Adventures in Central Asia (Kazakhstan & Kyrgizstan)

Well friends, I've made to Kolkata. In the interest of time I'm just going to buzz through a collage of my trip to Central Asia.

Ready, set, go:

I left India a few weeks ago to go visit Gina and David, friends of mine who are teaching at an English language school in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Central Asia, or “Eurasia,” is a region of the world few North Americans know much about. Kazakhs loved asking me if I’d ever even heard of their country before I arrived in Almaty. Kazakhstan, Kyrgizstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan were all joined with Russia and several of the Eastern European countries to form the USSR prior to the Soviet fall, but most of us in America (if we’ve heard of these countries at all) imagine them to be more like Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. They aren’t.

Leftover Russians make up approximately 40% of Kazakhstan’s population, and Russian is the most widely spoken language throughout the country. The next largest ethnic group is the native Kazakh people, who are similar in culture and language to the Uighurs of western China. They are traditionally Muslims (gentle and non-extremist). In times past they were mountaineers, nomads, and shepherds, but most of the country has become very modern since Soviet times. In fact, Almaty is becoming a popular destination for international business meetings and trade commerce. It is a city of incredible diversity and style. Koreans, Chinese, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgize, and Russians all buzz around the street speaking their own languages, and somehow they all understand each other. Muslim and Orthodox Christian women sport the newest European fads, high-heels, and Italian-made handbags. Both Kazakhstan and Kyrgizstan have broken all my stereotypes about Islamic modesty: many of the girls in Almaty would make even Hollywood stars blush! On the whole, I found the people incredibly friendly, gracious, and open, and I would recommend Central Asia to anyone seeking a unique cultural experience.

I arrived in Almaty at 4:30 am on July 6^th—the streets were clean and the air refreshingly cool after six weeks in India. Little adventurers that we were, Gina, David and I opted to take the city bus back to their apartment rather than splurge on a taxi. But the buses were not due to start until 7:00am, so after walking around for an hour with my pack, we finally planted ourselves under a shelter to watch the pre-dawn rains wash the streets clean. It was lovely.

It wasn’t long before a drunk but friendly local man came up and started chatting with us (mostly he was just interested in my Indian salwar kamis. He kept pointing at me and slurring, “Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!) After Gina had explained in Uighur that we were not Krishna devotees, the man decided we were Muslim and that Gina and I were both David’s wives. Hmm. That was a touch awkward! Gina finally was able to convince our new friend that we were actually Christians and that she was David’s only wife (after which point the man proceeded to propose to me. He was quite insistent and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Finally the bus came and took me away. Poor fellow.)

After an hour and a half-long nap back at Gina’s, we set off for a day hike in the Xhin Jung Mountains bordering China. What a stunningly beautiful trip it was! I got a rush of excitement taking in the vistas—it reminded me of the view I had each morning from my bedroom window at Swiss L’Abri. Some of Gina and David’s English students came along with us, and it was great fun sharing friendship with local people so quickly into my stay.

After miraculously obtaining a same-day Kyrgiz visa, David, Gina, and I hired a cheap taxi to take us the five hours into Tokmok (Kyrgizstan). But when our friend the taxi driver had seen us through to the other side of the border (so that our passports were stamped and we couldn't return to Kazakhstan), he informed us that he had forgotten his own travel documents in Almaty and that we would have to find our own way into Tokmok. So... stuck in the midst of a barren wasteland desert-looking place, the three of us hiked up our packs and set off on foot for the nearest sign of civilization we could find. Along the way we saw the most incredible rainbow in the clouds-- unlike anything I'd ever seen. No rain, just a rainbow.

I was honestly a little disappointed by how fast we were able to hitch a ride with some locals. I was hoping for a really grizzly story of being stranded in a desert with no water, no place to stay, etc., etc. But our adventure ended short because two friendly Kyrgiz fellows picked us up and deposited us right at our destination in Tokmok. Bummer. (Oh, okay, it WAS really nice of them!:))

In Tokmok we met an Argentinian guy and his Kazakh wife, former ADRA-Afghanistan workers: he an accountant and she a doctor. They are trying to set up a school and woodworking factory for students in Tokmok. Gina and I had a lovely time frolicking around the city eating leposhka (see below) and having riveting theological discussions while David and Erik looked at building plans (yawn).

After a short time in Tokmok, the three of us boarded a bus to Lake Issyk-Kul where we met Sergei and Servietta (from Bishkek) at a thrifty, fruit-tree laden, Adventist-run guest house. It was a terrific place to camp, and we had a lovely time there all together talking late into the night about those important things that transcend all cultures (like fear, death, hope, Christ, and grace). At our Friday evening vespers an old, weathered man challenged one or two of our youthful comments with the wisdom of one who had lived through the worst of the Soviet times. He had seen starvation and hunger and deprivation, but his faith had held fast through all those years. Faith like that speaks authority in my book.

On day two or three in Issyk Kul, David, Gina, Sergei, Servietta, and I headed up into the mountains and haggled with some herdsmen to get a couple hours on their horses. Remarkably, Gina was able to finagle a better deal with her Uigher than Sergei was with his Russian. They really respected that Gina knew an obscure local dialect, even if it wasn't their own!

Oh, the views were stunning-- simply, utterly, and indescribably stunning. It was a day made in Heaven with the wind blowing ever so slightly and the river rushing and the green-caps soaring high. My horse was a beauty and I had a nice run with her through the meadows (though I was a bit scared, as an inexperienced horse-lady. Gina was a much better rider than I was!) We ended our jaunt with tea and pilao (a rice dish) surved in a yurt (a tent of skins used by the nomadic mountain people of the region).

Early on Sabbath morning Gina, David and I bused to Bishkek in time for a contextualized (Islamic-styled) church service (purported to be Hanif, but we found out once we got there that it really wasn't). We sat on the floor and prayed with our hands open like Muslims do, but besides that I didn't think it was really that much different from a regular church service. Gina insisted it wasn't real Hanif, so I guess I'll just have to go to the Middle East one day and find a Hanif mosque for myself!

Having wilfully spent our last cash on the Issyk-Kul horse trip, we plunged into Bishkek after church in search of an ATM machine. Someone at the church drew us a map and suggested that we take the bus, but we didn't want to tell them that we didn't even have five coms between us for bus fare! Every shop we stopped at for directions insisted (with laughter and riotous handmotions) that our destination was too far and that we needed to take a bus. The day was hot and we were desperately thirsty. Finally a compassionate Russian woman saw us staring sheepishly at our map and came over to help us. Tatiana immediately took charge of the situation: she took us to her humble home, fed us, and bathed us. Then she took David (by bus) to the ATM machine and the bakery (where she had to pick up cakes-- it was her birthday!) Talk about incredible hospitality! I was so deeply moved by this woman's kindness and love. She didn't speak a word of English, and Gina and David only knew minimal Russian, so we spent a considerable amount of time with our language dictionaries. Below is a picture of Tatiana's son and a family friend. When it was finally time for us to go they latched on our packs like good lads and walked us to the bus stall where they aggressively wrestled seats for us on the next caravan back to Tokmok. They were terrific!

Arriving back at the Kazakhstan border the next day, the only difficulty we seemed to have was that they couldn't identify which country my passport belonged to. It took them a good five minutes to verify that Canada was indeed a country, and that my passport was valid. He he. I guess there aren't HORDES of Canadian tourists storming the borders of Central Asia. I was glad I finally got through, and so were David and Gina.

Okay, I'm going to wind this up now...

My last two weeks out of India were spent in Almaty, teaching for Gina (who ended up having to return to the U.S. on a short-notice family errand). I actually really enjoyed it! Her students were terrific, and it turned out that I wasn't really so awful at English grammer after all. Johanson would have been proud. Stefanovic would have gawked in unbelief! Awe, the good old Greek and Hebrew days. They were indeed terrible!

My last few days in Almaty were spent touring numerous parks, markets, zoos, Soviet monuments, and even a religious site or two. (David and I got to sit in for a wedding at the big Orthodox Cathedral in town. That was definitely cool.) I can see, now, why Gina and David have fallen and stayed in love with Central Asia. Those Grebleys are both so dear to me; now their beloved home lives in my heart, too.

UW- India Group Photo

I just leaned how to post photos on this thing. Yay! Here is a picture of our UW-India group in front of the Taj. I'll get some more up soon when I make a post about Central Asia.

Ultimate Workout- India 2008

Forgive the loooong delay. So much has happened I last wrote. I'll have to go back to retrace my steps. I'm in Kazakhstan now, substitute teaching at an English language institute for a week and a half. Wow! Life is so weird. I'll have to write more about my adventures in both Kazakhstan and Kyrgizstan next time. Below is a little meditation on Maranatha's recent Ultimate Workout India project. For those of you who don't know, UW is short term mission trip designed to challenge teenagers in the areas of spirituality and leadership. It had an enormous impact on me throughout my teen years. I mean, ENORMOUS. Anyway, here's what I wrote for Maranatha's magazine-- it'll help you understand where my heart has been this summer. I don't know what it will look like after they edit and publish it:

We just had an Ultimate Workout. It was rigorous and real: that’s what made it a workout. And it broke even my most wild expectations. After years of advising other fellow Ultimate Workout participants not to box in God with narrow hopes and calculated plans for personal growth, I still find myself falling for the game. God graciously smashed my dreams this year, delivering a truth more lasting—more ultimate—than any short-term spiritual high I could have asked for.

Two days after the project I am left sitting here in an air-conditioned room tracing the face of each participant in the jumbo-glossy group photo we had taken in front of the Taj Mahal. Each teen came with a story and went home with an added chapter unique to their own. 17 year-old ______ signed up from ____ because of her fascination with Indian culture and her desire to make a difference in the lives of others. Recently the idea of studying theology after high school entered her mind. Ultimate Workout gave her the opportunity to think that possibility through in a compelling environment. _______, 18, challenged me with his boyish energy and generous laughter, but most of all, with his genuine pursuit of a loving and compassionate God. ___ hopes to return to India as a school teacher one day.

I will never forget these people, and I don’t think they will soon forget Ultimate Workout-India, either.

Ultimate Workout-India introduced its first annual project last year in Orissa. The target volunteer group has been teens with past mission trip experience—particularly Ultimate Workout experience—and those young people seeking the most intense leadership and spiritual growth opportunities. We came to the project this year with lofty ideals. But by the grace of God, we fast found ourselves confronted with the reality of our human brokenness. The project scope was to help prepare for the opening of the Kadapa Adventist School in Andhra Pradesh, a new facility working closely with a program called Adventist Child India (ACI). ACI provides sponsorships for Adventist village children whose families make less than two dollars a day to come and study as borders at the Kadapa School. Our work for this UW-India had five components: interaction with the children at the school, construction of a wall around the compound, landscaping and beautifying of the campus, sanding of the new 3-child bunk beds for the dormitories, and prayer and visitation in the local villages.

We hit day one hard, mastering the art of block-laying and bogenvelia-bush planting in short order. The teamwork and group camaraderie was terrific and I remember being extremely grateful for the teens God had brought to India this year. But warm fuzzy feelings get stretched on mission trips where the sun shines hot, personalities grate, and unfamiliar living conditions strip away the comfortable borders we build for ourselves at home. One particularly sobering setback came on day three of our project: a wave of the stomach flu washed through our group, knocking two-thirds of the participants down flat on their backs. Discouragement threatened as we watched our newly-planted bogenvelias wither away under the hot sun.

Though undesirable from a human standpoint, these circumstances gave us a hard, honest look at ourselves. We struggled to comprehend how as individuals we deal with discomfort, heat, illness, and the reality of life and death in something as simple as a flowering tree. Sometimes the revelations were disappointing. We found ourselves to be complainers. We were tempted by exhaustion and apathy and the weight of our shattered expectations. Other times found us deeply humbled at what God was able to accomplish even through our limitations. After the sickness passed we made our way back to regroup by the bogenvelias. Brokenness begs teachability, and day by day—through trial and error—we learned how to keep our plants alive. First we regulated our watering times. Next we tried manure. Finally the school children taught us to build little circular walls around the bushes so that they could retain moisture better. The work we did was not grand or earth-shattering, but it was truth-telling in that it required such virtues as patience, discernment, consistency, and faithfulness. For me the plant nursery was a marvelous parable of how we nurture people, indeed, how God nurtured our group bit by bit in spite of our incredible resistance. His hand prevailed.

Generosity is God’s response to our clenched fists. It pours over us whether or not we receive, because it is his initiative. We saw it at work so many times this year. It came through in glorious sunsets watched from rooftops with new friends. It poured from the hearts of villagers who invited us into their homes for prayer and shelter from monsoon rains. The girls on our team slept in the same building as the young students of the Kadapa school. One morning I was feeling particularly grumpy— a trio of girls came up wanting to know if I could remember their names. I was incensed. With hundreds of children swarming the grounds of the Kadapa school, how could they actually expect me to remember each of their names? I brushed past them with obvious annoyance, seeking a room where I could close the door to their pushy demands. But before I could reach such mock security I was ambushed by twenty little girls who pulled my bewildered face down to their level and showered me with kisses.

The holiness of these moments pressed upon me with final clarity during the last Friday night worship our group shared together. We organized a communion service and decorated a rooftop with candles for special ambiance. But that evening was particularly windy, and even our best efforts couldn’t stop the lights from blowing out. We were angry and disappointed until we looked up into the night sky and saw the stars. They shone much greater and more luminous than the silly wax candles we were trying so hard to keep lit. God must have been laughing.

Looking back now, again, on the faces of this year’s participants, I am filled with wonder and gratitude over the joy that is available to those who recognize their inadequacy. Hardships invite broken people to stop and recognize the active and unchanging presence of God in all circumstances. This is the greatness of our weakness—the kind we boast in. And I do boast now, two days after this UW- India. I boast in the God of surprises—the God who showed us the truth that he is greater than our weakness. Indeed, it is in our weak places that he is most strong.