And here we go again…though I haven’t written on the blog near as often as I planned, I have at least started to write several times without actually finishing the post. So this post I started writing at the beginning of December just as soon as I came back from my countryside trip to Arkhangai…
Well, here I am, far too long later, updating my blog again. I can’t believe I haven’t posted in well over a month. There is so much I could write about. There’s the English classes I’m teaching – how at first I was overwhelmed at the amount of work I had to do: lesson planning, preparing materials, actually teaching, etc... and all as a completely inadequate person for the task – how then God gave me strength to somehow do what I need to do and finish everything with just enough time.
I could write about the student Bible study – how I was and still am most excited about this part of my time here – how I am excited that some of my vet students are attending the Bible study along with 30 some students from other universities and almost all do not believe in Jesus…yet… - how I have been asked to lead the actual Bible study lessons almost all alone for the whole month of December – how I’ve never led a Bible study for THAT many people very new to the whole “Jesus thing”, - how I feel that at just the right time God will again give me strength to do this task also.
I could write about how I love my roommate and we get along fabulously, but outside of her friendship I am finding Mongolia very lonely – how I am missing home and my friends especially during this holiday season (Christmas isn’t very big in Mongolia yet) – how most of the people I know are at least ten years older than I am and married with children – how many of the Americans are leaving for their long awaited furlough and I am wondering…”so, who’s going to be left here?”, - how my roommate is now going on 3 weeks of vacation and I’m living alone now.
I could write about how after 2 months here, I am starting to wonder if I could ever handle long term cross cultural missions: it is so difficult on so many levels and I begin to see how big the sacrifice is, - how I know Mongolia is changing me in good ways and difficult ways – how I am a little apprehensive (already) that re-entry culture shock is going to way difficult in May.
I could write about all God has been teaching me, -how first he reminded me that what I NEED most here is to BE with Jesus everyday (The book of “Luke” in the Bible, chapter 10, verses 41-42), -how then he reminded me that He himself is my strength and he’ll give me the ability to do things I think I can’t (The book of “Habakkuk” in the Bible, chapter 3, verse 19), -how he next taught me again and again to be humble, -how he showed me the importance of unity in gatherings of Church people, - how he is now teaching me to trust him in everything ahead of me, including matters of the heart (The book of “Proverbs” in the Bible, chapter 3, verses 5-6, and also the book of “Philippians” in the Bible, chapter 1, verses 3-13).
Yes, I could write at length and in detail about all of these things. But. I need to skip ahead to something more important. I finally got out of the city and went into the Mongolian countryside for two weeks! And this trip is what I want to explain at more length. So. This then was simply a summary. Life in Mongolia fast-fowarded for you. Ok…now…about the countryside trip…
So for the sake of time and space, I’ll just give you a brief overview of what we did on the trip and so on. Just the logistics. It might be a little boring. It certainly won’t be my best writing. But. To get the “meat” of the trip, you have to understand the basics. So. Here we go. This is the fast forwarded cliff notes version of our countryside trip (I know it’s long. But I swear this is the cliff notes version!):
On November 19th, five Mongolians and one very excited yet naïve American crammed into an old Russian truck and traveled about 9 hours west of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. My teammates (Amaraa, Altai, Nuda, Sukhee, and Muugi) I might freeze to death (I was indeed the “baby” on the trip in age and experience!) so they made sure each day that I passed a clothing inspection. Really thick long underwear? Check. Two layers of socks and one of them wool? Check. At least three sweaters? Check!
We were driving to four different towns in the province of Arkhangai: Sitserlig, Jargalant, Irdnmandl, and Kharkhan. Each town is a very small, very remote village of about 1,500 to 2,000 people and very isolated from the rest of the country around them.
The rest of the land is just a vast expanse of untouched beauty interrupted only by unfenced grazing herds and the occasional herder’s ger. Simply amazing. No fences. No private property. No real roads. Just beautiful land and mountains. I was eating it up. All the natural beauty. In smoggy UB for 2 months, I was starved for it. Let me tell you, I have about 300 pictures of God’s nature to speak for themselves (check out the poetry page for some of the pictures). Anyhow…
The purpose of the trip was to visit each of the four towns and conduct some seminars there. Some were about developing and encouraging good character in high school seniors – you know showing them the value of traits like unity, respect, diligence, etc., -and how to value those things in themselves and others. Some seminars were about having healthy marriage and family relationships – for married couples of course.
Each time we gave these seminars the students and couples alike thanked our team again and again for coming and speaking. Their villages are so remote that no one had ever taught them how to develop or value good character or how to have a healthier marriage.
I think we tend to take these things for granted in America. We have pre-marital and marriage counseling and countless books on how to have a happy peaceful marriage. Most of us have had at least someone in our life to encourage us in the good things about our personalities and strengths and to challenge us to develop the parts we’re not so strong at.
In remote Mongolia, it seems that no one talks about, encourages, or openly and outwardly values these things – even if they are valued inwardly. It was amazing to hear the students share how encouraged they were just by hearing the good things they already have in their characters – no one had ever told them before… Couples were hearing for the first time how men and women communicate differently and have different needs (of course they know these things in principle, but it’s one thing to know about it and another to hear how to work with these differences and to know ways to encourage each other).
So in short, the seminars were a huge hit and people’s lives were changed because of them. But that’s just scratching the surface. All 6 of us on the team follow Jesus and take him at his word. All 6 of us know personally the difference Jesus has made in our lives and the difference he can make in the lives of others. We have experienced the peace, freedom and love that he brings into our lives like nothing else has.
And so we don’t want to keep it for ourselves…we want to share it with as many people as we can. They can take it or leave it, but we want to at least tell them what Jesus offers them and give them a choice. (Church people call this “evangelism” or being a “missionary”…I’m not a huge fan of churchy language, but if you hear those words, that’s really all it means. Just sharing the peace and hope we’ve found with someone else.) So while giving seminars on good character and marriage relationships is great and helpful…it’s not the most important thing we want to share. The seminars will help to change the outside, Jesus will help to change the inside.
So because of these seminars, we were able to develop a lot of friendships and relationships with people that now are willing to hear our personal stories about Jesus and Jesus’ own story in the Bible. It’s never a good idea to just march in someplace spouting your own ideas and opinions and make other people agree with you. Far from that, we want to genuinely care for these remote towns and start to heal them where years of poverty, broken relationships and alcoholism have left their mark…and then we can tell them that we care because Jesus loves us and them too. Jesus is the one who inspired us to care in the first place.
In most of these little towns there are no organized church meetings. To begin with there are so few people who follow and trust Jesus. Jargalant has only 6 or 7 people who know Jesus. And then, there are no leaders to teach what Jesus had to say in the Bible. So these people who left their Buddhist or Shamanistic traditions to experience a different kind of peace and power, really really really get excited when other people who love and trust Jesus come into there town. It’s a chance for them to let their spirits get fed and nourished.
Our team had a chance to really encourage and pray for many of these small groups of God’s family. They loved studying the Bible with us and sometimes just showed up unannounced at our door to join our Bible reading time or just to hang out with us. Actually, there was only one planned meeting with these people. The rest God planned but didn’t leave us the memo. So our door was always opening with an unexpected but welcome new friend. (Well new to me…my team has worked in the towns for several years and they know many families quite well already.) I’ll continue to be praying for these brothers and sisters of mine (God adopted all of us into his family so that’s how we’re related.) since I know it’s hard to keep trusting God when you feel all alone. I am learning to trust that God’s got them in his hands and he will be their teacher and their support and strength even when we can’t be there to encourage, teach, and support them.
Then there were the people that are so hungry in their spirits. Nuda had told me from the beginning that countryside people are different than city people. Those in the countryside are HUNGRY. And you can see it in their eyes, they’re just looking for something to fill them up inside. Something to satisfy them finally. Wow. It was so true. Maybe it’s because they live so remote to everything else. Maybe it’s because they truly do have a hard life in rural Mongolia. Maybe it’s because God’s spirit is yanking hard on their hearts trying to tell them something. I don’t know…they’re just thirsty. They aren’t really so sure about this Jesus guy and the Bible…but they’re looking for something and they’re looking hard.
So several people, though they’re not really sure they’re ready to trust Jesus and follow his ways and give him control of their lives…they wanted to learn how to pray…they wanted their own Bibles so they could figure out who Jesus was on their own…they opened up the depths of their hearts to us and bared all the crazy hurt in their lives because they knew we would be able to encourage them and pray for them. Some of them, they are inching closer to Jesus every day to see if they can see what he looks like, feels like, smells like…and maybe just maybe they’ll see that he does have the peace and hope and love that he says he has…and maybe someday soon they’ll decide that they’d like to have that love too. It was so exciting and good for my heart to meet with these kind of families and people. I hope someday soon I’ll get to call them my adopted brothers and sisters too.
And then we also had some very unexpected meetings indeed. First this single dad (and former town drunk before he let Jesus free him from alcoholism) came to pray with my team and brought his 8 year old daughter. His wife (her mom) just up and left one day when the daughter was pretty young. Just deserted them. And when I heard that, my heart just broke for this little girl. She reminded me in an indirect way of one of my close friends and so my heart just broke for her even more.I could only imagine the kind of questions, the kind of bitterness and anger, the kind of hurt she already has and how much more she might have as she grows older.
I wanted to give her something, anything to say that I cared and that I loved her even though I didn’t know her. I had a small bracelet with red beads I could give as a gift and then I thought I’d have my teammate Altai translate an encouraging note into Mongolian for her. Altai had a better idea though.
While I shared one of my favorite comforting Bible verses for her (Altai translated) and then shared “The Big Picture” story with her (a shout out to all my C-State Riders for that one!) (which is basically just sharing how Jesus has plans to heal us on the inside so we can help heal the world on the outside) and then Altai asked her if she’d like to trust Jesus and follow him. She said yes and Altai prayed with her.
I still wonder how much this little girl understands and meant in her heart and how much will stay with her…but at the same time Jesus knows her heart and the trust that she had then so I am excited to call her my sister. Her life is still hard and still full of aching pain, but I know that if she runs to Jesus he will bind up her heart and I may indeed see her again in Heaven some day.
Then there was the man who year after year was shown love and care by people who trust Jesus and he too decided he wanted to follow and trust Jesus when Amaraa shared his story with him – to the joy of his wife who is a very committed follower of Jesus!
And there was the woman whose husband my team met quite unexpectedly last spring – Jesus whispered his truth and hope into his life then and on this trip we were able to welcome her into God’s family too! We didn’t even plan on stopping by their ger, but we had some extra time, so we just popped in the door to see if they were home (it seems that that’s just how visiting people happens here). Nuda shared Jesus’s story and the woman took Jesus at his word and now that ger is filled with God’s spirit and changed lives.
And another day two sisters came to visit us. One is 15 and the other is 11. The older sister has been trusting in Jesus’ words in the Bible for a couple years now. They both live with their oldest sister, her husband and their baby. Except the husband is a drunk without a job. So he stays home and drinks and watches the baby while the oldest sister (his wife) works as a teacher.The two young girls say that the couple fights all the time and it is really difficult for them to live with the oldest sister and her husband because of that.
The 15 year old girl came to pray, hang out, study the Bible and just be around other people who know Jesus (this was in Jargalant – she is one of the 6 or 7 people in the whole town who know Jesus). Nuda shared Jesus’ offer of love and peace with the younger sister and this little girl’s face lit up and she said she wanted to follow and give Jesus the reins to her life too! It was amazing! She was so excited and full of joy. Then Nuda was able to encourage them both to encourage and hold each other accountable, especially given their hard home life.
I could go on…this is just a snapshot of what went on during the trip. One amazing encounter after another. One changed life and touched heart after another. All the time more and more light and life creeps into rural Mongolia as Jesus makes himself known. The sun is rising. Dawn is upon them. The door is bursting at the hinges. May the perfect love and freedom rush into these little towns like a flooding river! May the small sparks not grow dim but in boldness and love spread the heat of the fire to every dark and cold corner!
And so we were mere garden hoses that God poured his living water through. Some soil was tilled until next year’s planting. Some seeds were sown. Others were watered. And some. Some were harvested and brought inside for the dinner feast. God took me to Arkhangai for 13 days. Now I am back in UB (sigh. smog. bleh.) God stayed in Arkhangai even after our team left. But thankfully he came back to UB with me too. So that even here without the beautiful mountains, or cute yaks, or cozy gers, or fresh air…even here I can be a garden hose again. And that. Is quite an exciting thought.
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