Remembering the good

It is often easier to write about trials, or relay a humorous story about some mishap in my writings, but today, I would like to focus on the good.

God moved us to Mongolia, of this I have no doubt. And I have faith that it was a plan for my good and a plan to prosper me and my family, even though there have been many bumps and a very unconventional life along the way. Even as I pack up this house and truly liquidate it, I remember just seven years ago, doing this in America. I know now that I have been molded into something new and good because of it.

Things I love about Mongolia:

1. I love watching Mongolian older kids play with the younger kids. My children are already handled with the utmost respect and almost fear here, but the bigger kids here are trained from a young age to care for the younger babies and children. They are trained to prefer the youngest, giving them whatever they want even if it means sharing what they have or stopping their big kid play to assure the smallest is safe and happy. It is refreshing and I am so thankful to see that.

2. I love having to invent an answer for a problem because it doesn’t exist here, or cannot be purchased. I love thinking, “hmm, what do I have that would work to solve this problem.” Just today as I was cleaning the garage, I found a door I made to keep the babies out of the kitchen so they wouldn’t be burned. I remember cutting and nailing together the wooden frame and cutting the cardboard to make a barrier so that Weston wouldn’t be burned by the low fireplace we have here. It is refreshing to think outside of the box and realize most of what we need can be made or found a sufficient solution for without a trip to a store.

3. I am very thankful that I came here and learned to cook. I know it sounds funny , but I’m thankful for the challenge of learning to cook something with almost no ingredients. I’m thankful for cooking too because it became my one creative outlet. I was mostly and constantly home from 2005-2009, and the only thing that I could put my energy into outside of the kids and our home, was cooking. It was a form of escapism (I am realizing that I am a major escapist, it’s a good thing I never got into drugs! LOL This year I used diet and exercise as an escape technique, I think that’s a better way to use my energy- I have a need to dream and plan. If I squelch it, a part of me dies and it’s not good; so even when there is no road trip on the books, or no physical way for me to get away from the deadly cycle of taking out the garbage, doing laundry, making beds or doing dishes, again and again and again, I must have something beyond these chores, or I will go stark raving mad!!!)

4. I’m thankful that Peter found the work that he enjoys the most. He is a great teacher, and it energizes him. Seeing this in the fall of 2009 made me so happy. It is a perfect fit for him in so many ways. Being married to him for these years, I have seen him come home from many a kind of job. Never did I see this type of fit for him in a career. I talked to him about it and he agreed I could research doctoral degrees for him. I printed out the online accredited doctoral education programs that I thought would fit him and our budget. I left the papers on his pillow. He thought though each and started at Liberty. I know that God has a plan for his future in education and even though we had assumed he’d be completing the degree from Mongolia and smoothly be moving into another field five years from now; it has been a comfort this year to see him busy at school and that amazing man accomplished 24 units since last May, and he got straight A’s too. He is really something. He says it’s because the classes are easy, but the real reason is because he’s super smart. If it were me, I’d have been crying so many tears over my computer, that is would have shorted out and I would be computerless to write my LONG musings here on my blog. J

5. I love the countryside experience, although I could do with a little less dirt, I really enjoyed having the understanding of an old fashioned life. It has forever changed me and for that I’m thankful. I’m thankful for the experience of putting little seeds in the ground and watching them grow into an amazing garden. To have the faith that God would allow them to grow, when this city girl thought that would be impossible. To have bathed out of a bucket for these years and found that is sufficient. To know my kids really only need their family, a warm bed, a home cooked meal and their imaginations to be happy.

6. To see the missionary experience firsthand after having read all those books about Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael, Elizabeth Elliot, Bruchco and countless others. To know those men and women were weak, they had the same experiences of becoming a child again in language and culture having NO IDEA what was going on around them. Being completely at the mercy of their host country. (Searching for wood with a harsh Tundra winter coming on, waiting on a friend who knows how to find the wood and work the Mongolian system. Wondering day by day if it will come before winter so your 17 month old baby would be warm) Going only in obedience and even if they had been strong in their country, they were without a doubt weakened, completely broken down and unable to function. They would be sick and have no idea how to care for themselves. (laying on an airmat in the attic being sicker than they had even been in thieir life, unable to stand or even hold their nursing baby, literally crawling to a couple of buckets one to sit on and one to retch into, crawling back and crying a puddle on bed, unable even to call out for help.) They wouldn’t know how to speak or how to find a home, they would often not know what they were eating (fermented dried solid yogurt- it’s like eating vomit), they would have been wondering what the heck they were doing and sure they were insane for coming. Why would this be God’s design for the church and His kingdom be hinged on this the weakest and frailest of human states? WHY? Why send someone who cannot speak, eat, or care for their needs, go to carry the message of hope and saving grace to the world? There is only one reason for this: Because when we are weak, HE is strong! He wants the obedience to go and HE will build His church. He said it, He will do it. That is the reason. It is Him, He does all, there is no way that plan would work in any other way. Giving 7 years to know that and to say, He uses people for His plan and He is the only one who could make that work. So now when I read those books, I’m not thinking, “that person was amazing” I think, “Wow God did all that!” That obedience brings Him glory.

7. And He did it here. He built a church out of nothing here. We got to see it, we got to be a witness of His work here. That was worth it.

8. Wanting heaven more than this life is another benefit of this seven years, knowing this life is but a breath and we are certainly just grass. Here today, gone tomorrow. To be reminded that the Turkish Delight of this world is not worth it, even if it seems good for a minute. It will be gone the next.

9. Learning the value of sufficiency… This is the label of my life. What I have is sufficient. It is such an interesting word. We don’t want sufficient, we want over and abundantly happy and more than our real need. But having one pair of shoes is really sufficient, one kind of food, one choice for toilet paper, one little car that keeps running down the road…

There are most reasons, but I have to get back to Tundra Mommin. I’m making soup for lunch, looking at the creations of my precious children, cleaning up the back room. It is amazing how much stuff we have. We have given away 4 carloads, hired a truck to take a load to UB, and still STUFF!!! We are such a frail kind of creature to need all these trappings and sentimental treasures…