a ykylimw replacement

.

in lieu of this week's ykylimw moment and the reason why I didn't have one last week....

I give you pictures from last week's United Methodist Women training seminar. Women from all three of the UM churches here participated and it was a wonderful time of fellowship, discussion and dreaming. The seminar was focused on preparing the women to begin their own UMW groups at the individual churches.

Mongolian women inspire me each and every time I get the chance to hear their stories, share in daily life and spend time playing, laughing and being silly with them.

Even stinkin' adorable babies got in on the action.

Joy.

Praise.

Before I moved here, I met with a professor who has spent a lot of time studying Mongolia in his field of work. He told me all sorts of things that were helpful, that prepared me for all sorts of logistics and practical things and cultural differences. But one thing he said in particular has stuck with me, like an echo that comes back every once in awhile and brings me further into reflection.

He said that while it may appear that Mongolian men have the power in society, everyone knows it's the women who really hold everything together. They are the strong ones. The ones with power. The ones who pick up the pieces.

That is a generalization. It is a generalization that comes from all sorts of social and cultural issues that impact families and men and women and children here. It is a generalization that I cannot adequately begin to address the truth (or not) of in one blog post. Or two. Or four.

But his words have stayed with me as I have heard life stories and struggles. They have stayed with me as I have admired these women's fierceness and strength and grace and dignity. They have stayed with me as statistics and numbers about alcoholism and abuse and poverty have ceased being numbers and become people. People I know. People I love. People I cook with and coo over babies with and sing with and laugh with.

It is a story of men and women. It is a story of brokenness. And healing. Of hurt. And of hope.

There is so much to say about this. But what sticks out to me today, after listening to these women's voices raised in discussion and planning and prayer last week?

...is their beautiful strength and courage.

pentecost

I sat in worship today with four-year old Namoi on my lap.

Usually she's hard to corral, a force of action that whirls around during the service. But today she climbed into my lap as we began and stretched herself out, willingly collapsing into my arms.

As she lay there and the music began and the noise rose, my thoughts drifted to the Holy Spirit.

She fell asleep and I listened to her quiet breath as my own breath began to move in rhythm with hers.

I like thinking about the Holy Spirit in relation to breath. The Scriptures are full of verses that speak of God breathing life into things. The Pentecost story speaks of the Holy Spirit as a violent wind that comes in upon the disciples.

Breath gives us life. It reminds me I've been created and it draws me into the presence of God.

Worship was joyful this morning, loud and full of Holy Spirit-themed songs.

The drums, the piano, the guitar, the microphones and the voices and the clapping.

We've got the theme right, but have we got the listening?

As I sat with Namoi on my lap and listened- to both the worship and her breathing, I thought about how the Holy Spirit is probably a lot like the quiet noise of a little one's sleeping breath.

I talk and I work and I sing and I let the world shout. I listen to the loudness and I forget to hear the whispers.

Hearing the Holy Spirit and knowing its presence requires nearness.

I cannot hear the soft breath of a person from across the room. I cannot hear the Spirit's promptings from across the room either.

My breath cannot echo the Spirit's guiding unless I am close, nestled in, willing to draw near and to stay.

My life cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit unless I listen for the quiet breath present in spite of the noise of everything else.

The Spirit came in a violent wind and made its presence known through the gift of many languages, spoken and understood by those who had no business speaking or understanding.

But today, on this Pentecost Sunday, all I heard was the soft breathing of a sleeping four-year-old.

And the quiet rhythm of a Spirit asking me to come close,

to breathe deeply

and to hear.

come, Holy Spirit, come
fill us as your vessels
consecrate us as your people
may we be children of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit

amen.

nostalgic or something of the sort

So watch your time
Time descends
Let it spill quietly
From your hands
Oh, and the time is at hand
When all things under the sky
Go free of time

-Blue Mind, Alexi Murdoch (Away We Go soundtrack)

My SMU email account expires very soon, so a few days ago I set to the task of going through all of my many folders of saved emails and deciding what was worth importing to my current email inbox and what could disappear into the dark abyss of the death of an email account.

Four years worth of emails that I deemed important enough to categorize and electronically file away.

Some that now in hindsight seem completely random. Or no longer of relevance or importance.

Homework assignments, assorted copies of documents for organizations I was involved with, passwords for things I no longer use or need. All of that before stuff that once was so much a part of my day to day life.

Those were easy to leave behind. To say good-bye to with the decision not to click the box next to them and move them into a new email resting place.

Then there were the personal ones. The ones from friends. From family. The silly ones. The ones that I saved because they made me laugh or because they hold memories or stories or capture moments that I now can only experience through words and pictures and memories.

A whole semester's worth of emails between a dear friend and I from when she studied abroad.

The email that brought the news that our summer research proposal had been funded.

Emails in Spanish from Bolivian friends.

Words of encouragement when I needed them the most.

"You got the job" and "You didn't get the job" emails.

Recipes. Articles. Journalism projects that consumed weeks and months of my life.

And the very first one I saved- words of encouragement from my mom after I emailed her all emotional and freaked out after a whole two days of being at SMU.

A year ago I graduated.

And now I'm here, a new corner of the world that doesn't feel so new anymore. It fits...

in the story, in the adventure, in the way that things do when you try your best to listen and jump and move forward because He is calling you onward.

the past is no place to live, but it's certainly fun to visit on occasion.

congrats all of you new alumni- may you enjoy what is to come.

random

it's mid-May. what?!?!

April flew by in the gift of Easter celebrations, kindergarten teaching, meetings, birthdays and the normal day-to-day stuff that brings joy and exhaustion and everything in between.

the weather started (or more correctly is starting) to get nice; providing a reprieve from long underwear, the ability to run consistently and nasty dust storms.

April snow showers bring May dust storms in Mongolia.

The beginning of this month has been filled with a visit from a GBGM staff member, team meetings, a dear friend's graduation, cooking for the young adult fellowship, watching the interactions between a sick puppy and our scared cat for one evening and an allergy-related eye infection/thing scattered in between the regular work stuff.

As Holli described it, it's "an allergic reaction to Mongolia in [your] eye."

I blame it on the clouds of dust everywhere. Although, I think the recent 70 degree weather was a peace offering. An olive branch of allergy-covered apologies if you will.

One I will gladly accept for that matter.

Holli and I were sitting outside at one of our favorite little cafes the other day, the first time we've ever done that in our time here, and we ended up talking about how crazy perfect this weather feels to us.

And how we somehow managed to fall in love with this place even when it was -40 degrees outside and we never thought we were going to be warm again and we spent long periods of past conversations belly-aching having to go outside to buy milk or flour or some other necessity.

And now? Now it's 70 and sunny and beautiful every once in awhile (it's cold and windy and gray outside as I type this) and the place that we thought we couldn't possibly love anymore?

Is totally taking my breath away.

(and filling it with car fumes and pollution and the smell of burning trash, but that's beside my happy point)

It just proves that it's not the temperature as much as it is the people.

And now I'm going to enjoy every iota of this weather, storing it up in my memory so I can pull it out next winter when I'm silently cursing the cold and think, "See! This beautiful place isn't without it's moments."

Onto a random assortment of pictures:

Hol and I got crafty one Monday and bought traditional fabric at the black market and made skirts. This is the inside of my purple fabric and the skirt I was trying to use as a pattern:
many hours of stitching later, the finished product on Holli. Amusingly, we somehow ended up making skirts for one another instead of for ourselves. A measuring mix-up made in heaven.

Od's graduation day. Isn't she lovely?

the graduating girls of Od's class

And what's a spring-y post without pictures of our house-elf/cat Dobby? She has a strange love of dirt. When we brought this big bag of it home to do some planting/gardening, she was so excited and spent the first few minutes trying to open it.
She's also deceptively cute and snuggly-looking when sleepy. This picture? It lies. Because this cat is the same one that jumped on my head at 5:30 this morning and swatted at my ears until I got up.

(side note: Did you know Holli and I have a cooking/baking blog? Because we do. Check it out:-))

ykylimw #16

you know you live in mongolia when...

...the suggestion for helping someone's asthma is rabbit.

No, not eating rabbit.

Just being with a rabbit and petting it.

here and there

it snowed today.

big, fat, wet snowflakes flying through the windy air even as it was a warmish 40 degrees outside.

dust storms in one gust and snow in the next.

brown mountain peaks nestled next to ones turning white as snow falls in the distance.

***

we ate together at young adult group this afternoon.

a late lunch, a crowded table- chairs drawn near, seats shared, bowls passed, plates filled, laughter shared.

chili and rice. bread and cookies. fruit and candy.

***

a morning spent cooking. the silence of a big, empty kitchen- peaceful, still, calm.

sunlight streaming in as the bread crisps and the chili simmers.

tomatoes. onions. garlic. more ground beef than I'd like to think about.

stirring, chopping, dicing, cutting.

tickling Dishke as his five-year old hands reach for stolen cookies.

preparing food for friends and giving thanks for the gift of manna- in food and in fellowship.

***

worship, singing, listening. a guitar that plays familiar tunes while I stumble through the words of a learned language.

a crowded micro home. a walk in the gusts of snow. a cat anxious to play.

a trip to the market. ice cream for dinner because we can. a favorite movie.

a Saturday.

(or as Hol would say (and I would agree), a home)

foreigners and strangers

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country- a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

-Hebrews 11:13-16

I've read these words before. But they hit me in a new way last week.

To long for a better country, a heavenly one- for the Kingdom. To not look back. To not get sucked into the muck but to look to the hope of what is to come.

To admit (and live in the knowledge) that we don't fit is to acknowledge that what we are longing for and looking to is the coming Kingdom and not the brokenness of the present. Admitting that we don't fit is uncomfortable, painful, difficult- it means separation and letting go and recognizing what keeps us in chains, but it is also freeing.

I can pretend that I am not different from all of the Mongolians and I can be offended when people point, laugh, stare or mock.

Or I can admit that I am different and let other people's reactions be just simply that- other people's reactions.

The same is true of following Christ- I can squirm and hide and get anxious about doing things that appear strange or don't make sense to others. Or I can embrace being different and be faithful to God's call without worrying about how others will react- already knowing that we are the foreigners and strangers.

How freeing is that? To no longer be worried about being declared foreign and instead just admitting it first.

There is freedom in being foreign and strange- freedom to wear bright pink sunglasses and have crazy hair because they are going to stare no matter what. Freedom to follow Christ with every part of ourselves because we're never going to fully meet the world's expectations and standards and we don't have to.

We are free to look around and know that we do not belong. And to be free from all that anxiety about not fitting, about not making sense, about not being who they think we should be.

We are free to be His and His alone.

ykylimw #15

you know you live in mongolia when...

...you are served a bowl of milk tea rice during the senior citizen group meeting and have the following conversation in your head:

Oh, man. This is not what I think it is.

Ugh. It IS what I think it is- a bowl of rice covered in milk tea with butter on top.

Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Just eat it.

Really, don't think about it.

And don't look at it.

Just one spoonful at a time.

I like milk tea. I like rice. Why is the combination of the two so utterly not like-able?

Slow down or you'll have to have more. The Ime across from me is already on bowl two and I'm still trudging through this one.

Phew, almost done.

Gosh, I'm glad that's over and I can now politely refuse seconds.

Milk tea by itself? quite good.

Rice by itself? a staple of the Mongolian diet

Rice doused in milk tea and butter? something I would like to limit my future intake of :-)

sharing life

"The only answer in this life, to the loneliness we are all bound to feel, is community. The living together, working together, sharing together, loving God and loving our brother, and living close to him in community so we can show our love for Him."

-pg. 69, The Duty of Delight, Dorothy Day (quote originally from her book The Long Loneliness)

May you know community on this day. And may it fill with you the knowledge of the nearness of Christ- that in turn we might be near to one another.

And in nearness, to be present.

And in presence, to love.

And in love, to know healing.