Greetings from Mongolia. This blog is appropriately named adagio because times seem a bit lackadaisical. Adagio does mean slow, but it’s a fluid slow. It’s a slowness that requires great skill. I love picking these random musical terms and seeing that they actually fit. You better believe I’m giving myself a high five right now.
Let’s start from the last time you heard from me before I go off on another musical term tangent and start talking about some guy from elementary school.
We left Baruun Urt almost two weeks ago now. I will now describe some significant happenings in the days leading up to our departure…
We had an open mic night in which we brought down the house with “Baby” by Justin Bieber and “Aaron’s Party” by Aaron Carter. We had everybody on their feet at one point. And then the cops came and told us that the people on either side of us called and complained about the noise.
Katrina and I cleaned the ceiling of the kitchen. This was quite comical because the ladder we used was held together by an apron. At one point, I accidentally spilled water on a plug near the stove and we heard sparking noises. Nobody blinked an eye but I was internally tearing my hair out the entire time.
In order to keep everyone informed and on the same page, I have had to use a squatty potty. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought. Will I ever be as comfortable as the little girl who just hopped off the bus and used the toilet in front of our entire bus? Absolutely not. Do I have any desire to be that comfortable? Absolutely not. Do I think that’s something parents should be teaching their children? That’s beside the point, but you pose a great question.
I made notecards for all of my students for their last day of English class. Earlier in the week, we all discussed what our dream job was and where we each wanted to live someday. So on the notecard I told them I would be praying for that job and that I’d see them in whatever place they chose. And then I gave them a word that I felt like the Lord wanted to encourage them with. I ended it with “you are loved.” At the very end of class, they all asked to take pictures with me. I felt like a celebrity. Jesus is the real celebrity, though, to clarify. My ego was not that inflated.
I baked different things throughout the week because baking soothes me and because I thought it’d be a nice treat for our friends. Turns out, I must be a pretty good baker because our host asked me for a book of MY recipes. I mean I DID just end my prolific career with Le Cordon Bleu, but that story is for another time…
Our last night there, they threw us a going away party. It was the sweetest thing. They each went around the table and encouraged us and prayed for us. They even sang us a Mongolian song called “God’s Princesses.”
I am sincerely going to miss our family in Baruun Urt. I’ll miss our friend Happy, who always greeted us with a smile and a “good morning!” When we asked him “how are you?” he’d answer, “I’m Happy!” Our friend Buka, who would sit and talk to us about her dream of getting married in Paris and would work 7 am until midnight most days and not complain. Our friend Iktor, who always made us laugh and followed it with “its joke!” and handed us his baby at the most random times. Our friend Esther, who handed us this same baby at random times and said “I pee” and gave us a sly smile. Our friend Smiley, who knew how to break a horse but could also play Justin Bieber on the guitar. Our young friend Khulan, who yelled “good morning!” to us from across the hallway and diligently took care of children day in and day out as a 13 year old girl.
There are others I didn’t mention, but we left feeling encouraged and loved by them all. I will continue to keep them in my prayers and I anticipate hearing of all the ways the Lord will move in their community.
We went straight into debrief after leaving Baruun Urt. Debrief is where we meet up with the entire squad and talk about the last month.
Debrief was super restful but challenging. The Lord showed me that there were a lot of things I was holding too tightly to that I didn’t trust Him with. It’s going to take a while to fully surrender these things, but at least I now have an awareness of what those things are.
I realized that I have this problem of always feeling bad and never feeling like I’m doing enough for people. The other day, I was carrying way more than I needed to on the way home from the grocery store. One of my teammates said “Hailey, give one of those things to me. Nobody is gonna love you more just because you’re carrying all that. I can’t love you more than I already do right now.” I thought to myself “dang, really? They won’t?”
All these years I’ve been working so hard to earn people’s affection rather than just let them love me freely. And I realized I’ve made other people live up to my expectations too, rather than just love them freely. On top of all THAT, I set so many expectations on myself, rather than love myself freely. What even is that – a triple standard?
I love this quote from Charles Spurgeon: “We complain, ‘Lord, my heart is so hard.’ ‘I will love you freely.’ ‘But I do not feel my need of Christ as I could wish.’ ‘I will not love you because you feel your need; I will love you freely.’”
So you’re saying… even when I don’t feel like reading my Bible or journaling or carrying 20 pounds of groceries or sharing my snack with everyone… He still loves me freely? And out of that I can love myself freely? And out of that I can love others freely? Shoot.
It’s crazy how much my mind is oriented towards what I can do for God rather than what God wants to do for me. I automatically feel selfish when I ask the Lord to show me intentional ways He loves me. That ain’t right. Matthew 7:11.
We learned about spiritual pathways at debrief, which are basically ways we see God the most in our lives. And mine was serving. Which means, I feel closest to the Lord when I am doing things for others. If I’m not doing things for others, I basically feel selfish and worthless. That ain’t right either.
Our team does feedback often but recently we did something called “super feedback” which is where you share something you see your teammate doing well and an area they can “improve in.” Most of my feedback went along the lines of, “Hailey, it’s okay to say no. It’s okay to let others serve you from time to time. Practice asking for what you want at least once a day.”
The Lord might be trying to tell me something here… Sheesh I’m tellin’ ya what.
Another one of my spiritual pathways is creation, which means I see the Lord a lot in nature. There is beauty to be seen here, for sure. But for some reason, there isn’t much value placed on aesthetics. They don’t pull the weeds or mow the grass or plant many flowers/ trees or put trash in the trash can. It bothers me a lot more than I thought it would. But it makes sense now that I know this about myself!
So there you have it. Hailey is learning to give herself grace and find beauty in the unnatural.
I may have sounded a bit hard on myself throughout this post. But I’m actually excited about the things the Lord is showing me about my character. Like it says in Isaiah… He will comfort all my waste places. And in Hosea… He will lead me into the wilderness and speak gently to me there. Jesus and I are still in the diner, having a nice coffee together. And He’s just saying… Hailey, I know who I made you to be. Let me show you how much I love you.
As for feeling lackadaisical, I will leave you with two quotes from two of my favorite men, Charles Spurgeon and Oswald Chambers.
“Don’t always expect God to give you His thrilling moments, but learn to live in those common times of drudgery of life by the power of God. I must realize that my obedience even in the smallest detail of life has all the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If I will do my duty, not for duty’s sake but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience all of the magnificent grace of God is mine through the glorious atonement by the Cross of Christ.” O. Cham
“Whatever God has made your position, or your work, abide in that, unless you are quite sure that He calls you to something else. Let your first care be to glorify God to the utmost of your power where you are. Fill your present sphere to His praise, and if He needs you in another He will show it to you. Lay aside vexatious ambition, and embrace peaceful content.” C. Spurg
Praise God He is still with me in Mongolia. I’m gonna keep glorifying Him and serving Him here until the door to China is open.
Love y’all. Thanks for reading. Pray that China has drip coffee. I can’t do this Americano thing anymore.
