ykylimw #20

you know you live in mongolia when...

...a Russian war monument is the place everyone goes for every birthday, graduation, wedding and otherwise important celebration.

The plus side of this?

Getting to see sunsets like this one:


(and because I've been less than diligent about posting weekly...)

you also know you live in mongolia when...

...you can't remember the last time you took a shower. Because it's been quite a long time (weeks). And no one knows when there will be hot water again.

And this isn't weird or bad or even that much of a life-altering thing. Just normal.

And it has stopped being painful or unpleasant to wash your hair/head in freezing cold water.

Although let's be real. If it were winter right now? I would have dreds. And I would smell (more).

there is a river

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God within her, she will not fail; God will help her at break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

-Psalm 46:4-6

"I do not at all understand the mystery of grace- only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us."

-Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies, pg. 143

She spotted me just as I was beginning my walk to the church from the bus stop. she stopped, waiting for me, her hand waving as I walked towards her. The same hand that grabbed mine as I neared her, that we might walk together to church, to Sunday school, to a room of singing and dancing and some throwing of elbows when they should be listening.

she was a part of the river of grace that led me to a crowded room of 4th and 5th graders, my co-teacher and translator in Korea, and a mess of craft supplies strewn about the tables, questions and where are the scissors? arguments abounding, relative peace and limited chaos an answer to my Please-Dear-Lord-Don't-Let-Me-Fail-At-Teaching-By-Myself pleas.

Jawa's text message as I made dinner last week, wanting to know why I had not been at church the past two days (i was off helping with the ger building), don't I know that they want to learn? Don't I know that I need to teach English? Won't I please, please come tomorrow?

he was a part of the river that found me back in the classroom on Friday. Grateful for my sweet students who make me laugh. Grateful for the the humor in teaching English as a second language as I stood doubled over in front of the whiteboard, trying to figure out how to explain that saying "I'm loose" is an inappropriate use of that vocabulary word. Grateful that relationships born out of classes lead to ping-pong games and hugs and joking.

An invitation to climb the stairs of Zaison for the fifty-hundredth time this summer. Bus rides to the war memorial that is also a hang-out spot and ritual meeting place for any and every event of any kind of importance. A climbing of the stairs with Naraa, a farewell hang-out as he prepares to move and be a part of the raising up of a new church.

A river of grace to pictures with the sun setting in the background, clouds hanging breathtakingly in between the depths of the mountains. Silliness mixed with sadness as the sense of saying good-bye stands among us. Recognizing that no matter how many times we climb these stairs, no matter how many different seasons find us standing in these spots, the only thing remaining unchanged is the memorial itself.

a ger raising- day two

Missed day one?

Day Two: 12 people. About 11 hours of work.

(The first three steps happened on day one).

Step four: Unload another rented truck that drove all of the ger pieces from UB out to Khonghor. Wonder if the guys have a system to where they are tossing things. Discover they decidedly do not. Join in on throwing (placing) random pieces all over the grass.

Step five: The guys put the floor pieces together. This takes way longer than I anticipated. It's kind of like a puzzle except all of the pieces are the same color. The girls wash all of the other parts of the ger -the spokes, the center thing, the door, etc. And yes, those are the proper names of the parts. :-)


Step six: Set up the walls of the ger. This is a big ger so it has 8 walls. They are all tied together with string and then placed outside of the flooring. Ropes are secure around the top and bottom of the walls and pulled as tight as possible to make the walls curve inward.


Step seven: Put up the center ring that has holes all around it for the spokes to be placed into. Lay the spokes out around the ger and then lift them up and have them placed into the proper hole. The bottom part then rests in one of the v shaped parts on the top of the walls and is secured with a circular loop hooked around it. This is a very time-consuming process and involved lots of the spokes falling multiple times.


Step eight: Start layering. First comes the basic white linen over the top. Then the large pieces of iske (wool felt) are wrapped around the sides. For this ger, it takes three large sections of iske to cover the sides. The iske is really heavy and difficult to maneuver without lots of hands. Rope is tied at the top of the iske and then pulled and secured to the center ring (hence Taivaana sitting on top of the ger). We also got covered in iske hairs and blew them at each other as we hauled the iske around.


Step nine: Place the iske sections for the roof on the ger and use fallen spokes to get it to go where it's needed. It takes two half sections to cover the whole roof. Then this whole layering process is repeated for both the sides and the roof- adding a second layer of iske to the entire ger. Next the rain coverings are placed on top of the roof (no pictures of this) as well as the outer ger covering over top all of these layers. Big black straps are secured around the ger and pulled as tight as possible and secured to poles placed by the door frame.


Step ten: Spread out cardboard boxes all over the wooden ger flooring. Then cover with large sections of flooring.


Step eleven: Bring in the chairs, desks, cupboard, stove and other random things for inside. Think about how cool it is that in only two days a patch of dirt became a place where a large ger is now sitting and waiting to become a church.
Step twelve: Sit in Naraa's new house (it's a few feet away from the ger) and join in the eating of watermelon, chocolate chip cookies and apple pie while marveling at how everyone is delightfully tired and dirty.

Walk to the bus stop in the lingering light of the setting sun and almost get run over by a herd of goats returning home for the night.

Listen to baby cows cry for their moms and give thanks for the beauty of rolling hills, blue skies and dear friends.

a ger raising- day one

Ever since I was little and we'd drive past Amish farms on the way to my grandparents' house in Ohio, I've had a secret desire to take part in an Amish barn raising. I love the idea of a community coming together to help build a structure for whoever needs it.

Alas, I am clearly not Amish. So there has not exactly been any attending of barn raisings in my life.

However, since I've lived in Mongolia, I've spent many an hour in gers. Meals, visits, naps, playing, laughing, getting warm, drinking tea, singing and visiting hospice patients.

I've always been curious as to how one goes about putting up (and taking down) a ger. They are houses and churches and stores and all sorts of pretty permanent things, but they are also fundamentally tents.

I moved here in October and winter is NOT the time to be spending hours outside in the cold (or shall we say holy crap negative degree temperatures) assembling structures. So I hadn't yet had a chance to see/partake in putting up a ger.

Fast-forward to this month. The mission just recently purchased some land out in Khonghor, a town about 45 minutes outside of UB and our current lay leader, Naraa, is moving out there to start a new church.

So this week it came time for the old ger (that our church used until the mission center was built a little over a year ago) to be taken out to Khonghor and set up and made ready for the opening worship service that is happening in August.

Some of the young adult group was commissioned as the ger set-up crew, so we made plans, met at the church bright and early on Tuesday morning and headed out to Khonghor.

Day One: 10 people. Roughly 10 hours of work.

Step one: Shovel all of the dirt from the area that used to be a pasture for cows and goats. Clear weeds and trash and remove the remnants of old wooden fences. Chop the fences into fire wood for the stove.


Step two: Rent a neighbor's truck and drive it out to the middle of a cow pasture and dig up rocks and dirt. Haul it back to the patch of land and shovel it out of the truck. Then shovel said piles of rocks and dirt around in a circular shape to start forming a foundation for the ger. Repeat this process a lot.

Step three: Level out the rocks so that the foundation is relatively flat and smooth. Marvel at how this patch of rocks took 10 hours. Then play soccer in a field where cows wander by and your team loses badly and you laugh until your stomach hurts even though you are all exhausted and it hurts to laugh.

Day two to come...

those words we say

bayarlalaaaaaaaa...

I could pretend that I don't butcher the way of saying thank you every time it comes out of my mouth.

But the truth is that I still have a hard time with all of the sounds, the massive amounts of vowels involved in this one word and the tendency I have to drag on the a's at the end. Hence my dramatic adding of so many for the purpose of this post (It's really just "Bayarlalaa").

Nine months in and I'm still stumbling over the word "thanks."

Sometimes I don't think and I just say it and it sounds just like it should and I want to jump up and down in a victory celebration.

And sometimes I think too much and what comes out is something vaguely akin to nothing but Mongolish jibberish. At which point I can always tell the person looking at me is thinking, "Yes, it's true that English speakers have a hard time learning Mongolian."

Sometimes I really don't think and I say the wrong word all together. Substituting "bayartai" for "bayarlalaa" and saying good-bye instead of thanks.

Nine months in and I'm still the flawed, sinful human who showed up hoping that God would use all things for his good.

I'm still there, still hoping that my lack would become His abundance.

I'm still there, just a little more aware of how great his grace his, just a little (lot) more convinced that I can do nothing without surrendering everything and just a whole lot more willing to recognize that I am not the one doing anything in this situation.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

We say thanks and then we respond by extending an invitation.

You are welcome. You are welcome here.

You are welcome to come in- to my life, to this moment, to this situation, to this conversation, to this gift, to this relationship.

We say you are welcome and we let the gratitude become a bridge into life together.

We say you are welcome and we affirm that we don't give to receive but we give as a way of opening up the doors and inviting them in.

We say you are welcome and we express our gratefulness that their presence is a part of this moment.

bayaralalaa

zugeree

The Mongolian word for you're welcome is also used to mean "It's okay" and "Don't worry about it."

Thank you.

It's o.k.

Said with my Mongolish pronunciation, with all of the longing to say. it. right.

To express how deeply I am grateful. To express how deeply I have been moved by their grace. By their willingness to share. By their willingness to let me be in the midst of their lives.

thank you.

it's okay, my friend. you are welcome. don't worry about it.

our words hold the meanings of our hearts, if only we might speak them.

our words hold the power of our experiences, the glimpses of the divine and the moments that fill us, if only we might share them.

our words are ours to extend, to offer, to lift up.

imperfect. full of mistakes. full of stumbles and too many vowels. full of tendencies and mishaps and forgotten things.

and yet our offering just the same.

"I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them."
- Isaiah 42:16

ykylimw #19

you know you live in mongolia when...

...you have a large plastic bag filled with sheep ankle bones sitting on your kitchen counter.

And they're not the result of cooking (although that would surely be a sign as well), but are sitting around because they were used for a traditional game during a Naadam party a few days prior.

newfound knowledge and random stories

one of the excellent parts of having a visitor is the built-in excuse it gives you to do all of the touristy things you haven't found the time for yet.

so with our week in the countryside behind us, my old friend/roommate from college (who is now a Peace Corps volunteer in the Republic of Georgia), Katrina, and I set to explore some of the things I haven't managed to see in UB, as well some of those that I have.

A girl can never have too many visits to a coffee shop that serves loose leaf tea, can she?

The answer to that question is a resounding no, by the way. Especially since such a place counts as an attraction when you live in a developing country.

coffee shop visits aside, we also managed to visit one of the Buddhist monasteries, the Bogd Khan Winter Palace, Saison (a Russian war monument), Sukhbaatar Square, as well as the National Museum of Mongolia.

The museum provided me with some new random facts about Mongolia that I didn't previously know. For example...

Did you know that Mongolia was the second ever Communist country? (after the USSR)

Did you know that there are a little less than 40 families who still live in far north Mongolia, tending to reindeer as their livelihood?

Did you know that 43% of the population are nomadic herdsmen? (I knew this- but didn't know the exact %)

I also got to see all of the traditional costumes for the different ethnic groups, which was really interesting.

And in other random news...

Our black market mini-man cat who turned out to be a mini-woman cat is now no longer mini. In fact, she is a whole one year old. Or so we're guessing, since we don't really know her birthday. But at some point we decided July was it- so happy birthday Dobby!

As usual, her photogenic self lies about her real antics. Dobby has a sleeping pattern. It's called she likes to wake up when the sun rises. Which in Mongolia during the summer, is about 4:30 a.m. She then proceeds to make all sorts of noise in my room- playing with things that she shouldn't, jumping all over the place and causing a ruckus. Usually I just mumble at her to be quiet, ignore her and go back to bed. The other days I give in and get up around 5:15 or so.

Yesterday morning I got up a little after 5 and went to make some tea. After checking my email, I looked around wondering where she had disappeared.

She was lying in Holli's bed, snuggled up next to her legs, happily drifting towards sleep.

Hol and I joke about her habit of this- but it's for real. She wakes me up and then once succeeding, goes into Hol's room and falls asleep with her. If that doesn't scream favoritism I don't know what does.

Either that or "Erin gives in too easily." :-)

Also, this weekend is Naadam. A three-day celebration of Mongolia's independence from Chinese rule, it's a big sporting event featuring the three traditional sports: Mongolian wrestling, archery and horse racing. There should also be lots of fermented horse milk being consumed (the government encourages everyone to drink this traditional drink instead of beer or vodka) and fried meat pockets being eaten. I think the hope is to check out some of the horse racing if we can find our way to the venue outside of town.

touristy facts about mongolia, a cat who has no snooze button and a three-day sports festival- this post is seriously all over the place.

or as we'd say in Mongolian- it's seriously "ishay tshay."

happy Friday from UB!

built together

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household

built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.

In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

-Ephesians 2:19-22

oh how we need one another.

that some day

(prom fashion show, 2005)

we used to giggle our way through the afternoons we were supposed to be practicing the oboes we had chosen to play in the school band. chosen because if we played the same instrument we'd have even more of an excuse to convince our moms to let us get together.

we'd talk about those some days. Some day we'll be in high school. Some day we'll be in college. Some day we'll graduate and live in that world where you can drive and have a job and know what you want to do with your life.

Some day we'll get married.

today is her some day, and I am so joyful for her- joyful that she and JD will celebrate with their families and friends on this day- celebrating the beginning of so much more. Joyful that after sixteen years of friendship- of laughing and crying, fighting and forgiving and weathering the good and bad- we are still sharing in life together.

part of being overseas is missing these some days. and wishing very much that I didn't have to, that I could magically be in two places at once and be fully present to everyone I love and care about.

but instead of magic, I have memories and reflections and the sending of prayers and blessings and joy.

Congrats my dear friend (and your now husband). May your some day be absolutely beautiful.

mongolia is cold, surprise!

as I was packing for camp last week, our apartment was hot- it was hot outside, hot inside and our cat was slumping against the walls in hopes of cooling off.

it was the kind of dry heat where you walk outside and immediately want to drink a gallon of water and jump into a cold pool.

my inner Texan was rejoicing and I was wearing my few tank tops with glee.

so of course I assumed it would continue to be hot while we were camping- packing t-shirts and shorts and expecting to be sweating the whole time.

uh, earth to Erin. You live in Mongolia.

the first day and a half? COLD and rainy. I wore the one pair of capris I brought (meant to be pajama pants) for almost the entirety of the four days, as well as layering on just about every shirt I brought.

the night of the bonfire I managed to wear a tank top, a t-shirt, a long-sleeve shirt, two sweatshirts (one borrowed from one of my girls) and a fuzzy jacket that Ser-Od had left there.

you'd think after 8 1/2 months I'd be prepared for the reality of the cold.

i blame my body's unwavering optimism that heat should prevail.

thankfully, my optimism won out when the weather turned perfect for our last two days- sunny and warm and absolutely lovely.

and the cold lent itself to hot cups of milk tea, folks walking around with their sleeping bags wrapped around them, 55 of us crammed into a ger for worship services and the rigging of tents that refused to keep their contents dry.


the things that make you laugh. the things that make you grateful. the things that make you look around and realize you couldn't ask for anything better, the things that make stories and camping adventures.

the mongolian express

sadly, the Mongolian railway is not at all like the Hogwarts Express.

I fear Harry Potter has forever ruined my expectations for epic train rides- giving me fanciful ideas about being served chocolate-covered frogs and jelly beans and needing to change into dress robes as our destination nears.

but in the real world, also known as my life here, things are a bit more...real.

which it turns out is all it needs to be.

because real Mongolian trains take us to unreal (and yet real) places like this:


more camp pictures and stories to come-they'll be better told once I catch up on rest, as it's a well-known fact I don't function well on little sleep:-)