A Special Story --- Ning Sai (Barefoot Doctor student)

The following is shared by Dr. Bruce Gross...
I have loved getting to know the students and their stories. 
Here is one that made me utterly amazed and taught me a
spiritual lesson.

This is Ning Sai.  She lives in the very northern Himalayan
mountains of Myanmar, and is from the Rawang tribe of
people.   She is married and has 4 children and two grand-
children.  Her husband has been a bible teacher for 20 years. 
2 years ago, they moved to their present village, Shong Kong,
to start a bible school.  She showed me a picture of the
“village,” and it is a collection of about 120 homes atop a high
mountain ridge.  

The “road” leading to her village looks like an ATV trail.  Last
year in order to get to the Barefoot Doctor program, she walked
for 2 weeks just to get to the nearest airport, Putao, in Northern
Burma.  From there she flew to Thailand.  This year she took a
different route.  She walked east into China where there is a
decent road.  It took her 4 days by car to get to Myitkyina,
where there is an airport.  

Northern Myanmar gives new meaning to “remote” and to “the
uttermost parts of the earth”.  She lives in a small hut with no
electricity, no heat, and no running water.  She collects water
in a 5-gallon bucket and carries it for 30 minutes back to her
home.  During the winter, however, the water source freezes
over and then they melt snow and ice for water.  Their
only source of heat is by a fire in their home (the smoke must
be terrible).  

There is no hospital or clinic in her village.  Anyone who is ill
has to be taken to China, a 6-hour trip, carried over an ATV
road.   She wants to get a Barefoot Doctor education so that
basic healthcare can be obtained locally for the 1,500 people
in her village.   Her Barefoot Doctor education will also have a
great impact on her husband’s bible school ministry.

I don’t know about you, but if God moved me to a place like 
this, I might become angry with God.  As I was trying to wrap 
my mind around her day-to-day life, she indicated that she was 
not only happy, but very happy.  You see, her happiness 
doesn’t come from “things of comfort” or even “things of 
necessity”.  Her happiness comes from relationships and 
from the presence of God in her life.  She has an intense 
desire to share the Gospel of Christ.  Ning Sai is an example 
of I Timothy 6:6,  “But godliness with contentment is great
gain. ⁷ For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take
nothing out of it. ⁸ But if we have food and clothing, we will
be content with that.”  

Oh, to God, that I could have just half of
her strength, love of God, and her evangelistic heart.
Pray for Ning Sai, not for the comforts of life, but for effective-
ness in sharing her faith and for being a beacon of light atop
that high mountain ridge in the Himalayan mountains.