Extra: Other Guys News Letter

Urumqi is tucked away in one of the remotest corners of China, the far northwest.  The dominant people group there (YOU Muslms) is actually from Turkish background, and they don’t really look Chinese.  This is potentially the most violent place here in China, where ethnic and religious tensions run high.      The local customs are enough to baffle even the most seasoned international traveler.  For example, if you were invited to a YOU home, it would be very impolite for you to use their bathroom.  If you needed a bathroom, you would have to excuse yourself, with- out explanation, and go out to find a public facility.      If you and your party were invited to stay the night in a YOU home, and it were therefore impossible for you NOT to use their bathroom, it would be the duty of the youngest female in your party to ask the youngest female in the YOU family where their bathroom was located!        This fixation on bathrooms, and bathroom related issues, borders on obsession.  For example, when pouring tea, it is impolite to let the tea make bubbles in the tea cup because that resembles urine in a toilet.  The tea must be poured carefully, and slowly, at an angle along the side of the tea cup, and in such a way that it doesn’t make a “tinkling” sound.  Can you guess why?  One must not sniffle either, or, God forbid!, blow their nose in public.        I stayed in a “resort” (well, really kind of a dump), just outside of Urumqi, where we held a 3 day seminar on storying for some of the foreign missionaries in the area.  (Unfortunately, I couldn’t take any pictures of the trainees for security reasons.  This is one dangerous place to share your faith!)      As the training progressed, I noticed that one of the young ladies seemed to have some restriction of movement in her body.  She was young, about 30 years old, but people would help her walk up and down small steps.  She had trouble bending or even picking up the hot water thermos to pour water into her tea cup.     As it turned out, this young lady, single and attractive, has one of the worst cases of rheumatoid arthritis I’ve ever seen.  She spent all of her high school years in a wheel chair.  She finally had both of her knees and both of her hips replaced, and she badly needs to have the same surgery for her shoulders.        She told me that when she would walk, before the knee replacement surgeries, she could actually hear the bones break in her joints as she would force her knees to straighten!      Yet here she was, thou- sands of miles from her home (and her excel- lent medical care in Cana- da!), sharing the message of Jesus among the YOUs.      Not only so, but she’s linguistically gifted.  She was one of the few who was nearly fluent in the local language.  And she had an amazing love for the locals that just radiated from her face.  But she said she doesn’t have long.  She said the prosthetic joints will probably wear out in another 6 years or so, and then it’s back to her wheel chair.      We talked for a while in front of the barracks where we were all staying, and then she noticed a group of Uy- ghur women sitting across the way.  She walked over to them and I watched as she went into the middle of the circle and did something remarkable.  She started to dance.  This severely disabled, single female, living in the most hostile, Muslm, male dominated, area of China, started to dance a YOU dance.  My mouth fell open.  Then the other women joined in.  It’s a scene I will never forget.