Wide streams rushing into wider and faster rivers finding the quickest coarse to an open valley, flowing from humbling white mountains in every direction and beyond. The wilderness beneath us is hard to define. I get chills imagining myself attempting to survive in it but I can’t help but picture myself down there the entire time. The climate is completely untamable, an unpredictable monster waiting to be challenged and unforgiving when nature takes advantage.
Flying to the Western Mongolian town of Olgii to meet Taylor and Liz Ross along with their five beautiful children, (Dickson, Chene, Cana, Lila and Shepherd) was truly something to remember. This flight gave me a new perspective of what our God is capable of. He is beyond boundaries and limits within his creativity and expression of might and power. His canvas is moving and ever changing, painting pictures that help us understand who he is. Over and over again, God allows us to see new things in hope that we may find him and seek him with joy and wonder.
Joey and I curiously look down at the city littered with pastel colored tin roofs, sprouting from the valley in a bowl of mountains like captain crunch pebbles waiting to be scooped up and engulfed. We laughed together at the beauty of this city that God has called us to partner in. A local Kazakh man drives a squeaky wagon with our backpacks from the single plane that comes in and out of the capital, Ulaanbaatar. The wagon squeaks and struggles across the barren runway like an inchworm, slow yet strangely consistent.
Taylor picked us up and he told us of his mission and involvement with the community here over the last three years. We tried to listen as we see trash blowing in the wind along with dead goats on the road freezing in the cold, electrical lines dangerously strung everywhere, desperate cows eating diapers and smoke rising from the rooftops of colorful “hasha’s” (Kazakh Houses). This is our home and our family for the next couple of weeks.
Most mornings Taylor comes to the seventh floor of the small apartment building that we are renting from an american english teacher who happened to be out of town during our stay. We take our time and look out the cold frosted window over the city and talk about God. We pray over the day and each other, we flick through our Bibles and embrace the rare coffee brought in from Russia, and the not so rare tea that locals sip on throughout the day. I learned a lot during this time. I was able to hear these two grown men, (each with five children of their own), love on each other and discuss passionately ways to let others know who they are through the love of Jesus. How to listen to the spirit of our God and faithfully encourage vulnerably without fear. Powerful!
We bundled up each morning, looking like sumo wrestlers and walked the streets past weary cattle grazing in dried up flowerbeds and locals going to school and work. We said hello in Kazakh and smiled as they stared up at 6’7″ Bearded, White Man Joey Myers. We walked to the wood shop each day where we met up with a group of local carpenters whom we would quickly grow to love and laugh with each day. These guys have become good friends and family to Taylor and his wife Liz. The majority of them are believers in Jesus and their faith is new and fresh with testimonies that ring into the western ear in a humbling and attractive tone. It is with these men and their families that we worked on building a staircase and learned with them each day. We drank tea with them, practiced English and Kazakh with them, laughed with them, prayed with them, ate goat and horse with them and shared encouragement with them.
For dinner each night Joey and I would go home with Taylor. We rode up the elevator to their apartment and impersonated the funny Asian accented lady programmed to say, “Wercome to zi sixfth floor”. We entered their warm apartment and shaved off our many layers and spent each night playing, eating and fellowshipping with the Ross family. The Ross family, along with their pet hedge hog Tutsi, is a family living life by the Spirit. They arrived in rural western Mongolia after being kicked out of the work they were doing in Russia. They live their life with their children and community by going to the Father in prayer. They listen to what he has to say and following in what they hear. I will always be thankful for those evenings beat boxing with the kids, making up songs on the guitar, eating traditional Mongo meals and freely laughing at and with each other.
As I fly over the ocean somewhere between Seoul, South Korean and San Fransisco I know with confidence that we served our purpose in Mongolia. We were able to help build a staircase for a family that truly deserves it, we played soccer and laughed with tough kids, we spoke to locals about their identity in Christ. But if I was able to only take one thing away from the trip and say that it was our purpose in going, I would say that purpose was to bring laughter, joy and silliness in the name of Jesus to those they may have needed it, at just the right time.
