A Couple More Tuva Stories

God reminded me of His love for the Tuvans while I was there, and here are a couple of ways that he showed me:

In the daytime while Leif was at the seminar about sharing Christ with Buddhists and Shamanists, I would walk with Anneka all over the city (and pop in on the seminar, too). The city is small and it was fun to see my old "stomping ground". Walks in the stroller were the best way to get Anneka to nap well during the day. One day, she was crying really hard and I didn't know why. (I suspect she was just overly tired). I pushed the stoller faster and told her it was okay, to go to sleep, but she cried for what felt like an eternity (maybe 10 minutes). I started praying, "Jesus, please help!" It was at this moment that I walked by this prayer wheel and people were turning it, praying empty prayers. My heart felt heavy as I realized that I'm so caught up in my little world and there is so much MORE going on. My prayers changed to, "Jesus, please help!" for these people. God still cares about my little world and my baby's fussy 10 minutes... but how much more does He care about the people of Tuva and longs for them to pray to Him!

The second to the last day we were in Kyzyl, I went to a bank machine to get cash. It's a long story that includes me forgetting I didn't have cash when I went to the store and then hurrying at the ATM while the cashier waited and forgetting my pin number, etc... but to make the story short, I left my card in the machine too long and it ate my card!! This was our only working card and so I felt like a royal idiot and I also didn't know what I would do! The guard at the store showed me phone numbers I could call, but nobody answered them. So I went to the bank (Anneka slept in her stoller through this). A nice Tuvan man helped me and the worker at the bank was friendly, but I was told that I couldn't get my card back until the next afternoon. I explained that we were leaving Kyzyl in the morning and had to catch a train so we could not wait until afternoon. The man said that he'd try but it didn't look hopeful. I gave him our cell phone number and left. Later on, Leif returned with me to the bank and they said they were sorry but they didn't open the ATMs on Thursday and could not open it until Friday afternoon. We again explained our situation of leaving in the morning but there was nothing they could do. They said we could write up a document and have it notorized and have a friend send it to us, but we didn't want our activated card traveling through the mail. So we decided to just cancel the card and figure out what to do later. Another long story happened after this, but to make it shorter, we couldn't cancel our card online and to call would've cost $3 a minute (and sometimes these calls take awhile to get through the automated system) so we decided to just cancel it when we returned to Ulan Ude. As we left the phone company, I prayed with Leif that God would do a miracle. I knew that He could, but I can't really say that I believed that He WOULD. But we prayed just the same, and acknowledged that He was in control.

The bank closed at 6:00 and we made a fun dinner for our host family and had forgotten about the card. A little after 7:00, the bank called and said to come right away! We walked there in 5 minutes, got the card in 5 and back home in another 5! It was a miracle!!! Seriously. I really don't know how this happened. And how wonderful that we hadn't cancelled our card! That night, God reminded me again that, yes, He cares about small things like bank cards, but how much MORE He cares about the people of Tuva and wants them to know Him. What a wonderful reminder!