aji dromo

2010-07-21T22:43:00.000-07:00

Some three and a half weeks we have been back in the States now, and I didn't think I would post on this blog again. But here I am sitting on an old wood floor long past my normal sleepy time and my mind is just reeling.

Some days Dondrup and I can't believe the things we saw, heard, and lived this summer. Sometimes when I think about it I get sick. Some hours seem so surreal that I don't know where I actually am. Sometimes we have such a hard time understanding what makes people get out of bed in the morning here in this country of ours. Some days we miss our beloved brother so much we choke on the thickness of it. Some days I sing him songs, some days I write him letters in my mind. All days I long to see him, laughing, being silly, being young and alive.

I didn't know how to deal with the gaping hole in my heart but I kept feeling like I should write him a song. So this is what came out:

I was asleep in my bed at home
When I got the word asking me to quickly
Get on the phone

Far away in a mountain town
The earth was shaking and the house fell down
While you were sleeping on the couch

In the morning through the rush of tears
I was stuck on the phone, I was stuck on my fears
And missing you so terribly

And your mother dear, I could only think
Lost her husband of 30 years
And her two precious boys

Remembering you, hurt as it did
Was the best way I could keep you living
So here is what I thought of:

Long nights on the long distance bus
Playing hand after hand of the Uno cards
Just to pass an hour

Drinking tea in your auntie's house
Scolding you for your cigarette
And your casual laugh

Oh the beauty of your high hometown
When we climbed the mountain and our fears fell down
And you wailed out a warning

Oh the glory of the pure sweet sound
When the nomad girl sang from your radio
And we danced all around

When I went back this summer I knew
In the pit of my stomach it was all too true
And you were really gone

A grey day with rainy skies
When the cork came out and the tears fell down
On a city of a million

Oh the glory of deciding to stay
And do all the good that was in my power
In your memory

Oh the beauty at the end of the day
When the weeping stopped and the children played
And I memorized your face.

In memory of Buck, our brother. We will carry you in our heart all of our days.

2010-06-26T01:42:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in the Seattle airport at 1:42am listening to the hymn me and a friend sang at two of my dearest friends' wedding last week... sitting here aching... aching and thinking... and missing, really, a lot. And now it hits me- we have left. And we don't know when we will be going back. I have Tib. mothers and brothers and sisters that I am feeling so homesick for.

So what will be the words of a heartsick Dechen Tsomo in a land where no one calls her that anymore? She herself does not know. I simultaneously want to write and scribble and draw beautiful things and compose songs and get on a return flight to the mountains and sleep and get things done and run through this airport screaming out glorious things to anyone who will listen and to a few who won't.

Isn't it awful that we are so fast to silence the ruined ones among us? What of those friends we have had return from a trip, a stay, a life somewhere else, and we just ask them for the highlights. And I can tell you they are reeling in their heads thinking what the hell can I say to express something that runs so deep in me it has melded into my DNA? And we ask them, did you have fun? As if being trampled and broken and crying buckets and being downright nauseous that the grannies keep on dying without hearing and learning and crumpling and standing up again and taking the tiniest babysteps toward the good way, as if all this could be simply summed up as 'fun'. I don't lay blame- I know that I have certainly asked these questions to these people many times. But my oh my, I feel like kissing somebody right on the mouth when they actually take enough of an interest in what we have walked through to ask to sit down and talk with us about it. So maybe we can all aspire to that. And maybe we can really listen til they're done talking, not until our next appointment comes up.

I can't help but wonder, have I changed a lot while I have been gone? I have had an odd experience- almost as many people in AMERICA are staring at me like I am a really strange creature as did in China... and that is a hard and rare standard to equal. It has left me thinking with each lingering stare, can they tell what I am from just looking at me? Has my brokenness infiltrated my being so much that people can see it from the outside, like a million tiny cracks in a vase? Or have I been with the nomads so much that some of their wildness has rubbed off on me and even if my clothes and my face are the same as the people around me, there's something awfully foreign about me too... I can't figure it out. Would that they were staring at me because the glory of God is radiating from my face! But I feel that the brokenness is what radiates from my face. Except-- is there such a clear divide between the two?

I can't quite express what it was to say goodbye to Medu. But it was sweet! We put our hands on her and prayed for her healing. She was so receiving of it. She even told me that she had been in a lot of pain the night before so she prayed to God, and He helped her. Pure honey, these words coming from her mouth! I will never never forget this family that made me their own. I will look for them long days until I find them again when I come back.

I have one more story that happened in my last days in the city, one that reminded me of my LOVE for the sovereignty of God! I was at the hospital visiting Medu the next-to-last time and ended up leaving a little earlier than I'd planned, as if something was just propelling me out the door. When myself and a few friends were riding the elevator back down, a woman got on at the third floor, seeming fine. But right before the doors opened on the first floor, she collapsed onto the young girl next to her (a total stranger), sobbing. She was so grief-stricken she could barely stand. So when the doors opened, the girl took her over to a seating area and set her down then left her. I stopped the girl at the door and asked if the woman was okay. She said, "She's okay, I think she has a stomach problem or something. Anyway, she can't talk." So I asked my friends with me, should we do something? They said they didn't think we could. So I walked to the gate with them and bid them farewell, making to walk the other way on the street- but I bought a bottle of water and went right back into the hospital. Just something in me would not let me leave that woman. So I found her- she had come outside by this point- and she was just trying to walk, trying to get herself wherever it was she was going, but she was so disoriented that she wasn't really getting anywhere. I came up and asked if she was alright, gave her the bottle of water, and asked if she would come sit with me a while. So we sat together, me having no idea what to do, just saying oh Lord please have mercy on me, how do I comfort a broken hearted woman I don't even know? As she drank the water it was like peace just started to come over her, and soon enough she could talk again. She showed me her papers from the hospital and tried to describe what the problem was. I didn't understand, though- Chinese people are very vague when talking about these things usually. I could only gather that I think she had just been told she had a very serious problem- maybe a disease? Once we had sat a while I asked if she would like to eat some lunch. She said yes. So we walked across the street to a noodle shop and sat together. I felt like the Lord just wanted me to speak to her about her life, and everyday things that would help take her mind off of things. So that's what we did. I learned all about she and her family, she showed me a picture of her precious 3 year old son, and started actually smiling again! After some time I had to go meet some friends for lunch but we exchanged phone numbers before I left and I told her I was praying for her, that the peace of God would come into her heart, and that all would be ok. She tried to say thank you a whole bunch but I told her you see, I lost a good friend recently, and so I know what it is to have the aching heart. She said, can't you come to my house today? But I was busy all day, sadly. But guess what- the next day, the day before we left, we were riding in a taxi back home and I happened to look out the window and guess who I saw standing out on the street- yep! It was her! Looking put back together and oddly... joyful. We waved really great big to each other out the window then called each other later to laugh about it and to get an update on everything. She is a really precious woman, to me, and goodness, how much more precious to our Father!! So precious that before the foundations of the world were laid, He knew that there would be a grieving woman at this specific hospital (of the 10 or so in the city) at this specific time on this specific day and that I would be visiting a friend that same day (who I also met 'randomly,' if you believe in that sort of thing!) and so made me feel compelled to leave a little early so I could see this woman and just be a friend to her for a day. He loves that woman THAT staggeringly much! And I just love all the thousand tiny events that came together that day so that I had the blessing of meeting her. Will you ask with me for her healing and for her to meet the One that will heal her?

Again, I am chunking a peach pit over a brick wall and hoping a tree grows from it... but sometimes the chucking and the hoping, that is all there is to do.

We'll see you guys soon. That makes me happy.

AND- here's a little video of Dondrup's time in Zhidou, land of mythical beauty! More to follow.

2010-06-23T13:10:00.000-07:00

24-June 2010

Well… what to say? I have officially entered my last 12 hours in this city. It feels like it’s been a long time coming, so in a way I am just ready to get on that train and say goodbye. But in another, equally powerful way I am downright dreading getting on that train, wondering when when when will I see these beautiful faces again? BUT. As Dondrup and I were talking about tonight as we took a last evening walk through the city, we just could not be more thankful that we got to spend this time here, and we don’t have any regrets. We feel like this has been an incredibly fruitful time, for me I think I could even say that these 6 weeks have been more fruitful than my six MONTHS of living here. I’m telling you, when the Lord told me “I sent you here to LOVE” it was the most empowering thing I’ve ever heard, and I do feel like I loved in ways I never have before, til my heart was just leaking out all over the place. So where is the room for regret with all this sloshing love in my heart? There just isn’t any.

I was walking down to my friend’s house the other day, eating a peach. On my left was a tall brick wall, and as I finished my peach the beginnings of a little song started in my head:

If I throw this peach pit over that wall
I sure hope a tree will grow where it lands
In the ashes

And I thought… how perfectly, exactly like I feel about this time I’ve had here. It is blindly throwing a peach pit over a wall. It is hoping desperately, fully, haphazardly, almost stupidly, that a tree will grow where it lands. So tomorrow, I get on that train, hoping with a living hope that my one tiny peach pit will take root here in this parched soil.

We have said goodbye to so many, with a few still to come. Dondrup really hates it more and more. I feel the same. Like I’d almost rather just NOT say goodbye, just leave. It really just gets harder all the time, and of course we always have the memory of our dear friend who we said goodbye to rather casually last year and now will never see again… makes us a bit more careful—and a little more teary—in our farewells.

We ate our last round of Tib. food tonight- momos, yak yoghurt, boiled lamb, rice with meat, and milk tea. We said our last “wo yah” and “guardenche” and bought our last thing from the Tib. market. Everything, everything is goodbye. We really don’t like this part.

One of the hardest, maybe the hardest, goodbyes comes tomorrow. I need to say goodbye to Medu, my friend in the hospital, and her mother, my sweet Aji. What makes this one so difficult is that there is such a slim chance I will ever see them again. After Medu is released from the hospital she will go back to her hometown, where her family are farmers. They don’t have a computer, nor does she know how to use one—she is illiterate due to her health problem, which keeps her from going to school.

She had yet another surgery today. I visited her yesterday and she, her mother, and her friends there visiting her were all in tears. She just doesn’t want to do this anymore. She is so tired of being in intense pain with no relief, so tired of the slow recovery processes, so tired of living in the hospital. She has been there for 2.5 months now! And this is her fifth surgery. All I could do was sit there and hold her hand, tell her I am praying for her and I know God will give her peace. And then I held Aji’s hands, both of them, squeezed them hard, and we just looked into each other’s eyes and cried together. Will you please lift up this sweet family? They are so loving and kind and patient with this whole process, and they must be the bravest mother and daughter I have ever met. Please pray for Medu’s utter and complete healing, for her peace of mind, for her endurance in this process, more than anything for she and her mom to know the One that loves them so. I have really grown to love these two and let me tell you, I dread the goodbye tomorrow.

However! We are so excited to see all of you, of course. It will be good to be back. And it will hurt to be back. Unfortunately we still haven’t managed to figure out how to have one without the other :) We will be back Saturday evening and looking forward to seeing everyone shortly after. If you have time to listen to some stories, we will have plenty to tell.

signing off from the mountains,
Dechen & Dondrup

2010-06-20T13:04:00.000-07:00

20-June 2010

Tonight I am feeling maybe one million things. Here’s the deal. I need to brush my teeth and all before I go to bed but there is only one bathroom in the house we’re staying at and our friend is taking a shower. So here I am, 12:49 am, mind reeling, teeth fuzzy, thinking and pondering and so so tired but still aware. So until the bathroom is free, here I am with you.

We leave in 4 days. FOUR DAYS. The sound of it makes me sick in the pit of my stomach. Oh if only I were enough like my Lord that a day was a thousand years to me… I just feel unfinished here. I have a strong suspicion that much of that has to do with the fact that I didn’t make it down to the earthquake city… and therefore did not really get to say goodbye to the friends I lost and the city I lost in the way I think I had hoped to. But strongly thematic of this trip has been a request from the Beloved one to die every day to my own poorly scrawled plans and accept with joy the thing He gives me to do for that day. I cannot judge His plan as unfair, incorrect, or insufficient. He gave me a lot of love and a lot of people to give it to in this city and oh, I just HAVE to be okay in that.

I’m just… how can you explain love? I have wanted a million times to explain perfectly to my family why it is that I come here. Why it is I can leave them for months on end even though when I do it feels like I am being torn limb from limb and I miss them like crazy while I’m gone and so on and so forth, if I were them I would wonder why on earth I do this. Sometimes even while I’m here I wonder why I do this. Why make life so much harder? Well… I have tried now for years to condense this into a charming anecdote but am hereto unsuccessful. I will tell you instead that:

It’s sitting here in the dark, chilly mountain night with my toes close to the breezy window and the tiny smells of incense and butter on the air and the little floating song from somebody else’s window.

It’s laughing hysterically with a total stranger taxi driver who slugs Dondrup and says “Hey did you watch that American soccer game last night?” and makes fun of how the Americans played. It’s getting to know a little of his life for 9 minutes, learning he has a son that’s 10 years old, learning he was born in this city, learning where his child attends school.

It’s sitting for hours in a living room with 30 nomads I can hardly communicate with and playing language games and absolutely rolling on the floor with laughter when one of them hollers out to my husband (in English) “You are handsome boy!”

It’s drinking the 8th cup of tea in a house where the family can’t afford new clothes to put on their own backs. It’s their offer to feed you dinner. It’s their attempt to give you a small trinket that is really something special to them, just because they consider you their friend.

It’s dressing up in their clothes just exactly the way they would wear them and being told you look absolutely beautiful instead of being scoffed at.

It’s seeing a teenage monk on a bicycle chasing a younger monk who is running down the sidewalk, both of them laughing so hard they threaten to crash, red robes billowing behind them, their humanity laid bare like their tiny muscled arms.

It’s holding a sweet baby that’s almost the same age as my new niece at home and thinking, how different, how very very different their lives will be.

It’s spending hours and days at the hospital with a beautiful precious girl who, short of a miracle, will never live a normal life, will never learn to read, will maybe never leave her home, because of something that’s quite treatable where I come from.

It’s seeing my Aji do something so thoughtful and sweet for a Chinese woman she doesn’t even know. It’s seeing the look of revelation on the Chinese woman’s face and the micro-scale reconciliation between the two ethnic groups there in that moment in that noodle shop.

It’s acquiring a friend and a dear brother and meeting his family. It’s spending time in their home and drinking their tea. It’s climbing mountains together. It’s taking long bus trips together and playing Uno to pass the time. It’s living in the same house. It’s cooking his meals. It’s getting a call on April 14th that his house collapsed in the earthquake and he is gone. It’s grieving deeply. It’s throwing up from sadness. It’s coming back here and deciding to honor his death by loving the people he loved. It’s doing good in his memory.

It’s the other life I live over here. These things are a fraction… a FRACTION… of the million ways that this place has my heart. I’ve seen, and I’m responsible. And I’m ruined. And I wouldn’t want to be rebuilt. I am ruined for life that is not life at all. And I am in love to the hilt with life that is real, true, sweating, bleeding, breathing, painstaking, breathtaking, REAL LIFE.

The bathroom’s been free for a long time now. But the can, it is opened, and the worms, they are everywhere.

2010-06-16T05:33:00.001-07:00

Anyone still out there?? A million apologies for not writing for the last 10 days or so... busy is the word. Some highlights from the days we have missed: Two of our best friends getting married. Getting to drive out on the beautiful budding Plateau to take their engagement pics at a local lake that is so ENORMOUS that it looks like an ocean- tide, rocky beach, the works- oh and I might add taking those pictures in a COLD rainstorm. Continuing to visit my sweet friend in the hospital. Moving house... three times. Having an old friend from Scotland come out for a visit. Millions of wedding plans. Going back out to visit the orphans from the earthquake city. Helping a friend paint her house. Oh! So many things! I'm not so sure I could hope to catch you up on the details of all that has gone on but here's an excerpt at least:

A word on Medu, my friend in the hospital. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I have a friend that is an occupational therapist that sees her once a week. She told me in more detail what the problem is and what the doctors are trying to do to fix it. So one of Medu's legs is shorter than the other (considerably) and she has now had 4 surgeries to try and lengthen it. But sounds like the docs are really going about it in an interesting way and my OT friend says Medu will just be in pain for the rest of her life and that there's no way this will work. I just feel crushed hearing that news about her. She is so incredibly bright but has never had the opportunity to go to school because of her disability. I think she is still holding out hope that if the doctors can fix her leg she can start school. But hearing that her life will never be normal... I just don't want to accept that. So will you pray with me that she will be made well and whole?

I have really been having so much fun with that little family. We hang out, we laugh, we chat, we eat meals together, we just generally enjoy being together. The other day Medu told me that she and her mom were talking about how on days that I come, the day seems to pass faster. We just talk and talk and before you know it, the sun's going down. I know how incredibly bored they must get just sitting all day every day in that same hospital room with little to no variation in their activities and I just think, if I can make a few of their days go a little faster, then that is well worth my time. A few days ago they thought I was coming but I was actually coming the next day, and when I saw them Medu said her mom was saying all day long, "Where is that Dechen Tso? Where could she be?" Haha! I love my sweet Auntie.

Just today I got to see the orphanage kiddos from the earthquake city once more before we leave. We took the bus out to the place they're living and had some excellent hang out time. They are so wonderful. I just love them all to pieces. And yep, there's a big knot in my belly that I have no idea when I'll see them again or what will become of them because of the earthquake, but I hope with a living hope.

For all who wondered, Dondrup made it back safely last Friday... after a 25 hour bus ride that should have been 17! Two flat tires, held up by a wreck ahead of them on the road for about 5 hours, and lots of unexplained stops. Poor guy. But he is back and brown as a Tib. and had leathery skin for a few days until we rubbed enough lotion into him! He was at around 15,000 ft altitude for about 10 days and eating little more than dried yak meat, barley flour, and butter-- the standard Tib. fare. Ahh, my husband the nomad. He had a very productive trip, putting up 5 fences for families that lived about as far out as a human can live. They saw lots of awesome wildlife (wolves, sand foxes, pikas, all nature of birds) and lots of damage done by wildlife- a few of the houses they fenced had tons of damage by bears. One house had been basically 98% destroyed by a bear. So quite a lot of evidence that their time was well spent there.

So I'm gonna try to post some pics of Medu and her mama and a few from Dondrup's trip south, plus one of us all decked out in Tib. fare for our friends' wedding! Enjoy :)

2010-06-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

6-June 2010

Goodness. Goodness goodness. Did I say before these days that I was happy? I don’t think I knew what happy was. See, happy is with Jesus. Friends, happy is really with Jesus!

I knew I loved orphans before. But there is a height and a depth and a width to that love that lay previously undiscovered in me. Here’s the story: some years ago some friends of ours worked at an orphanage in the earthquake city. After a while they were asked to leave but they’ve kept up with the kids through the years, visiting them often, making sure they’re taken care of, etc. I went to this orphanage and met the kids last summer and just really thought they were great. Everyone was so worried about them when the quake happened because their orphanage was on the side of the city nearest the epicenter and because they go a lot of the time without any adult supervision. Miraculously, ALL of the kids survived the earthquake even though several of the buildings at the orphanage fell down. With nowhere to go, they were all sent up to a city about ½ hour from here! You can imagine our excitement, having them so close. So on Saturday me and a friend went to visit them. I can try to tell you but never really tell you the thing that was in me when I saw them, when I heard their voices, when they took my hands in theirs and put their arms around my waist. The thing that was in me some would call love, but we also use that word to describe our feelings about ice cream, shoes, and sports teams. And I can tell you that the thing that was in me was significantly more than that.

Maybe the thing could be called amen. Because every movement and every moment was a resounding amen within the deepest part of me, like something way down in there was saying YES, this is what you were created for! Amen and amen!

I made quick friends with the youngest girl, who is 10 years old, talkative, lively. The rest of the girls are teenagers. We decided we would take all the girls to the city for the day. You can’t imagine their excitement! They ran to their rooms and the primping began. Wanted to look their best, don’t ya know. So we hopped the bus for the city, which was crammed full of people so most of us ended up standing for the 45 minutes, swaying to and fro in the aisle of the bus. And it was so bonding! Because we were all so close we all talked together and sang songs together and held on around each others’ waists so we didn’t fall over, haha. Most of them had only been to the city once or twice before, and then mostly just passing through, so as we got closer they would say, “Are we there??” with great big eyes.

Once we got into the city we hopped another bus and went for lunch. They ate with VIGOR and great humor. Then we went to the park! Oh, imagine the giggles and the happiness. They were just enthralled with everything. I had the joy of buying them their first cotton candy while we were waiting in line to get in! And once inside the park we all walked hand in hand laughing and having a grand ol time. Remember that these girls have had maybe the most traumatic past 2 months of their lives. How deserving they were to have a day to just laugh and be kids!

We told them they could each pick a ride to go on, and most of them chose one of those boats that goes through the little channel and down the big drops. They came out soaked and grinning ear to ear. Two others picked the ferris wheel, and waved out the window to us the entire time. Every once in a while I would look at a girl and see a wave of soberness sweep across her face, and that’s when I was reminded of what they had lived through, the things they had seen and had to do. I can’t imagine what they were thinking. But I could just put my arms around them and tell them how pretty their hair looked or try to say something to make them laugh. What else can you do?

From the park we went to my friend’s house to watch movies with them. During the week they go to school from 7:30 am to 9 pm (not joking) and have no time for relaxing really. So on the weekends they love watching movies! And guess what movie they wanted to watch more than any other? Ba Bi Wa Wa, which is the local way to say Barbie! Haha! So picture a room full of teenage girls transfixed by an animated Barbie movie… delightful. A few of us had talked earlier about how they needed haircuts, so while the movie was playing I cut some hair. And gave some cuddles. And just fell more and more in love with these my little sisters.

Most of them hopped the bus to go back around 6 pm, but three of them had gotten permission to stay the night, so we had an old fashioned slumber party with pancakes for dinner and a dance party and, you guessed it, more Ba Bi Wa Wa.

I’m hoping to head back out to see them again next weekend, and take Dondrup with me so he can spend some time with the boys. They are really great too, just total goobers and in need of some man time you can tell.

Speaking of my sweet husband, he is doing good out there in the wild places. We can talk in the mornings and evenings when he has cell phone reception. During the days they are driving out to nomad villages and putting up the fences, then coming back to the township at night and sleeping in a tent like the rest of the town, since there have been lots more aftershocks after the big earthquake and everyone is just taking the precaution of not sleeping in their houses. Smart, I think. Be thinking of him- his days are long and hard, slinging heavy stuff at 15,000 ft is no picnic. And today they woke up to a blizzard and had to work in snow, sleet, and rain all day. Pray for his health and endurance and encouragement.

Oh, how we love you all. Thank you for your prayers for us, specifically that you asked that we would find our role in earthquake relief. We did, in a way. See, earlier this week I was just helping my other foreigner friends with their kids and errands and stuff like that all day every day and it just got me to thinking about how disappointed I have been with our time here, that I haven’t had hardly any tangible role in the relief effort, and sorta felt like I’d come all this way for nothing. But as I was walking home that night, the Lord spoke to me so clearly and said “You are here to love.” And I just said Yes! That is right! Lord You brought me here to LOVE, simply to love. And if every day I choose to love in the way that He has given me that day, and to love to my fullest ability, then I am accomplishing the purpose for which I was sent out. So thank you for praying that for me. I found exactly that thing which I am here to do and I am determined to do it well.

xo,
Dechen

2010-06-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

Well I just got back from doing something I didn't expect to do while I was here-- open mic night at a local coffee shop! Haha! They asked me and a friend to be the 'feature artists' for the night so we sang some songs and had a grand ol' time. My favorite part of the night was when our Tib. friend got up and sang a wailing nomad folk song.... ahhh, to sing like that!

So an update on my sweet friend in the hospital (let's call her Medu)-- I have been going to see her at least every other day, so spending a lot of time with her and her mama. We are becoming good friends- we just laugh and laugh together. It is so wonderfully rewarding to finally be able to communicate at a normal 'friendship' level in Chinese, not to have to constantly be trying to figure out what is going on. My biggest communication barrier is with her mom, who doesn't speak a lick of Chinese. Oh, but she is SWEET!! We talk to each other with lots of smiles and gestures and hand-holding and simple Tib. phrases. Sometimes Medu translates for us. Yesterday I went around lunch time and we all got hungry (hospitals here don't provide any meals) so Aji (I call the mom Aji- it means Aunt) and I went out to get some dumplings for lunch. We spent about 1/2 hour together just holding hands and smiling and not talking because well, we couldn't! But it was interesting... I saw the world through her eyes a tiny bit. Because see, she is a Tib. woman living in a Chinese world, where she is looked down upon for her dark skin and high cheekbones and the rest of her clearly Tib. features, but most of all for the fact that she can't speak Chinese. And when she doesn't understand what someone says to her, they just speak louder. I was left thinking, how does she get by when someone isn't around to translate for her?? She is a strong woman. And she is a good woman. As we were waiting on our food, the Chinese woman sitting across from us was boxing up the rest of her meal to take home but was having some trouble getting everything in the bag, and Aji just reached over and held the bag open for her. I just patted her knee and said, "Cho yaboh're." You are good.

A few other updates: my friend introduced me to another family that's staying in the same hospital as Medu and Aji, they are from the earthquake area and the daughter was injured quite badly in the earthquake. They are extra extra sweet people and I think I might start going to visit them whenever I visit Medu.

Also, a friend let me tag along today to a high school in our city that took in about 110 students from the earthquake area after the quake happened. They are living in the dorms at the school and thankfully, several of their teachers from home got to come here with them. They had some basic school needs like school supplies and dictionaries, and we went to deliver the dictionaries to them today. We didn't get to meet the students, just the teachers, but our friend says we should be able to return soon to meet the kids. There's talk of maybe having some English classes with them, art therapy, or just hanging out. I am up for any and all of these! So please keep asking for favor for us at that high school.

Tonight we celebrated our friend's 19th birthday. Let me tell you, celebrated is the right word, because he is from the earthquake town and was there when it happened. He lived with Dondrup for a while back in the day and was one of our friends that we were most worried about when we heard about the quake. So we REALLY praise our God for his life this year!! How sweet it was to tell him happy birthday and really really treasure the fact that he has a 19th year to live on this earth.

Good times in the neighborhood. Love to you all! Keep asking all kinds of favor for us in every situation we find ourselves in. You've no idea how thankful we are for your prayers!

xo
Dechen

2010-05-31T17:12:00.000-07:00

30-May 2010

The last few days have been unlike any others I have lived thus far in my 21 years. I want to live them over and over and over again. I have done things I didn’t think I could do and seen things I didn’t think I would ever see. And I don’t think I’ve ever felt this fulfilled.

On Friday morning, a friend and I went to a Tib. orphanage here in town. My friend has been hanging out with the kids there for about a year now. I saw their sweet faces and instantly felt something strongly akin to LOVE in my heart. Several weeks ago, our friends started taking the kids in small groups to the eye clinic to get their vision tested- it was obvious that several of them had decently serious problems with their vision that had not been addressed. So, we took the last round of kids, as well as their 3 caregivers—two monks and another guy—to the eye doctor. Insert twist here: the eye doctors here are CUBAN! There’s some kind of partnership here in town where Cuba sends medical personnel to our city. Can you imagine my delight to meet four wonderful Latinos in China?? They were absolutely thrilled to learn that I spoke Spanish, and boy howdy was I in for some linguistic exercise.

We took the kids back to the examination room. They had no idea what was going on, having pulled out that wild-eyed Tib. look of discomfiture that I so love, haha! The real gravity of things was exposed when a 20-year-old kid that is disabled in his lower body and can only walk with lots of help got his eyes checked. We just watched in disbelief as they shone a light in and out of his left eye and he said, “There’s no light. I don’t see anything” and they realized that he was totally blind in one eye. Can you imagine! Being blind in one eye for who knows how many years, with the other eye very weak too, and trying to go to school, function normally, not ever telling anyone until now that you were having difficulty! Thank goodness that chapter of his life is over now.

I made a sweet friend in a 15-year-old girl who happened to be the only girl on this excursion. We were sitting together in the waiting room as the eye drops dilated her eyes and she was waiting to have her examination, when the doctors asked me to come into the examination room. TURNS OUT that they needed someone to translate for them—from Spanish into Chinese!!

“for such a time as this, for such a time as this” I just kept hearing it in my head over and over, as I thought about the time I spent in Honduras many moons ago, learning Spanish, wondering why I was in that corner of the world when all of me longed to be in Tib. with the people of my heart. Well I’ll tell you, our Good Father knew that four years later, there would be a group of sweet Tib. orphans that needed to get their eyes checked at a Cuban eye clinic where the doctors didn’t speak Chinese… and oh, friends, it made it all worth it even for just that one day and time. I don’t think my brain has ever been stretched quite that much… this is how it went: The Cuban doctors would tell me what was going on, then I would translate that into Chinese for the kids’ Tib. caregiver, who would then translate it into Tib. for the kids or the monks. But his Chinese was oh so bad, not being his first language, so it was a weird conglomeration of Tib. and Chinese that I had to translate back into Spanish… really, there was just grace in abundance and thinking about it now, I have no idea how all that information got relayed effectively- praise be to our Father, who is the only one who could accomplish such a thing!!

After the eye exams we took the kids over to a restaurant for lunch. Sweet things, stumbling around with their eyes all dilated and their brows all squenched up- haha! They thought it was the funniest thing. They kept moving their thumbs back and forth in front of their faces and saying “I can’t see it at all!” Funny, funny.

Next day a whole group of us white skinned people went back to the orphanage to just have some fun with the kids. Someone brought pizza for the kids- not a single one of them had ever eaten it before! They just sat there, staring at it, staring at each other, with no idea what to do next. Not until one of the monks dove in did they touch it… then it was GONE! They ate themselves silly. Oh, sweet kids. Just thinking about how they tried to honor us every second, constantly offering a piece of pizza to us before they took one for themselves, standing up every time one of us came into the room, quickly jumping out of their seats if one of us was without a place to sit… oh, to have that heart.

After lunch we did some art! Which was real fun, because the occupation these kids are taught in their orphanage is how to paint thangkas—Tib. religious paintings that are basically paint-by-number. Essentially it means that these kids are phenomenal artists but with absolutely no room for creativity. So the goal was to get them to create something from their own imaginations, something original. Oh, we had a good time! I spent the afternoon with a 22-year-old girl who is deaf and basically unable to communicate—none of the deaf kids at the orphanage have been taught sign language. We laughed and laughed at the things that came out of our pencils and I know she couldn’t hear herself but what a beautiful laugh it was coming out of her!

The little kids were given play-dough. Can you imagine the sweetness?? I sat by a little boy that made a yak (of course) with his play-dough J I watched to my left as a little girl’s white play-dough turned grey from the soot on her sweet baby hands. I wanted to just take her home, wash her up, call her Daughter. It was a more honest want than almost any I have had in my life.

By the time we left I had sooty hands too. I just counted myself so blessed to share sooty hands with those precious kids.

And now—there is lots more to tell but it has taken me two days to write this one because we have really been so busy. I will be better next week! Because: Dondrup is headed out to the wild places! He has an opportunity to work on a project with our friends out in a nomadic area of YS Prefecture. Not in the town where the earthquake happened but about 5 hours from there. The nomadic populations out there have a big problem with bears breaking into their winter homes to find food, so Dondrup and pals have been designing a kind of electric fence that can hopefully be an easy remedy to the problem. They will be installing these fences in two nomad villages, should be gone about a week. I am excited for him but of course wishing I could go along! Still keeping my eyes open for ways to help here in the city. It’s definitely looked different than we had hoped and expected, but, as I have said at least a million times these last few weeks, what He feeds me I will swallow J

Much, much love to you all and HAPPY 3^rd BIRTHDAY to my sweet sweet nephew!

hugs+kisses,

Dechen Tsomo

2010-05-25T22:42:00.000-07:00

A good day, I should say.

Feeling a little better! Dondrup and I went to the hospital this morning, since my cold just wasn't going away. We'd heard there are some foreign doctors working at this hospital now, and, well, I just felt better about seeing one of those...

Let me see if I can fathom a way to describe a Chinese hospital to those of you who have not had the *joy* of experiencing it for yourself:

Pandemonium. Chaos. Windows with wild-eyed clerks. 13-year-old nurses. Angry mobs. Sick mobs. Generic mobs. Running people. More running people. Why are they running? Danged if I know. Official red stamps. Health booklets in hand. Educational and anatomically explicit images on walls. Dingy hallways. Crying babies. Aggressive people.

Let's pause on this last one. I don't know if Chinese people actually possess any concept of the orderly line. As in, first come, first serve. Nope, not here! We had been at said hospital for about 2 hours and the foreign doctor finally shows up (running... he must have been in China too long...) I am sick as a dog and just leaning on Dondrup all this time, and finally it seems to be our 'turn' but then a lady stands up and rushes to the door in front of me that has been waiting for a grand total of about 10 minutes. But oh my gallant husband, he has done this Chinese hospital thing many many times before! He stands up and effectively blocks the woman off from the door with his body and says, "GO, GO, GO!" So I rush in and the doc says....

"You have a cold. They're worse here in Qinghai. No big deal. Take some ibuprofen and come back if you're not better in three weeks." ......

So it's great that I'm not stricken with pneumonia or something, but also frustrating that there's no other cure than to wait it out and no greater dignity given to my suffering lungs and throat than "You have a cold." haha!

Back up, I have a cool story. While we were waiting for the dr, a Tib. guy came and sat next to us. He pulled out a book and started to read, really pouring over the words, reading them out loud, kind of rocking to and fro, just soaking in whatever it was he was reading. Every once in a while he would stop and talk a little to himself or sing a song. I got a kinda friendly feeling creeping over me, and sure enough, when he turned that book over, we could see- it was our beloved God Book! He had the words of life there in his brown hands!! Then, right before we left, I heard a sweet tune drifting out of his mouth- it was the Tib. translation of that old song, "God is so good, God is so good! God is so good, He's so good to me." Oh, how precious. How blessed I felt.

After seeing the doctor, we thought that since we were already at the hospital, we should see if we could find some earthquake patients there. Thus commenced our wild goose chase. Sidenote: Any time you ask for directions anywhere in China, plan to ask 3-5 people and get 3-5 different answers. True to form, we wandered all over the hospital grounds before finding the floor where they were staying. I talked to a nurse, who said they had had a whole lot of patients but most had gone back home and now the number was down to 13. While we were talking, a Tib. lady came up, friendlier than most Tib. ladies, and smiled real big at me. I asked her where she was from. She wasn't from YS, but an area closer to here. I asked the nurse if the YS patients needed anything- clothes, food, etc. She said she wasn't sure, she'd ask around. Meanwhile, the Tib. woman's daughter came hobbling up on crutches, and I met her too. They were so sweet. Finally the nurse said, come over here, this room has a family from YS. We felt a little awkward just walking in, seems kinda culturally weird with no one to introduce us or anything. So as we were standing awkwardly in the doorway trying to decide what to do, the sweet mama and daughter on crutches passed by us and went on into the room (here, hospital rooms are shared- usually around 3 people per room). Since we'd already talked to them, we asked if we could come in and visit. They said sure!

So we went in and met the YS family, but they didn't speak any Chinese so our conversation was short. The Tib. woman I'd met before also didn't speak Chinese, but her daughter did. So we asked the girl to ask the YS family if they needed anything. They said they have what they need for the time being. Then I ended up just hanging out with the girl for a long time.... oh, she is sweet! She has been in the hospital for a long time, with one leg shorter than the other and they've been trying to correct it. She was actually moved out to the east coast to have 2 surgeries done, and has been back in this city since April 12, two days before the earthquake. That means she saw all the people coming in to the hospital from the quake- oh, I'm sure she saw all kinds of things. She said it was just crazy the amount of people that poured in. She has had 2 more surgeries since she got here and said her leg is just hurting all the time. I asked when she will get to go home and she said, "I don't know." She's 18 years old, but tiny for her age, and oh, I just feel connected to her in my soul. I really connected with her and her mom and asked if they have some needs. They said she really needs some clothes. I could tell she really did when I said, "What kind of clothes?" and she said, "Any clothes." then, "What size do you wear?" and, "I'll try anything." So today I'll go shopping for her and go back tomorrow. It's clear she's really bored in the hospital too, she said she and her mom just hang out and talk all day. So we can pass some fun hours together I think!

A cool thing is, when we first came into the room the YS family had that big wild-eyed look that Tib's get when they are around strange foreigners, but by the time we left that look wasn't unfriendly anymore. So I think just being there in the room, maybe we will be able to observe some of their needs even if they don't tell us. Also, there are other families there on that floor, we just didn't have a way to meet them. I think this friendly girl is our open door, our woman of peace, and a good friend. I'm looking forward to getting to know her.

That's the news from the street! Long, I know. But there it is.

lots of love,

Dechen Tso

2010-05-24T03:37:00.000-07:00

From the beautiful, sunny city of my heart:

WAIT, I can't SEE the city because I am stuck in bed with this dang cold!  :)  Please do ask for my healing... I've been sick for 5 days and thinking it's a pretty lame way to spend my time here. This morning, my cough finally started producing something, so I think my lungs are clearing and it will get better from here!

These are the things we are doing now:

Dondrup has decided to study with a Chinese tutor about 3 days a week while we are here, since he is trying to move to the next class level at university next semester. So he'll start that this week.

As soon as I get over this cold, I have somewhat of a 'game plan'. I will go to the store, buy some bulk foods, and go to some local hospitals to distribute them to earthquake victims and see if I can make some friends there. I've also been knitting wool hats like crazy and have lots of those to pass out too.

We had dinner with some expat friends a few nights ago plus one of our Tib. friends and her 12-year-old cousin, let's call him Dawa. Our Tib. friend is 22 years old and just the most wonderful girl. Dawa is from the earthquake area. His house did not fall down in the quake, and like everyone else who kept their homes (a very small number of people), his parents have to camp outside of it in order to guard it from theft-- you can imagine- nearly everyone has lost everything they owned, so there is great danger of houses being broken into. Dawa's parents sent him up here to the city to go to school, and it turns out that the school they chose for him was the same one that his entire class from his hometown was sent to after their school fell down in the quake! I am so thankful that though he is in a strange city with only one family member close, he has been able to stay with his friends and classmates.

Anyway, this school is a boarding school during the week, and on the weekends he stays with our sweet friend. So even though she is busy and works hard all week long, she has to morph into mama-mode on the weekends and take care of Dawa. She also has the cold right now and was looking pretty exhausted when we saw her. So I told her to give us a call next weekend, and we will take Dawa out to the park or something so she can get some rest.

P.S. I am absolutely in love with Dawa.

He was so timid when he first walked in- can you imagine? I'm sure it was his first time in a foreigner's house, not the mention the fact that we were eating Mexican food! Poor little guy. He's certainly seen more in this past month of his life than any 12-year-old should ever have to see. I'm sure he lost family members. And now here he is living in a strange city with just his one cousin to take care of him. His eyes were just unfathomable. Bottomless. It's like I could draw the suffering he'd lived through out of them like a deep dark well. I spoke to him in Tib. and they lit up a little. Like he just relaxed a little to know that I was Dechen Tsomo, a name he could recognize and pronounce.

Dinner was laughable. I'd imagine not many people in the world have had the joy of watching a little Tib. boy attempt to eat a taco for the first time... I just bit my cheeks. He was so embarrassed that he hardly ate. I would catch his eye every once in a while and say, "Hyimbo uh're?" Is it good? And he was just go, "Uhh" in the way that only Tib.'s do, the grunt that means, yep.

After dinner our expat friends, who have 2 kids, pulled out some toys for Dawa to play with. He was just delighted. Suddenly the silent little boy with the big deep hurting eyes sprang to life and just... played. Like a 12 year old should. He was totally enchanted by the foreign toys. He and I played and played together, and I happily discovered that he spoke Chinese, which really improved our potential for communication!  :)  He really lit up when he discovered that he could line all the blocks up in a row and make them all fall down in a chain, like dominos. This we did for probably an hour. I just thought, how beautiful a thing to see a child who has experienced tragedy just playing again.

What a sweet, precious child. He is the face of the earthquake to me, while I am here in the city and waiting, hoping to be able to go out to the plateau to see it for myself, individuals like Dawa function as my window to what has happened. I see at a microlevel the pain being experienced by thousands. I'm thankful for that.

I think it's safe to say, the shock of being here has worn off. The grief is less. There's more room for forward motion. So we just stick out our chins and walk toward our King. We just say, "I want to serve You and love You in the simple things in life today" and he brings us people like Dawa. Please ask for us that we keep on having eyes to see and understand the task in front of us.

Love you all!

2010-05-21T04:40:00.000-07:00

It's a grey, hazy day in the land of stalled construction and juxtaposition. I am just sitting in bed trying to keep warm. I got sick yesterday afternoon and I'm feeling decently miserable. Maybe a cold but feels worse than a cold. Flu? I don't know. I'm just resting a lot.

We dropped our friend off at the train station this morning- she has been with us since we arrived and is now heading down to another city to study Chinese for 5 weeks. I am so proud of her for embracing this grey city the way she did. We had so much fun.

I guess today is my last day I had set aside to just listen and explore the needs around here. Tomorrow I am going to go to an orphanage with some friends. None of the children there were affected by the earthquake, but I feel like there are things to be learned there, and babies to be loved, which I just love to do! Here are some other possibilities for us that we've discovered while in the waiting:

1. Hospitals- thought there are many fewer earthquake patients in the hospital than before, there are still a lot. A friend told me I should just go for it- don't even have to go with anyone, I can just walk in and look for them. So I think I'll try that.

2. Orphanage kids- we know a group of around 30 kids who lived in an orphanage in the city hit by the quake, and though their buildings were destroyed, they ALL made it out okay, praise the Lord! They were moved to an area about 1.5 hours outside of the city we're staying in. So a few of us will try to get out there and visit them.

3. Going down south- a friend asked if we might want to go on a 4-day trip down to the quake area to distribute supplies and water filtration units. While I of course LONG to get down there, there is definitely a part of me that is scared to death to see it for myself. Scared to find out about the loss of more of our friends. Scared to see the city I love and treasure in my heart reduced to rubble. But if we get the chance to go, we will go.

Those are the major things right now. Yesterday I was listening to a song that has become so dear to me. It's my Earthquake Song. And as we've found out worse and worse statistics and information since we've been here, I have clung to it even more tightly. Singing it all the time:

Praise the Lord, o my soul, and let all that's within me praise His Name
I will not die, I will live, and I will tell of the works of the Lord
I will sing of His wonders
For He's a Great God

I get to love You through whatever comes
What a privilege
I get to love You through whatever comes
O how sweet it is

Nothing's gonna take Your praise out of my mouth
As long as I shall live, as long as I shall live
For You're a Great God

As I sang it yesterday a floodgate of grief burst open inside of me and I just wept and wept and wept for my brothers and sisters that lost everything. EVERYTHING. It's like I felt the pain inside of me of the brand new orphans, the mamas that lost their precious babies, the single survivors out of whole families. I wept for my sweet brother Buck. I wept for the other friends I know we must have lost but haven't heard about yet. And I feel like that grief would have swallowed me whole had I not been singing with my lips:

NOTHING'S GONNA TAKE YOUR PRAISE OUT OF MY MOUTH AS LONG AS I SHALL LIVE!!

I have to fortify myself with this every morning. I have to bury my head in the Word and believe that He is nothing but good. I don't grieve without hope. But pray for the thousands that do.

2010-05-18T19:18:00.000-07:00

NOTE: On this blog we'll be referring to ourselves as Dondrup (his Tib. name) and Dechen (my Tib. name) for security reasons. You can call us this too! Kinda fun, eh? :)

How is everyone? Here, good. Awake at 6:30am and have been since about 4:45, hurray for jet lag :) Well we're starting our third day here. Really good to be back, really good to hug the people we love. We are in serious info download mode right now as we are learning alllll kinds of stuff about the earthquake and ensuing consequences and stuff that we just couldn't find out about in the states. Pretty heartbreaking.

I feel like I'm in a time of simple listening. Maybe I thought I'd jump right into the fray when we got here but, oh silly me, I always forget the ways of this land I love while I'm away. I just need to listen listen listen because I feel like that honors the people that have been here since the hour the earthquake happened, who know so much better than I the needs, both real and perceived, of the people here. So, in short, I feel pretty sure now that my own ideas of what I was coming here to do are out the window. But the God I came to love in this place is the same same same, yesterday and today and forever. I rest in this my strength.

The first day here I sat down with one of my sweetest, closest Tib. friends and just listened. She had a lot to say. She lost several family members and many, many friends in the earthquake. She told me about seeing the body of one of her closest friends, her next door neighbor since childhood, and thinking, no, surely he will wake up! She said she couldn't feel sadness, couldn't cry, just stood in disbelief as she looked at the young man she'd seen the previous day, alive and well. She said it was like someone slapped her in the face and said, Hey, grow up! See how short life is? You need to chase your dreams, do what you really want in your heart to do, because see what can happen in just one day?

What could I say to this girl? I love her so much. She has seen more than a human should see. She is a woman now, so old it isn't even fair. I could just hold her hand. I could just pray for her. I could just listen and take her pain into me to help her share the burden in the tiny way I can. I could just braid her beautiful black hair, which she hasn't been able to wash for four weeks and won't for four more because of the traditional grieving process.

Here I am learning: how inadequate our words. How meaningful our love. Please pray for me and my sweet husband that we have an instinct inside of us of the specific and maybe seemingly insignificant ways these people need to feel love. Please pray for us as we grieve, that we will not do so without hope.

So right now, what are we doing? We are waiting, listening, hugging a lot. Dondrup is actually doing some work already, helping out some of our friends with relief projects, running errands around town for them, brainstorming ideas, and so on. I am more just talking with friends. I imagine that as we are here our task will unfold before us as the days pass. Pray we have eyes to see it.

On the airplane on the way here I was praying what I've prayed a thousand times on our trips over here, "God, please go with us as we go." But He said, no, that isn't quite what I want you to ask. And He put in my heart instead, "God, let us go with You as You go." Yes, amen.

We miss and love you all!! Feel free to email us, we love hearing from you.

xoxo
Dondrup & Dechen

sunny seattle... no really!

2010-05-14T23:22:00.000-07:00

Isn't this place supposed to be drizzly and grey?? Because the city we've been in for the last four days has been anything but. SO EXCELLENT! I'm telling you: We. Love. Seattle. Might just need to move here :) And we've been told a number of times while we've been here that we look like "Seattle People". Sure it couldn't have anything to do with the dreadlocks or perpetual flannel...

We've been staying with our sweet, wonderful friends and getting a very needed rest before heading to China. My, oh my did we need the rest, more than we knew I think. Life with laughter, life without to-do lists, life with experimental cooking, life with aimless wandering, life without tight shoulders, life with sunshine that penetrates the soul. This is what Seattle has been for us. Breath of fresh air that I want to keep breathing in and in and in.

We went to Pike Place Market, Alki Beach, trucked up a jungly goat trail in Queen Anne to get to the supermarket (something we could get used to...), went to Gasworks Park, marveled at the ability of walkers and bikers to coexist, ate phenomenal Cuban sandwiches, fell in love with a dog named Ella, had general good times with good people, so on and so forth.

Tomorrow.... CHINA.

away we go

2010-05-03T15:33:00.000-07:00

cho demo!

Once again, we find ourself in the final week before departure, when everything becomes poignant. We are headed out on Wednesday the 11th to Seattle to spend some much needed chill time with some good pals, then from there to China on the 15th. We will spend some to all of our time (6 weeks) in XN, hope hope hoping to make it down to YS to help with the earthquake relief effort. But we are willing to do whatever might be required of us.

One group of people quite heavy on my heart these days are the ones that have been evacuated to area hospitals for treatment of their wounds from the quake. I've heard that some children were sent to the hospitals without parents or family to accompany them. Can't get those sweet babies out of my head. I can think of no greater privilege than to sit at the bedside of some of these for my six weeks, loving and loving and loving.

Will you pray for us as we go? We are overwhelmed at the enormity of the task in front of us. We are intimidated by the wave of revisited grief that awaits us. We anticipate hugging the ones we love- our arms have felt so strangely empty these 3 or 4 weeks since the quake happened. We are ready for our arms to be filled. We are ready for our hands to be touching and healing and loving, sweet Father love flowing through us. Will you arise and bless us? Will you arise and bless the Tibetan people?

Bandaids in hand, here we go :)

love to you,
Dondrup & Dechen

*to give to the earthquake relief effort, visit yushuearthquakerelief.com*

nga gana ndro?

2008-12-10T09:36:00.000-08:00

Once I lived in a place more beautiful than imagination, and certainly more beautiful than first meets the eye. On my second day in said place I met an elderly woman who lived in my apartment building whom I afterward called "Ama"- mom. She said to me that day, "It must be such a hard thing to be so young and come so far, to make a life for yourself in a place that is not your home." I bit back tears. Six months later, Ama's daughter came to visit me in the home I made. She gave me a gift of droma and said, "My mother told me she has seen you change a lot since the beginning. She said at first you didn't know how to do anything, but now you know how to live. The look in your eyes is very good. You have made your home here." And I bit back tears.