If you’ve been wondering what a typical day in the life in Mongolia looks like here’s a recap of my day yesterday:
It all started with my personal prayer and reading time, like usual. Then as a team we met together to have worship and a feedback session (time where we encourage eachother on how we’ve been and how to keep growing). Afterwards we spent time praying and planning logistical things for our Chinese visas and for our last couple weeks in Mongolia.
Next, we ventured out on our usual walk to the local market which is about half a mile away to restock for the next few days. We lugged our groceries back to the apartment and on our way in, met a few young kids playing at the park. After unloading, I headed back downstairs to the park to make up a weight routine/circuit out of the park equipment and my resistance bands.
While there I noticed one of the girls we had met a little bit ago still lingering around the park. It was just me and her this time so we kept making eye contact between my sets. About 20 minutes into my routine she took off around the side of the building. I thought nothing of it until a minute later she marched right up to me with a small green popsicle in hand and held it up for me to take. My heart melted when I looked down at her innocent eyes. I felt so loved by the girl’s desire to go and buy this and offer it to me. We went and sat on a bench and talked as much as we could through the Mongolian-English language barrier until her parents came and picked her up. I was able to get her mom’s phone number so that she could text me and have since enjoyed both a “Good night” and “Good morning” text from my new 10-year old friend.
After finishing working out, Talia, Landry and I headed to the bus station to figure out our way to the university across town. We had made plans to meet up with a friend we met at a shop last week as she had invited us to a fellowship night for believers on campus. Thankfully it was a painless treasure hunt to the pinned location we were given and once we arrived we were met with English worship music blaring through the speaker system, a pretty rare find in a foreign country. Half-way through the service I joked with Talia that Landry and I had voted for her to go up on stage and introduce us after the sermon and not more than 3 minutes later we found all three of ourselves at the front of the auditorium saying hello to the audience (haha). Every person in the room then lined up to shake our hands and sing a song over us. Afterwards, we broke up into smaller groups for discussion time and I got to talking to a freshman from Afghanistan. This is crazy because I met tons of Afghans during my time at the refugee camp in Greece a few months ago so we had a special connection right off the bat! He shared how he came to know Jesus just this year when he came to his first fellowship and felt some kind of love hit his heart. He’s been on fire getting to know who Jesus is and reading Scripture ever since and although it was a sweet testimony filled with love there was plenty of pain and hurt that he shared he has been facing from his Muslim family back at home. I got to pray over him and encourage him (which honestly felt more encouraging for my own heart) and then I found out that he’s going to be in Korea this summer overlapping the same time I will be there! We exchanged numbers so we could try and meet up again while in Seoul!
After discussion I chatted with the girl who had invited us and asked about her roommate. I find out that her roommate doesn’t attend fellowship because she’s blind and Buddhist. My heart leapt at the idea of going to spend some time with her and she happened to be just around the corner in the building so the four of us headed over to say hi. We had some light conversation for a few minutes and then I felt led to ask to pray for her eyes to be healed. One of their classmates was also sitting with us so all of us joined hands in praying. It was such a sweet moment together. We exchanged numbers to stay in touch, said our good-byes, and went on our way back home.
We stood in the freezing cold Mongolian wind for about 40 minutes waiting on our 65 bus to show before deciding to grab a taxi back. When we arrive home sometime around 10pm we are greeted by our 4 other teammates who set the table and prepared a Mexican burrito bowl feast WITH mango salsa AND avocado!!! We shared the day’s stories and laughed together around the table before Talia passed out in her chair.
Every day on the Race looks a little different but the constant no matter if we are here in Mongolia on this trip or home in the States going to work, is that God is always there with us surrounding us with His love. Oooo He is SO good.
