the story of a queasy stomach in western asia.

So, a queasy stomach I do have…big time.

This morning, I left my house at 8:40 for my 9:30 lesson with the Minister. I walked for 10 minutes and got on the metro, feeling 100% fine. I have to take the metro three stops, transfer to another train, and go one more stop to get to his office. I was between the second and third stop, when WHAM: sick. I went so quickly from fine to awful and must have looked terrible—super pale and sweaty—so terrible that the guy next to me took my arm and began asking me if I was ok. Finally the metro stopped, I stepped off, and puked. I sat down on the floor (a HUGE no-no here, but there were no benches) because I felt like I was going to black out. Finally I made it out of the station, threw up again, got in a taxi, and then had to ask him to stop twice on the way home so I could throw up—the poor driver was SO concerned about this sheet-white American girl in his back seat. Either that, I guess, or just about his back seat, which he probably thought was going to get thrown up on.

I canceled my lessons and headed home. Could it be the stomach flu? I guess it could be. Could it be something I ate? Again, certainly a possibility. But why do I actually think that I lost my breakfast cereal 4 times over this morning?

You know you live in Western Asia when the most likely reason you’re puking (if you’re me, at least) is not from the flu but from gross displays of the circle of life. This morning, I saw the slaughter of two cows on my ten minute walk to the metro. Like, pass-from-life-to-death-in-a-bloody-mess type of slaughter. I don’t know how it happens in the states, but here they flip the cow upside down, tie it’s legs together, and then cut. It’s that last part that I saw—TWICE. Two different butchers just happened to be slaughtering their cows at 10 minutes before 9am this morning. I mean, I can count one hand the times I’ve eaten red meat in the past year because it grosses me out, even when cooked. EWWWW.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s why I was sick. A little bit funny, right? And a lot bit gross.

"i like hairs on boys" and other marriage non-negotiables.

It’s important to me that I make the most out of every single lesson I teach with my students here. I prepare as thoroughly as I can, and I spend a few minutes before each lesson lifting my students and my classroom before the King. I start many of my classes with crazy tongue twisters and camp songs and nonsense and laughing, and I maintain a high energy level throughout the lesson.

I want to teach WELL. I want to make a difference. I want to love and give and serve and laugh and encourage and be empty at the end of each lesson.

I often try to bring issues of morality before my students, because their lives are important to me, and I want them to live well and make good decisions. In my last class yesterday, we talked about marriage.

Why is this important?

It’s estimated that 90-95% of husbands are abusive here, either physically or verbally.

Many marriages are arranged, especially in the more rural village, and some girls marry as early as 13 or 14.

Many of my students don’t have involved fathers. Some do not know their fathers.

The man who lives above me beats his wife every night, and I can hear her cries.

I've seen women struck by their husbands on the street.

And unfortunately, none of this is unusual.

Obviously, the students in this class—all university-aged girls—want to marry in the next few years. I love them deeply, and do not do not do not want to see them end up in an abusive relationship. I asked them to flip over the page on their desk, and on the back, to write “HUSBAND” across the top. Next, I had them draw a line down the middle, and on the top of one side, write “non-negotiable” and on the other, “negotiable”.

Then I gave them 10 minutes and had them make lists of the things they would require of the man they would marry--non-negotiable--and the things they would like in that man, but are negotiable. I gave them no ideas and didn’t allow them to share ideas because I was curious about what they would come up with on their own.

I LOVED THEIR FINAL LISTS!

Some of their answers speak of the desires of their hearts, some of them speak to this culture, and some of them are just really, really funny. Naturally, I wrote many down in their exact words, to preserve their linguistic humor, with the intent of sharing them with all of you. Here’s the collective list:

NON-NEGOTIABLE:

has to respect me

has humor of sense

makes decisions in different conditions

responsible

attentional because girls need attention

relational

educated

isn’t annoy me

can’t complain of backache, headache, just be’s a man

is my nationality

shares interests

is not my cousin

wants to live in a different home from his parents

no drink

will allow for me to work

will not ask me to cover my head

romantical

NEGOTIABLE:

sport body

handsome very very

wearing tasty style (trying to get at tasteful?)

taller than me

“I like hairs on boys” (trying to get at not bald?)

love adrenaline

cool guy

serious personality

active dynamite (not sure what she’s trying to get at with this…?)

fair skins

We talked about the importance of a man who met their non-negotiable criteria. They PROMISED me that they would not settle for less, and that is my sincere pryr for these sweet girls.

why i cried IN CLASS today.

What this post is not: elegant. fluffy. funny. neat. easy.

What this post is: just the unedited, unorganized, painful truth.

It was hard to write.

What is never far from my mind over here is the raw pain and poignant truth of this: everyday I have to look reality in the face as I walk past person after person after person who does not know my King.

Even harder than person after person after person, though, is that same reality in my friends, my coworkers, my students. In the people I have grown to love like crazy.

Never again will these people just be an unreached people group… they will be individuals who have names and families and life stories, they will be memories of laughter and tears and conversations over countless pots of tea, they will be the faces that will be forever be in my heart and framed on my dresser.

Today was a long day, and a lot of things added to my somewhat fragile emotional state: a quickly approaching deadline for some big decisions for next year, some homesickness, a week of very little sleep (though not for lack of trying), the fact that it’s that time of month when every woman hates being a woman for four days, and just that it’s been an all-around tough week.

Which brings me to today, to this evening, to my last class, to four beautiful university students who are passionate about these things: life and school and teenage boys and fashion and studying abroad and having their picture taken and hating their neighbor.

HATING THEIR NEIGHBOR.

Last week, this country observed the 20-year anniversary of some inconceivable genocide committed against hundreds of innocent men, women, and children by a bordering country. Whole cities were wiped off the map, and expansive, beautiful regions of this country are now occupied by another. There is currently no end in sight to an active war where young men are fighting to reclaim the territory that was taken from their country.

My four beautiful, innocent students do not love their neighbor, this bordering country. They do not love their enemies. It’s actually very much the opposite—they loathe them with every fiber of their being.

This happened to be all they wanted to talk about during our 2-hour discussion class. They spoke with such hate and hardness that after about 40 minutes, a few tears escaped from my eyes, slid down my cheeks, and immediately silenced the room.

Though they would never insist, I could tell by their faces that they wanted an explanation. I told them it was hard for me to hear so much hate in their words and see so much hate in their faces. I told them that when hate fills a person, it hardens their heart and their emotions and they lose their innocence and beauty. It doesn’t take much for hate to define someone’s character, and it’s hard to leave that hate behind and turn to love.

But LOVE? Love softens a person’s heart. Love makes a person shine from the inside out. Love makes a person beautiful, a smile genuine, a personality irresistible.

They could not fathom forgiveness, only justice.

They could not fathom love, only retaliation.

I told them about G’s command to LOVE YOUR ENEMY. We unpacked that statement and figured out what that looks like in the world—how we should show love to someone even though they don’t show love to us, that the people who are hardest to love are maybe the people we should love the most intentionally.

Then the attitude in the room started to change—they SMILED as they talked theoretically about ways they could show love to the nation that they hate. They talked about the fact that just because someone is from that nation does not mean that they agree with and support the actions of that nation. They started to let love creep back into that very hard place in their hearts.

They asked me if it was easy for me to love my enemies, and I told them that often it’s hard, but that I love, and do so joyfully, because HE first loved me. I told them that I wanted so badly to see that love characterize their feelings about their enemies.

Is my loving my enemies obligatory? they asked. Is it something I have to do so that G will love me and I will go to Hvn when I die?

I pulled out my little blue Bbl and opened to Rom 6 23 and talked about how gifts are FREE. Then I walked the Romans Road with those beautiful young women, each wanting to see and read the words for themselves.

Class went over the allotted time, but nobody cared. At their insisting, we continued on through John, and the questions never stopped.

Finally, it was dark outside. They left and I stayed in my classroom on my knees, asking that the words shared that evening would be shared again around their dinner tables and in their classrooms and with their friends.

Once I got home, since I had promised my teammates that I would make sloppy joe’s for dinner, I started cooking. And then I cried my way through making dinner, partly because I had to touch raw beef, but mostly because my heart aches and shatters every day with the reality of the lost and bursts with joy every day at the thought of the HS pursuing the hearts of the ones I love.

Please: join me in asking earnestly for their lives.