{"id":2173,"date":"2016-12-05T02:37:50","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T02:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/index.php\/2016\/12\/05\/the-struggle-would-i-make-it-here\/"},"modified":"2016-12-05T02:37:50","modified_gmt":"2016-12-05T02:37:50","slug":"the-struggle-would-i-make-it-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/2016\/12\/05\/the-struggle-would-i-make-it-here\/","title":{"rendered":"The struggle: Would I make it here?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I remember standing by the window of our kitchen on the sixth floor of our run- down apartment building overlooking a good portion of Ulaanbaatar\u2019s 3rd<\/sup> and 4th<\/sup> micro-district.\u00a0 I could see the building behind us was painted in baby blue with paint peeling; a mighty dust bowl was stirring up between the buildings.\u00a0 I saw the swirling dust and the cold hard packed icy ground littered with broken glass.\u00a0 Fifty five degrees inside the kitchen and 10 below outside. Looking out, I realized my family\u2019s livelihood all depended on me.\u00a0<\/strong> If I didn\u2019t go out into the cold, face the wind, bite my lip, and hunt down some food we would starve.\u00a0 Already we were getting very thin. My mother who had always wanted me to lose weight saw a photo of me and panicked.\u00a0 \u201cAre you all right, dear?\u201d<\/p>\n

There was an egg scare, a bread shortage, long lines in the food shops.\u00a0 I was the closest to poverty I\u2019d ever been, understood the heart of millions of mother\u2019s across this planet who wonder where their family\u2019s next meal would come from.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was truly alone for the first time in my life.\u00a0 Oh yes, I lived in Mongolia with my husband and children, but it was the first time I was stripped of everything that made me who I was.<\/p>\n

My husband was fighting battle of his own, having been a vibrant preacher and teacher, he was reduced to babbling like a one-year-old in the Mongolian language.\u00a0<\/strong> My children found their strength in us and were probably oblivious to the battles of the heart and mind that were going on inside of the adults in their lives.<\/p>\n

\n
\u00a0I was alone, and was trying to figure out how to \u2026 survive this.\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019d learn to be content and that would be a fringe benefit\u2026But\u2026I found even more.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

For, in missionary service I had left behind family and friends, homes, clubs, organizations, titles, and\u00a0 routines that made me who I was.\u00a0 Little did I know that I would also leave the things that defined who I was as a Christian.\u00a0\u00a0 I would have to abandon many things that fed by soul:\u00a0 the Sunday School class I taught, set down the hymn book, the ladies bible studies, the Sunday worship service, the Christian radio, Christian music, books and magazines, the preaching of the Word.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had ventured out to Outer Mongolia with my family and just my Bible.\u00a0 And the one with really small print.\u00a0 Would I make it?\u00a0 Would it be enough?\u00a0 Others have heard this sort of story before and would say, \u201cI couldn\u2019t do that.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad you can.\u00a0 But I couldn\u2019t.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad God called you and not me!\u201d<\/p>\n

But you could.\u00a0 And you will.\u00a0 You will most likely face some sort of suffering some sort of poverty of soul, depletion of resources or strength.\u00a0 Some absence of friend, spouse or health.\u00a0 And you will make it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few months into our work in Mongolia,\u00a0 I\u00a0 found a verse in Psalm 119 that said,<\/p>\n

\u201cEstablish my footsteps in your Word\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I knew that this would be the key to my longevity.<\/strong>\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t fall into despair (though maybe into an open manhole which are so prevalent over there) if I was in His word.<\/p>\n

I had engaged in several years of hard word for God in my previous churches always knowing I should be in God\u2019s Word more and praying more.\u00a0 But I was always failing, always doing it like we go about flossing our teeth.\u00a0 Because someone tells us we have to.\u00a0 But we are not thoroughly convinced we\u2019ll lose our teeth without it.<\/p>\n

Convinced that it would be God\u2019s Word that would keep me sane, I started reading the Word every morning.\u00a0<\/strong> I didn\u2019t have a desk, just a plastic lid I would slip out from underneath my bed. In it I had my miniature Bible and a pen and a notebook.\u00a0 I would read the Word and cling to it.\u00a0 \u201cI will make it here.\u00a0 I think I can, I think I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

I would read the Word.\u00a0<\/strong> Just a couple of verses. I would stop and pray that the Lord would make those verses true in my life.\u00a0 That\u2019s all I had the strength for.\u00a0 And slowly, His Word became alive!\u00a0 He was using the Word to strengthen me like I\u2019d never experienced before.\u00a0 And so began a connection to Him, God the Creator of this universe!<\/p>\n

\n
\u00a0Before I talked about Him in Sunday School, heard Him sung about by Christian artists, took him out of my pocket every week to analyze Him and praise Him on Sunday, knew how to become one of His children, but never got so close to Him to hear Him speak to me.\u00a0 I used to be jealous of others I read about who seemed to know God intimately. They had something more than I did.\u00a0 And I knew the problem wasn\u2019t God.\u00a0 Somehow it was me that was holding Him at arms length<\/strong>. <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

But now I sat quiet enough, long enough for Him to transform me.\u00a0 Right there in that \u201cghetto apartment.\u201d \u00a0It was just me and Him and my Bible, and I would never be the same.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Please share this post with someone going through tough times or is adjusting to a new and very different place in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more about The Stages of Acculutration
\n<\/a>\u00a0 Read about the toughest stage called Culture Shock with Diamonds in the Dump
\n<\/a>\u00a0 Read about my hardest day in Mongolia Fahrenheit Meets Celsius<\/p>\n

<\/a>Welcome<\/a> to you if you are new to World So Bright!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember standing by the window of our kitchen on the sixth floor of our run- down apartment building overlooking a good portion of Ulaanbaatar\u2019s 3rd and 4th micro-district.\u00a0 I could see the building behind us was painted in baby blue with paint peeling; a mighty dust bowl was stirring up between the buildings.\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,8],"tags":[25,128,163],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldsobright.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}