1. Over the Mountains
Chapter 1
Over the Mountains
When they reached the top of the ridge of mountains, Isobel Kuhn, or Belle, as she preferred to be called, could see for miles. The scene that stretched out before her reminded her of folds of blue and brown velvet pinched together until the folds were parallel to each other. Each pine-covered ridge of mountains rose almost straight up. And in the valleys at the bottom of each fold flowed an icy cold river that ran all the way from the Tibetan highlands. Sometimes it seemed to Belle that she could reach out and almost touch the top of the next ridge of mountains. It also almost looked possible to string a long bridge between the mountaintops, but alas, there was no bridge. The only way to travel was to go straight up one side of a ridge and then down the other side, cross the river in the valley, and go straight up and over the next ridge of mountains. “If only there were a bridge,” Belle sighed as she willed herself to remain balanced on the back of Jasper, her mule.
They had been traveling now for eight days, and for most of that time Belle had been feeling weak and sick with dysentery. But they’d finally reached the Salween River Valley, and their destination, Pine Mountain Village, was only two mountain ridges away. Two more descents into the valleys and two more climbs up the other side. By the look of it to Belle, staring out from her perch across the endless mountains of China’s western Yunnan Province, the trails that led up and down those two mountain ridges were steeper that any they had been on so far.
Sure-footed Jasper negotiated his way down the narrow, steep trail as Belle held tightly to his reins and wrapped her legs around his girth. She tried not to look down; it was better that way. In places, the side of the trail dropped hundreds of feet to the valley below. One wrong step from the mule and they would both be over the edge.
But Jasper knew these trails, and he carried Belle safely to the valley floor, where they crossed the frigid, fast-flowing river. Then it was time to climb up again. But because the trail that led up from the river was too steep for Belle to ride on Jasper, she dismounted the mule and began walking up the trail behind him.
Breathing hard, Belle finally made it to a rocky outcrop about halfway up the mountainside and stopped to rest. Her heart soared as she looked down at the river far below and saw how far she had come. After years of planning and prayer, Belle had nearly reached her first Lisu village.
As she sat and rested, Belle marveled at how events had unfolded in her life. Trekking through the mountains of Yunnan Province as a missionary was a long way from the life of a city girl in British Columbia, Canada, especially considering the fact that the last thing she ever wanted to grow up to be was a missionary. Belle smiled as she thought back to the time in Vancouver when, as a fourteen-year-old, she first realized that missionary life was definitely not for her.