Nick Bogardus

[Be sure to watch the video at the end.]

We finished filming this week and thankfully it all went relatively smoothly. The first two episodes were a little difficult but the next two went almost perfectly. Since we’re not sure if we’ll get to bring them back to the States and even then we’re not sure if they’ll be translated, I wanted to briefly share with you the story that most affected me.

When Naraa was young what she wanted more than anything was to be loved by a man. Her dream was to be married and have children. And, after she finished veterinary and agricultural college she did just that. She married a man and they had two sons. The trouble started when she was pregnant with her third son.

At 7 months along, Naraa went into labor. She gave birth to a 2.8 pound baby boy. When he was born the doctors took him from her to let him die, telling her that he was disabled, too small, and too weak to live. She argued with them and eventually got her son back.

Her son’s childhood was marked by violent seizures every day. Naraa did everything she could get her severely handicapped son the best treatment she could, enduring countless trips over M*ngolia’s rugged landscape in crowded jeeps to go to the capital to see doctors. Worst of all, her husband and family abandoned her because they saw her son as a curse.

Naraa spent all of her money on doctors and Buddhist llamas who promised to help her son. In complete desperation she even sold her ger to pay for the expenses, leaving the single mother without money, without a home, and caring for three boys. She ended up moving the family from far out in the countryside to Erdenet, where she eventually was invited to a church and became a Christian.

After years and years of doctors and llamas, after losing everything, Naraa decided that she wasn’t going to go to doctors anymore. The young Christian decided that she the only thing she would do is pray for her son.

Miraculously, as soon as she began to do that her son’s condition immediately improved. His daily seizures dwindled to nothing and he hasn’t had one since 2004. He began to be able to use his hands and arms, and he began to speak. After years of silence her son was able to communicate with her.

She lives alone with her son in a tiny log house on the outskirts of our city, doing the daily chores of fetching water from the pump, cutting firewood, and cooking, on top of caring for her disabled son. They have next to nothing. The only food I saw was a few strips of meat drying on a string and a few small onions for food. The only furniture in their home is a small cabinet, a wood-burning stove, a couch, a mattress on the floor, and a small table. Yet, the love in the house was dense and palpable. The only thing I could think as I stood there was how such a beautiful story - wrought with barren sacrifice and endurance - was in a way a mirror that showed me how imperfectly I love.

(You can see the meat at the top left of this picture and the onions in the little pan beneath the cabinet.)

Naraa said that after becoming a Christian she sees how God has loved her and her son by not only providing and caring for them but by loving them through each other. She cared for her son and loved him, and through doing that showed him God’s love. When I asked her how God loves her through her son, she said that her favorite part of the day is when she carries her son on her back to catch a taxi to our friend Magda’s school for disabled children. When she was young all she wanted was the love of a man, but that man left her. For the half mile, weaving between fences and houses, on rocky dirt paths, she said that her son whispers the nicest things that anyone has ever said to her.

“I have the most beautiful mother.”
“You are so wonderful, mother.

That is how they start their days together. That is their life.