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.