On June 27, our family traveled to the Tibetan capital city of Lhasa to visit our many friends who live there. We spent 8 days in and around Lhasa spending time with friends and praying while walking around the many famous pilgrimage circuits found in the city. Lhasa is home to the most famous and “holy” temples in Tibetan Buddhism so the city is a major pilgrimage destination for people from Tibet as well as from Mongolia, Bhutan and the Tibetan regions of India and Nepal. Each day, tens of thousands of religious pilgrims walk around Buddhist temples that they believe are holy in an attempt to be free from sin.
A one-legged Tibetan man prostrating around the Jokhang, Tibet’s most famous temple
Tibetan woman spinning some of the thousands of prayer wheels that line a pilgrimage route
A nomad tent at 16,000 feet below a glacier
Yamdrok Tso, one of the 4 main holy lakes in Tibet
We flew to Lhasa, which is a 2 hour flight. Lhasa is the second largest city on the Tibetan Plateau (the city we live in is the largest on the Tibetan Plateau). Lhasa and the southern region of the Tibetan Plateau is a highly restricted area that requires foreigners to be on an organized tour that includes travel permits, a tour guide, a private vehicle and a driver. We were met at the airport by a couple good friends of ours, who work as guides, who drove us to our hotel. Over the past 7 years, Jamin has built a strong relationship with a popular travel agency in Lhasa. The agency employs around 25 people and Jamin knows about half of them really well. This agency insisted on paying for all of our hotels (2 rooms even in 4 star hotels!) and paid for all of our meals and all of the entrance tickets for us to go to the tourist places in and around Lhasa. It was a very nice gift that ended up saving our family many hundreds of dollars!
The 1000 room Potala Palace. This 13 story mansion is the most famous building in Tibet and served as the home of the Dalai Lama’s for hundreds of years.
Josiah with an older Tibetan woman
Gyantse Kumbum Monastery
Though Lhasa is the capital of Tibet and sees many thousands of Buddhist pilgrims each day, only a couple of foreigners have permission to live there full-time. It is nearly impossible to do any ministry there with all of the strict regulations that foreigners have to follow in order to go to Lhasa. The very first Tibetan that we ever met more than 11 years ago lives in Lhasa with his wife and son. We spent a nice evening with them talking about our friendship over the years.We have had many opportunities over the years to share the Gospel with this friend and have showed him the Jesus Film and had many talks about the Bible. Though this friend still hasn’t put his faith in the true God, we continue to pray that one day he will.
We spent most of our time in Lhasa walking around. Lhasa is the best place in Tibet to “people watch”. Pilgrims from all regions of Tibet pour into Lhasa each day. Many of them choose to walk to Lhasa while on pilgrimage. The don’t just walk, but prostrate to the ground every 3rd step so that by the time they finally reach Lhasa, which could take a year or more, their clothes are threadbare, the soles of their shoes have worn through and they have a huge callus on their forehead from their prostrations. Their religious devotion is intense. From before the sunrises to well after it sets, Tibetans in Lhasa spend their days walking around temples, prostrating in front of idols, spinning prayer wheels and chanting mantra’s all in a vain effort to be set free from their sin.
Tibetan pilgrim preparing to prostrate in front of a temple
A monk prostrating to the ground in front of an idol-filled temple. This monk has been walking so far that the soles of his shoes are gone. He has replaced the soles with rubber from a motorcycle tire.
A Buddhist nun reciting mantraa
Woman burning incense while spinning her prayer wheel
The boys would often ask why so many Tibetans in Lhasa would be prostrating and bowing before idols. We took advantage of these opportunities to explain to the boys the differences between what Tibetans believe and what we believe. We made sure that they understood that forgiveness of sins was a gift from God that could never be earned through a lifetime of prostrating before idols or walking a thousand miles to a temple or spinning a prayer wheel all day for 50 years. We also spent a lot of time praying for the tens of thousands of people surrounding us each day who continue to live their life separated from the love of God.
We had a great week seeing our many friends who were so happy that we made the journey to see them! Most of our best Tibetan friends live far from us so unless we make the journey to see them we might not ever see them! Pray with us that our many friends in the Tibetan capital will put their faith in the True God rather than a hand-made idol.
Blessings!
Josiah and Tyler in Lhasa with their favorite akhu (uncle)