soggy brain

I always come to the end of the month frantically thinking about what I should write for this blog. I need to update! I need to stay fresh! I need to be interesting! I need to be clever! I need to be insightful! I need to include bits about Mongolia!

And my brain becomes soggy being drenched in all the things I think everyone needs to hear.

But, to tell you the truth, this is what I want to write about:

I want to write about all the things in Mongolia and living in a different culture that drive me crazy. I want to write about how difficult it’s been for me to adjust living with a roommate and learning how to serve another with love (ie: being sensitive and aware of needs and expectations). I want to write about the immense frustration I feel because I can’t speak the language properly. I want to write about loneliness. I want to write about stress and feeling overwhelmed. I want to write about every single thing that is worrying me. I want to write about the students who annoy me. I want to write about feeling tired.

It’s all too easy, when a blank page is set before me, to write everything that’s in my head. And consequently the result becomes entirely too personal. I can’t help it. Therefore, the list above will remain a list, as I don’t think by now you should wonder the prevailing feelings I have at the moment.

This missionary thing is hard.

I should now talk about positive things. That’s only right, and because I have this ridiculously truthful verse running around my head that says “when times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. “ (Ecc 7:14)

So, here I am. Warm and safe and fortunate to have chocolate within reaching distance. I am alive, and it’s a good thing to be so. Because I am able to love and be loved. And whether by obedience or foolishness (which so often get confused in this race I’m running), I have been graciously put in a strange and beautiful land for the sake of a King. A King who is real and steadfast and merciful and jealous and vast. He sustains me when I most need it, even though I’m completely obtuse to its tender cultivation. And it’s now that I’m reminded of the incredible fact that I am known by such a King.

(some will scoff and chafe at such statements, which is fine. Scoff and chafe to your heart’s desire. You have the freedom to do so, which is yet another treasure of my King.)

Anyway, I have considered enough for one blog. It’s very late now and I’m tired – it’s taken 10 minutes just to write that as I’ve dozed off between words. It’s good to rest, so wherever you’re at now, take a nap.

My friends, consider your days. And be free.

preposterous!

I’ve hit the mark. Six months of Mongolia have whizzed by and I stand wide-eyed and a little breathless, anticipating the next six. The following are bits and pieces of various journal entries beginning from my arrival till now. I tried to choose ones that were honest and real because those seem to carry the most flavor. And just a side note: I'm not a big believer in correct spelling or punctuation...or capitalization, especially when I journal. So I am not really sorry for any 'mistakes' I've made. Anyway, carry on:


3/7/08 Here I am! In Mongolia! I have a lot to get adjusted to. New city, new people, new culture, new job, new home, new bed, new language, new sounds…new smells. It’s going to take awhile – but it will be ok.

3/10/08 This was a highly emotional and sort of overwhelming day. It was my first time going to a Mongolian church in 5 years and it was like a you-don’t-know-the-language slap in the face.

3/23/08 Two JCS women prayed for me a couple days ago. It was really good. It was the resulting spiritual refreshment that changed me and prepared me for the rest of the week. I wish I could get prayer like that every day! It’s not easy retaining spiritual refreshment, you’ll get thirsty again – that’s reality. But it doesn’t mean you stop craving it. And if you crave it, you’ll pursue it. And somewhere along the line, offer refreshment to others.

4/17/08 I’m finding out that the majority of my students have no beliefs; spiritual beliefs that is. Which is at first strange to me because I come from a place where most everyone would claim some religion, spirituality or philosophy (even if they didn’t practice it). It’s another thing to have no faith at all.

5/17/08 [in response to Psalm 35] The reality is that I will always be deceitful. And I will continue to store up transgression in my heart. I will always be an imperfect, inadequate vessel for the Spirit of God to dwell in and work through. But, God enjoys loving me too. For reasons I do not understand. It is obvious he delights in being a loving God and taking care of people – even though they are predictable in nature and prone to wickedness. Praise him for his (undeserved) delight in me! That I can turn that delight out to others so his name will continue to be known and praised.

5/19/08 I’ve observed today that if you ever feel you need a hug, just put yourself on an over-crowded bus. You get hugs from all over.

5/26/08 [in response to Psalm 16] You can ask God for preservation. Because he is the Preserver – one who keeps you well. And as such, he offers refuge – space provided and intended to offer safety, rest and nourishment and to regain strength. And it is always available. One takes refuge out of distressful or desperate times, often when there is violence or injustice or poverty or something assailing you. God provides both spiritual and physical refuge. He does all this because he’s good. And we are only able to know good because he exists. In a world where there is constant distress, desperation, violence, injustice, poverty both physically and spiritually – the good news is that it can be overcome. If Jesus is able to defeat death, he can certainly conquer that which is listed above. To extend a quote I read in a commentary: it is the glory of a great God to deliver out of great circumstances. We can be assured that whatever God provides is not only good, it is the best. He offers sustaining relief. And when we ask for his preservation and enter into his refuge, he establishes more of the Kingdom on earth through those actions, thereby conquering those things which seek to oppose its establishment. And when the Kingdom is established, it cannot be removed.

5/29/08 Sometimes I forget how my thinking and expectations and approaches have been impacted by my life experience. For example: the way I approach and think about and learn from Scripture comes from a privileged, middle class, youngest of four, well educated, comfortable, young and immature, empowered female, post-modern, single and childless, Midwestern, American, passive-aggressive perspective. Those are just some of the filters my understanding has to go through. It must be the work of a perfect God that, despite all the tripe, he still speaks into understanding perfect truth, wisdom, and fruitfulness of words that are chronologically and culturally so far removed from my own time and setting. Yet, the way God reveals himself is not dependent on my personal pre-conceived notions. He put me in the exact position of where I’m at, where I’ve been and where I will be. He is powerful enough and able to transcend individual filters and baggage to meet me and care for me and through that establish the Kingdom so all nations will glorify him. But I also think it’s possible that I let my baggage get in the way of my understating sometimes. And I blindly take for granted or mis-understand or totally skip over perfect truth. It probably also doesn’t help that I come with transgression, deceit and sin buried deep in my nature. However, I can still read something like Psalm 16 and be thankful that God has placed it in front of my eyes and wants to teach me about himself through it. Even though I am laden with hindrances.

6/11/08 I think if someone ever would have told me that I would be a missionary in Mongolia, I most definitely would have laughed at them and then given them a strange look and then walked away, probably very quickly. “What an idiot!” I probably would have said to myself. Completely preposterous.

7/10/08 This morning I woke up to the sound of dogs being shot (I’ve heard that the system employs prisoners from UB’s jail to go out and terminate street dogs). I’ve woken up to the sound of many things – but this is by far the most disturbing.

8/2/08 Jesus, as a human, went though perhaps the most ridiculous amounts of suffering. But the end result not only provided a sustaining hope, it was hope. What is hope then? A happy ending? Trust or faith in good things provided by a good God? Or is true hope just too impossible to accurately define or fully, comprehensively understand because just like true love and true peace – it is God. That doesn’t mean its meaning can’t be revealed to me, thankfully. I think Hope is evidence and proof that this world is not all there is.

8/10/08 [in response to Psalm 68:19-20] His joy is in being a father to the fatherless, a protector of widows, a provider for the lonely and freedom for prisoners – as God of the universe, his heart lies here. Not with making the rich richer or the influential more influential or the powerful more powerful. My walk with Jesus is very young, naïve, ignorant. I know people who have, according to the standards of this world, every right not to believe in God considering their life stories but they still do. I have no excuse not to.

8/22/08 Dugarmaa (English dept head at MUST) surprised me with an invitation to “go have a beer.” No one ever asks me to go have a beer! I was delighted! And as it turns out, the Mongolian made beer (Chinggis as it’s called) is pretty good. So we sat in a dark beer tent that is set up on the outside of the State Department Store one evening, drinking gigantic mugs of Chinggis beer; she chattering away in heavily accented English and I just smiling and nodding and sipping, determined to drain the mug.

8/28/08 I can look out the window and it is a straight shot of the mountains. Currently their summits are covered in thick cloud because it’s raining out. It is so beautiful. I have seen parts of Mongolia that I never expected to see. And when I sat down this morning and looked out the window and saw the mountains and watched the rain and listened to the peace, I asked “Is this real?” What I’m doing? Where I’m at?


I hope that you have been astounded by your circumstances at least once in your life. It is a good and scary spot to be in. I also hope that today – or tonight – has added a great deal of flavor to your existence. Live spicy, my friends.

divert and pilfer

Now that it is summer, two types of people walk the city streets in mad droves: foreigners and homeless people. The former are often European and can be found sipping lattes and networking at a European café or restaurant (or lugging around gigantic backpacks tying their dredlocks into a ponytail). The latter come in various shapes and sizes, can be found in interesting places, and are usually children. Foreigners I don’t really find all that interesting, it’s the homeless kids that astound me.

On my way home today there was a young boy, probably 11 or 12 but so physically stunted for lack of nutrition looked 8 or 9. And dirty as if the crud was embedded into his skin, like the dirt itself was becoming the skin’s replacement. On his lap was a ragged sleeping child. I can’t be sure of the age; I can only say that he was barely off baby food. And this child was as limp as a soggy rag doll. I have a niece who’s one of the deepest sleepers I’ve ever seen – you can pry open her eyelid and she won’t wake up. But this little, soggy rag-doll child looked dead, like he had just been wrung out with the laundry and was lying there to dry.

Most of these kids will have a cardboard box in front of them where passersby can drop in a few tugruks. Some of them, like this child, have figured out what really disturbs people. Apparently, soggy rag-doll babies and dirty, starved 11 year olds do it to me. I ended up buying a bottle of water and some biscuits at a nearby shop to lay down in his box with a 500 note (about 50 cents). More than likely the money in his box will go back to a parent who will buy alcohol and cigarettes with it. Some of the kids can be pretty persistent and irritating having learned a few key words in English (money, please) that they repeat pitifully while stretching their encrusted palms in your face. Some of them have worked out a system of “divert and pilfer” where they’ll target a loaded foreigner, distract him or her cleverly while a compatriot effortlessly relieves the foreigner’s pockets of a couple hundred tugruks. Others will display birth defects, facial or physical deformities and generally succeed in breaking your heart. The persistent ones you can find around shops or restaurants frequented by the wealthy. The divert and pilfer groups you’ll most likely find at bus stops. The deformed, handicapped or the ones holding babies will find a spot anywhere that’s shady (preferably near a busy area with lots of people) and stay there all day. At times, they will sing.

One will utterly despise the world for being the way it is when looking into the eyes of a starving child, whether they are irritating you, robbing you blind or awkwardly cradling limp infants. My friends, it is not right. For as much beauty as there is on this planet, in this reality, in this time, there is equal parts ugly - and it is an old ugly, a cunning ugly. This homeless boy that I encountered today, will most likely be homeless and starving and begging the rest of his life, however long or short that is. And I clench my teeth in anger at that thought, at my own helplessness. But one cannot love truthfully out of a hateful heart.

It seems my role in this child’s life was to show him kindness, the only kindness I knew how to show with my limited human scope. And the only way I can keep showing him kindness is in expectant prayer. For beauty, love and joy. For peace and comfort. The everlasting kinds.

My friends, love truthfully.

guns and ammo and pablo neruda

Some of the things I will put on here are going to be massively boring. At least that’s what I fear. For example, I’m currently in the midst of writing something about language learning and what kind of process that’s been like for me so far. And it’s boring! With a capital ‘B’ Boring! So I don’t think it’s very good if it manages to bore me, the writer. But it’s something important to me and relevant to my life here and I’d like for you to share in the experience with me. Unfortunately, instead of being interesting it’s just a piece of writing that really stinks and I don’t want you to be apart of that. The root of the matter, I realize though, is that I’m just uncomfortable with the thought that I might present myself as dull.

This makes me think about the nature of the concept of boring and interesting and one could argue that they are relative to the individual. My dad’s Guns and Ammo holds just about as much interest for me as a boiled egg does. And likewise, my love for Pablo Neruda holds no special area of his heart. On a side note, though, I think we both have a strong appreciation for good food, funny things, and traveling - amongst other things.

One of the most useful quotes I’ve come across recently that specifically relates to this notion of what makes a person interesting vs boring goes like this: “…‘I am an individual, and I am interesting because I like interesting things.’ But that’s not true. Liking interesting things doesn’t make you interesting.*”My dad is not interesting because he likes Guns and Ammo and building houses and going on African safaris. My dad is interesting because he’s Marvin and he enjoys living life and adding as much good to the world as he can in the best way he knows how. It’s his character, with all its beauties and flaws, that people find themselves being enriched by.

I’m still convinced that what I’ve written about language learning is altogether nondescript - and who’s to say this chatter isn’t a good snore? But, I’m also convinced that despite what I fear is boring is not exactly a direct translation of who I am and what I’m like. I don’t want to wear my interests like a mask to hide insecurities about my character and understanding of life. I know a person who is incredibly intelligent and uses that intelligence to hide the fact that there are several missing pieces in his life that make it relevant to reality and truth. His entire identity is based on a type of person he wishes and works to portray because he doesn’t think he has anything else to offer.

I’ve been like that before. In fact, I’ve spent a large portion of my life in a similar way as his. And truthfully, it’s an incredibly empty and transparent way to exist (and you realize this even as you’re living it!). Also, as one who loves Christ and is running the race, if my existence cannot point back to His perfect, immeasurable and loving goodness, than I am living it according my own standards with my eyes on the perishable and not the preservable.

I might go back and try to re-work what I have written about learning Mongolian - try to juice it up and add a little pizzazz. Or I might just let it be and post it in all its honest, trappings-less, boringness. Life is lackluster sometimes. I might not even post it at all now that I’ve hyped it up so much. What I hope for is that you’ve made it this far in the log and have enjoyed your time. That the sun is shining or the stars are out. That you have a thankful heart, that you have turned out the mercy and grace you live in towards others, and that there is good ice cream in your freezer. Now is the perfect time to go have some.




*Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, “The Meaning of Life”, Paste Magazine, Issue 42, May ‘08

what's in a name

The title of this blog beat out six other rivals; including the likes of: Camel Soup, Ranting Camel, and The Camel. I have no special predilection for dromedaries, although it may seem so by the looks of my choice of titles. It just so happens that these strange and fascinating creatures inhabit my host country, and thereby become a working (yet boarder-line-strained) symbol for Mongolia. As for the thirsty part, well, you can take the meaning of that word anywhere you'd like. But it's a condition we've all felt at least once before.

The purpose of this log is simply that. A log. A log on the internet for people to read and enjoy. So my job is to make it as enjoyable as possible. And hopefully it will also be meaningful. I’d like to think that what I post will be good enough so that when you finish and go back to whatever you were doing before, this will have added to your day. In reality, though, I just hope you make it past the first paragraph.

Because what you will find in here is just the life I’m living within the context of my surroundings. Mongolia happens to be the backdrop from which my experiences, lessons, stories and revelations will occur for the time being. And in the fashion of a good old human being, I long to share those experiences et all with other human beings. Even if they aren’t really worth logging in the first place.

For example:

It is impossible to find recipes that specifically call for camel meat. You can Google it, you can scour recipe books, you can go ask your grandmother, but I am telling you that they do not exist. There is a hoax recipe for “stuffed camel,” but that’s it. And it is a tragedy because camel meat is dang good. Granted, this is coming from someone who has eaten bugs and enjoyed it. May all the vegetarians (and picky eaters alike) now gag.



Inspiring, captivating, gag reflex inducing. This is Thirsty Camel.