Brother and Sister Lee Newsletter

As the airplane took off from the runway and rapidly ascended and gained altitude, I looked outside the window and saw the city of Kunming from a birdseye view. It's hard to believe that such a small city contains nearly 5 million people but it does. It's generally believed that half of the city's population are not locals but from other parts of Yunnan and other provinces. Most of the outsiders are minority people who came from poor villages to seek work and better lives. The plane ride from Kunming to southern Yunnan Xishuangbana is only a 45 minute flight, yet a bus ride would turn into a 12 hour journey. A friend, who accompanied me to Bana (short for Xishuangbana), had lived there for 5-6 years. He told me that he would be visiting two Dai villages and attend some meetings. I quickly jumped at the chance of seeing this part of Yunnan and the work that's being done there. As the plane approached Bana, it went below the thick clouds and we began to see the famed Bana landscape--"the land of rice and fish". The lush mountains and rivers and rice patties dominated the land. I was particularly struck by how green and uniform the mountains looked; it was as though all the trees were the same. My observation later was proven valid. Many years ago, almost all the lush tropical rain forest here in Bana was cut down and in its place rubber trees were planted. Across this immense land, perhaps hundreds of square miles are nothing but rubber trees plantations. (So much for biodiversity.) As the plane landed on a single runway airport, we got out of the airplane and immediately were enveloped by the suffocating tropical air. Ah, there is a price to be paid for the greenery: high temperature, humidity and bugs--just to name a few.

After checking in a hotel, we walked around the small city Jinhong (about 300,000) and then went to have lunch at a local Dai restaurant. The food proved to be too spicy even for my palate. Later while we were waiting for some friends, dark clouds began to loom over us and in a few minutes torrential tropical rain poured down. We were thankful that we found a cover just in time. As we were watching the rain, we were amazed by the intensity of the rain--a small tree of about 20 feet high was bent to the ground by the strength of the rain and wind.

Later when we went to visit someone at a tea shop, we were greeted by a friendly middle aged man who spoke very good English to us. He invited us to sit down and right away prepared some famous local Pu-er tea. We savored the tea and started a pleasant conversation. Along the way, our conversation turned to spiritual matters, and right then his wife also came in. I asked them about whether they were Buddhists, and they told us that they didn't believe in anything but themselves. I further asked them whether they had heard of the Gospel story but they said they had only heard of Jesus and Mary. And with that I asked them for permission to tell them the whole redemptive story from the beginning and they consented. As we wrapped up the story, we pressed them about the personal sins and the need of a Savior; they were forced to admit that sin was a problem yet they were unable to make the connection between sin and need of a Savior. While the wife seemed to have responded a bit better, the husband was unmoved by the story and claimed that one must depend on oneself. We were thankful for the opportunity to present the Message and took comfort that the seed had been sown. Yes, the message of the cross is to some an aroma from life to life and to others an aroma from death to death.

"I grew up in a Dai village and my parents were devout followers of Buddha. At the age of 12 my parents offered me to the local Buddhist temple to be trained and brought up to be a priest. And there I studied the Buddhist scripture and learned the way of the religion and as I grew older I would become a very well respected Buddhist priest of the village. Being a priest meant power and authority and money because people in the village are expected to offer a portion of their income to the temple to ensure that no harm would come upon them. As I got older, I became more of more respected by all my peers and villagers--but to put it more accurately, they were afraid of me because in a way I have power over them. I became very corrupted and mean; I could yell and even hurt people with impunity just because I was a Buddhist priest. But suddenly one day I came down with a sickness and persisted for a long time and finally it was diagnosed as leprosy. I was totally devastated; all my power, money and family vanished overnight. All my friends shunned me and eventually I was transfered to a leprosy village for fear that the disease would spread to them. I lived in the leprosy village and life was miserable. I was wasting away in the leprosy village and I wanted to die. Finally I summoned enough courage and swallowed a double portion of poison. I didn't die but vomited everything out from my stomach. Why couldn't I die even I wanted desperately to end my life. A while later some foreigners came to our village and they didn't seem afraid of us and they cared for us. One of them told me about this Jesus and as he left and gave me a Book. I read the Book intently and tried to compared it to Buddhist scripture. Finally it dawned on me that Buddhism couldn't possibly save me from my sin. Only the Son of God could. As the foreigner came back to the village to share more with me, I finally gave my life to Jesus. Later, through the right medication and His grace my leprosy was healed though I have lost much of the sensation in my hands and feet. In the meantime my wife back in the village learned that I have become a follower of Jesus, she threatened to leave me and she did. I lost everything but I have gained Christ. But yet in losing everything I gained something far greater than I could possibly imagined--His love and His mercy. As I once again offered my life to the living God to serve Him, I realized that He saved me not only for my sake but also for the sake's of my kinsmen. I am now committed to bringing them the Good News no matter how difficult it's going to be. And in the meantime, God has blessed me with a wonderful Christian wife and a new baby daughter, truly far beyond all I could ask and think."

This brother has joined the national staff of our company a few years ago and is actively reaching out to his own people. And because of his testimony and his knowledge of Buddhist scripture, he is reaching many of the Dai people very few of us could ever reach. As I shared with you in the last update, our company has about 40 national Chinese workers doing similar work in that area. They all spend 3 days a week in various villages and then two days in the city to be debriefed and trained. My heart indeed leaps with excitement to be working with these brothers and sisters in the future, to help them to grow so that their work will be more effective as they bring the Good News to this part of Yunnan.