Bloomington is NOT Normal

I just came back from visiting my brother Ben and my Uncle Todd in Bloomington-Normal. It was a last minuet decision to go really. Instead of leaving on Friday night like normal, I left Dark and Early Saturday morning at 6am. I sat in the Starbucks across the street to wait for the 6:55 Metra to Chicago. It was a nice time to have a cup of coffee and read my Bible.
Ben picked me up in Uncle Todd's PT cruiser "Ruby". And we had lunch and then went shopping for a bit. Afterwards we Saw the movie "The pursuit of Happyness" with Will Smith and his son, acting as his son, in this film. It was neat to see them acting together. The movie is based on a real story, about a low class income family getting to the top. And all the impossible things that the father had to do to get there. I liked the fact that he had to work real hard, and he seemed to have a good work ethic. One thing I did not like about it was the fact that the mother quit on him, and just gave up on her husband, she was not supportive at all, and even though they made it seem like an okay thing that she left her son with the father and went off, the reason was pitiful. The other thing I did not like about it was the message that real happiness and success is from how much money you make. Now it did not say that blatantly, but that was the message that came across to me.
On Sunday after church Ben and I went out to Starbucks and had a nice time talking. We like to do that, While I get my *cough*-ee, (Ben's interpretation) Ben gets his hot chocolate. Starbucks is a nice place to talk, I wonder what they put in there drinks, because I am not always that talkative. Maybe it is just coffee in general, because even though I really like Starbucks, Caribou Coffee is my favorite coffee shop.

Star

I miss my family, and especially my little sisters and my nieces and nephews. Kids do the cutest things, and they are not afraid to speak their mind no matter how illogical it is. You can learn a lot about the "fear of man" from them, as well as how we can have a child like faith. They are so trusting. And that is how we need to be with God.
And talking about logic... I love Spock! Spock is my favorite Star Trek character. And yes, I like Star Trek better than Star Wars. But you just can't get enough of Yoda! Hmmm.... it must be the ears....

HQ Again???

Yes, the Lord has brought me back to IBLP Headquarters once again. But this time it is supposedly short term. They needed the help, so what can I say? I'm a mercy? But seriously, I really do like it here. I just don't know if this is where the Lord wants me for very long.
It is nice to unpack for once... Traveling for the last 4 months have given even more of an opportunity to be flexible, if being a Military brat did not already give my over and above the opportunity to learn this.

Mongolia, July 2006

As some of you may know I am now back in America. I returned and jumped right in helping my family with the next move. We will be leaving California September 1st and start driving across the country to the east coast visiting family and friends along the way. But I did not want to let you all down and not let you know the things that the Lord did in Mongolia the last few weeks I was there. So here are some of the things that you can continue to pray for. Even though I am not serving in Mongolia right now, God has planted seeds that I pray will continue to grow. The training of the World Vision staff is going well, recently some of the staff came up after the meeting and asked if they could use our Christian materials as they go out to the country side and use it as a tool to help reach the Nomads. Tim has started trying to get the overlays for our lessons, with the Mongolian and/or English, translated all the way so that they could purchase them at the cost it would be to make them. The translation work is going slow, we are down to one translator, Idree. Idree also has a family and other responsibilities, and cannot help with translating full time. But it is being done well. Pujee, one of our best translators, just had her baby, and so cannot help with translating for awhile. The baby's name, in English, means Fragrant Lily. She was born early but is doing well. She is a tiny adorable little girl. There have been meetings with the Mongolian International Institute about the classes the Character Training Institute is going to be starting this new school year. The leaders at MIU are excited about CTI coming and teaching, and many plans are being made to help the students to really learn, and not cheat. :-) The Trainings at the Children's Place are going well and strong. Mostly Tim is the one teaching, with Idree to translate into Mongolian. Please pray that this Christan Orphanage will be blessed with the teachings from Gods word. A few weeks before I left, Erin came up with the wonderful idea of doing some cooking and craft classes with spoken English for some of our students and friends who don't have as much to do during the Summer. This was a wonderful time of getting to know some of the Mongolian people we come in contact with more personally. They loved the classes! We shared with them some of our American culture through the food and crafts that we taught them how to make. We had all ages attend, from child to grandmother. I think they enjoyed the cooking classes the most. We made Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal cookies, Banana Bread and Apple Pie! On one occasion, Duma's sister and law came (Duma is one of My Christan Mongolian friends), I assumed that she was a Christan too, but she was not, and so I started asking her questions like what church she went to and such, Duma was very pleased that I was asking her these things and it brought up more opportunities for Duma to talk about the gospel with her sister in law. Toward the end of my time in Mongolia the Lord gave ma many neat opportunities to experience the culture. One of them was with Julie, a Mongolian girl that went to our church, she invited Erin and I out to the country side to stay in her Ger (a round tent like house). We had a relaxing time. It was neat to be with all the Herder families and their heards of horses. We climbed a mountain and viewed the wonderful scenery from the top. We also had our meals cooked over a fire and milk tea in the morning, and brushed our teeth in a nice fresh flowing river. While I was there I learned how to make a Mongolian dish called Hosher, I have already made it for my family and they seem to really enjoy it. Looking back on my time in Mongolia, I would say that my main ministry was discipleing young Christian ladies in their walk with the Lord. Many of them are new Christians, and I was asked a lot of things. Like, "How do I stop this life of sin I am living in, when I know it is disobeying God, but I just can't stop?" or just simple questions about how to have personal devotion time and studying Gods word. I am so grateful to God for giving me the words to say. Thank you all for your interest in what God is doing, and the support you have given me. There are many other trainings that are going on and that have started recently as well, so obviously there is much more that I could say, but I hope that this gives you a little picture of how you can pray for the country of Mongolia. May God bless you as you seek to serve Him. Naomi Lyons

Mongolia, June 2006

When you are walking around the city of Ulaan Baatar, you dodge cars and carefully step around open man holes, drunk people sprawled out, chopped off animal heads, and many other things. It takes longer to do anything here. You can't just go to your nearest Wal-mart. A lot of times when we make plans to meet with someone, they may just not come because something came up, or they are 30min to an hour late. And they don't always let you know about these things either. It is frustrating sometimes. For a city, crime is not bad at all; the only real reason that you try and go out by pairs, at least, is because of the attentiveness that you need while getting around. One of the biggest crimes is theft, but you don't have to worry about your safety, many people are just poor and think that stealing is the solution. Sakhiya, a Mongolian friend that used to work for the Character Training Institute (CTI), came over for dinner one night. We had a really good time talking and getting to know more about the Mongolian culture. She is 22 years old. We started talking about height. I am surprised at how tall some of the Mongolian people are and Sakhiya said that she was surprised at how young some Americans were when we stopped growing taller. Sakhiya said that it is the same way with the people that live in Ulaan Baatar city, they stop growing at a young age, but for the Mongolians who live in the countryside, they grow until they are about 25 years old, men and women. I had noticed that I seem to be on the short side here. :-) Erin and I helped with translation work on our Attentiveness overlays. They needed to be updated. I helped with back translating with Ideree, one of our Mongolian staff. Erin helped with re-wording some of the overlays in English and suggesting helpful changes in the English. When all the English changes were done they were passed on to me and I helped with making sure Ideree understood the meaning and got the closest and best translation into Mongolian. We are now finished with Attentiveness and are starting on the Obedience overlays. On our last day at Mongolian International University (MIU) we gave the Final Exam for our classes. How the Seniors have done in our class is a big deciding factor on their final graduation grade. We went early that morning to set up the chairs far apart from each other to prevent some cheating. We still had 8 people that we caught cheating and had to fail on the test as well as on the semester. I am sure there was a lot more cheating just from looking at their tests and grading them later. We think that maybe our test got out when we had it printed at the school. But one good thing is that we had 2 slightly different tests, so it was easy to tell the ones that had only seen one of the tests because they started answering the test with the answers to the other. There are some amazing things that these students tried to get away with. One guy had written notes on a piece of paper with invisible ink, and then the pen that he was using had one of those black light flash lights on the end so that when he thought we where not looking he flashed it on to see his "invisible" notes. Some people had notes that were printed so small that I could hardly read them, they put them on the smallest pieces of paper and tucked them wherever they thought we could not see or held them in their palm. One girl wrote some notes on her little pencil bag. We hoped that the training on Truthfulness would have impacted them, but I guess not all got the point. Some though, really understood the character qualities that we were teaching, and applied them to their life, and that was an encouragement. One night when I was brushing my teeth I had an experience that I don't think I have ever had before. You know that not very pleasant sensation that you feel when you bite down on a really cold Popsicle? It feels like freezer burn or something. Well I got that when I was brushing my teeth! The water was so cold, and I started brushing my teeth, it hurt! :-/ I can hardly believe how cold water can get before it freezes. Holy Way Church had a retreat in Guchert, a place in the country side, for a few days. Erin and I stayed over night one of the nights. W ally and Jeannie Stephenson , a missionary couple from Canada spoke at the retreat on Helping Hurting People, and how to have a Godly family. Wally is a pastor who's wife and daughter died in 1993, through that, he started writing a book called "Helping Hurting People". Jeannie, a single lady that was a missionary to Bangladesh, was given the Wally's book to Edit. In 1996 they were married. Now they go all over the world giving seminars in different countries. It was wonderful getting to know them and learn from there experiences. There was a girl from Singapore at the retreat and she pointed out to me that the traditional way for a Mongolian person to point to something is not with their fingers or using their arms, but to use their lips! They sort of stick them out more and move their head pointing their lips at what they want to point at. A man did that right in front of us! On Sunday morning I took the opportunity after the church service and during testimony time to give a testimony, and encourage, the young people especially, on obeying and honoring their parents. It went with what Jeannie had talked about on Saturday. The Lord laid it on my heart to share about the blessings of obedience. This was a chance for me to communicate with all the young ladies that I had been getting to know through a translator. One girl would take me by the arm and drag me places, but she could not really speak to me. She told me in what little words she knew, something like, we will be friends forever and then started singing the Titanic song to me! J (I have never seen the Titanic, but I have heard the theme song), I guess she memorize the words in English. The real reason that Holy Way has a retreat once a year, is for the new believers to have the chance to get baptized. Sunday morning was very cloudy. The wind came and it got even colder, and then it rained. Thankfully the rain eventually stopped and it was not raining for the baptism but I think it was in the 40's for the baptism in the river and still windy. Not quite what you would want. But about 50 people were baptized that day. Some of the very young and the very old though just stood by the river and got a sprinkling baptism. One evening we invited Janelle over to join us for dinner. She is a young Christian Mongolian lady. She seems to be really growing in her faith. The end of last year her 29-year-old brother was murdered. They did not know where he was for a while, but then later they found him floating in the river with what looked like stab marks all over him from a knife. Janelle said that her small hometown is rich in gold, it is a gold mining town. And there are a lot of crimes there because of it, and her brother is just one of the victims. She told us some of the things that the Lord has been teaching her from this. How it made her think of the pain that Jesus suffered for us and other things. She said that two of her sisters and her mother tried to commit suicide because of this; they were so sad that they just did not want to live anymore. This was their 'favorite' child and brother, so much so that the parents 'hid' him until he was graduated from High School. They 'hid' him by having him look like a girl. Long hair, and girl clothes. Now that we are done with the school year trainings, we have started character trainings with the Biblical references for an Orphanage called the Children's Place. There is probably about 15 to 20 Christian Mongolian staff that came to our first training. They really seemed to get a lot out of the character lesson, and the American ladies that are in charge of the orphanage were very grateful for the discipleship. They gave us a tour afterward, and we were able to see some of the orphans. There are only infants to toddlers in the orphanage, about 30 children, they try and get them adopted in about a year. They are adorable kids. It was such a blessing to get to hold and play with some of them. Another training that we have just started this summer is training the World Vision staff. We are able to tie in the scripture with our lessons to them as well. It was neat to hear Tim talk about some of the history of CTI with Mongolia. About 6 years ago the Mongolian government invited CTI to come to Mongolia and teach character in their schools and other government offices. Since then we have also received many other opportunities from organizations and church groups to come and disciple and train them as well. This was a wonderful opportunity for CTI. One of the first things that Tim said to the government officials that invited us was "you do know that we are a Christian organization, don't you?" There was silence in the room, and then one of the men spoke up and said, "Yes, we know you are Christian, but we want you to teach our government and schools character without the Bible". Knowing that we needed to comply with the government on the restrictions they gave us, we also realized that we had a great opportunity to be able to be in places that other Christian organizations would not normally be able to get too, or even groups that they would not likely be involved in. And to build relationships with them. Many have come to Christ this way, through seeing Christ in us. Praise the Lord that he can use even our weaknesses and show Himself strong through us. "...My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities , in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong." 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 God really does redeem the time. These are just a few of the things that have been going on and that you can pray for. May the Lord bless you as you seek to serve Him in whatever He has called you to.

Wallpaper Wars

We tore down wallpaper for about 4 hours today! Any wallpaper job is not easy, but it went faster than I thought it would. The wallpaper here does not really have any protective washable serfice so the water soaked right throgh to the glue. We are getting our apartment ready to paint, and to do that we have to strip all the wallpaper, put plaster on the walls, scrap the chulky stuff off the ceiliings down to the cement, and then paint!

Last night...

Last night was my first night in room 119. Yesterday I moved all my stuff there from 121 because on Monday we are going to start striping the wallpaper and painting 121. On Monday we will also move Erin out of 121. I had a good time this afternoon moving our kitchen stuff to the main apartment's kitchen and then taking down shelves and getting it ready for painting. It is going to look so nice and different. I think our apartment needed a nice painting about 20 years ago. I hope that the girls that come after me will appreciate it. It is nice that we are getting these projects done while there are not as many trainings going on. And I am glad for yet more painting experience!

Saturday, June 3

Saturday, June 3Today we worked on grading journals. And I hope we will be done by Monday. I hear that the Expo went really well. There were a lot of people there and it seemed there were also a lot of people interested in CTI. There is a man who does painting, and I told him that I would be interested in some cards that he painted. When he came by today he told me the price for 1 card, and then he said if I bought a certain amount then he would give me this certain price, and the way he said it made it sound like it was a better price for more cards. Well, it did not sound quite right to me and so I figured it out and the price he was offering was really 1000 tugrugs more! Well, I told him what the price should be; he sort of grunted and said that sounded good to him. J I may have to give my updates a little farther apart, but I will keep you posted on the major things that happen and the different things that you can pray about for me and the others here. Thank you so much for your prayers! May God bless you all!

Friday, June 2

Friday, June 2This morning there was an Expo in Ulaan Baatar, and CTI was invited to have a table there. I am not sure how it went yet. Only our Mongolian staff went. Tim, Erin and I were at MIU. Today we gave the students the last quiz on Responsibility. I think it went pretty well compared to the last times. Next week we give the final exam. All those who pass get 2 hours of credit in Social Studies, which is a good amount for them! I think for the final exams we are going to have them all sit about 2 feet away from each other so that we can keep a better eye on the students and watch for cheating. ;-)

Thursday, June 1

Thursday, June 1Happy Mothers and Children’s Day!! I got a bunch of emails today saying that Erika’s flight from Beijing took off and then turned around and landed again because of mechanical problems. And so her flight out of Beijing was about 4 ½ hours late! So of course she was going to miss her connecting flight out of Chicago. Erika’s parents found this out before she even landed in Chicago, and so they had quite a time trying to find out if she could make the last flight out to Atlanta at about 9:30pm. The agents kept on saying either yes or no she could not. They were not giving any sure answers. So just in case she was not able to make that flight my mom was able to get a hold of Amy, my friend that works at IBLP HQ. She and another girl were on call to take Erika to HQ to spend the night (thank you Amy!:-). It ended up that Erika was able to catch the next flight. It was so close though, that her luggage did not make it on the flight, but had to be delivered the next day. We spent time this afternoon preparing for the Expo and MIU quizzes tomorrow. Erin and I spent the morning figuring out the best curtains to put up in our apartment, and then putting them up. The curtain rods do not always fit the style of curtains that we have and so it took awhile to get those up. Then we were able to do other household chores.