Wednesdays often bring med sheets. Every child entered into our project, we do a
med sheet on. This form gives us
information about the family, the child, and his or her health information and
history. We did two med sheets with Dr.
Rita, the pediatrician we partner with, visited a sick child we know in the
pediatric intensive care unit, and met with the head of the pediatric hospital
and the head of pediatric cardiology. It
was a full day, so by 2 pm I was ready to get some lunch. We left the hospital and I invited my
coordinator, driver, and coworker to lunch, but my coordinator declined as she wanted
to get home for lunch since her son was sick.
I had
our driver drop us off at a corner to walk the rest of the way to a French bakery
for lunch. Yes there is a French bakery
in UB that has good ham sandwiches! As
we walked, we came across a poor looking man with a small shoe shine
business. He had a bag laid out with several
brushes and polishes, along with a wooden block to put your shoe up on. Sometimes I like to give people like this
business or buy a product they have. So
I said, let’s get our shoes shined, which was a first for me. You see, having clean, nicely polished shoes
is a big deal here in Mongolia. Me on
the other hand, I do not care and often forget to clean up my shoes, especially
after the snow we had recently. So the man
wiped my shoes clean and polished them right up in several minutes. Then he cleaned and polished Lora’s
shoes. While he was cleaning mine, I
thought I should ask the price, but truly how high could it be? As he was cleaning Lora’s shoes, I noticed a
few people hanging around. I was
perplexed by this, so became really aware of what was going on. He wrapped up his shoes shining work in about
5 minutes for us both and said to Lora, the price was around $8, 10 times what
it should be for one pair. Lora and I
look at each other and decide to just pay it as a blessing to the man. I was a bit frustrated, but thought oh well,
at least it was for the both of us. Then
he said, no that is just for one, I also had to pay the equivalent of $8. I could not believe this was happening. Sometimes it is very hard for me to be
repeatedly taken advantage of and that frustrates me. People do not realize I left everything to
come to their country to serve their people and then I am totally taken advantage
of. But Jesus did that for us. He left His heavenly home to come to earth to
sacrifice everything for us. His love is
so deep that He would come to save us.
So I need to let things like this go.
It is all God’s money anyways! I
wanted to really get an argument going about this with him as it was not right
what he did, but the crowd around us got bigger and bigger as I think people
were interested in what we would do. So
I got my wallet out and paid and we hurried off to the restaurant with a big
lesson learned. Ask price first.
At lunch, I called my best
Mongolian friend to ask what she thought about all this and to confirm what the
price should be. She felt so bad we each
paid 10 times the proper amount. But in
that conversation she shared with us she had a used tv to sell, which we needed
since our other one broke. And if we had
not called her at that time, she may have sold it to someone else. So we felt God redeemed that money so quickly
as we were about to buy a $125 new tv, but we bought it from her for about
$35.
The words
of Matthew 5: 40-42 came true that day.
Matthew 5: 40-42 “And if someone wants to sue you and take
your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn
away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”
The picture above is my clean, shiny shoes and I am sporting
some camel wool socks!
