Josie's First Christmas

Esther's Article

Westward Ho!

We are on the road again! We have packed up as many belongings as we think we need (probably more than we really need) and as many will fit in our little Subaru, and have covered about 700 miles so far.we need to fit this-- there.did it! Yes, we got everything we needed in this car (plus the 4 bags that already await us in Vancouver thanks to Simon and Shannon who are storing them and a volvo Luke is driving across the country for us) Here's Josie waiting patiently for us to pack the car.Ready for a long journey Josie? first day we braved the freezing temps and snow in northern NY, and left Colton for Canada. First stop: Hamilton Ontario We visited our dear dear friends the Vanderlaans.

With 10 children and one on the way, hosting us for the evening wasn't adding a huge percentage of people, but our gracious hosts vacated their bedroom for us so that we could rest for our journey.

Unfortunately, Josie had come down with a cough and fever the night before and didn't sleep at all. AT ALL. Ok, well, she snoozed from 6am to 7:30am when I finally got up with her so that Dave could sleep at least 2 hours in preparation for another 300+mile drive in possible snowstorms. Poor Josie, poor Dave, and poor Katie.. baby needs sleep! The upside is that she slept the entire day in the car!!

Back to the Vanderlaans. These people are my heros. They were close friends my entire time in China, and a huge inspiration to me. I should have known their family values when Elizabeth lent me "Cheaper By the Dozen" as one of her favorite books:) With 2 adopted from China and 4 from Ethiopia, they certainly model the vastness of God's kingdom and heart for his children and what it means to belong to God's family through adoption. As I was leaving Esther handed me this letter she wrote. I hope she won't mind, but I'm posting it here. I love this family and these kids-- if I had more courage, and (and maybe I will someday) the idea of adoption and a big family seems like an adventure of another kind!

(notice the well trained children!)

We left Ontario reluctantly- their offer to stay at least another week was a tempting one for sure, but grandparents were waiting for us in Ohio and the threat of winter storms looming- so we headed out again. The drive wasn't too bad with with a sleeping baby seemed to go by a lot faster than this summer's trek. We only stopped 2 times instead of 10. We made it to Ohio just as the roads were freezing with ice and rain so we were glad to pull into Hillcrest drive Saturday night. And here we are! We haven't been home for Christmas in years- Dave hasn't been home in 7 or 8 years so this is a real treat. We are looking forward to a week with family and friends before our next leg of the journey.

This is what we anticipate our westward journey looking like:

• leave Piqua Dec. 27th and head to St. Louis for Urbana and meeting up with the Smiths
• Leave St. Louis- Dec 29th. Dave goes to Denver with Luke and Mike- Katie drives to Wheaton.
• Katie in Wheaton until Jan 4th when she will fly to Seattle to meet Dave, Mike, Luke, and Chuck.
• Dave drives to Denver, Salt Lake City, Portland and SEattle between Dec 29thand Jan 4th.
• Dave picks Katie up in Seattle with Chuck- all drive to Vancouver where we settle in to our new place where we will be housitting until April.
  Dave begins orientation Jan 5th.
  

Whew. Glad that I'm here for a week to chill!! Only need to get an eye exam and perhaps a haircut and some shopping done!

family photo

Our most recent family photo. This is taken right before we went to church- a big day! Dave gave the sermon and Josie was dedicated to the Lord:) A good day.

Narengerel's story (remembering a Christmas I shall never forget)

It's a mystery, but one of those profound ones, that God's greatest glory has been revealed, not in front of kings and princes, but among the least, the hidden, the poor; and in the hearts of men. It is no accident that Jesus' path of rightneousness and justice culminated on a cross. God's greatest appearance to human history did not come with trumpets, announcing the birth of the Messiah. It was the nomadic shepherds in the wilderness who were first to hear that indeed, God's kingdom was nearer than they could possibly imagine, that in fact the Messiah was born. It was a young woman in a smelly stable that who first beheld the Glory of God.

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"

click here

Helping Grammy

Josie's found her new favorite toys. Grammy introduced them to her over a week ago before she went traveling.

She's become a very independent little girl.

And very good with her hands and coordination.

When did she grow up?

A new outlet

I LOVED being with Gram last week. Unfortunately, I'm on her schedule as well as mine, but I got so much done, and enjoyed being a creative night owl in the process. Enjoyed it so much in fact, that I came home and photographed my work and set about putting it online for potential Christmas shoppers. If you are interested in any silver earrings with original designs, like these ones, then you can check out my etsy shop as well.

http://www.poiemacreations.etsy.com

It's COLD here, my fingers are freezing at the keyboard and it's waaay past my bedtime. And it's been snowing here like crazy- a lot different from Hilton Head let me tell ya!

But, snow is good. It means cross country skiing and frosty air and winter wonderland in the woods. I took advantage of it both today and yesterday and got a ski in. And somehow, both today and yesterday, while I was figuring out 2 different trails in the web of trails in our woods I got lost and called Dave to pick me up. Tonight was actually necessary-- it was dark out and it was snowing hard enough to cover my tracks-- plus I had blisters, plus I knew I look ridiculous standing under a stop sign on the side of the road in the dark. Good old Dave, patiently picking up with his trained and certified wilderness leader who gets lost in her own back woods. This is nothing new though, it's kind of par for the course. Just ask anyone that I grew up with!

Other than that, I've continued on with the jewelry making, now making due with what I have here in the house. It's been a fun explosion but I want to make sure that I get things done for people who want them before the holidays and before I leave. So.. I leave here on the 18th and go to Ohio. So, if you do want anything, please let me know asap! Thanks and happy browsing!

PoiemaCreations

Check out my new blog!

PoiemaCreations

a place for handmade jewelry viewing!

Jewelry in the Making

I have been enjoying my time immensely here in Hilton Head, SC, this past week while Dave has been finding our new home in Vancouver. And, the good news is- it looks like we have a place to live this coming semester! God really provided in a big way and we are grateful. More on that later as things unfold.

So, for the time being, Josie and I have been apprenticing under my grandmother (a skilled jeweler and silversmith) in hopes that I both improve my jewelry making skills along with learning new things. Hopefully, if the circumstances are right, I'll be able to do a little work at home and sell my creations in the future. Here's what I've been up to so far this week:)

And let me tell you... Josie has wanted to be involved in every part of the action. Sometimes helpful, sometimes cute, and sometimes... well, a bit interfering with the creative process. This means the most productive time is when she goes down for the night. And then, as Gram has gone before me, we lose track of time and become night owl artisans.

Keep posted-- more to come!