelical organizations brainstorm new ways to make the Christian gospel accessible to Tibetans, such as screening Christian films in Tibetan dialects.2

Evidence of flourishing Christian fellowships in Tibet emerged with news that a house church meeting in Lhasa was targeted by the authorities in October 2011. Pastor Song Xinkuan and ten other missionaries from Henan Province were arrested and their property was seized. Other believers were fined and harassed.

Upset at the treatment meted out to them, the house church Christians took the extraordinary step of launching legal action against the police persecution. They claimed that as no registered Three-Self churches are permitted in Tibet, their rights to exercise their religious beliefs had been illegally infringed. A Christian lawyer, Zhang Kai, was engaged and a lawsuit was filed on Pastor Song’s behalf. Remarkably, on April 6, 2012, the People’s Court handed a victory to the Christians. The seized property was returned, compensation was paid, and the police officers involved in the incident were reprimanded. As more Chinese Christians spread throughout Tibet to share the gospel, problems inevitably arose. A severe blow occurred in January 2014 when a Han missionary named Dong Chunhua, a native of Shandong Province, suddenly went missing while traveling in a remote part of western Tibet. Song Xinkuan was the last person to see Dong alive. He remarked: “Dong has been detained by the police before. In addition, his home has been searched. Dong has spread the gospel in more than 70 Tibetan counties.”3 While the battle raged on for the heart and soul of Tibet, other reports surfaced of Tibetan Christians in various locations. In 2015, the Chinese government banned Tibetan Christians from meeting in their church building in Ngari Prefecture, after the believers refused to heed advice to meet privately rather than in public.4

Amdo The year 2012 sadly saw the retirement of an unsung hero of Christian work among the Tibetans, when Bill Conrad, the grandson of the great pioneer missionaries William and Jessie Christie, retired from his long service as the head of GANSU, INC. (an acronym standing for “Gaining A New Sight for Unseeing In China”). Conrad, who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1961 and later specialized in ophthalmology, established GANSU, INC. in 1990, and for the next 22 years he and his wife Peggy worked tirelessly among the poorest of people, including Tibetans in Gansu and Qinghai, conducting

thousands of cataract surgeries from modified pop-up camper trailers which traveled into the most remote grasslands of the Amdo region. Often accompanied by foreign doctors who volunteered their time and expertise, GANSU, INC. performed a total of 6,543 successful eye surgeries in western China, with many needy Tibetans benefiting from their labor of love. Countless stories of changed lives occurred over the years as Jesus Christ was proclaimed through word and deed to various Tibetan people groups. On one occasion, an elderly nomad woman sought help because she had been going blind for several years, and Conrad’s team found that she had cataracts in both eyes. She received treatment, and the next day she came to her post-operative checkup unaided, sporting a huge smile. Conrad took a photo of the woman’s beaming face and showed it to her. He recalled:

Dr. Bill Conrad, surrounded by trainee eye doctors in 1990 William C. Conrad She began to laugh, uncontrollably, with embarrassment at her funny appearance. But then— almost as though a light was turned on as she realized she was seeing that picture with her own eyes—she began to weep, again uncontrollably. There was not a dry eye among any of us, either.5

An Amdo woman regains her sight, and laughs uncontrollably after seeing a picture of her own “toothless” appearance. She then began to weep when she realized her eyesight had been restored William C. Conrad

William Christie had first arrived in Tibetan areas of Gansu in 1892, and with his grandson’s retirement in 2012, the one family had served the people of Gansu over a span of 120 years. Fittingly, Bill Conrad noted: The GANSU, INC. project, which had started as an “extension” of the Christie mission service from 1892–1924, came to its ending (a full circle) after 22 years of medical service in three

provinces of China at exactly the same place (Lintao) that the Christie family ended their service in China 88 years before!6

God’s love for the heartbroken Several major natural disasters struck the Amdo region in the first decade of the twenty-first century, chief among them being the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which officially killed 106,000 people and injured another 375,000. Although the quake was centered in areas inhabited by the Qiang and Jiarong ethnic groups, a great many Tibetans were also affected by the initial 8.5 quake and its hundreds of aftershocks. As many as 11 million of the 15 million people living in the immediate area were left homeless. Chinese and foreign Christians were quick to respond with practical help for the devastated victims. Two years later, the 2010 Yushu earthquake in Qinghai Province also provided many opportunities to display the love of Christ, and many Tibetans heard the gospel for the first time. One report said: The immediate objective was to help the victims heal from their physical and emotional wounds, and to care for the Buddhist monks, some of whom refused to live in their temples after the quake because they feared the potential devastation from aftershocks. Instead, they asked if they could receive aid from the Christian team. This has led to opportunities to evangelize a number of them.7

Kham The southernmost Tibetan subgroup in China lives in and around the city of Shangri-La (formerly Zhongdian) in northern Yunnan Province.8 A Han evangelist moved to Shangri-La to reach out to Tibetans with the gospel in the 2000s. After experiencing many setbacks, his ministry finally broke through, and by the mid-2010s, he had established between eight and ten Tibetan fellowships in the area. Although most Christian ministries were tight-lipped about their activities in the sensitive region, a few were quite open, updating supporters

with progress on their Tibetan work in their newsletters. One mission reported in December 2011:

Part of the town of Larung Ga in the Kham region. More than 40,000 Tibetans were crammed into this remote town, literally stacked on top of one another, until the Chinese authorities bulldozed most of the unique structures in 2016 For the past nine years, two teams of workers have preached to Tibetans and slowly raised up some churches numbering a few dozen believers in total. In February that number doubled. In April it doubled again. Through the summer a steady stream of Tibetans has continued to come to Christ. There are now hundreds of Christian Tibetans where ten years ago there were none.9

A young Tibetan woman named Naomi had fallen from a tree and lost one of her legs when she was a child. Her family took the accident as a bad omen and sent her to become a Buddhist nun. The longer she studied in the nunnery, however, the more she felt her gods were powerless to help her. Then Naomi heard about Jesus Christ for the first time; she knew she had found the truth, and dedicated her life to Him. When her family discovered she had become a Christian, Naomi’s life was threatened, and she was ostracized from her relatives and friends. Despite these painful experiences, she was able to say through her tears, “I will never leave God, because He is so good and real to me.”10 The members of another covert mission group saw a Tibetan monk come to faith in Christ in the early stages of their work. He became a solid

believer, left the monastery and married, and he and his wife planted at least five churches among the Tibetan people. In the early years of the decade, the ministry’s newsletter reported the following snippets of progress from their Tibetan work: Our Tibetan church leaders held a Christmas party for the first time and 130 Tibetans showed up. All had fun, all heard the gospel (some for the very first time), and eight Tibetans gave their lives to Christ. Praise the Lord!11 I was talking to our main Tibetan leader the other day, and he shared with me that another monk has come to Christ. He befriended the man on a bus, shared the gospel with him, and the man made Jesus Christ his personal Savior. Glory to God! This fellow was a monk for 13 years. He spent eight of those years in India learning under the Dalai Lama, and the rest in China wasting his life in a monastery. We are believing God will multiply our efforts by raising this man up to proclaim the gospel among his own people.12 I just got back from our Tibetan work where we trained 25 Tibetans. There the Holy Spirit was poured out in a great way. Among our students was a new brother in the Lord who had suffered with sickness in his body for the last six years. After receiving prayer, God healed him and made an everlasting impression on his life.13

In 2012, the same ministry later revealed: “We have sent 50 Tibetan evangelists out to preach the gospel. They have so far seen 38 Tibetans give their lives to Christ.”14

False reports Reports of breakthroughs among Tibetans are always received as welcome news in the Christian world, but false or exaggerated claims can damage the cause of Christ. In 2016, a report by an organization called Asian Access spread throughout the world, claiming that 200,000 Tibetans, including 62 Buddhist monks, had decided to follow Jesus Christ.15 While the wildly optimistic numbers cited in the report no doubt reflect an inflated view of good things that were taking place at the time— especially in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquakes—no credible field workers believed the account or could locate the supposed 200,000 Tibetan converts. Nevertheless, the story was circulated by high-profile television

preachers in the United States, and many believers rejoiced at what they thought was a massive breakthrough for the gospel in Tibet.16 Christians long for the day when Tibetans will be saved by the tens of thousands, but the kingdom of God does not benefit from exaggerated and misleading claims that have little or no basis in truth.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Yonden Lhatoo, “China and the Dalai Lama Play Endgame for Tibet, and It’s Going to Be an Unholy Mess,” South China Morning Post (March 30, 2019). Jonathan Kaiman, “Going Undercover: The Evangelists Taking Jesus to Tibet,” The Guardian (February 21, 2013). “Authorities’ Involvement Suspected in Disappearance of Tibetan Missionary,” China Aid (February 6, 2014). No further news has been cited as to Dong Chunhua’s fate. See “Tibetan Officials Ban Christians from Meeting in Their Church Building,” China Aid (September 1, 2015). After his retirement, Conrad wrote a book detailing his experiences in China. See William C. Conrad, Sent to Open Eyes: Physical and Spiritual Sight for West China’s Blind (Abbotsford, WI: Life Sentence Publishing, 2014). Conrad, Sent to Open Eyes, p. 542. David Wang with Georgina Sam, Christian China and the Light of the World: Miraculous Stories from China’s Great Awakening (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2013), p. 100. The Chinese government changed the name of the town in 2001 in a bid to attract tourists by promoting it as the location of the fictional Shangri-La depicted in James Hilton’s famous 1933 novel. On Target (December 2011). On Target (December 2011). Frontier Harvest Ministries (January 2011). Frontier Harvest Ministries (May 2011). Frontier Harvest Ministries (December 2011). Frontier Harvest Ministries (December 2012). Hazel Torres, “What Showing God’s Love Can Do: 200,000 Tibetans, Including 62 Buddhist Monks, Decide to Follow Jesus,” Christian Today (June 21, 2016). While the basis for the report was that Christian outreach to earthquake victims had resulted in this supposed mass turning to Christ, it should be noted that most of the people affected by the Sichuan quakes were not Tibetans, but members of the Han Chinese, Qiang, and other ethnic groups.

Tenzin Lahkpa

The Tibetan monk who met Jesus In 2019, the dramatic and well-written testimony of a Tibetan monk was published,1 giving rare insights into the dark state of life in Buddhist monasteries. The book also illuminates the huge challenges Tibetans face once they profess faith in Jesus Christ. Tenzin Lahkpa was born in a village in the mountains of Amdo. His parents proudly named him after the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, who hails from the same area. When he was 15, his mother took him to the local monastery to commence a lifetime of Buddhist study and service. She told her tear-filled son:

Tens of thousands of Tibetan men spend most of their lives in Buddhist monasteries China Advocate From the moment you were born, I knew that you would be the one to honor our family and become a monk. I have dreamed about this day since you were very little. You were always so smart and kind. You were always so clever, and I knew that your purpose was to be a monk. I

know that this is not easy for you to understand, but you were born to be a monk and lead our people into enlightenment.2

In the monastery, Tenzin’s life was miserable. It was like a huge, dark prison cell that he felt he would never be able to escape. In the mornings he joined the other monks begging for food on the streets, and after returning to the monastery each day they were abused verbally, physically, and sexually. According to Tenzin, some of the older monks and lamas were rampant homosexuals and pedophiles who didn’t think twice about using small children to satisfy their wicked cravings. He also grew disillusioned when he discovered that many of the senior lamas, who are supposed to be celibate, had secret wives and families away from the monastery. One day Tenzin witnessed the senior lama severely beating a young boy. When he asked what the boy had done, the other monks cautioned him to be quiet, and whispered that the boy was the lama’s dakini—a term used to describe someone who is used for sexual pleasure. On many nights, Tenzin was unable to sleep as he heard the muffled screams of anguished young boys in other parts of the monastery. Tenzin longed to escape, but he knew he would never be allowed to go free. For more than 20 years he remained enslaved in monastic life, and despite moving to Lhasa and then to Dharamsala, India—where he met the Dalai Lama several times—inner peace remained elusive. While he was in northern India, Tenzin was visited by a relative who was a former monk. He was shocked when this man explained that he had moved to America and had become a Christian. Tenzin had never heard that word before, and when he was told it was the name used to describe a follower of Jesus, Tenzin recoiled in horror, for all monks had been taught never to utter that Name. It had been drilled into them that the Name of Jesus was so dangerous that it had the power to overturn the very fabric of Tibetan life, and Buddhism itself. Once, when he had discreetly asked a visiting monk about Jesus, Tenzin was sternly warned: Jesus and His followers destroy the entire order of all that we know . . . The underworld do not trifle with Jesus. We should not even be discussing Him. Talking about Him gives Him power. He disrupts the entire order of all that we know, because He can overpower the underworld and the gods that lead us to enlightenment . . .

You don’t prevent the spread of a virus by bringing it to your home and evaluating it. You keep it as far from you and your family as possible. And you don’t bring Jesus into your temple to evaluate His dangers! You keep His Name as far from your students as possible. You lock him out. Unlike other gods, Jesus is given power by sharing about Him. He is like a deadly virus—by the time you realize how deadly He is, He has already infected everyone in your home.3

For the next few years, Tenzin’s interest in learning more about Jesus grew, but he was frustrated in his attempts to satisfy his curiosity. One day a letter arrived from his mother, asking him to return home because his father had died. Tenzin was heartbroken, and began the long overland journey back to Tibet. Not having a passport, he made it only as far as the Nepal–China border, where he was arrested, bound, and taken by road to Lhasa. There he was severely beaten by Communist officers and imprisoned for six months. After contracting tuberculosis, Tenzin was admitted to a hospital, where an Amdo Tibetan-speaking Swedish doctor treated him. The physician wore a small cross on his collar, and when Tenzin asked what it meant, he was told that it meant he was a follower of Jesus Christ. Tenzin was excited to meet a believer in Jesus, and his mind filled with many questions that he wanted to ask. The doctor gave him some Christian literature, in both Tibetan and Chinese, and asked him to study it. One day, the doctor asked if he could pray for Tenzin’s healing, for his condition had deteriorated and he needed more than medicine to survive. Tenzin agreed, and later described what happened: The doctor walked closer to my bed, put his right hand on my right arm, and began speaking in a language I was not familiar with. Suddenly, without warning, I felt something flow through my arm. It was like a warm, soft blanket. It moved into my shoulders and chest, and then throughout my entire body. I could not understand the doctor’s words, but his prayer had something my prayers lacked —it had power.4

That moment was a turning point in Tenzin Lahkpa’s life. He had come face to face with the reality of Christ’s power, and that night as he fell asleep he had a dramatic, life-changing dream. He recalled: A man in a white robe came to me in my dreams. He had a glow about Him that radiated in every direction. I felt warm and safe in His presence. As He approached me, I could tell there was something wrong with His hands. In His palms were scars that had not completely healed over. I tried to look closer to see if I could catch a glimpse of His face, but I could not.

“Follow Me,” He said. He spoke perfect Tibetan and had a low, soothing voice like that of a loving father. “Are you Jesus?” I asked. But again, He simply said, “Follow Me.” “Are you the one to show the path to truth?” “Follow Me, Tenzin. I am the Path. I am the Way. I am the Truth. No one comes to the Path but through Me.” “OK,” I answered. “I will follow You.”5

For weeks, Tenzin remained in hospital, using every spare moment to study the Bible. The doctors and nurses were amazed at his recovery, but Tenzin knew it was because of the healing prayer by the Swedish doctor. Awed by everything he had learned, Tenzin realized that a time was coming when he would have to leave the monastery. His journey to find the truth was taking him on a radically different path. After returning home, Tenzin was burdened to share what he had learned with his friends at the monastery. He called a special gathering of the monks, and requested a public debate with the head lama, Tashi Lama. Despite knowing that the monks would react furiously the moment he mentioned Jesus, Tenzin felt a supernatural peace inside. God was with him and had promised never to leave or forsake him. Even if he was killed, he knew he would be with his Lord and Master in paradise. There was no reason to fear. Hundreds of monks crammed into the monastery courtyard to witness the debate. Rumors swirled about the reason for the special meeting, with some assuming that Tenzin planned to challenge the lama’s leadership in a bid to replace him. After struggling to find the right words, Tenzin Lahkpa took a deep breath and boldly declared: What if I told you that I prayed to a God who said that He could guide me through the spirit world, and I did not have to earn merits to hear from Him because He gave it all to me by grace? I could not earn it on my own . . . When I was lying in bed in the hospital, I was told about a God who gave His life for me so that I would not have to suffer any longer. He did not do it because I had earned enough merits. He did it because He loved me. His love leads to the path that ends suffering, and His Name is Jesus.6

An enraged Tashi Lama screamed, “Grab him now!” and dozens of monks rushed at Tenzin, hissing, “He’s a Christian! Kill him!”

The new believer was choked and savagely beaten to a pulp, and his battered and unconscious body was left to die. Even his own brother, who had also become a monk, was forced to beat him. Tenzin’s mother suffered for her son’s actions, and her house was burned to the ground. The badly injured disciple of Christ recalled his thoughts as he was being beaten: I knew that I must die to myself so that I could live in Christ. And if I could live in Christ, then, although they would kill my body, I would live again with Him also. In that moment, I no longer feared death. Although I was on the ground being kicked and punched by everyone, I was not their prisoner. I was being beaten as a free man. I had more hope in that moment than all of the other men there. I was no longer a prisoner of Buddha. They were. I was being beaten for leaving Buddha, and they were beating me because they were too afraid to.7

Hours later, after darkness had fallen, the blood-splattered Tenzin regained consciousness, and he heard a soothing voice say, “Follow Me, My child.” A supernatural peace flooded his soul, and moments later a person’s hand was clamped firmly over his mouth. His brother had returned to help him escape in the night. Tenzin was put on a bus to a faraway city, where he took months to recover from his injuries. He was warned never to return to his home area or he would be killed. For most of Tenzin’s life his identity had been chosen for him. His head was shaved so he would look just like the other monks, and his clothes were the same as theirs too, to strip him of individualism and identity. He couldn’t think for himself or act independently of the monastery. He was now free, but everything had been changed in his life and it would take a long time to adjust. Despite having no money, bank account, or any connections in this world, he walked away from his former oppressive way of life and walked toward Jesus Christ, the light of the world. In his new location, Tenzin was eventually contacted by some Christians, who warmly embraced him and explained that he had a unique and precious God-given identity that made him different from everyone else in the world. For a long time he had a strong battle in his mind as everything he had learned was challenged and turned upside down.

Meanwhile, the monks back at the monastery remained furious with Tenzin. In their minds he had dishonored his nation, family, and culture. They tracked down where he was staying and tried everything to get him to recant and return to the monastery. When their pleas fell on deaf ears they decided it was better for him to be dead than to walk away, and several attempts were made on his life. Later, Tenzin began working with a medical charity in west China, giving him the opportunity to witness to many sick Tibetans who visited the hospital for treatment. One visitor was a Tibetan lady named Mapu. Tenzin shared the gospel with her and she believed, becoming the first Tibetan he baptized. Mapu loved him and they were united in marriage. For 20 years he had scarcely seen a woman and had been completely cut off from all contact with the opposite sex, so marriage was another shocking change in his life. Tenzin and Mapu now have two sons, and he often says the most wonderful gifts God has given him, apart from salvation, are his wife and children. Never one to lack courage, in 2017 Tenzin heard that a bacterial infection had broken out in his home area. Many people, including his beloved mother, had died as the epidemic swept through. Despite the threat to murder him if he ever showed his face there again, Tenzin was compelled by the love of God to return to the very monastery where he had almost been beaten to death years earlier. He reasoned: I knew that most of them wanted to kill me because they felt I had betrayed them. However, I could not sleep knowing that God had given us the means to save them. I had to do something with what God had placed in my hands. I knew that because Jesus loved them, I needed to love them as well—even if they hated me. I wanted to be there to serve them and show them the love of Jesus, and I would do so—even if they killed me.8

Tenzin led a medical team to his hometown, and provided treatment to more than a thousand people. The locals were hesitant to receive help from him, but so great was their distress that they put aside their prejudices and accepted the assistance. One day Tenzin was sitting in the clinic when Tashi Lama walked in. Tenzin immediately grabbed a chair for him to sit on, and bowed low to

honor his former persecutor. Tashi Lama’s eyes grew large as he realized he was being served by the man he had tried to murder. The next day, all the leading monks gathered as Tenzin presented a plan to build the first permanent health clinic in the town. Tenzin Lahkpa—who was dedicated to Buddha at a young age and who served many years as a monk—is now a jewel in the crown of Jesus Christ, and an example of God’s ability to transform lives radically, from the inside out. Many years ago, Tenzin’s mother had predicted that he would lead their people into enlightenment. He is doing just that. He continues to serve the Living God, and he leads a small Tibetan house fellowship. With living examples like Tenzin Lahkpa displaying the amazing transformative power of Jesus Christ to liberate people, it’s no wonder the lamas of Tibet and the demonic world fear His matchless Name, and why they shudder at the thought that the “Jesus virus” might one day spread throughout the Tibetan world.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Tenzin Lahkpa with Eugene Bach, Leaving Buddha: A Tibetan Monk’s Encounter with the Living God (New Kensington, PA: Whittaker House, 2019). Lahkpa with Bach, Leaving Buddha, pp. 52–3. Lahkpa with Bach, Leaving Buddha, pp. 150–1. Lahkpa with Bach, Leaving Buddha, p. 179. Lahkpa with Bach, Leaving Buddha, p. 179. Lahkpa with Bach, Leaving Buddha, p. 192. Lahkpa with Bach, Leaving Buddha, p. 196. Lahkpa with Bach, Leaving Buddha, p. 203.

The future of the Church in Tibet As we reach the end of our look at the things God has done in Tibet over the course of history, it’s sobering to reflect that for so many centuries, commencing with the Nestorians 1,300 years ago, Christians have failed to make any noticeable dent on the spiritual landscape of Tibet. Some people may have read this book with an expectation of learning about wonderful breakthroughs for the gospel, leading to thousands of Christians among the Tibetan people. Those readers will be disappointed, for such a time has not yet occurred. Rather, the story of Christian mission in Tibet has been one of sowing, sacrifice, fire, and blood. Each step forward for the Church of Jesus Christ has been met with fierce opposition from the demonic world. For a long time, Christian leaders have known that the spiritual environment in Tibet was especially dark. We recall that in 1886, William Blackstone predicted: “God seems to be holding back Tibet to be the last field entered just before His coming,”1 and a few years later Hudson Taylor remarked: “To make converts in Tibet is similar to going into a cave and trying to rob a lioness of her cubs.”2 As described in the Introduction, the Dalai Lama himself has said that powerful demonic entities control Tibet, with one deity even being an active participant in his government. The reality of these dark forces has been evident during the hundreds of years of mighty struggle and persecution that have been experienced by the emissaries of Christ. Every step forward seems to have been followed by two steps back, and each disciple of Christ has been buffeted by these strong invisible powers. As several of the early missionaries found, Tibetan kings and princes showed an interest in the gospel, only for the initial promising signs to be violently snuffed out. Numerous missionaries and their Tibetan converts were called to bear witness to their faith by spilling their blood. We have examined the ministries of many faithful Christian pioneers like Christie, Shelton, Plymire, and Edgar, who spent decades pouring out their

lives in remote areas of the Tibetan Plateau, doing all they could to share the message of eternal life. Others, such as the Moravians, labored from the perimeter of the Tibetan world, and finally translated the Bible into Tibetan after nearly a century of intense struggle against the hosts of hell. While some servants of Jesus were encouraged by the small breakthroughs they saw, many experienced very little progress to cheer their paths, but they soldiered on regardless, hoping that their faithful sowing would one day produce a bountiful harvest. A day came when all missionaries were expelled from Tibet, and all visible signs of Christianity vanished. For decades all hope seemed lost, but then, in the most unexpected way, the master plan of the Almighty God began to be revealed, as He poured His Spirit out on millions of Han Chinese Christians in a powerful revival the size of which the world had never seen. In recent decades, many Chinese believers—who from a human perspective are the most unlikely candidates to succeed in Tibet because of the enmity between the two races—have spread out across the Tibetan world, exalting Jesus Christ wherever they go, and a growing number of Tibetans have come to faith in the Living God. Painstakingly, one person at a time, a remnant of blood-bought followers of Christ has emerged from Tibet! Simultaneously, God has also touched His children who dwell in the border regions of Nepal, India, Bhutan, and Myanmar, giving them a heart to take the gospel across the mountain passes into Tibet. Despite strong opposition from the Communists, lamas, and Western Buddhists, God’s people in the past 20 years have made inroads, and the kingdom of God is gradually spreading its mysterious, life-changing influence throughout the Tibetan world. Starting in the mid-2010s, permits for foreigners wanting to visit Lhasa and other Tibetan areas became difficult to obtain, as the Chinese government cracked down on all foreign influence in Tibet. On both sides of the Himalayan Range, undercover Christian missionaries had their visas revoked and were expelled. Although it would be premature to suggest that the era of foreign Christian influence in Tibet has ended, the baton for the advancement of Tibetan Christianity has firmly been handed to the Asian Church.

In recent decades, an increasing number of Tibetans have found the answer to the one basic question on which all of life depends: Is Jesus Christ alive? They have found that, indeed, Jesus is alive, and He is able to meet their deepest spiritual longings and needs. Tibetans are discovering that Jesus Christ is not merely another living Buddha (which means “enlightened one”), but that His extraordinary claims are true when He said: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8.12). They are finding, to their amazement and pleasure, that Jesus is not merely one way in the never-ending cycle of life, but that He is “the way and the truth and the life.” As He said: “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14.6). While the Tibetan Church today is still not large, and most Tibetans have yet to hear the gospel, if Jesus Christ is alive then nothing and nobody will be able to stop the spread and rule of His kingdom—not kings or priests; not Communists and their millions of surveillance cameras. Not even all the hosts of hell can thwart the Living God! Jesus Christ is gradually being revealed as the true King of Tibet. God is taking a glorious inheritance for His Son out of Tibet, as a remnant emerges on the Roof of the World. Thank you for coming along on this Tibetan Christian journey. We hope you have been both inspired and challenged as you have read how the kingdom of God has been planted in some of the rockiest soil on earth. Tibet is taking its rightful place in the royal diadem of the King of kings, and one day soon an angel of the Most High God will declare with a loud voice: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11.15).

Notes 1 2

William D. Carlsen, Tibet: In Search of a Miracle (Nyack, NY: Nyack College, 1985), p. 36. Carlsen, Tibet: In Search of a Miracle, p. 37.

Appendix

Map of Christians in the Tibet Autonomous Region

Map of China’s Christians

Table of Christians in the Tibet Autonomous Region

Table of people groups in Greater Tibet Groups primarily located in the Greater Tibet region, listed under the province where most of the population lives. Latest stats from .

Selected bibliography Appasamy, A. J., Sundar Singh (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1958). Benge, Janet and Geoff, Sundar Singh: Footprints over the Mountains (Seattle, WA: YWAM Publishing, 2005). Bishop, Isabella L., Among the Tibetans (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1904). Bull, Geoffrey T., Forbidden Land: A Saga of Tibet (Chicago: Moody Press, 1966). ——, When Iron Gates Yield (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1955). Cable, Mildred and Francesca French, The Bible in Mission Lands (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1947). Carey, William, Travel and Adventures in Tibet Including the Diary of Miss Annie R. Taylor’s Remarkable Journey from Tau-Chau to Ta-Chien-Lu through the Heart of the Forbidden Land (New Delhi: Naurang Rai for Mittal Publications, 2002). Conrad, William C., Sent to Open Eyes: Physical and Spiritual Sight for West China’s Blind (Abbotsford, WI: Life Sentence Publishing, 2014). Davey, Cyril J., The Story of Sadhu Sundar Singh (Chicago: Moody Press, 1963). D’Ollone, Vicomte, In Forbidden China: The D’Ollone Mission 1906–1909. China–Tibet–Mongolia (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912). Ekvall, David P., Outposts, or Tibetan Border Sketches (New York: Alliance Press, 1907). Ekvall, Robert B., Gateway to Tibet (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1938). Griebenow, Blanche, Called to Tibet: The Story of M. G. and Blanche Griebenow (West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing, 2009). Hale, Thomas, A Light Shines in Central Asia: A Journey into the Tibetan Buddhist World (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Press, 2000). Hattaway, Paul, The 50 Most Unreached People Groups of China and Tibet (Chiang Mai, Thailand: Asian Minorities Outreach, 1996). ——, Back to Jerusalem: God’s Call to the Chinese Church to Complete the Great Commission (Carlisle: Piquant, 2003). ——, Operation China: Introducing All the Peoples of China (Carlisle: Piquant, 2000). ——, Peoples of the Buddhist World: A Christian Prayer Guide (Carlisle: Piquant, 2004). Huc, L’Abbé, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet (2 vols) (London: Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1857). Huc, Evariste Régis, Recollections of a Journey through Tartary, Thibet and China during the Years 1844, 1845 and 1846 (New York: D. Appleton, 1852). Kemp, Hugh P., Steppe By Step: Mongolia’s Christians. From Ancient Roots to Vibrant Young Church (London: Monarch, 2000). Lambert, John C., Missionary Heroes in Asia (London: Seeley, Service & Co., 1925). Learner, Frank Doggett, Rusty Hinges (London: China Inland Mission, 1933). Loftis, Zenas Sanford, A Message from Batang: The Diary of Z. S. Loftis, M.D., Missionary to Tibetans (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1911). Loup, Robert, Martyr in Tibet: The Heroic Life and Death of Father Maurice Tornay, St. Bernard Missionary to Tibet (New York: David McKay, 1956).

Maberly, Allan, God Spoke Tibetan: The Epic Story of the Men Who Gave the Bible to Tibet, the Forbidden Land (Orange, CA: Evangel Bible Translators, 1971). Marston, Annie W., The Great Closed Land: A Plea for Tibet (London: S. W. Partridge & Co., 1894). McIntosh, Amy, Daughter of Tibet: The Story of Drolma (London: China Inland Mission, 1951). ——, A Tale of Tibet: The Man in the Sheepskin (London: China Inland Mission, 1950). Morse, Gertrude, The Dogs May Bark, but the Caravan Moves On (Chiang Mai, Thailand: North Burma Christian Mission, 1998). Plymire, David V., High Adventure in Tibet: The Life and Labors of Pioneer Missionary Victor Plymire (Ellendale, ND: Trinity Print’n Press, 1983). Rijnhart, Susie Carson, With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple: A Narrative of Four Years’ Residence on the Tibetan Border and of a Journey into the Far Interior (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1904). Schneider, H. G., Working and Waiting for Tibet: A Sketch of the Moravian Mission to the Western Himalayas (London: Morgan & Scott, 1891). Shelton, Albert L., Pioneering in Tibet: A Personal Record of Life and Experience in Mission Fields (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1921). Shelton, Flora Beal, Shelton of Tibet (New York: George H. Doran, 1923). ——, Sunshine and Shadow on the Tibetan Border (Cincinnati, OH: Foreign Christian Missionary Society, 1912). Taylor, Annie R., Pioneering in Tibet (London: Morgan & Scott, 1895). Thompson, Phyllis, Sadhu Sundar Singh: A Biography of the Remarkable Indian Holy Man and Disciple of Jesus Christ (Carlisle: OM Books, 1992). Ting, John, with David Woodward, “Welcome the Wind (Witness of a House Church Pastor): The Secret of Survival in a Rough World,” unpublished manuscript, 1990. Tsering, Marku, Sharing Christ in the Tibetan Buddhist World (Upper Darby, PA: Tibet Press, 1988). Van Dyck, Howard, William Christie: Apostle to Tibet (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1956). Wissing, Douglas A., Pioneer in Tibet: The Life and Perils of Dr. Albert Shelton (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

Contact details Paul Hattaway is the founder and director of Asia Harvest, a nondenominational ministry which serves the Church in Asia through various strategic initiatives, including Bible printing and supporting Asian missionaries who share the gospel among unreached peoples. The author can be reached by email at , or by writing to him via any of the addresses listed below. For more than 30 years Asia Harvest has served the Church in Asia through strategic projects that equip the local churches. Opportunities exist for interested Christians to support native evangelists working inside Tibet, as well as among Tibetan groups in the border areas of Nepal, Bhutan, and India through the Asian Workers’ Fund. If you would like to receive the free Asia Harvest newsletter or to order other volumes in the China Chronicles series or Paul’s other books, please visit or write to the address below nearest you: Asia Harvest USA and Canada 353 Jonestown Rd #320 Winston-Salem, NC 27104 USA Asia Harvest Australia 36 Nelson Street Stepney, SA 5069 Australia Asia Harvest New Zealand PO Box 1757 Queenstown, 9348 New Zealand Asia Harvest UK and Ireland

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First published in Great Britain in 2020 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge 36 Causton Street London SW1P 4ST www.spck.org.uk Copyright © Paul Hattaway 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. SPCK does not necessarily endorse the individual views contained in its publications. Author’s agent: The Piquant Agency, 183 Platt Lane, Manchester M14 7FB, UK Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. The quotation marked KJV is taken from the Authorized Version of the Bible (The King James Bible), the rights in which are vested in the Crown, and is reproduced by permission of the Crown’s Patentee, Cambridge University Press. The quotation marked NIV 1984 is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978–0–281–08413–5 eBook ISBN 978–0–281–08414–2 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 eBook by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NL