Life in the Countryside

Can’t you just picture me as a herder wife?

“Melissa, we need to find you a herder with lots of camels to marry.” You wouldnt believe how many times I heard this in the two weeks that I recently spent in a village in mid-west Mongolia. I made the mistake of telling everyone I was not married when they asked me the first day. I also made the mistake of telling them that I could eat ALL Mongolian food. So I was offered an array of delicacies ranging from fatty mutton soup, to sheep head, to goat intestines, to curdled sour milk drinks. When they saw that I could eat it all, then they were quite convinved that I was fit to marry a wealthy camel herder. Wonderful.

Trying my hand at combing a cashmere goat

The reason I spent two weeks in this village is because I was invited there by the local governor to teach some English classes to students and adults in the community. I had visited this village last summer so I knew some of the people already, but this was a unique trip in that I went there by myself and lived with a family with no one from my organization with me. No one in the village knew any English (including the two English teachers that I worked closely with), so it was a good immersion experience. In my two weeks out there, I taught over 300 children and 50 adults from 10 am to 8 pm every day. I ate nothing but meat, flour, and the occasional potato. I sat around in the evenings watching over-dramatized Korean soap operas with the Mongolian family I was staying with. I helped the children round up the goats in the evening and I even tried my hand at combing a few cashmere goats. I met with the handful of local believers and encouraged them as best I could with my limited Mongolian. I went to people’s gers and sipped tea for hours while looking at their picture albums. I spent many hours walking by the river and praying for the community. And I read 7 books in 14 days because when I wasnt teaching English, rounding up goats, or sipping tea in peoples’ homes, there literally was nothing else to do.

Making dumpling soup late at night

One night after I came home from a particularly exhausting five hour English teaching session, I was a bit irritated to see that five people had come from out of town to stay with my host family. When I came inside, I saw that two kids were sitting on my bed, going through my stuff. I wanted to just walk right back out the door and into the night to be by myself for awhile, but I felt a little prompting from the Spirit to stay. So I got on the floor and started helping them make dumplings for dinner. As I entered into the dinner making process, I actually started enjoying myself. The conversation was light and fun, and after a few minutes, my spirits greatly improved. The power went out around 11:30, just as we finished making the dumpling soup, so we all sat around by candlelight eating together. They all wanted to know about America and I was even able to share with them about my faith and what Christians believe. It ended up being one of the best nights I had with my host family. I am continually learning to be stretched beyond the limits of my own comfort to allow God to reach people, and I think with every trip to the countryside I will learn more and more in this regard.

In June I head to the countryside again for two months. It will be another immersion experience, and undoubtably a challenging assignment. However, I am excited at the thought that the place I am going is unreached with the Gospel and that there will be many opportunities for me to engage life with the people there and be used by God in new ways. Life is a crazy adventure, and mine, a little crazier than most, but I wouldnt trade it for anything.

Saying goodbye to Thailand

I see now why so many foreigners that live in Mongolia take off to Thailand in the middle of winter. February in Thailand is more than 100 degrees warmer than February in Mongolia! For me, these past seven weeks have filled me up in more ways than I could have imagined. I knew I was a bit “empty” going in to this time. A bit burned out and depleted. But I had no idea just how much, until I got here and started being filled by things that I have long gone without. Here are just a few things that have filled me up:

Times of rest on the beach

Green plants and beautiful nature

Amazing selection of fruits and vegetables

Living in Community. I have really enjoyed sharing a house with 16 other people…its been a blast!

Along with these things, I have also been filled up by stimulating teaching that has given me fresh perspectives on my life, work, calling, and God’s heart. I have been filled up by corporate worship times and fellowship with others–by living in a community of people that speak truth into each others’ lives and live authentically. And most importantly, I have been filled up by God himself–he has filled me to overflowing with his love and I have experienced him in new and deeper ways during this time.

So just one week left of soaking up all that Thailand has to offer and of hanging out with these amazing people that have taught me so much. You would think I would be bummed that my time is coming to an end but instead I am feeling refreshed, renewed, and ready to return home to Mongolia. As Christians, we tend to overlook one of God’s biggest and most important commandments to honor the Sabbath. These last few months have made me realize how crucial times of sabbath rest are. Not just for the body, but for the spirit. How often do we actually slow down enough to really engage with each other and with our God? In my life, the answer is not often enough.

Saying goodbye to Thailand!

Bright Spots

During a thanksgiving meal with friends here, we had a time of sharing the highlights and lowlights of our weeks. This was right after I had been robbed by a group of teenagers who then later found out where I lived and tried to use my stolen house key to break into my apartment, so needless to say, I was having a difficult time coming up with a highlight. I think I said something like, “Well, at least the phone they stole from me was a cheap one!” To which someone said, “That doesn’t count as a highlight, Melissa.” So instead I mentioned how I had received a care package from home full of Hersheys chocolate. This may sound like a trivial thing, but it’s amazing how the smallest things can bring such great encouragement. This was the first care package I have ever received and it couldn’t have come at a better time!

The sun trying to peek through the clouds

Every morning as I walk to work I think to myself how cold and dark it is. After the sun comes up, there is usually still a cloud (or smog) covering that doesn’t tend to burn off until early afternoon. But when it does, it is truly glorious! Even when its -30 degrees outside, having the bright sun shining does a lot to lift ones spirits. I am finding that each day has “smoggy moments” as well as “bright spots”. I am learning to focus on the bright spots instead of the smog. Here are some of my “bright spots” this week:

Monday: Had a great time hanging out with my roommate in the evening, laughing about how we always manage to burn the Tsuiven (Mongolian noodle dish), and how we have invented our own language in order to communicate: “Mongolish” (a mix of Mongolian and English that probably sounds completely incoherent to others listening).

Me and my roommate, trying to get our rabbit to pose for the picture!

Tuesday: There is an Austrailian woman who lives in my apartment building that I have known on a casual basis for three years. She came into the clinic with her dog and I ended up having a long conversation with her. She told me how lonely she is and how much she is struggling, and so I invited her to church and she wants to come with me this Sunday!

Wednesday: I received permission to be able to go to a Missions conference in Thailand in January and I am so excited…I haven’t had the opportunity to do anything like this since coming to Mongolia. And I haven’t had a real vacation in quite some time either =)

Thursday: I had a very encouraging time fellowshipping and studying the word together with some friends.

Friday: Spent some time talking and praying with one of my Mongolian co-workers who is going through a difficult time. Hearing her struggles really put things in perspective for me.

Saturday: Skyped with my mom, dad, brother, and sister-in law who are all together in Washington D.C. Was reminded of how blessed I am to have a family that is so supportive.

Even on the smoggy days, I am finding there are always “bright spots.” Walking with God means that we never have to walk in darkness and we never have to walk alone. Feeling so thankful today for the light of HIS presence in my life!

Four years and counting

If you had asked me in college where I saw myself living in ten years, I would have probably said some beautiful little remote place surrounded by a motley crew of critters, eking out my living from the land. So how exactly did I end up living in a one room apartment in a polluted city that is cold and grey 80% of the year? The best way I can answer this is Proverbs 16:9: “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”  It was God, not I, that determined my steps to Mongolia. As I head into my fifth winter here you would think I would be looking at my life thinking, “What in the world am I doing here?” But instead, I find myself thinking, “Thank you God for leading me here!”

It took a recent trip to China to make me realize just how much I love Mongolia. There was a Christian NGO there that was trying to recruit me to come and work for them. They tried to coax me by treating me to an endless array of sichuan delicacies and commenting how much warmer it was. I so enjoyed geting to know them and hearing about the work they were doing, but if I have to be honest, I found the food so spicy and oily I could barely enjoy it, the humidity a bit oppressive, and the materialism in the big city a bit overwhelming.  As I met with Chinese believers all I could think about was God’s heart for the young growing church in Mongolia. These were all signs to me that I am where I am supposed to be. I remember as I was flying back into Ulaanbaatar I looked out the window and thought to myself, “This is home.”  Not exactly the home I pictured for myself when I was younger, but it’s where my heart is.

Sure, there are times when I question what I am doing living in a city, especially when I look at the herders here and start wishing I could be one!  In fact, one reason I decided to get a rabbit for a pet is because I wanted something that eats grass and I couldn’t exactly picture living in an apartment with a goat. I spent all fall picking grass and making hay on my balcony to last the winter. Everyone thought I was crazy going around picking grass and dandelions, but I found it quite therapeutic. There are just some things non-city people must do to keep themselves sane here, and for me, this was one of them! Frequent trips out of the city is another. And growing plants in my apartment is another. Somehow my kitchen has turned into somewhat of a jungle. So with the smell of hay wafting through my bedroom and green plants everywhere, I have found the winters here in the city to be much more manageable. The dreams of my youth to live in the countryside are still there, but I have been realizing that God is giving me new dreams that are much bigger than my own personal desires.  The lesson he keeps revealing to me over and over:  my own plans and desires don’t hold a candle to His! Having just celebrated my four year anniversary here I can honestly say I am quite at peace calling this place home until God choses to direct my steps elsewhere. Five months of bone chilling cold, smog, and ice ahead? Bring it on!

Back to blogging

It’s a little hard to blog when you don’t have internet. That’s my excuse for not writing this summer, and I think it’s a pretty good one. But now I’m back in civilization and don’t have any more excuses. So I thought I would write about just a few of the things I learned spending two months in the Mongolian countryside.

#1. You can survive just fine without vegetables. I learned to be quite content only eating the same five ingredients every day: mutton, flour, potatoes, onions, and rice. For awhile we even had a few carrots, cabbage, and ketchup which really spiced things up! I can honestly say that after about the three week point, I stopped craving other foods and was genuinely content with what I had.

See the little wooden bowl of mares milk? I drank six of those!

#2. I have developed an iron stomach. One day we went to visit a family and sitting on the table was a 15 liter bowl of fermented mare’s milk. They thought it would be fun to play this game that is kind of like “rock, paper, scissors” only you count to three and chose one finger to point at the other person. Certain fingers win over other fingers, and if you lose you have to drink a bowl of mare’s milk. Well, my whole team kept losing which meant that the bowl kept getting passed to me. I think I had to drink six or seven bowls! I definitely gagged a few times getting it down. The game ends when the 15 liters is finished (which took about an hour of drinking). The two Mongolian teachers I was working with got a bit sick afterwards but amazingly, I was fine! Like a said, I must have an iron stomach.

#3. Mongolian countryside does not accommodate introverts. I learned that the only place I could find true privacy was on the top of a mountain.

#4. I wouldn’t make a very good herder’s wife. After an hour milking goats in the hot sun, I managed to get more milk on me than I did in my little pail! Then I proceeded to try to milk a yak and it kept kicking me. At one point it turned its head around and gave me a look like, “what do you think you are doing?” The herder woman said something like, “Before we find you a herdsman to marry, we should work on your milking skills.”

#5. Our lives are cluttered. Let’s be honest, there isn’t a lot of “clutter” in the countryside. For two months I didn’t have TV, internet, movies, a car to go places with, or even electricity at times.  Most Americans would go crazy in this setting because we are so used to being busy all the time, wired into the internet and, well, just plain wired. How often do we really take the time to get away from it all and silence our thoughts long enough to hear what God is saying to us? Without all the distractions this summer, I found that I had time for something far more important: relationships. Most of my time was either spent hanging out with the kids and local people, or on mountaintops talking with God. It was possibly the most peaceful summer of my life. Now that I am back in the city I am trying to take the lessons I learned this summer and apply them, and so far its been a lot harder than I thought it would be! I got so accustomed to taking off every morning and evening to spend time with God on the mountain and now I am barely taking five minutes in my day to spend with him!  I also got so used to just sitting and talking with people for hours on end, and now I find myself sitting in front of my computer for hours on end. I know I cant spent my life on a mountaintop forever, away from the clutter of this world, but one thing I can do is make sure that the clutter isn’t taking the place of relationships. So of all the lessons I learned this summer, this is by far the most important.

Thoughts from an alien

Try as I may to fit in and look like a Mongolian, I am coming to terms with the fact that the boots will never be a perfect fit!

So the other day I was sitting reading my Bible and a verse that I have literally read a thousand times kind of jumped off the page for me. 1 Peter 2:11: “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.” Being a stranger and alien. Now that I can relate to! I recently received my “alien registration card” here in Mongolia. It is a little card that looks like a drivers license that I am supposed to carry around with me all the time in case I am stopped on the street and asked for proof of why I am allowed to be here. There honestly hasn’t been a day that has gone by without me being reminded that I am a foreigner here. I am learning that part of having white skin and blond hair here means getting used to the constant stares, being spoken to in Russian all the time (quite annoying actually), the obvious target for pickpocketers (I got my purse slashed just a couple weeks ago with a knife…luckily I didn’t lose anything), being ripped off all the time, taken advantage of, and yes, sometimes even being punched in the face while innocently walking down the street (remind me to tell that story sometime). It took me awhile to get used to everyone calling me a foreigner. In Mongolian, the word foreigner is actually translated “outside person.” And most of the time I do feel like I am sitting on the outside looking in. I love Mongolia very much but the truth is that I will always be an outsider here,  no matter how many bowls of sheep fat soup I eat or how well I learn the language and culture.

So this verse that I have read so many times before has taken on a whole new meaning for me since living overseas. Am I really living like a stranger in this world, like heaven is my true home?  Or have I become comfortable here on earth, seeking to fit in instead of seeking to be set apart and different? Its hard to be different sometimes. Believe me, I know! But an alien by nature is different and strange. And that’s what we are to be while here on earth. Oh the multitude of lessons that God has taught me in just these three short years in Mongolia…the greatest of them being that my true home is heaven… not Oregon, or Mongolia, or somewhere in between (though it feels like it most of the time). Just as I will never fully be comfortable here in Mongolia with my white skin, blond hair and affinity towards green leafy veggies, so too I never want to be completely at home here on earth. I think many times our struggle is not in embracing our heavenly citizenship so much as it is in embracing our earthly alienship.

Catching the big one

Up at 4 am in the rain to fish for the big one!

I recently made the conclusion that fishermen are some of the craziest people on the planet. Second only to missionaries maybe. (I happen to be both, so I wonder what that makes me!)  I came to this conclusion just the other week when I went steelhead fishing with my dad on the siletz river in Oregon. We went on a day forecasted to be 30% chance of rain. It was raining at 4 am when we woke up and it didn’t stop pouring until 9:00 at night. So much for the weather report! So there we were, standing in a boat for eight hours in the cold and pouring rain casting salmon eggs into the murky waters, snagging our lines on tree limbs and submerged stumps, trying to thread the hooks with frozen fingers, all in hopes of catching “the big one.”  Every fisherman we passed looked pretty much like we did: soaked to the bone and clinging to the hope that there were actually hungry fish down there.

Catching the big one!

Our patience finally paid off. They started biting and we wrestled to get them into the boat (losing about half of them in the process…they are strong suckers!) At one point, our boat was going under some low hanging branches and my dad hooked a branch, I hooked a trout, and my dad’s friend who was trying to steer the boat hooked a steelhead all at precisely the same time. What ensued was mass chaos. In the end, we snapped the line on the tree, I threw the trout back in and we got the 10 pound steelhead in the boat. This is the kind of thing that fishermen live for: the anticipation of hooking the big one, the challenge of navigating the water and battling the elements, and the excitement of reeling it in and getting it in the boat. Eating it afterwards isn’t too bad either.

While I have been home many people have asked me how long I plan to be in Mongolia and they sound surprised when I tell them I am in it for the long-haul, until God calls me elsewhere! I think many people look at me and secretly think to themselves, “Why does she want to live THERE?” Just like they sometimes look at fishermen and think, “Why do they want to do THAT? Don’t they know how ridiculous they look casting worms into mud puddles?” What keeps me in Mongolia is the same thing that keeps those crazy fishermen out on the river.

Catching “the big one” in Mongolia looks a little different!

First and foremost, fishing is somewhat of a calling. It takes incredible patience and tenacity but once you have hooked the big one, you just cant stop. Ministering overseas is the same. As hard as it is sometimes, I’m totally hooked! What really keeps me going is the anticipation of seeing God do something big, of being used by Him to “reel in” a catch and bring those who are lost into the kingdom, the challenge of wrestling in the spiritual realm and advancing the kingdom despite obstacles, and the excitement of going where few have chosen to go. This is the stuff I live for. I head back to Mongolia in a couple days and cant wait to see what kind of fishing opportunities God has in store. Not real fish of course (all the rivers are still frozen solid), but fish of the human variety like in the picture above =)

Mountain Rain

Over Christmas my family headed to the mountains with the intent of spending a few days skiing at Mount Bachelor. Unfortunately a huge series of storms blew in, dumping massive amounts of precipitation, and the thought of skiing in 40mph winds with no visibility and horizontal sleet didn’t sound like much fun to any of us. So instead, I decided to stay inside with a good book and watch the rain fall. Ironically, the book I happened to bring with me was titled, “Mountain Rain.” Once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. It’s the biography of James Frasier, a missionary to China in the early 1900’s.

In the book he describes his housing conditions while living in a village in the rainy mountains of China. He writes, “It is really an ‘outhouse’ made of bamboos and thatch, all tumbling to pieces. But it has not come down on top of me yet. The floor is plain trodden earth, and there are a lot of bins on the ground to catch the water. But such as it is I am very comfortable in it and do not hanker after anything better. I have my Bible, a few other books, a plate, a mug, and some bedding. Rice and vegetables for food, and my bathroom is a mere 2,000 feet below the roaring torrent.”

My first thought after reading this was, “Hmm, all I have to do is substitute a leaky and cold yurt for his bamboo hut, a meal of fatty mutton for his daily portion of rice and veggies, and a floor of plain trodden goat dung to roll my sleeping bag out on and I have no problem putting myself in his shoes! Except maybe for the ‘being very comfortable’ part.”  As much as I love traveling in the Mongolian countryside and feel pretty suited to the lifestyle, the word “comfortable” isn’t exactly the word I would chose to describe how I feel when I am out there. And I can’t honestly say that I don’t “hanker a bit” for certain things (veggies for instance). On one of my trips we had been traveling for five weeks staying with herders eating nothing but flour and meat.  Near the end of the trip we were offered yet another bowl of goat intestines for dinner and I just didnt think I had it in me to eat it. But then the herder brought out something that looked like heaven to me: a jumbo jar of pickles! I was so excited to see something green that I hoarded that jar and ate every single pickle! All the Mongolians thought I was crazy. I couldn’t argue with them. I was going a bit crazy!

James Frasier’s biography is full of stories of hardship, challenges, and setbacks, but never once does he complain. He shares his discouragements, prayer burdens, and disappointments, but you get the sense reading about his life that he has true contentment living out his calling. I would have loved to take some time to pick his brain about what the secret to his contentment was. A man that is happy with only a bowl of veggies, a soggy place to lay his head, and a Bible is a rare find indeed!   It seems the apostle Paul found the secret of contentment also because he speaks about it in Philippians 4. He doesn’t come right out and say what it is, but looking at both of these men’s lives, its not hard to come to a conclusion about what it takes to be let in on the secret: a fully surrendered life. (I dont know about you, but I’m still working on the “fully” part.)

The last paragraph in his biography speaks of what it means to live a fully surrendered life. It reads: ”It was costly at the beginning of James’ service and went on being costly to the end. It seems there is no other way to know the full blessing of God. To the disciple of Jesus Christ it is perhaps surprising that anyone should expect otherwise.”

All I want for Christmas…

There I was, standing in Market of Choice grocery store face to face with at least 20 different types of olives priced at $10 a pound. Around the corner were three whole display cases full of gourmet cheeses, some priced over $20/lb. And a ways down from that were fruits and veggies that looked too colorful and clean to be real. You would think that after being in a country with no choices at all that I would have been thrilled to see so much variety right at my fingertips. But instead I felt a bit uneasy. I turned to my mom and asked, “Who buys all this stuff?” My question was quickly answered when I saw a lady buying about three pounds of fresh baby octopi from the fish section. And then later when standing in the check out line, I noticed that the man in front of us had in his hand a whole container of assorted gourmet olives. $26 of olives to be exact. Welcome to America!

Before moving to Mongolia I worked in a deli and sold people $20/lb cheese all the time. I had no qualms about it then. So what has changed? Why the uneasiness? I have come to the conclusion that living overseas has ruined me forever. I will never be a “normal” American again. In Mongolia being a consumer is simple because there are few choices.  If you want to buy meat, for instance, there are no price lables or packages that say ”lean”, “extra lean”, “grass fed”, “organic”, or “hormone free”. There is just a carcass on the table that you point to and tell them how you want it cut and a standard price you pay per kilo depending on the type of meat. Simple.

I like simple. I always have thought that the life I led was a pretty simple one, compared to those around me. But since moving to Mongolia I have realized how cluttered my life is with stuff, compared to those around me. I currently live with a Mongolian single girl that is pretty much a nomad. She has lived in seven different places in the last two years because she has no family in the city to live with. When I asked her to move in with me in September I was surprised to find that all of her belongings fit into one little duffle bag (except for her pet kitten).  She just graduated last year and has since been looking for a job. For awhile she worked in an outdoor market making $4 a day. I would put my spare change in a drawer and tell her she could use it for bus money. It wasn’t long before I realized that she had saved up this ”bus money” to buy a pair of cheap shoes because all she had were summer shoes. When I found that out, I gave her money to buy a scarf and gloves as well. When I left last week she still had no winter coat or boots and it was twenty degrees below zero outside.

As I was leaving I asked her one thing that she wanted from America that I could get her for Christmas. Her answer was, “A little English Bible or devotional.”  I was completely humbled by this. She lives the simplest life of anyone I know with virtually no material possessions and what does she want for Christmas? A closer relationship with God. That should be on all of our Christmas lists.

My daily walk home

Today I did my usual 40 minute walk home from work. I have done this walk so many times that I usually just go into auto-pilot mode, paying little attention to things around me. But today was different. I started noticing things that I hadn’t before. It occured to me that someone could make a whole lot of assumptions about Mongolian culture from just walking down the streets of Ulaanbatar for a short time. Here are just a few, some true, some false:

Assumption # 1: People here must always be in need of drugs and money. True or False? True. Why else would there be a bank and pharmacy on every corner? You think I’m joking, but walking home I counted 17 pharmacies and 8 banks. It seems that antibiotics, pain medications and short term loans are available to all and taken by all.

Assumption # 2: Children in Mongolia must like slides. True or false? False. You would think this was true considering there are more slides than there are children in this country. On my walk home alone I passed 52 slides. Most of them were rusted, delapidated and falling apart…the last standing remnants of playgrounds put in by the Russians. But truthfully I have never actually seen a Mongolian child playing on a slide. Not once.

Assumption # 3: Mongolians must be very religious people. True or false? False. On my walk home, I passed 16 trees with blue scarves wrapped around them. These scarves are called  “khada” and symbolize purity in Tibetan Buddhism. They are supposed to be visible reminders of the prayers that travelers have made in certain places that mark a connection between earth and the blue skies above. Most of the places I saw them, however, were on dead tree stumps in the middle of garbage piles. Not exactly “heaven meets earth” places. I have found that most Mongolians cant explain what they really mean. They follow a lot of Buddhist rituals here, but most lack the belief system to back up and give meaning to their rituals.

Assumption # 4: There are more apartments than there are people to live in them. True or False? True. Walking home I started counting all of the cranes and incomplete buildings that I saw. I lost count after 100 cranes. There are new buildings going up every day here, but the infrastructure is abismal. The water pipes are all above ground, the roads are narrow, full of pot-holes, and have no drainage system (the city practically floods every time there is the slightest amount of precipitation). The big question everyone has: who is going to live in all these new apartments? The big question I have: who would WANT to live here? Ulaanbaatar, you are my home so I have grown to love you, but your infrastucture drives me crazy! Assumption # 5: Vodka is the drink of choice in Mongolia. True or False? Unfortunately, true. Walking home I counted 35 empty vodka bottles on the street. This country is littered with empty and broken alcohol bottles, just as it is full of empty and broken people.  I heard a statistic the other day that there is at least one alchoholic per family here. I do not doubt it. Please continue to pray for this country.