Posts filed under 'Bernie's Blog'
After a lot of running around and hassle - and a little help from a friend - we have the sign up at our new student center. People constantly ask what it is that we are doing here. Several have wanted to know if we are opening a bar or a pub. I tell them, “no - just the opposite. We are opening a place for young people to come and study, drink tea or coffee, and hang out with friends.”
It’s called the “Grain of Wheat Student Center”
We now have a lighted sign to let people know who we are.
There will be a quiet opening this Friday, as we finish up repairs and work on operating procedures as well as work out the kinks.
We will hopefully have a grand opening on December 5th.
November 18th, 2008
Friday was a dark day for Inhay and Bodio. Thursday evening their little girl named Itgel (which means “Faith”) was happily laughing and playing as any four-month old baby would normally do. That evening she began to cry and would not be comforted. She began to run a fever. It was a long night for their family. In the morning, Bodio took little Itgel to Dr. Pham (our C&MA team physician). He prayed for her and said to take her to the hospital right away. Pieter Theron had Bodio and Itgel get into his car to get them to hospital, and en route the crying stopped and Itgel went to be with Jesus. We aren’t positive of the cause of death, but in all likelihood meningitis is the culprit that took her life.
Today, as I type this, there is a funeral happening up in Darhan. Our team mate Brent, along with a Mongolian co-worker named Dawaa will be performing the funeral.
Any time a baby dies a lot of questions come to mind - “Why?”, perhaps being one of the first. Babies are not supposed to die. Babies are supposed to laugh and play and get teeth and learn to walk and talk. They are supposed to eventually go to school and get an education and grow up to choose a career and get married and have more babies. Babies are not supposed to have funerals.
This is a hard thing for us to get our minds around. We know the theology. We know what it is true. But it still must be one of the most difficult things on the planet to grasp or to make any sense of.
I am thankful that as Christians who serve the God of all the Universe, we do have some rock solid truth in which to place our faith. God is good. God is wise. God is just. God is ultimately sovereign. God is working everything (even terrible, horrible bad things) for our good. He sees the beginning from the end and dwells outside of time and space. He is for us and not against us. He loves little Itgel and she is now happily laughing and playing in His presence.
I am grateful that the Christian understanding of sovereignty is far different from Mongolia’s predominate religion’s view of sovereignty. When we as Christians ask God “Why?”, we don’t end up in a place of rigid and hopeless stoicism. We end up in the arms of a God who has lived our pain. He knows. He is not a stranger to losing a child. We end up in the arms a Father who weeps with the childless. He’s not a Father who tells us to ‘buck up’ and ‘stop crying’. He grieves and empathizes with Inhay and Bodio today at the funeral of their daughter - and He can do that because He was at the funeral of His Son.
Here’s what has stirred my passions this entire weekend. God is using the death of Itgel to solidify my heart and my determination for working in Mongolia for the long haul. I have the preceding three paragraphs of truth to hold on to when suffering happens in my life. Indeed, I have a lifetime … no … thousands of lifetimes of truth. We in the Western world have 2000 years of Church history and 5000+ years of redemptive history to to help our faith hold when children die, or events of equal or greater tragedy strike our lives. There’s been a church in Mongolia for about 20 years (maximum). The Mongolian church is shallow and has been influenced by the shallow (i.e., heretical) stupid grins of prosperity teachers and their books and false promises. This church needs the ancient foundations laid. Inhay and Bodio don’t need to be told that if they’ll just pray and believe good things (and give their money) that they will have all of God’s blessings. They just want their daughter back … and they need to know that this is not just some random thing that has happened. They need to know the deep truths of God. His goodness. His wisdom. His sovereignty. They need to know what it means to embrace the cross of Christ and to trust, and that in doing that they will find grace and peace and meaning.
Today we weep with our friends.
In the days to come we will need to point them to the depths of God and the historical mountain of truth that enables a soul to be steadied through difficult times. My prayer is that in the end, Inhay and Bodio will indeed find “Itgel” (Faith) in every sense, and that their final word in this will be worship of the One who infinitely loves and infinitely cares.
I personally have a deeper burden than ever for solid foundations in the Mongolian church. This is why we are here. This is why we will stay.
October 27th, 2008
This past summer we gave our kids a reading assignment while they were in the States. As a family we are now spending time each week talking about the book “Do Hard Things” by Alex and Brett Harris. Today as we were having our weekly family discussion, the importance of that Biblical call to do the difficult thing for the name of Christ and the Gospel and the Glory of God, really came home to me.
By the estimation of most, we have done the “hard thing”. We left home and family and country. We studied language. We live with inconvenience and difficulty and frustration all the time. Yet, it is possible to completely waste my life in Mongolia. Maybe as much, if not more that it is possible to waste my life in America. Crossing the ocean doesn’t guarentee that I won’t live a wasted life. In fact, it is frightening for me to think about the fact that I could waste my life while giving the unholy pretense of not wasting it because I live outside of the US comfort zone. There is a sense in which that is is worse because it’s not just a wasted life, it’s a hypocritical wasted life. That is perhaps the greatest misspending of all.
One morning this past week, I was walking and praying - and thinking about some of these things. I was thinking about all the times during this past week when I was grumpy with my family (even though it wasn’t their fault that I was tired) and had hateful thoughts (and a few words) about rude and selfish and bad drivers and harsh words that had been directed at my daughter (who is just trying to wade through being 13). I realized that what came out of me at those times was grotesque, offense, self-indulgent flesh. That’s when I remembered a simple illustration that I’ve known for much of my Christian life. Amy Carmichael uses it in her devastating little book “If”.
“If a sudden jar can cause me to speak an impatient, unloving word, then I know nothing of Calvary love. (For a cup brimful of sweet water cannot spill even one drop of bitter water however suddenly jolted).”
Here is what I’ve determined. I am going to seek every day to be full of Christ. He is sweet water. I am not going to battle unsweetness, and impatience and unlove by taking battling them directly. I will daily ‘be filled’. In the end, I just want people to see Jesus. Not me. Just him. I am pretty confident that it will only be at that point that life is not wasted. The hard thing is daily fellowship, surrender, emptying and filling.
So while we talk to Jonathan and Cori about what it means for them to “do hard things”, the Holy Spirit is challenging me to “do hard things”, as well.
In the end, I pray that Jesus will be seen in all of us.
September 16th, 2008
“Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you”
Crosby, Stills, Nash &Young
Today is July 13, 2008 and my Dad turns 60 today. Some people might be embarrassed and upset if their age was revealed in a public forum like an Internet blog. However, I don’t think my Dad has anything to hide. Whenever our Mongolian friends see pictures of either set of our parents, they are amazed at how young they look. So let that be of some comfort.
I want to dedicate this post to my Dad. I’ve been recently reflecting about the impact that my Dad has had on my character and on my life in general, and I find myself amazed and grateful. Here are just a few reflections, that I hope will honor him during the celebration of his 60th year of life on earth.
We weren’t necessarily a Christian family in the early days. It’s not that we were satan-worshiping, dance-in-a-loin-cloth-under-the-full-moon pagans. It was just a little later in our familial life that God had mercy on all of us. We did go to a couple of little churches on occasion. Both were of the hyper-fundamentalist sort that made guys with a bit of hair over the ear a little uncomfortable (sing: If your hair is too long, there is sin in yer heart…). Nevertheless, I learned a personal spirituality from my father that carries with me to this day. My Dad understood the importance of solitude and prayer, even before he knew the Jesus that he prays to today. Before and after he became a Jesus-follower, I still remember him spending hours in the front yard watering the trees. He wasn’t fooling us though. Sure he likes trees (to this day he likes trees). But all of us knew he wasn’t just watering trees. He was spending time with God. That value is one I still carry with me today.
I can remember being asked to pull the weeds out of the shrubbery that surrounded our house. It wasn’t a fun job. I remember having better things to do (but as I write this, I can’t for the life of me figure out what that was). So I did the job (more or less) and I went to Dad to see if I was finished. I asked the fatal question.
“Is it good enough?”
I learned an important lesson that day. I learned that if a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Don’t do anything “good enough”. Do it well. That summer day pulling weeds out of the bushes was actually an important one for me. I am sure I did plenty of jobs only just “good enough” after that, but my conscience was forever formed that day. “Good enough” is never good enough. Today I put in Biblical terms. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all of your might” Ecclesiastes 9:10. “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men” Colossians 3:23. This has been invaluable to me. I know it’s probably a little mundane to talk about the fact that I learned my work ethic from my father. But the fact is that I did - and for that i am grateful.
I recently purchased a copy of Alex and Brett Harris’s book “Do Hard Things” for each of my kids. I am requiring them to read it over the summer while they are in the US. I actually learned the truth of how to ‘do hard things’ from my Dad. He allowed my brother and I the freedom to walk in that which was difficult. We watched him not shy away from that which is difficult. In a day and age when the movies and television caricaturizes so many men as gutless conflict avoiders and emotional/relational goons, my Dad stands far above all of those poor impressions of masculinity and has taught me what I know to be real courage, along with the ability do the hard thing - even when I don’t feel like it.
When I was young, I always knew that my Dad loved my Mom. I am not so naive as to think that they didn’t go through choppy waters that it seems every marriage must navigate through. But for me, as a kid, I never doubted their love for each other. I also always knew my place. Mom was first. Not my brother or me. While that goes against every politically correct formula for raising kids - it was right. We knew that if we hurt or offended Mom - then we hurt and offended Dad twice as much. He still loves our Mom today - coming up on 40 years later. I learned a lot from that more or less silent witness. I feel the same about my wife today.
I could go on. He showed courageous faith in Christ when he cashed in the life’s savings to follow what he knew to be God’s leading in opening a Christian Bookstore. My standards of customer service and management are fruits of a couple of good (and sometimes tumultueus) years working for him there. I’m still not a perfectionist (he is). But I sure have upped my standards for what I consider satisfactory work and planning. I am not a natural “planner” - but I learned to go against my natural grain of “let it happen when it happens” and to instead think through projects and plans in critical way. In my work as a pastor, planner, leader and now overseas Christian worker - this has been invaluable. He taught me how to play the guitar, how to appreciate music - and the value of listening to the Beatles, the Kinks, the Hollies and several other bands from the British Invasion.
As I sit here and think about it - in almost every area of my life - I am indebted to my father. I know that he would say, “it wasn’t me”. But I also know that I didn’t learn those things on my own. I hope that I leave half the legacy to my children that he’s left to me.
Dad just celebrated his 60th by successfully hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (and more importantly back up again) with some Old High School friends, once again proving that he’s not afraid of the doing the hard thing.
So, Happy Birthday Dad. I hope your ‘season’ is peaceful.
Know that you’ve taught your children well.
July 13th, 2008
I had the day perfectly planned. We were going to have a day in the Mongolian countryside with Renee’s folks. It was so exciting to have them here with us and we wanted to show them the beauty that this country has to offer - particularly outside of the city (beauty is tough to come by inside the city). So we were going to go to Terelj National Park for a cookout and a picnic. We knew of a nice shaded spot on the river where we could set up the grill. Cori was taking her best friend, Jeanie. We had the car packed with grilling and picnicing gear. I had laid down the cash for some American made "Kingston" Charcoal - which is pretty tough to find around here. We even took our dog Sadie along for the outing - and she was thrilled.
We were at about the half-way point when Renee’ asked the question.
Renee: "Did you get the meat?"
Silence.
Bernie: "I got the cooler. It was zipped. I assumed you had put the meat in the cooler"
Renee: "No, you went to the store to get zip-lock bags to put the meat into before it went into the cooler. I was waiting until you got back"
Jonathan: Oh my gosh, you’ve got to be kidding me, you guys forgot the meat? Let\’s just go back home.
So the conversation went. Needless to say, we didn’t go back home (in spite of Jonathan’s protests). We had baked beans and brownies and Pringles potato chips, along with drinks. We were good. Jonathan still didn’t see the point in going on without meat. He’s part Mongolian in that sense. A meal is not really a meal if there is no meat involved - but we talked him through it okay. We unloaded the car, and now that we didn’t need a grill there was less to carry. Jonathan had wanted us to try and run over a farm animal on the way so at least we could grill something. But I didn’t listen to his barbaric, carnivorous suggestions. At least we had baked beans.
Until I dumped them all on the ground in an attempt to move to a different picnic spot.
So we had a picnic of Pringles and brownies and Coke. I am just grateful Renee’ made the brownies. To top it all off, we did have a jar of Rheba’s pickles that we ate some of (she makes incredible sweet pickles). Unfortunately the jar broke, and we lost most of them, as well. So went the picnic that was a series of unfortunate events. We didn’t eat much. But we enjoyed each other’s company and the Mongolian countryside. I must say that Sadie had the time of her life and is still sleeping off of her day of excitement (run in with a cow and everything).
This morning we we had an early morning airport run and had to say goodbye (again) to Renee’s folks - and to our kids, as they will be spending the next six weeks or so in the States. I miss them this morning. I will miss them during the time they are gone, and will look forward to the day they come back to Mongolia. This morning as I prepare a message for our church from Hebrews 11, I am reminded again that I am living for something that is yet to come. When Jonathan and Cori return to Mongolia I will be at the airport, looking into the baggage claim area trying to get a glimpse of them prior to our happy reunion. "Having seen them and greeted them from afar" (Hebrews 11:13) I look forward to the day of being reunited with my kids. I look forward to the day when we will see many of the readers of this blog once again. I look forward to being able to see my parents and friends and loved ones who seem so far away right now. I look forward to the day when Jesus will wipe away every tear and make right every wrong and we will receive everything that he has promised. Jesus makes this life bearable - and even good - because of His promises for all that is to come. Therefore, I don’t mind being a stranger in this land and I don’t so much mind broken pickle jars and spilled beans and forgotten meat. I can even live with the pain and angst involved with missing my kids and other family members - short and long term. Jesus knows. He is good. He will grant all that he has promised. Some in this life. Most in the next.
In spite of what many best selling authors are saying, my best life is not now. And frankly, I am really okay with that.
June 8th, 2008
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