Australia November 2018

connecting Tibet and Xinjiang and
building a military presence in the remote
area. They annexed 38,000km2 of the
remote Aksai Chin region. The Aksai
Chin area is so remote that the Indian
government did not discover the Chinese
had constructed a road there until 1951,
two years after it was completed!
Full scale war broke out in 1962 and
although India fought bravely they were
overrun by the superior Chinese military
and suffered a crushing defeat. Thereafter
Indo-Sino relations have not been quite
the same.
Presently the Joshua project gives a
figure of only 600 Ladakhi remaining
in the China controlled territory.
Approximately 105,000 Ladakhi live on
the Indian side of the border.
The first Christians to the Ladakhi
were probably Nestorian traders in the
eighth century. Georgian crosses have
been found inscribed on boulders.
In 1642 a Portuguese priest, Antonio
de Andrade, established a base near
present-day Zanda. The mission was torn
down soon after by the king of Ladakh.
The Moravians commenced work in
Ladakh in 1856 and by 1922 numbered
158 converts. They reported, "There is
no very active opposition to Christian
work. ... The people are very willing to
accept anything we can give them in
the way of medicine, education, or even
Scriptures and religious tracts." Although
the Moravians are still working among
the Ladakhi in India, there are no known
Christians among the small number of
Ladakhi in Tibet.
News from CCSM Australia
“Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you
crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on”
Exodus 14:15
I recently attended a
large Mission Conference
in Sydney. There were 40 mission
agencies exhibiting – collectively
working on almost every unreached
frontier. It was a privilege to be flying the
flag for China mission and encouraging
to know that many attendees knew of the
developing situation in China.
This Conference attracts people who are
already planning a mission future. It
was exciting to see that the vast majority
of those were young students or recent
graduates. Whist we often agonise over
strategies to reach “millennials” and
“Gen Z’s” and “Y’s” it seems that God
has already worked that out! They were
there in force!
As Mission Agency Representatives,
we had a day together before the main
conference started and a further day
meeting with a number of Sydney
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