One Story Of The Stories From Eagle TV
[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.
An Emerging Pattern?
Here’s a short piece I wrote for Conversant about a pattern that seems to have developed through church history. My question is where does the Emergent Church fit into it?
The Pendulum of the Kingdom
A few days ago Christianity Today asked, “A question for Christian leaders (whether in the church or elsewhere): have you found the recent Christian emphasis on “building for the kingdom” and cultural renewal to detract from evangelism?
I wrote a response for Conversant that you can read here.
How To Pray Like A Shadow
How did I work Obama’s teleprompter, Twitter, Britney Spears, and the Psalms into a blog about prayer? Funny you should ask….
Will The Real Charlie Brown Please Stand Up?
This will probably be one of the more random updates I’ve written. It’s 10:30 on Sunday night though and we’re exhausted so I’ll do my best.
I preached in church this morning. I began by telling them the story about our engagement out here and the cross on the hill to show them how God worked to bring us out here. Then I preached on the parable of the prodigal sons in Luke 15. So far preaching has been a submersion in inadequacy for me; which is a good thing I think because it keeps me humble and dependant on the complete sufficiency of the Bible - it’s not about me or my abilities. People seemed to be encouraged and they were very thankful, so I too am grateful for God’s work there and His faithfulness to use a flawed vessel like me.
After church all of the foreigners took a couple Russian vans way back into the hills behind the city for a picnic on the land that our friends Jonathan and Marielle just got from the government. The M*ngolian government will actually give out land to people if they promise to care for it and protect it from loggers cutting down the trees. Jonathan and Marielle have a whole square kilometer of land on which to build - for free! To top it off they’re about 1.5 miles from the edge of the ger district and about a 30 minute drive from the city, so they’re really out there.
After a lunch of hot dogs the guys started kicking soccer balls over a steep valley to each other - because that’s what you do in the middle of nowhere. :) I was launching NCAA-worthy punts over the little ravine trying to hit a tree trunk on the other side. My only problem seemed to be that I can get them to go higher than they go far - 40 yards up, 20 yards out. I was feeling pretty confident in myself when Kim came over to try her foot at the little game. I propped the ball up on a dusty shrub like a football tee and let her go at it. She ran at it and swung her leg as hard as she could but it glanced off her foot and tumbled unimpressively down into the valley (neither of us are soccer players). I laughed a little and teased her for being “one step above Charlie Brown”.
Not 30 seconds later our friend Jonny sent his own 4th and 10 punt soaring over the valley. I ran under it like I was going to catch a hail mary pass over my shoulder but at the last minute I had an idea. “I’m going to kick this ball in the air on its way down and send it back over my head to them”, I thought. “That’ll be cool.” So instead of putting my hands out to catch it, I kicked my leg up to meet the ball in the air. The only problem is I’m almost completely uncoordinated and as soon as I got my momentum going in that direction (up) the rest of my body followed and didn’t stop.
The result was a more ridiculous version of Pele’s bicycle kick - like if a gorilla did it. Both of my feet were well over my head and I landed on my shoulders in a patch of dry sticks; the ball harmlessly landing 5 yards from me. The entire group exploded into laughter as the real Charlie Brown was revealed.
I guess the lesson for today is that whether it takes preaching or the athletic display picture above, I’ve still got a long way to go when it comes to humility.
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Kim’s students’ photography exhibit got pushed from this weekend to next weekend because of the “English Olympics” in the city. The extra time has turned out to be a big blessing and she has been working tirelessly on cutting foam board and mounting over 200 pictures, making and distributing flyers, and creating certificates and gift bags to give the kids. I really think this years will be even better than last years and I’m so proud of her for all of the work she’s put into the class and how well so many of the photos turned out. We’ll be sure to make a video for it like last year.
Random Things I’ve Been Digging
iFlash. It’s a flashcard program for Mac. I’ve been jumping a little jump start on my Greek language for seminary and this program is really cool. Aside from creating flashcards, a lot of teachers or schools offer class-related sets for download.
The new iMovie. Jonathan and I have been working on 30 minute presentation video for Magda’s school for a meeting they have with the government next week. We’ve been using the updated iMovie and it is awesome. All of the features are drag-and-drop and, though some of the intricacies are a little tricky, for the most part it’s really easy and…fun!
We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry by G.K. Beale. Yes it is a simultaneously daunting and awesome as the title implies.
Jimmy Eat World - Clarity (Live). I used to listen to Clarity on repeat in the record store I worked at 10 years ago. For me, and a lot of other Jimmy Eat World fans, this is their defining record. The band finally did a tour where they played the whole album from front to back. The highlight for me on this record though is “What I Would Say To You Now”, a single from a split 7” they did with Jejune prior to Clarity.
Reunions from Sunny Day Real Estate and Far. What?! Joe Miskov where are you?
Here We Are Now, Entertain Us
On the left, a rock icon. On the right, a pastor.
I know what you’re thinking, “Wait, that’s not Bono!” (Actually, that’s probably not what you’re thinking, but he’s the rock star most people would associate with a conversation about faith.) I recently wrote a short blog for Conversant comparing Kurt Cobain, the singer of Nirvana, and Pastor Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Aside from their hometown and an affinity for a little facial hair, they share a few similar traits; the most significant of which is being an underdog that comes out of nowhere (the Northwest) to shake up the mainstream. You can read the piece by clicking on the link above.
A Piggyback Commute
Kim and I have been working on a short TV series for the largest cable news station in M*ngolia, Eagle TV - think of it like the Fox News of M*ngolia. The show will be similar to a TV news magazine like Dateline/48 Hours and we will be telling stories that are, truly, foreign to us from America and the West. We will tell the stories of a Christian minority.
It would be hard for me to imagine if I hadn’t been living here for the past year, but in M*ngolia less than 2% of the population are Christians and those who do become Christians regularly face oppression or persecution from the Buddhist and atheist majority - both remnants of occupations by their Russian and Chinese neighbors. Christianity is seen as a “foreign” religion and so the hostility comes more from a nationalistic place than anything.
What we want to do is find stories of people whose lives have been changed by Christ and who have overcome obstacles that we in America will never have to face. All of the stories so far have been harrowing, but I really wanted to briefly share the one we heard today.
Nara began by telling us that before she was a Christian she felt lonely and hopeless.
She gave birth to her third child 2 months early; a 2.8lb baby boy. When the baby was born the doctors told her that he was too small to live and immediately wrapped him in white cloths and took him away so they could let him die. Nara begged for her son back and, thankfully, they gave the baby back to his mother.
It turns out that her son was born with a disability similar to cerebral palsy that was accompanied by severe seizures daily. The concerned mother told us how she took her son to every doctor available to her in the remote area where she lived (down by the Gobi desert) and that eventually the doctor bills became overwhelming to the point that she needed to sell her family’s ger (home) and land to pay for treatment.
Her husband was angry that they had a disabled son - disabled children are seen as a curse - and that it was costing so much to care for him. Most of Nara’s own family also ostracized her and her son because of his disability. Because of those tensions her husband left her; leaving her as a single mother with no home, no land, and no job to care for 3 young boys, one of them severely disabled. It got to the point where she and her boys were consistently living on less than $24/month.
In utter desperation she went to more doctors, to Buddhist llamas, and to anyone who offered help for her son. None of it helped.
The story continued as they became Christians and, though they struggled for fourteen years, God provided in amazing ways; from healing (his daily seizures have ceased) to answered prayer to the most basic daily needs being provided from friends, her sister in another city, and strangers.
At the end of her story though, Kim was in tears and I was fighting them back. Her son goes to the school for disabled children that Kim volunteers at so she knows him well. Nara told us how every day she gives her son a piggy back ride from their ger to the taxi stand (not a short walk) to catch a ride to the school. The piggy back rides not only help him strengthen his legs and arms, but they give the mother and son cherished time together. She said that on those daily walks, they talk and pray together. After a short pause, Nara said with a shaky voice that no one ever, in all of her life, has said as kind and loving l things as her son whispers to her as he clings to her back.
“I have the most wonderful mother”, he says softly. “I have such a beautiful mother.”
She said that she sees not only how God has blessed their family in shocking and tangible ways, but she sees how God has loved her through her son and how He has loved her son through her. The loneliness and hopelessness that she felt when she first had her son, and as they went through all of those difficult years together, has been replaced by joy, gratitude, faith, and hope.
