A Busy Autumn in China

The last couple of months have been busier than usual, and unfortunately, even though there has been much to share, instead of writing MORE often I have written less. I think the feeling that there is never an “end” to our family “missions trip” delays me in my efforts to compose an adequate “missions report”. Where does one ministry season really end and another begin? The following is my attempt to close the chapter and share numerous praises and prayer requests from this quickly fading fall season (winter has definitely arrived here in the foothills of Tibet!).

Tibetan “Homecoming” Road Trip

In early September my family and I embarked on a long trip (1350 km, 25 hrs, each way) into the heart of Tibet, to a place very near and dear to our hearts. The first “home” that we made as newlyweds (no kids yet) and missionaries in China was here, way back in the fall of 2004. In the 9 years since, my wife had only been back there one time (Spring, 2005) and the kids not at all.

We not only succeeded in my goal to try and locate a few of our old friends and explore many places that my wife and kids had never yet visited, but all along the way we found opportunities to distribute Gospel booklets to unreached towns, villages, monasteries and nomadic homesteads!

Pray that the many planted seeds would grow and bear fruit, and that God would build His Church upon the heights of Tibet!

Visitors from Home

In late September, my mom and dad (Laban and Susie) and some of their best friends (Chaplain Jerry & Cynthia Jones) arrived for an extended visit. Chaplain Jones and his wife stayed for nearly a month, heading home in mid October, and my parents just left a week ago.

The highlights of their time here were a couple of short ministry trips onto the Tibetan Plateau, and being able to visit, pray, and worship with some local “suffering saints” in their humble home churches! They had the chance to experience many aspects of life and ministry (for better and for worse), and we were blessed greatly by their visit and will miss them dearly!

Keep reading below for more about the experiences and trips I just mentioned…

Brother Bai and Sister Wei

As I briefly mentioned above, a couple of the more moving experiences we had during the time that Chaplain Jones, his wife, and my parents were here was visiting some local Chinese believers in their afflictions:

Brother Bai lives in the mountains about an hour south of us. He belongs to a small clan of Christians who meet in a poor farmhouse on a steep, terraced hillside. We all went to visit them on a around Noon on a Thursday, but arrived just after they had finished their weekly Thursday morning worship. Nonetheless, we all took turns sharing English and Chinese hymns, prayed together, and broke bread (literally) together in this small adobe (read: mud brick) farmhouse.

(I returned to this village church a couple of days ago, taking along my wife and children for the first time. We arrived early this time, and enjoyed an exhausting 5 hours of food (two meals), prayer, singing, and fellowship.)

We visited Sister Wei late one afternoon. As usual, she was propped up on her bed (which in traditional Chinese homes, is in the main living area). Sister Wei has had a stroke and is now confined to her son’s house where she is taken care of by a not-so-friendly daughter-in-law. In years past, she was an active member in the nearby city church who regularly brought poor, sick people with her to church. She is the only Christian in her family (the rest are nominal Buddhist) and is now devoid of any fellowship since she has lost her mobility.

Visiting Sister Wei is always bittersweet, since it is so difficult to communicate with her because of the effects of the stroke, but prayer is a universal language… along with the smiles of children. Oh, how she loves to see our children!

Please pray for Brother Bai’s church and for Sister Wei!

Cannonfodder* Cal and his Team

Nearly every year we are blessed to have our good friend Cal come over with a team and minister alongside us for a few weeks. He always brings a couple of his kids along with the others (there were about 10 total this year) that he has rounded up for ministry in China’s unevangelized towns and cities. This year was no exception. The team arrived young and inexperienced, but they quickly became experts in sharing the Gospel with English students and children, and in safely deploying the thousands of little scripture booklets that they brought over with them.

In less than two weeks, they were able to distribute tens of thousands of Gospel scripture booklets in nearly a dozen towns and cities!

*Bible and tract distribution is very sensitive to the Chinese communist government (mainly because they know how effective literature can be!) so short-term teams like the ones Cal leads do us a great service by volunteering to be the ones to take the greatest risks in getting God’s Word to the masses of unreached people. They delight in letting their lives be used as“cannon fodder” in communist China so that many can hear and believe the Gospel. A few have been arrested and deported over the years, including Cal’s own teenage son, Jimmy, in 2011.

Pray that Jimmy would some day be allowed back in China, and that Cal would continue to recruit more Gospel “cannon fodder” for China!

The World Race

The same week that Cannonfodder Cal arrived (early October) we were also blessed to receive another large team who represent a ministry called “The World Race”. The 13 “Racers” who came to serve were able to split their time between two strategic cities in our region. While one group lived, prayed, and shared the Gospel among unreached Tibetans in a small mountain town, the other spent most of their time serving other long-term missionary families and at an international school. It was amazing to see the opportunities that the Lord provided for both groups as they walked in faith and obedience!

Pray for God to raise up more teams like this one, and that God would transform many of these “short-termers” into life-long laborers in western China!

Triple Generation (Grandfather, Father, Son) Road Trip

In early November, my father Laban and I, along with my son Gabriel, were able to take three gorgeous days to drive south to an area in the next province that I had quickly passed through before, but never taken time to explore. We drove a total of nearly 20 hours, crossed countless mountain passes, hiked to a large waterfall, and gave away three boxes worth of Tibetan and Chinese scripture booklets (about 1,500 tracts total) all along the way.

The mountains in this area are some of the most spectacular in China, and the blanket of snow that coated the pine-covered hillsides only added to the beauty. But the Muslim and Tibetan inhabitants in this region remain unreached, and unable to give glory to God who made it all.

Pray that all the peoples of northern Sichuan Province would be reached with the Gospel, and that their idols of Buddhism, Islam, and Materialism would be broken!

Tijuana to Tokyo?

After 22 months back in Mexico, Jose Mendez and his family (wife Eloisa and two little boys, Daniel and Samuel) have returned to their home in northwest China. Their return flights took them from Toluca (near Mexico City) to Guadalajara to Tijuana to Tokyo to Shanghai!

Jose finished his university teacher training in Mexico and is planning to teach Spanish in China for years to come, as soon as he can find an opening (not easy at the moment). In the meantime, he will study Chinese as they dive back into life among the people they love.

Please pray that God would continue to provide for Jose and his family (and Jimmy and his family from Peru), and that the right Spanish teaching opportunity would present itself!

I hope you made it to the end of this series of testimonies from the past few months of life and ministry in western China. Please know that we are grateful for your prayers, and for all who have given sacrificially to send us to China!

But most of all, we are thankful for God’s son Jesus, whose death and resurrection brought forgiveness of sins, eternal life and hope into this decaying world!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ben, Deysi, Gabriel, Ariel, and Abriana West

PS. We’ve seen a noticeable drop in support over the past couple of months, so please pray that God would provide for our needs and for the needs of all our supporters! If you’d like to make a gift, here’s the place: Support the West Family