Those Who Have Never Heard

Divine Leading

"Though I'm Buddhist, I've read and studied about the gods of the Hindus and Muslims as well as other religions," commented Dorji, "but I think Christianity is the true way to God."

My husband, Tim, and I exchanged shocked glances at this comment. Was this really an answer to our prayers? It was 1990, and we had been invited by the government of a small, isolated kingdom in the Himalayas to evaluate their hospitals and propose a project for educating newly graduated doctors who had no opportunity for internship, residency, or further continuing education. For me, as a young family physician and professor, and for Tim, a Colorado environmentalist and wildlife biologist, it was Shangri-La.

Nearly every minute of our three-week approved visit was under close supervision, but finally we had an afternoon to relax without a representative from the department of health. While hiking a trail to admire the architecture of the Buddhist monasteries and the spectacular beauty of the mountains, we met Dorji. We had just finished listening to a cassette tape about evangelizing the world, and we had intensely prayed that the Lord would provide us with an opportunity to share the salvation message with someone in this country of less than 40 known Christians of the predominant people group. Many of the educated in the area spoke English. Dorji, a high school student beginning nursing studies, noticed us (not surprising in a country where few foreigners lived at that time) and offered to accompany us up the steep mountain to the monastery where he would be leading Buddhist prayers. While most of the people in this nation had never even heard the name of Christ, this young man had prayed for a chance to meet the God he did not know.

"Why do you say that Christianity might be the truth, and what do you know of Christianity?" Tim asked.

Dorji told us of his search for salvation and truth. He had worshiped Buddha and many idols. As a Tibetan Buddhist, he believed salvation—that is, escaping from the wheel of life and continual reincarnation—came through meditation and the eight-fold path of suffering taught by Gautama Buddha. Over the course of that day we became Dorji's friends and spiritual parents. His open heart received the message that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ pays for our sins and breaks the wheel of life. At his first exposure to the gospel, he trusted Christ as his Savior and renounced idolatry. Through prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit, we were ready for the divine appointment that God had prepared prior to our arrival. No Bible had yet been translated into his language, but he could read and write in English. We left him the only Bible we had brought—a large study Bible—and promised to ask the Lord for an opportunity to return and disciple him.

Called to Missions

When we met Dorji, we had been married less than a year. I was in both clinical and academic medicine, teaching residents at a family medicine residency program in Fort Worth, Texas. Tim worked in the environmental department of the US Army Corps of Engineers. After committing to Christ to be a missionary doctor at age seven, I finished medical school at twenty-two, had completed a three-year family medicine residency, and was at a Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary studying missions and theology when we met. My calling was to take the gospel to those who had never heard through medicine, and the imminence of Christ's return drove me to embark into missionary medicine to share Christ as soon as possible. I had served in a traditional mission hospital setting in Ghana during residency, as well as in a mission hospital in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador.

Tim grew up Catholic and came to Christ personally in a charismatic Protestant church while serving in the US Army. Though he knew little about missions or international development, he loved mountain climbing, cross-country skiing, and cycling. He had spent most of his free time in athletic activities and environmental studies, such as tracking moose and wolves. After we met, he served in a short-term international experience with an agriculture mission agency, but God had been preparing him in the years before by giving him the rough adventure spirit that enabled us to survive physically daunting challenges in our future. It took God's sense of humor to bring together two people with such different backgrounds and talents, but it was through this balance, and our team approach, that He used (and continues to use) our skills.

Our meeting with Dorji in Shangri-La was a miracle in itself. Shortly after we were married, Tim and I began calling and sending requests to various mission boards in search of an opportunity that would use our professional skills for the purpose of sharing the gospel in a country with Tibetan Buddhist people groups, and which was closed to traditional missions. I had studied the writings of the Dalai Lama and beliefs of Tibetan Buddhists while in seminary, and God had made it clear to me that He wanted us to work among people groups following this religion. We were convinced that we should be at least partial "tentmakers" just like the apostle Paul, the greatest missionary example in the Bible. Because of this, we searched for opportunities where we would receive a small salary for our work, which we could subsidize with funds that we had been saving for this very calling. After innumerable letters and phone calls, we contacted an international mission agency that worked in the exact country to which we felt God calling us. The telephone conversation went something like this:

"I am a family physician on faculty in a residency program, my husband is an environmentalist, and we feel called to live and work among the Tibetan Buddhists living in the Himalayas, particularly in Shangri-La."

"We have never had a request like that, and the area is now closed, not requesting any volunteers," explained the administrator.

The very next day she returned our call and explained, with excitement in her voice, "I have just received a request for a family physician with academic qualifications to start a residency (postgraduate) program among the Tibetan Buddhist people of the Himalayas in Shangri-La; there is also a school training the country's leaders in environmental sciences which needs a teacher. This has never happened before, but we must do all we can to get you into this position." Clearly, this direction was the hand of God.

A few months later, the director of health in...