I was reminded of these truths yesterday as Dave spoke at church about the already and not yet of God's kingdom, and the groans of labor that all of creation is in as we await that final revealing Glory of God in majesty and eternity. So, in thinking about this advent season and of Christmases past, I am reminded and remember one of the most significant Christmases I have ever experienced. I started this blog a couple months later so I haven't written about this here, though I have spoken numerous times of this, but it seems that today I must remember again. This story and the lives of these people are deeply intertwined with mine, and as I step into this Christmas season, I remember with smiles and tears the Christmas of 2004 that I celebrated in the neg 40deg F in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. In this place I was blessed in the small and hidden things, in friendships, through steps of faith, through tears through seeing the loving obedience of a simple village girl to the heart of a loving and severe God.
Narengerel was born with microfibramatoma, a benign tumor condition that is genetically inherited. This tumor found its way to Nara's face and eye socket. As a young girl, the shame of bearing such a deformity kept Nara in her ger, away from the probing eyes, stares and comments of the village people, ashamed to bear such ugliness in the light. But the name Narengerel means sunlight, yet this girl who lived in the "land of the blue sky" where the sun blazes bright over a land set high on the Asian steppe, was ashamed to be seen.
When missionaries moved to the village and began running children's programs, Sunday school and planted a small church in the dusty streets, many were interested. Street children, amused with the summer camp programs started in a dusty field, found their way into makeshift tents. Curious parents followed. Mongolia, opened up to the west in 1991 after the fall of the Iron Curtain, was hungry for the message of a savior. This harsh land with a history of power and fierceness- one with the largest empire ever known, had been landlocked squelched through communism by its superpower neighbors Russia in the north and and China in the south. It was thirsty- a dry and weary land with no water- for truth.
Narengerel, encouraged by other children, ventured into sunday school to hear words of truth. Words of hope and life sank deep in her soft and pure heart and she brought her parents to church as well. Soon the family all followed Christ. Over the next 4 years Narengerel and her family faithfully attended this church and soon became the caretakers of the building. The missionaries working in Mongolia sent Nara and her father to Korea in hopes of getting medical help and surgery to remove the tumor, but the doctors determined this surgery to be too risky.
I met Nara around this time, when I visited Mongolia in 2001 over my Thanksgiving break while working in China. I grew close to her and to her family as I continued to travel to Mongolia from China each summer with my students for summer impact trips. Every person that met Nara was touched deeply by her, because she was never far from our team, bringing cold water as we working construction or a hot lunch to hungry highschoolers. Without fail, each time they returned to China, my students shared that it was Narengerel, the girl with the tumor and bright smile that taught them more about the Christian life than anything they'd ever experienced.
In May of 2004, I visited Mongolia to plan our June school trip and was surprised and shocked to find that the tumor on Nara's face had more doubled from the year before. I also found out on this trip that a Mongolian doctor was interested in doing surgery. As I talked with my missionary friends who had since left Mongolia, they shared their concern of the medical care being offered to her and asked if I would be involved. I soon found that the price of her surgery would be more money than I had every seen and the medical equipment needed to even asses the situation (an MRI machine) could not be found in Mongolia. I returned to China and was urged by a good friend to jump in and at least see what I could do. So, we brought Nara, her mother and my friend Sara to Tianjin and Beijing to get an MRI scan. Here is when things that were more than mere coincidences began to take place. A wonderful friend of mine who had worked in China in previous years as a nurse for the orphanage, was visiting and met these Mongolians who were living at my house. She had connections to an organization in America who did the very surgeries for people in need that we needed. To make a long and goose-bump bringing story short, Face The Challenge, a medical organization that works with the poor around the world, offered to cover all medical expenses and perform surgery, to fly Nara and her father to America, to personally house during the surgery and afterward, and to pay for all travel and medical expenses if the tumor was operable.
Narengerel's hope grew as she began to image living out her dream, the of telling the nations of what God had done in her life, and the power of Jesus to heal. Her hope was to share God's glory to the nations and proclaim his kingdom. All that was left was to get a biopsy of the once benign tumor and hope that it remained in that condition so that it could safely be removed. While in Mongolia in June, we had that procedure done and sent it off to CO where the doctors could test it.
Those weeks of waiting in hope and expectation are ones I will not soon forget. My heart and spirit groaned in prayer, hoping that this surgery could be performed and that Nara would be healed. Clearly she was meant to live up to her name, and to shine brightly like the sun, a vessel of Christ that who was bright in her.
I received an email in July of 2004 that was one of the hardest I have read and then shared. The once benign tumor had become malignant. The tumor would have been operable a short time earlier, but now surgery was impossible. A cancerous wound would never heal and the aggressive tumor would only increase. Nara's pastor shared this news with her. Unhindered by the devastating news, Narengerel continued to shine lovely and radient- choosing to spend the rest of her days in service, helping out at a handicapped camp, working at the church, serving all who came into her path.
In December of 2004, after spending a semester in the United States at grad school, I found myself again in Asia attending my friend's wedding, and then I went to Mongolia for Christmas. I returned to say goodbye to Narengerel and to share with her just how sorry I was that we couldn't do more. The tumor by this time had doubled in size- another tumor had formed where the biopsy was taken that summer.
And without hesitation, Narengerel continued to radiate light to all those around her.
We celebrated Christmas together for the first time in the Church building that my students and I had the privilege of helping to build over the past few years.
Narengerel led the children's choir in singing celebration and I watched young eyes rivited to her as she sang along with them. I spoke that day about the expectation of the Messiah and the reality of God's kingdom on earth. But it was the previous evening's events that caused me to catch my breath and wonder at this veiled Glory.
I accompanied Nara to the Mongolian doctor's office, the one who had wanted to operate on her over the summer. She was interested in the progression of the tumor, and in Nara's physical condition since June. When the doctor uncovered the bandages over the tumor she was disgusted. She looked angrily at me and asked why I had prevented her from operating earlier that summer. I told her that we had run further tests (an MRI and biopsy) since her planned operation and discovered that operating would at that point would have killed her. She quickly said that it would have been better for her to have died then than to have suffered as she was now. (This was in English, which Nara doesn't speak or understand). I looked at Nara in the doctor's chair at that moment. She was smiling and singing Christmas carols. I joined her in singing "O Holy Night" as the doctor looked at us, perplexed. With a crashing clarity, I realized that the way of God's kingdom is the path of following Christ, even when it is what we least expected. The doctor asked me why I was there that cold Christmas Eve, and why I had come from America to of all places, Mongolia. That was a good question and one I could only answer "because I love my friend, and I don't want her to suffer just as much as you" but then added "does she look miserable?" Nara was still smiling and singing. I then shared with this communist Mongolian doctor that what Nara had was hope, and the hope of Christ, who's birthday we were celebrating that very night. And surprising even myself, went on to tell this surgeon that if she really cared about her patients, and really desired healing, the most important part of the human was the soul and spirit, and this part lived for eternity when a person accepted Christ. And that Christ could and would heal this part of us if we asked him into our lives. She looked at me bewildered, and then with recognition and interest. She explained that she had been trained in Mongolia and Russia, and these places did not acknowledge the place of the spirit in the human- rather just the physical. But in her experience, there was more to us and that perhaps I was right. Although she wasn't able to come, I did invite her to our Christmas service and wonder to this day where she is or how this evening affected her medical practice. Finally, I both realized and shared that if we took her life earlier in the year, Nara wouldn't experience the joy and love that she has lived over the past 6 months, and she wouldn't have had the opportunity to touch as many lives as she had, including mine and the hundreds of people who had been praying for her and following her story. I then asked the doctor if she would help my and those who loved Nara to help her die well. She softened and showed the pastor and myself how to change her bandages, gave us pain medications and clean bandages. As we stepped out of the cold dark building into a deep freeze I was amazed and encouraged, though a little perplexed at what just happened. What was I doing in the middle of one of the coldest places on earth for Christmas? Wonders never cease. Perhaps it was appropriate that my richest Christmas ever was in what seemed to be the most desolate of places. But isn't that what it might have seemed 2000 years ago?
I shared a few more days with Nara and her family, along with the Mongolian church members and other friends who had made the mid-winter trans-siberan trek. The day I left, Nara lay in bed reading her Bible. She pointed to Isaiah 49 and I read along "what is due me is in the Lord's hands, am my reward is with God, I am his servant". Talk about practicing the the reality of living in the "already and not yet". Narengerel knew her home was with God, knew her present sufferings paled in comparison to her life of Glory. The members of her church family also lived and live in this present reality. They housed her, changed her bandages, and nursed her though her painful journey. Through this Narengerel literally laid on her bed, barely able to lift her laden head, and spoke softly of her love for Jesus.
That is the image that is burned into my head as I remember that Christmas 5 years ago, and the image that still speaks so powerfully to me even now when I remember the reality of Christ being ushered into this world.
Narengerel died on Mother's Day 2005. She continues to teach me what a true and noble walk with Christ looks like. I have continued to return to Mongolia during summers since then, and have continued to be close to Nara's family.
Her younger sister, Narensetsig, now goes to university, and studies journalism.
Her parents continue to live on church property and care for the community. They have a picture (the one with the red shirt holding the hymnals) of her in their small ger. When we see one another every so often, we greet each other with love and remembrance of what happened in our lives. And we smile when we think of Narengerel, knowing that her dream has been realized and that people all over the world have been touched by God's glory in hearing even a little of her story.
For more of this story and to learn about the amazing organization "Face the Challenge"
1 comments:
Thanks for sharing this story again...truly inspiring.
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