“Uzuruspete! Pirerif akonchen! Break time over!” I jerk awake from my 10-minute nap. It takes me a few seconds to get my bearings: ah, yes. I’m working at an archaeological dig in Kazakhstan. “Get back to work! God loves you!” The voice added. It’s impossible to become bitter towards such a cheerful and positive person, even if he is the one making sure we work.
I slowly stand up and walk over to my grave, literally. What is my life right now? I’m helping excavate a 12th century cemetery of ancient Nestorian Christians. We wake up every day at 4:30 am, eat breakfast at 5, and are starting work at the dig by 6 am, to avoid the heat of the day.
My mind drifts back to earlier that day. I was scraping my tomb and my Russian site director was talking to me franticly in Russian, motioning me to stand up. Flustered, I wondered what was wrong? Am I not scraping deep enough? Am I scraping too deep? Am I contaminating the Asian bones with too much of my European DNA?? My friend who speaks Russian came over and translated for me: “He says you should not sit directly on the ground, or else you won’t be able to bear children.”
Oh. Hmm. I had heard of this Central Asian superstition a few days earlier, but didn’t really think anyone would say that to me. But this man was seriously concerned for my future descendants. I nodded and reached for the mat he had brought for me.“Prostite” (Sorry), I said. Little did I know, I would hear mention of this belief nearly every day (apparently I sit on the ground a lot!)
I sit on my mat in the scorching sun, and start scraping away at my grave again. Fifty minutes from now, I will again hear the call, “Uzulis! Pirerif! Break time!”
I had the joy of helping with a number of different jobs at the dig: the first few days, I helped at the sift, looking for pottery and bone fragments. Then for a few days, I worked at the site mentioned above, scraping with a trowel and sometimes dental tools, looking for bones and pottery. Then, I started at another site that had already been dug about 5 feet deep: I used a pick to dig the hole even deeper, and got to excavate several skeletons. I also alternated these days staying at the house washing and labeling the artifacts. This really was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
The workers at the dig included American, Australian, and Kazakh archaeologists, and volunteers including Kazakh believers and Americans, some who have lived there for a while, and some who came just for the dig. I found it very encouraging to see local believers and get to worship with them, and hear their testimonies!
One day, after a long 8 hours at the dig, I sat in the yard, playing worship on my guitar. One of the local believers came over and sat with me and sang worship songs with me! He said he had learned the songs last year, from the volunteers that came to the dig. Worshipping with this Kazakh believer reminded me of how Jesus really does surpass cultural barriers.
We were in a tiny village, where they never see Americans. They couldn’t comprehend the fact that we didn’t know Russian. The village kids loved to yell, “HELLO!!” at us! Every day, we had to walk to a spring to get drinking water. It was very common for us to see donkeys freely roaming the gravel roads, and randomly let out a loud “hee-haw, hee-haw”!
Here is a video of what a day in our life looked like at the Dig!
