Desiring God Ministries - tons of free videos, downloads, books, and sermons by John Piper Going Worldwide - learn more about our ministry to China's unreached people groups
Corazon de Dios - share this evangelistic site with a Spanish speaking friend
Living Waters - the best tracts in the world and other evangelism resources
Wretched Radio - the best Christian program ever, with Todd Friel
Way of the Master - Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron teach you about Biblical evangelism
After only having read the first couple chapters of this book, I went ahead and purchased 6 more copies that I will be giving away to friends who are ministering among Muslims! I've since almost finished the book (only 1 1/2 chaps to go) and I have not been disappointed. Its really not a long book, but packed with Gospel-saturated, God-glorifying wisdom on how to point Muslims to Jesus Christ!
Just for a moment, try to imagine thousands of small villages, scattered throughout valleys, covering hillsides, and dotting ridgetops for as far as you can see every direction. Some are full of Muslims and feature a prominent mosque towering above the houses and the trees. Others are home to Tibetan Buddhist people and colorful prayer flags wave and flap in the wind on poles jutting up from every rooftop. Even more villages are home to ancestor-worshiping Chinese peasants, and the most prominent feature in the village is a bright red flag with yellow stars flying high above the local school house: the perpetual sign of the ever-present Chinese Communist Party.
None of the afore-mentioned villages look exactly alike, yet all have one thing in common: they do not celebrate Christmas. The lack of holiday festivity is not because they are "grinches" who hate to have fun, nor due to poverty or an inability to buy proper gifts for the children. The principal reason they do not celebrate Christmas is because they know nothing about true Christianity and the person of Jesus Christ!
The vast majority of the people in northwest China have never heard anything true about Jesus (just as most of us couldn't speak coherently for more than thirty seconds about any of the other major religions of the world). That is why we are giving our lives for the sake of the Gospel in this unreached place, that they might not just "have Christmas" but know and love and worship the Christ whose birth we celebrate!
We are so blessed to get to enjoy this Christmas here in America with our family! However, our hearts really do ache to return home to China as soon as possible to continue sharing the Gospel with so many of our friends and neighbors who do not know Jesus!
To those who are supporting us with your prayers and finances we thank you so very much. Please join us in giving God glory for the "indescribable" gift of His Son this Christmas, and pray that the Lord speed up our return* to China in the coming new year!
Merry Christmas! Benjamin, Deysi, Gabriel, Ariel, & Abriana West
*We need as many of you as possible to join our team of regular supporters (senders!). You can use the following link to set up a regular monthly gift to our ministry:
I can't believe its already December! Before 2012 hits, let me ask you to please consider us in your year end giving. The Lord has always provided for all of our needs, but He has always used our family and friends in Christ (and the occasional stranger) to do it. You can make a one time donation or set up a regular monthly gift on this page: http://www.iphc.org/directory/ben-and-deysi-west
But most of all, please, please, please continue to pray for us....
But most of all, please, please, please continue to pray for us....
But most of all, please, please, please continue to pray for us....
But most of all, please, please, please continue to pray for us....
Here's another quick update on what's happening with our ministry and how you can pray:
1) My wife is currently in China on a short 10 day trip with some friends from Knoxville, Tennessee. They are back in the area that we consider our home in China, visiting friends new and old, sharing the Gospel, and praying for the unreached people there. My wife wrote me today and said that she feels she is "falling in love with China like she never has before". After being away for nearly 5 months, this is definitely an answer to our prayers!
Please pray for my wife and this small team, that the Lord would give them opportunities to proclaim the Gospel and break their hearts once again for the people of northwest China!
2) Our good friends and teammates, Jose and Eloisa (and their two young boys Daniel & Samuel), have just departed their home in northwest China to journey back to Mexico for a few months. The primary goal of their trip is for Jose to get his teaching credentials so that he can teach Spanish in the future at Chinese universities. They will be traveling for upwards of a week and passing through Russia, Spain, and even Morocco (where Eloisa ministered previously) on their journey home to central Mexico.
Pray for traveling mercies and divine appointments as Jose and Eloisa travel with their two boys (2 and under!) back to Mexico throughout the next couple weeks!
3) As I mentioned in last month's prayer requests,
"In December, 20 people from all over North America will carry literally TONS of Bibles and tracts into China and then spend 3 weeks crisscrossing the country distributing Christian literature, sharing the Gospel one-on-one, and praying for the unreached. All in all, they will visit nearly 70 distinct locations and distribute tens of thousands of Bibles and tracts."
Well, this team is departing for China momentarily! I'm sitting at the team leader's home in Virginia right now (1:45 am) and expecting him to wake up any moment to head to the airport (along with three of his kids who are going along. (He just came out of his room!).
Please pray for all the logistics involved, and for each of these people (wisdom, protection, boldness, love for God and passion for His glory), and for the countless thousands who will hear and/or read the Gospel for the first time in the coming days as a result of their labors!
Thank you so much for thinking of us! Let me close out this update with a [thought on prayer](http://www.puritanfellowship.com/2008/07/james-hudson-taylor-powerful-quotes-on.html) by the famous missionary to China, [Hudson Taylor](http://www.ccel.org/t/taylor_jh/):
> _"Since the days of Pentecost, has the whole church ever put aside every other work and waited upon Him for ten days, that the Spirit’s power might be manifested? We give too much attention to method and machinery and resources, and too little to the source of power."_
Here's a quick update on what's happening with our ministry and how you can pray:
1) My family and I just concluded a 9+ week, 65 day, 29 state, 12,000 mile road trip that took us to the Rocky Mountains, the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes, New England, New York, the Carolinas, and the Deep South. Opportunities abounded on this trip to share about what God is doing in China! We also made new friends, met old ones, and spent time with many of our loved ones. Praise God for keeping us safe (and sane) on such a long trip with our three little ones in tow.
Please pray that the Lord would provide the rest of our needed support so we can return to China soon!
2) While we were traveling, we had a large team visit our target region in northwest China. I made schedules for the teams and kept in contact with them as they spent weeks ministering among Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists in some of the most unreached areas of the planet! All in all, the four teams (25+ people!) spent time in dozens of remote, needy locations and left us with many new contacts.
Pray for Jose and Eloisa as they begin the work of following up with these people!
3) We are getting ready to host the largest Bible-smuggling and tract-distributing team in the history of our ministry! In December, 20 people from all over North America will carry literally TONS of Bibles and tracts into China and then spend 3 weeks crisscrossing the country distributing Christian literature, sharing the Gospel one-on-one, and praying for the unreached. All in all, they will visit nearly 70 distinct locations and distribute tens of thousands of Bibles and tracts.
Please pray for me (as I prepare their itineraries), for each of these people (wisdom, protection, boldness), and for the countless thousands who will hear/read the Gospel for the first time as a result of their labors!
That is the question John Piper asks in the following sermon, which he delivered on New Year's Eve, 2009, to a large group of college students in Minneapolis:
I would never have noticed this particular sermon were it not for an e-mail I received that evening (actually, New Year's morning in China) from one of John Piper's co-ministers saying that Pastor John had just read one of my blog posts in a sermon he was preaching
(I had no idea how or why Pastor John would read one of my blog posts in his sermon until I actually listened to the sermon. The article that I had penned a few weeks prior did help to emphasize some key points that Piper has tried to promote for years.)
Please watch or listen to this sermon and be blessed by John Piper's Biblical clarity and conviction in sharing this much-needed message!
Here's a code for Free Shipping for those who purchase any shirt from our China "Don't Waste Your Life"online t-shirt store from October 29th – 30th, 2011.
Use the coupon code WITCHINGHOUR when checking out.*
These t-shirts are especially suited to those who will be traveling to China.
They are sure to encourage many curious Chinese people to approach you and ask
what it means exactly not to "waste your life"!
Someone recently wrote me sharing the following concern:
"I'm amazed at how you've gotten away with having a blog about being a missionary in China!
Your cover is pretty thin."
I think this was supposed to be a warning of some sort, but the concerns that this gentlemen
have about my blog are generally unfounded. Here is what I wrote in response:
"No worries! If you look closely, you won't find anything on the blog that gives away our
precise location and especially nothing talking about WHEN or WHERE we will be on any
given day. Our names are also aliases and there are other safeguards as well. We've never
had any trouble except with ourselves... the biggest problem for missionaries in "closed"
countries is the fear of man and a desire for security that tends to drown out boldness. So
pray that we would "boldly proclaim" the Gospel, as John, Jesus, Stephen, Paul and
others did!"
As we get into the last few months of 2011, please pray for us, and if you feel led, pray about giving financially to support our work among the unreached in northwest China-Tibet. We do not often ask for donations, but we do have needs and rely primarily on the generosity of our friends, family, and brothers and sisters in Christ back home to continue doing what He has called us to do!
Specifically, if you will, please pray that regular support would increase for two Latino families (Jose, Eloisa and baby Daniel from Mexico and Jimmy, Gladys, and their little girl Milagros from Peru) who are part of our team.
Jose and his family have already been serving (on a shoestring) in western China for a number of years. Jimmy and family are making preparations to join us in China within a year. Both families sacrifice much more than most Westerners do in coming to the field and they have almost no regular support.
Please write me if you are interested in learning more about how you can help these co-workers of ours!
If you would like to donate right now, there are a couple of ways that you can do so. You can send a check (see below for the address), or you can click on the following link provided by Paypal:
All gifts are tax-deductible. You will receive a year-end receipt with the combine total of all donations made during that year. Please consider our ministry if you are looking to make year-end donations. Our ministry is growing as we are expanding into new areas of Asia's Highlands!
For those who prefer donating by check, you can send your gift to the following address:
Gospel to the Nations Ministries / PO BOX 326 / Dayton, OH / 45405
(You can earmark your gift: "Jose-China", "Jimmy-China", or "Latino Missionary Support")
The Boyu Tibetan people live in the far southern portion of Zhugqu County in the south-eastern portion of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in southern Gansu Province. Although their primary village is located in a valley in southern Zhugqu County, it is much more easily reached by road from Wenxian County (2-3 hrs) to the southeast or from Jiuzhaigou County (3-4 hrs) in northern Sichuan to the southwest. The largest Boyu village is not extremely far from the Zhugqu County Seat, however a large range of mountains blocks all travel except that done on foot, horseback, or maybe a motorcycle or tractor.
When trying to reach the Boyu area in January of 2010, we traveled a long, rough dirt road that passed through numerous Chinese villages and even a Hui (Muslim) town before finally reaching some higher wooded valleys where we came upon the primary Boyu village. In many ways, the area looked just like any other poor, rural area in China’s hinterland, albeit with some signs from the way people dressed and decorated their homes that these were not native Han Chinese people.
The village was not large and after wandering around and praying for a bit we were invited into one home and served some tea. The man was very friendly and seemed excited to meet outsiders. We spoke with him for awhile and tried sharing the Gospel with him, but weren’t sure how much of our Chinese he was able to comprehend (although he did take a Chinese New Testament from us). The Boyu still speak their own native language at home, but it seems most also speak enough Chinese to have at least simple conversations. Many must interact sufficiently at school and with their Chinese speaking neighbors from farther down the valley to have become conversational in Chinese and often completely bi-lingual.
In all honesty, with such a small surviving population (Est. 4200 in 2010) and with the trend towards using more and more Chinese, I can’t imagine how a missionary would be able to become fluent in the Boyu language. It seems that it would be extremely difficult to stop communicating in Chinese long enough to become sufficiently immersed in Boyu so that fluency could be reached and the Gospel presented. Another huge hurdle would be trying to live in the Boyu area for extended periods of time without being rooted out by the regional authorities.
In light of the growing use of Mandarin Chinese among the Boyu (especially the youth) and the difficulties involved for an outsider to attempt learning their native language, I don’t think it would be misguided for an attempt to be made to reach out to the Boyu using the trade language of this region in southern Gansu, which is one of the many Gansu dialects of Mandarin Chinese.
As stated in the people group profile prepared by Paul Hattaway over ten years ago, there are still no known Christians among the Boyu Tibetans today. The nearest known churches to the Boyu are located a few hours to the southeast in Wenxian County. Wenxian is home to a few dozen Han Chinese churches that were originally founded long before the Communist takeover in 1949. On a previous journey to the region in 2008, I discovered that the Wenxian believers had reached out and planted a few small churches among the Baima people who inhabit the southern part of their county. This gives me hope that they can also reach out cross-culturally to the Boyu, although the distance is great enough between them that the Christians in Wenxian might simply be ignorant of the Boyu’s existence and spiritual need.
Pray for the Boyu Tibetans, and pray for laborers to be called forth to go and reach them with the Gospel, whatever it might take to do so!
*I wrote about my initial visit to the Boyu area in this post just a week after the fact.
I was very impressed with how Keri Folmar answered these questions, especially the one I am re-posting below. We often give similar advice to teams who come to minister to Muslims and Tibetans in western China:
What’s the first thing you tell Christians visiting from the West about ministering to Muslims?
Be bold in talking to Muslims about the gospel and get them to the Scriptures. Unlike in Western countries, people in Islamic countries enjoy religious conversation. Their language is filled with talk about God. The standard greeting here means “The peace of God be with you.” If you ask someone how they are, their answer in Arabic means “Praise God!” They are happy to talk to Christians about God. They also highly venerate their holy book, the Qu’ran. The Qu’ran tells them to venerate the Injil, the Qu’ran’s word for the New Testament. So Muslims are not likely to be offended when you ask them to read the Injil with you if it’s done in the context of a genuine friendship. God’s Word is able to make one “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15). We have seen many Muslims given this wisdom through God’s Word. Our regular practice is to study a Gospel with a Muslim who is willing. If they avoid studying together, we give them a Bible in their language as a gift of our friendship. Our Holy Book is always received as an honorable gift.
One of my desires with this blog is (by the grace of God) to encourage others to become missionaries and take the Gospel to the unreached people of the world.
The following article, written by John Piper in 2005, could help answer an objection that you or someone you know might be offering to God as an excuse for not answering the call to be a missionary.
Please read prayerfully:
Answers to Objections to Going into Missions
1. "I am not smart enough."
"Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe." (1 Corinthians 1:20-21)
"Consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise." (1 Corinthians 1:26-27)
2. "My body and my personality are not strong enough."
"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." (2 Corinthians 4:7)
"[Christ] said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
3. "I am not a good speaker."
"Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power." (1 Corinthians 1:17)
"Moses said to the Lord,
"Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.' Then the Lord said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak." (Exodus 4:10-12)
4. "I am afraid of the horrors I read about in the newspapers."
"Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore (katartisei-"mend" or "repair" your horribly disfigured body when the lions in the coliseum are through with you), confirm, strengthen, and establish you." (1 Peter 5:8-10)
5. "I am afraid I won't be fruitful"
Your responsibility is not to be fruitful but to be faithful.
"And [Jesus] said, "The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come." (Mark 4:26-29)
"I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." (1 Corinthians 3:6-7)
6. "There is plenty to do here."
True, but there is a division of labor and God calls some to MISSIONS, not just evangelism. The difference is seen in Romans 15:19-24:
"So that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I [Paul] have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named. . . Now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions . . . I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain."
How could Paul say there was no room for work when there were millions in that region to be evangelized? Because evangelism is not missions.
7. "I am not married."
The best spouse is found on the path of obedience.
"An excellent wife [or husband!] who can find? She [and he!] is far more precious than jewels" (Proverbs 31:10).
The finding is exceedingly hard. It will happen on the road of obedience.
8. "I fear that when I get there it might turn out I made a mistake and will come home with shame."
Which is worse, shame for having endeavored to follow Christ in missions, or fear to venture? Shame before others for making a mistake will not hurt you; it will humble you and can make you more useful in a new situation. But fear will make you useless everywhere.
The 
The village was not large and after wandering around and praying for a bit we were invited into one home and served some tea. The man was very friendly and seemed excited to meet outsiders. We spoke with him for awhile and tried sharing the Gospel with him, but weren’t sure how much of our Chinese he was able to comprehend (although he did take a Chinese New Testament from us). The Boyu still speak their own native language at home, but it seems most also speak enough Chinese to have at least simple conversations. Many must interact sufficiently at school and with their Chinese speaking neighbors from farther down the valley to have become conversational in Chinese and often completely bi-lingual. 
In light of the growing use of Mandarin Chinese among the Boyu (especially the youth) and the difficulties involved for an outsider to attempt learning their native language, I don’t think it would be misguided for an attempt to be made to reach out to the Boyu using the trade language of this region in southern Gansu, which is one of the many Gansu dialects of Mandarin Chinese.