Winds of the Himalaya – Part 24 – Coffee, Tea, and Reverie

Tibetan Border Trip

Friday morning, June 15, Valerie, Dudley, two Nepali friends, and me, with Mr. G. in the driver’s seat headed northeast towards Kodari on the border with Tibet, the same area I had visited with an Alaskan team just six months before (see WotH Part 20). The Chinese highway was still rough and a bit more treacherous now that monsoon was beginning. The view from the car windows however was, as always, breathtaking.

Playing jacks with the students using stones instead of the jacks and ball.

We stopped along the way to visit a pastor, an Indian man who had tried unsuccessfully for ten years to enter Chinese controlled Tibet. So he began ministry and founded a school with 115 students in the area. Due to Maoist threats (letters sent to parents warning them to not send their children to the school) he had to relocate in a nearby village and enrollment had dropped to 50. After praying for and encouraging him we visited a new hydroelectric plant to meet with a Filipino electrical engineer who had been working at the plant for a year. The plant had been operational since December of 2000; it was my understanding that most if not all of the power generated was being directed to China. He had become a Christian while working on a job in Saudi Arabia! God never ceases to amaze me with the surprising things He arranges.

Buddhist cycle of existence. I have seen a Christian adaption of this; at the top is a cross making an exit from the cycle of reincarnation.

In Kodari we checked into Lhasa Guest House. Our assignment here was to prayer walk up the hill to the Tibetan Buddhist monastery I had visited in December. I was off the charts excited! Finally we were on our way trekking up the mountain. A little ways up while the others stopped to talk with some monks, I entered a building that contained a very large prayer wheel. The room was lit only by bits of sunlight that seeped in but I could see that the walls were painted with brightly colored Tibetan deities, bodhisattvas, etc. At the back of the room was a small table displaying a picture of the Dalai Lama. Two nuns were turning the huge, brass prayer wheel; at every full turn an attached metal piece rang a bell and the prayers written on papers inside the wheel were believed to be sent to the heavens thereby earning merit and creating a safe and peaceful area. I stood and prayed for a few minutes and then gave each nun a brochure written in the Tibetan language. Stepping outside I felt very heavy and was weeping. While I continued waiting on the others I prayed among a number of small buildings that served as meditation rooms for monks. We then walked a ways farther up and encountered a building containing a very large prayer wheel powered by the swiftly moving stream flowing under it. The sound of rushing water and the rhythmic dinging of the bell lent a deceptively seducing peace to the area.

A little farther up we arrived at the upper monastery. After much knocking at the rusty metal gate a lone monk let us in. He was in charge of taking care of the other monks who were meditating. I had hoped to see a monk we had connected with on the previous trip. He had been transferred to another monastery I was told. We went inside and sat on the floor and there I had an incredible experience which I recorded in a previous blog, Butter Tea with a Monk, and have attached here rather than repeating the story. It was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. Please click to read about that encounter and see the photos. https://jackietallent.com/2021/06/01/butter-tea-with-a-monk/

Back down at the guest house we found Mr. G. very sick with stomach cramps and vomiting. That evening we ordered fried rice for dinner. The others ordered veg but I ordered the carnivore version. My first bite tasted off. But I was hungry and cleaned my plate. At about 1:00 am I awoke very sick. I will spare you the details but it was not pretty.

At 9:00 am we headed back down to the church we had visited on the way up. The others did outreach in the morning and a medical clinic in the afternoon. I on the other hand spent the day on a bed in the pastor’s one-room house still very sick, making a few visits to the outhouse down the path.

Thankfully Mr. G. was much better and got us home in a very speedy 2-1/2 hours. On the drive back to Kathmandu because I had chills I sat wrapped in my down sleeping bag. My outstanding memory of the ride home was passing by the ancient city of Bhaktapur, meaning place of devotees. Built in the 12th century it and Patan are the two oldest cities of Nepal. (We didn’t visit the city because Robby felt the price of admission was exorbitant. Bhaktapur’s many temples were greatly damaged, some completely destroyed, in the April 2015 earthquake.) Even sick, I clearly remember driving by and seeing the ancient architecture and once again sensing a great surrealness at being there in that place and at that time and gave God profuse thanks for treating me with such goodness.