First of All, Mongolia...

This is the long story on how God first sealed my heart for orphans. I was 19 and in my spring semester freshmen year at Texas A&M University. Word was sent to me through my grandmother who met a missionary couple with an orphanage ministry in Khonger and Darkhan, Mongolia. This ministry was working on becoming self-sustaining with its own crops and hoped to keep its own herds of animals. That way they could feed their own children in the orphanage and have enough left over to sell and make a profit for the ministry’s other needs. She said, “It is sustainable agriculture and kids. You love both those things. You should be there.” I smiled and said, “That’s nice Grandma, but I have this thing called college going on right now that I have to pay for somehow, and tramping about around the world to some place I couldn't locate on a map (without some assistance at the time) didn't sound like a wise thing to do.”

I’ve never really had a heart for going on a mission trip anyways. I was always taught to take Acts 1:8 very seriously in my witness: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” I was to work on my witness in my home, then in my community, and then my county, my state, and then the end of the earth. If I couldn't spread the Gospel in my most intimate circles, how was I going to spread it 5,000 miles away from home? It was a hypocritical notion. So I walked away thinking going to Mongolia was a silly idea. Well, a week passed, and with much twisting of my arm, I ended up going to a Navigators conference the following weekend. I realized how much of a hypocrite I already was, stubbornly living in sins and focusing on a past that immobilized my spiritual walk.

With “a washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5), I walked into my 8:00 AM Monday morning class, Worlds of Rangeland Ecology. It was taught by a pretty erratic professor who sort of just did whatever he wanted and taught whatever he wanted, never using a syllabus, and just enjoyed the power he might have thought came with his newly earned PhD. It made me a frustrated student to say the least, but God can use anyone, and He does. He started by explaining how he wants to finish the last 6 weeks of the semester focusing only on …Mongolian Rangelands. My mouth hung agape. For the next 6 weeks, I took in the most interesting ecological practices and herding patterns that Mongolian pastoralists had been using since before the 1000s. The next weekend I ended up at home for my old high school’s stock show, where my mother informed me that she and dad are planning to go to Mongolia. God had used Grandma to call them into this also. Things were getting crazy by that point.

For the following 3 summers, I spent many weeks in Mongolia working with the staff and orphans in this ministry. It changed my life. It challenged me in ways that I couldn't put fully into words, even in a long version of the story. It brought me and my parents closer together, and gave us stories we will never forget. We even got to bring our relationships with camp into it in the third year. However, after those 3 summers, God did another incredible thing as He always does. He called us out of Mongolia. Reasons and feelings are still mixed in a fog of miscommunication, yet it weighed on us that our plans for Mongolia weren't lining up with God's plans. I can only speak for myself, but I felt so empty for years after that news became clear. 

I prayed and prayed and cried and prayed and cried some more. It’s a dangerous thing to ask God “Why?” but I did. “Why did you send me to Mongolia? Why did you give me so many lessons, memories, friendships, and dreams of how I might help these people more in years to come?” One important thing I've learned in this hard lesson in asking God “Why?” is that God is Good, All the Time. The enemy truly is the father of lies and would rather we believe that God isn’t good and that He’s withholding something we need from us. It took me years to come to this realization, and several people to tell me until I really began to own it. I still feel my heart beat for the orphans and families in Mongolia. Whenever I see a globe, I turn it to that country in the heart of Asia.

Now, after all that prayers, tears, and questions, I think I may have an answer, or maybe just the next part of the answer. First of all, I know this: God is Good, All the Time. Secondly, His timing is truly perfect. 

I had been married nearly 2 years at this point, trying to make ends meet and searching for a part time job to take with my full time job. Through the grapevine, I was put in touch with Rick and Sandy of Springtime House in Romania, a small, non-profit organization which supported orphan care homes within the country of Romania. They worked out their own home office and were in need of an administrative assistant. Between all the options I had weeded through, they were my first choice. God could have only arrange this match up. I slowly became immersed in the children's bios and each home's history. They helped support my husband and I, and I have the opportunity to continue supporting orphan care in a country where international adoption was impossible. 

These abandoned children could only hope to be adopted within their country, and if they aren't rescued from the crowded, understaffed state institutions, they are sent out into society at the age of 18 with the equivalent of $20, some clothes, self-taught survival skills, and nightmares of their past abuse and neglect. These individuals are prime targets for human trafficking rings, which happen to thrive within Eastern Europe due to facts like these. My heart has broken again for these little ones abandoned in maternity wards and is yet encouraged by the progress that Springtime House has already brought just a few families and multiple children. I see hope spread as I had seen it spread in Mongolia. 

Coming back into my question to God, "Why?", I know I'll never know an exact answer. However, just as I love the details He designed into each living cell and compound on earth, I love feeling and observing the details within my own life story. Maybe God wanted me to have experienced the lives of orphans in Asia and Europe. I'm in love with both countries now. I have made relationships in countries I never would have considered going to until God placed them in front of me. I pray for both countries daily. Yet at this season, God seems to want me working for this ministry. I will never understand why He chose me for this or Mongolia, but then again, I would rather wonder at His glory than understand more than King Solomon.