Not really summer - although temps hit near 80F here today (update: the day after we returned to the city it snowed!), which is quite warm for this time of the year.
Jonathan and Cori are heading back to the States with grandparents for the summer in about two weeks. Therefore I wanted to take this weekend to make a camping opportunity for Jonathan and I. So I packed the car with provisions for the night, along with Jonathan and six friends. We didn’t really have a game plan, per se. We headed to a community south of Ulaanbaatar called Zuunmod, which literally means 100 trees. After a bit of off road driving (meaning … no road, head through the fields and dodge large boulders, deep pits and sheep), we found a nice forested area on the mountainside. With a little ‘under-the-table’ dealing with a park ranger (we technically weren’t supposed to camp there this time of the year), we settled in for a night of cooking over the camp fire, climbing up to the top of the small peak we were camped beneath - and the boys played a fantastic after dark game of "Mission Impossible". Here are a couple of shots of our camp site for this week’s Friday photos (even though it is Sunday now…).
Now we are camped up and ready to receive a visit from Renee’s parents on Wednesday night! Ten days later we lose both kids to the US for six weeks. I am excited and grateful they have the opportunity to go back and reconnect with friends and family (a little jealous, actually). On the other hand, we sure will miss them both.Â
I am happy for the fun and memories of this weekend with my son.Â
May 25th, 2008
The past month or two have been some of the most difficult that we have faced since coming to Mongolia. The enemy seems to be working overtime to get us to quit - or at the very least to sink us in a mire of discouragement and despair. I feel that we have been battered on the rocks and are having to really make a conscious effort to place our hope and our trust in Christ. Relationships have been under fire and I fear that some have been forever tainted.
These kinds of attacks have me thinking a lot about my relationships and, specifically, the kinds of relationships I would like to be in for my own spiritual health and well being. Obviously friendships come at many different levels. I married the best friend I’ve ever known - and frankly I am happy that I share my journey through this life with her. In one year we will have been walking this road for twenty years together. I am really grateful for her friendship, companionship and love. It’s a constant. It’s a covenant. Our friendship with each other has been the one stabilizing factor over the past two years (and really for the better part of 20 years).
In spite of this, we have both felt the reality and the loneliness of friendlessness, which has given way to a lot of thought about what a real friendship should look like.
A few years ago I did some research about a concept in ancient Celtic Christian spirituality called ‘anam chara’. No, this is not a Mongolian word. It is actually a Gaelic word. The Mongolian word for this would be something like ’setgliin naits’. The best English translation is probably ’soul friend’.
I will not get into the different ideas of what a ’soul friend’? looks like in the modern era. There are several books written on the subject - some better than others. Some writers say that in ancient times this was like a modern mentor/mentee relationship. Some say it’s more like a coach. Some put it into the same category as a spiritual director. I personally think it can be something of all these things … and more.
The relational rough waters and friendlessness over the past months (and even two years) has me thinking a lot about what a “Soul Friend� relationship should look like. In fact, this summer (July 1-4), I will be teaching some of this at the CAMA Mongolia church leadership camp. So it is good to begin thinking through now.
1. Mutual. Many writers say that the idea of soul friendship is not one of mutual friendship. It’s more of finding someone who is older, smarter and wiser than you and connecting with them and being open, available and vulnerable. Your soul friend would then have no obligation to be such with you. I don’t agree with that perspective. I take the side of those who argue that it is a relationship of mutuality. Mutual submission. Mutual vulnerability. Mutual availability. I know that there may or may not be historical evidence of this (I think that there may be, but I will let those better versed in ancient Celtic church history duke that out somewhere else). In this day and age, my personal vision for this is one of mutuality. In other words, the idea of a soul friendship is the idea of a ‘two way street’?.
2. Trust. I don’t think this can be overemphasized. Soul friendship is a relationship that is based on trust. One of the key elements of a soul friendship (at least as I understand it) is vulnerability. The exposed soul is vulnerable and unprotected. The soul friend is someone who will handle the soul with care and point the heart back to God. A friend like this will not take advantage or use vulnerability as leverage for his or her own purposes later. Trust in a relationship also has to do with the ability to truthfully expose issues in one another’s life (the things we know are there, but are blinded to), but to do it in a way that will build the relationship and not tear it down. I have to know that this friend is not going to ditch me once he knows my rough spots and I am exposed for what’s really there. Trust is huge. It’s also very difficult to find.
3. Confession. The soul friendship is the place where the spiritual discipline of confession should regularly take place. This was a big difference between the Roman Church and the Celtic church. Confession was not something that was done solely with clergy. The doctrine of the priesthood of the believers was alive and well in fifth and sixth century Ireland. Your ‘confessor’ was your soul friend. Evangelicals have relegated ‘confession’ to a Roman Catholic rite, and not something important enough to fit into our religious practice. I believe that is one of the reasons for modern evangelical superficiality and silliness. Contemporary evangelical spirituality would look quite different if we actually practiced the spiritual discipline of confession. Not with a priest, but rather with a soul friend.
4. Life-long traveling companions. Much like the culture we are in midst of now, the ancient Celts were nomadic by nature. (I am finding there to be many similarities between ancient Celtic culture and Mongolian culture. Perhaps someday I will post those similarities in article form.) The idea of a soul friend was that of ‘traveling companion’. It was someone who would be with you on your spiritual journey until the end, and you crossed into the ‘better city’. The soul friend is someone who is to be trusted throughout a whole lifetime. You are, in essence, traveling companions. I love this idea.
I personally love this idea. However, it is not something that we have experienced to any kind of fullness. So far in my life relationships have taken on a more disconnected character, and tend to be relegated to location. I hope that at some point in the relatively short time I have left on this earthly journey, we have the privilege and opportunity to walk in this kind of relationship with another fellow traveler.
May 19th, 2008
Last week Renee’ and I had an enjoyable time hosting a vision team from Crossroads Fellowship in Clarksville, TN. We were able to take them to see various parts of the C&MA work in Darhan, Erdenet and Bulgan - as well as share future ministry possibilities here in Ulaanbaatar.ÂÂ
There are a lot of fun stories that I could tell here (from "Bobble-Head" to horse-guts. You probably had to be there), but I there was one incident that was most memorable (for me, anyway). We were visiting Jeremy and Renee’ Bergevin in Bulgan. My friends Larry and Melissa, along with Jeremy, Renee’, Baby Clara and I went on a mission. I have a friend in language school who met a nomadic herding family outside of Bulgan. She wanted me to take them a gift and letter. The problem is that finding a nomadic herding family can prove to be a little tricky because they’re … well … nomadic. One never really knows where a nomadic family might be at any given point in time.ÂÂ
The day started with Jeremy and I asking around the market for this particular family. The first people we asked knew exactly who they were. This was a good sign. The sales lady called someone else from across the market. She knew them even better and told us which direction to start heading. "Take the Ulaanbaatar Road toward the town of Urhang and ask around". So we did. We stopped at several gers, in fact. Each person knew who we were looking for and kept pointing us further and further out into the countryside. We finally ended up finding this family in a ger off any main road. We followed a literal cattle path through a field as the snow started to fall in order to get there. But in the end, we found them.ÂÂ
We were treated to classic Mongolian hospitality, with milk tea and bread, cream and jam. The man showed us his 96 head of horses. Melissa got to milk a baby goat whose mother had been eaten by a wolf ten days before, along with two baby goats who were only a couple of days old. It was a good adventure with good memories in the Mongolian outback.
(Jeremy and the husband discussing horses)
May 14th, 2008
This week we enjoyed the company of a vision team from Crossroads Fellowship. They had a great week touring the field, meeting Mongolian believers, and tantalizing the taste buds with various native Mongolian milk and meat products (horse guts, anyone?)
This photo was taken at our apartment while the team was meeting our church leaders in Ulaanbaatar.
May 8th, 2008