What’s up y’all? Just wanted to start this by saying thanks to everyone who donated. I am currently in Mongolia. I have been here for almost a week. I am out with a new squad and I am a part of the leadership team that our awesome mentor has pieced together. I’ll be out for five months so if you need me you know kind of where I am. Anyways a lot has been going on but this just happened and I wrote a little to process and share. Don’t forget Gods good and he loves you.
About three hours ago I was halfway asleep, eating dinner in our new hosts home. I remember wanting nothing more than to go to bed. Now I’m soaking wet praising God for the multiple miracles that just occurred. I would have been asleep by now if it weren’t for our host Bolgi, pronounced Bowl-Gee. As we were preparing to do the dishes he said that the women will do it because the men needed to go help a poor friend of the church. A storm was rolling in. Ive been here a week and seen some rain but nothing like this. Walking out the back door of the church I was staring at the dark but I knew large fields were hiding right behind the darkness. Lightning struck and the sky lit up. For a second you could see all of the fields, yerts (Mongolian tent homes), and the mountains that are encircling us. Probably one of the coolest things I’ve gotten to see. But we didn’t have time to stare, our host was on a mission. We rushed to the green house and went in the back. We had to move a toilet out of the way, which is comical because I haven’t used one the whole time I’ve been here yet they have them laying around in back rooms, so we could grab a furnace. So we grab the furnace and race to the car. Two of us load it up while another two are trying to break the metal chimney down to fit into the car. We all get in the car. Our host tells us to get out. So we do. We chase him around the house and property until he pulls out a chop saw.
We head to the back. At this time the storm is just out of reach and we can see it heading for us. We all began to pray it would hold off for a little longer. Our host takes us to his lumber stack and we begin to pull out pieces of thin scrap wood to make fire wood with. After Hudson, the team lumber jack, pulls out about 20 pieces we begin the cutting process. Eric’s on the saw, he’s like a taller me, cutting like a madman. TJ, he’s from Illinois and loves it, is feeding wood into the saw. I’m stuffing wood into a sack while Bolgi is tearing this wood apart with an axe. The most precise and quick cuts I have ever seen getting centimeters away from his fingers on each strike. We get the wood cut and head to the car.
As soon as we get in the car it begins to rain. Lol at Gods timing. Something to also keep in mind in the upcoming lines is that this church and the man we are going to see are both located off of extremely poor kept dirt roads. And it begins pouring. Anyways, the boys are loaded up in this Prius with two sacks of wood and furnace. The chimney is poking over my shoulder and I’m keeping it from smacking either myself or the window. To say I’m shocked at how far we got due to our vehicle is an understatement. In fact, if I didn’t know how big our God was I would have thought it impossible. The whole time the car is praying that we don’t get stuck. We’re driving through massive puddles and hitting dead end after another. Bolgi keeps praying while also wiping the steam from the inside of his window.
Eventually, we make it to our destination. We pull up to a yert in the middle of a gravel lot. The yert is obviously in bad shape. There are holes in the tarp and no chimney stack. Bolgi takes us inside. At first it’s dark and I can’t see anything. And then I see it. Inside of this circular tent is a small child sized sink. Some water bottles. A table with some moldy soup. And then a man on a bed. Water is dripping from the ceiling ever five feet and directly on top of him. He’s laying on a flat cot with nothing but a small blanket and a plastic tarp on top of him. He opens his eyes to see who’s come in and his right eye is gone. I’ve seen my fair share of dirty looking older men and this guy is right at the top. He’s covered in dirt and has black all over his hands.
The scene hits me like a ton of bricks. It hit everyone. This man is all alone. In the middle of this lot. In the middle of a thunderstorm. His roofs leaking, he’s freezing cold and he is all alone in the dark under a tarp. To say that I was less than thrilled to be running around at 8:30 after a long day is kind of me. I wasn’t. I wasn’t happy to go do whatever this man wanted us to do and in that yert I felt it. This is literally kingdom on earth. The exact reason we have been placed here. The phrase I was created for a time such as this have never resonated more with me. And our host Bolgi knew it. He gets kingdom. He gets what Christ did for us. So we fixed the yert. We took all the ropes off the outside. We threw a new tarp over it. Put a blanket on top of it. Strapped everything down. Then moved inside to put the fire place in for him. We got a fire going, another miracle because we didn’t even bring a lighter and we knew it halfway through. All of this because this Mongolian man just wont quit. If you call Bolgi in the middle of a thunderstorm with and impossible task he will show you how big his God is. He will show you true unconditional love looks like. He will show you a glimpse of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. I probably left out a ton of crucial details but I’m processing and sitting. Here’s the main idea of my yammering. God is good. His love is good. He doesn’t leave his children alone. When you are under the tarp, freezing in the dark and the storm is raging, you aren’t alone. I also start to question what the world would be like if more men started acting like men. Standing up for the elderly, the widows and the orphans. Leaving the comfort of their home for a few hours to do what no one else will. Because there are very few men like Bolgi and he is changing the world but it’s not how you would think it looks. It’s kingdom. It’s upside down. It’s the one old man who’s lost and eye and probably can’t give much to anyone. But it doesn’t matter. He’s a child of God.
