As I stood on the steps of that little Muslim Hui teashop, I could not help but laugh out loud as dozens of children swarmed across the street to get closer to me. I doubt that they had ever seen foreigners before. Just the day before, Amdo Tibetans had been equally fascinated with me. Many would look at me terrified and then cautiously stick out their tongue in greeting. (Like holding your hand out as a sign of sincerity, they stick their tongue out to assure us that they have no demon. Why? Because if they had demons or were demonized, their tongues would be black. It’s their greeting.) So there I was innocently eating licorice…Okay, I didn’t really. I found myself overwhelmed with the people’s kindness and generosity, captured by the exotic beauty of the land.

Surrounded by the snow-capped Himalayans, I marveled that there were so few who were willing to go as missionaries. “Why wouldn’t everyone want to do this,” I asked my wife. The answer was only a few hours away. As I sat in an overcrowded bus, full of Muslims and Tibetans, the romance had faded. We were treated rudely, crushed into the back of the bus, pushed and shoved. After traveling 12 hours across treacherous mountains, 2000 foot drops barely navigated, ferrying across lakes, near fatal accidents, and breakdowns, the horribly bad breath of the Tibetan Lama that was sitting directly behind me was getting to be too much. He was not really behind me, more like above me… leaning over into our seat, breathing fermented yak butter breath down on us…

We could not open the window for relief, because two seats ahead of us, the poor lady was vomiting out the window so violently all trip long. We were not in the mood to get sprayed, so we left the window shut.

That is not the whole of it, I have not told you about the urine around our feet, nor the time my wife’s boot caught on fire-on the bus…

“Why would anybody in their right mind do this?” I found that my question had changed. Yet at the same time, I loved it. There was nothing I would rather do. Was it easy? Nah. Was it great? Yes!

You’ve seen the Marine Corps advertisements. They always portray the difficulty of becoming a Marine, climbing through a seemingly impossible gauntlet, then fighting some dragon on the other side. Only then are you qualified to be “one of the few.” Pastor Roc Bottomly commented on this. He said (though he was an Air Force pilot) that the Marines are the only ones telling the truth. The others all advertise, as though you will be going on a vacation. Their advertisements seem to be more along the lines of a travel agency to tour the world!

This is the crisis in the Church today. Is Christianity a Battleship or a Cruiseliner? Are we called to obey the Great Commission of Jesus and go into all the world, or will we only go where it is comfortable and convenient. One twist that I have heard some American churches and pastors putting to this idea that we do not need to suffer for the gospel is the idea that God can bring the peoples of the world to us. That may be true of some internationals, but the Naxi, Bai, Amdo, Mosu, Tu Yi will never make it to our shores. They are in remote areas where they are not even aware that the world consists of anything more than the one little valley that they live in. No, to be one of His few, on His narrow way, it will require denying ourselves, and going after the lost sheep scattered on the mountains of the world. This means dying to our comforts and allowing Him to re-form us into His image. Laying down His life as a ransom for many—so He sends us.

We will share His joy of watching the blind see and the captives freed. We will love it when the children swarm us, even as they did Him. We recognize ourselves to be under His command and no longer civilians or observers. Rather, we are enlisted/drafted, and we endure our sufferings also as a soldier of Christ. When I put it in that light, our bus ride, or “troop transport” if you will, was a piece of cake. It was not about maximizing my comfort, but letting Jesus again, through my body, lay down His life for the sake of those precious Amdo and Hui around me.

Let us resolve to deny ourselves small comforts and acceptable excesses that they might have this Good News which is Life. Let us charge into the darkness with the Light of King Jesus and see His name glorified by the peoples of the world. Let us cast off the selfish ambitions, which for our profit have cost the peoples of the world the eternal riches. Let us laugh about the temporal kingdoms of this earth, and instead, surround ourselves with the proper passion and priority for the King’s business among the unreached, which requires haste!