Major Tom to Ground Control

I have commented to friends that somedays I feel like I followed Alice down the rabbit hole, somedays I've felt like I'm in the middle of an old Twilight Zone episode, and lately I've begun to feel like "Major Tom," the fictional "Space Oddity" astronaut drifting farther and farther into space, as we continue to live here in Mongolia. 

For some reason, lately, it has been particularly surreal. We've been here over seven months now, and in some ways it feels like as time passes, we drift farther and farther away from life as we knew it before we left for Mongolia last June. It's hard to explain - life continues on back home, people are changing there, and we know we are changing as we experience life here and adjust to the home we have made here.

We are so thankful that we live in a day when it is possible for us to so easily stay in touch with our friends and family who are so far away. I can remember as a child, thinking that the concept of video phone calls was something that was science fiction, in the far off distant future. Yet, here we are, thousands of miles from home, able to video chat with people back home - for free, no less. We are thankful that I am able to stay in contact with my business back in Utah, and even work on accounting at the office, and make programming changes to customer's homes from across the world. I've always been a bit of a tech-geek who loves a good science project, so I am taking the opportunity to test the limits of what I can do remotely. When the Internet is working here, which has been more reliable lately, it's actually pretty cool what we can do remotely.

While we have been able to keep up with all that goes on, there have been some interesting oddities that we have experienced. In these days of social networking, we learn of all of the latest "goings on" of close family members, friends, old acquaintances, and even some new friends whom we barely know, from Facebook and the Internet, long before we are personally contacted about the news. Over the past few months, we've learned of new engagements, pregnancies, births, deaths, and several friends moving away. It's a bit of an odd experience, sort of like watching a reality show about your friends and family from some alternate reality.

A few months after we got here, I shared with a friend here about the difficulties we anticipate when we have to leave this July. We are building relationships with the people we work with and with others that we have met since being here, knowing that we will have to leave this summer. In some ways, it might seem easier to not let relationships grow too deep, because of the pain we may experience when life takes us somewhere new. But when we do that, we may avoid that future pain, but we miss out on what God had for us in those relationships.

We said a lot of good-byes before we left last June, which wasn't easy, and now we recognize we will be facing it again this summer. We've already had to say a number of good-byes here, as many people have left Mongolia since we've arrived here. Yet, the time that we shared with those who have left Mongolia has left us better for having shared life experiences with them - and the time we continue to share with our teammates and friends who are here continues to enrich us.

I am truly grateful that my attitude towards relationships with others has changed so dramatically over the past several years. I've always tended to be a bit of a loner, preferring to do things on my own. I can honestly say that I feel like God did a major work in my heart to make me want to experience a greater depth of relationship with others. And while more relationships and deeper relationships will likely mean a lot more difficult good-byes in our future, we are grateful for how our time spent with others has changed us and opened our eyes to the myriad of blessings we have taken for granted in life. Perhaps the greatest blessing we can take for granted - the opportunity to live life together with those around us: to rejoice together, mourn together, and bear one another's burdens.

UBean Staff Christmas Holiday Get Together at the Apartment