http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/world/asis/20mongolia.html?scp=1&sq=May%2020,%202010%20Mongolia&st=cse
10 days and counting until we leave for Mongolia. Please remember the nation and people of Mongolia in your prayers. We aren't sure how this will affect what we do this summer; but it seems obvious that food production will be a top priority.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Setting the Record Straight: Caitlin's Story
Howdy Everyone!
Here it is, the beginning of the best way to stay in touch with us three crazy Connells as we prepare, travel, and and experience Mongolia in a way we never had imagined. Good thing we know God did imagine it all, and none of it surprised Him. Before we begin to discuss what is planned for the future in Mongolia (like I would even know for sure anyways), I guess it would be best if we each told our own story of how God called us to this country exactly halfway around the world.
Here's how it all started for me. My Grandma Sammie came up to me my freshman year spring semester of college, I guess it was in the first weekend in February. She just told me I need to go to Mongolia. I couldn't even recall where this place even existed. High school geography was 4 years before during summer school so I knew my own recollection had no results in my mind's search engine for the word 'Mongolia'. She went on to tell me about this organization called Life Qwest. It was a Christian organization and it had just been given 1,000 acres in addition to what they already had to use to be self-sufficient to feed their orphanage, elderly care centers, and provide for food banks. She showed me the brochure which pictured the cute kids' faces and all the agricultural applications. To be honest it looked cool but so did every other mission trip brochure I had seen. I had never felt God calling me to anywhere besides Texas. No other land mass interested me more. I had just begun to feel the weight of school's normal load and how many hours I had left looming in the future. I also, somehow, needed to pay for the hours so I needed to stay employed by anyone willing to give me a pay check for my labor. I knew God could want me on a mission trip one day beyond the border of Mexico perhaps, but I didn't have time then. I handed back the brochure and politely declined.
The truth is I was too busy, which I have found is a bad place to be spiritually. I had been begun to be apart of the Texas A&M Navigators and the Bible studies they offered. Still besides the weekly Bible study, I never had time to squeeze in a prayer meeting with them or hardly any other activity offered. The next weekend was a conference they provided called Renewal, and I was reluctant to go, mainly because of the price. Even with the half off price given if I completed the service project they offered, I wasn't sure i could afford it nor an entire weekend away from being able to study. Sonia Norvell, the female director, always urged me to pray about it, and I did but not whole heatedly. At the last chance deadline, she said she'd pay for me to go. I was really surprised and eventually was convinced that a weekend without studying would not be that bad. Truly, it was worth it. The conference was such a mind blowing experience. God really had made me realized that I was living so selfishly in my own agenda that I had hardly no room for His. After that Sunday, I felt a great revival in my heart in mind to stay open to the opportunities He may have for me that I may be missing in my blindness.
After a week of being on an intense look out for God's hand in my life, I travelled home the following weekend for the Katy ISD Livestock Show and Rodeo, where I could fade back into all the memories I had created there in my high school years before the present one I was in. As I talked to mom next to the goat pens and talked to her about Renewal and how awesome it was, eventually she turns to me and says, "Your father cannot sop crying about Mongolia." I thought, "Wait, where have I heard that before?" I said, "Really?" Evidently, Grandma had interacted with them about it with Mom, and Mom to Dad. They had both felt a need to go, they didn't know what they'd do, but they were gonna be doing something. (I'll get them to post their stories up soon.) With that I pondered. I went back to school to my World Rangeland's class to here that we had a week long lecture series on Mongolia that week. I pondered more. I researched more. It had seemed as a revelation to me.
I can give you a quick sum up of my life. I am the youngest of four kids. 6 years apart from the closest in age. They all played tennis and loved it. I hated it, and I had a tendency to do anything I could completely different from everyone else, really just to try and stand out. By the time high school came around, I joined FFA. At the time, the idea of being a farmer sounded like it would suit me since I had hated living in the city all my life. My junior year in FFA, I picked a paper out of my Ag teachers cowboy hat that read "Range Science". This was the career I had to research and present to the class for a project grade. After that, I fell in love and applied to Texas A&M for a degree in Rangeland Ecology and Management. After all that, from hating tennis to Texas A&M, God had prepared me to learn about "the Country of Rangelands"-Mongolia. I was studying what I loved, and it engulfed an entire country which survived mainly on its rangelands for thousands of years. It seemed incredible to me. I finally looked to God and said,"OK, I'm with You."
Since then, I have travelled two summers to Mongolia, the first on my own with a group of doctors and nurses from Irving, Texas, and the second with my parents. Now this will be my third year. After these experiences, I have come to desire to teach agriculture there in Darkhan, Mongolia one day. Before I do, I need to get my Masters degree. God has even provided a professor, Dr. Renandez-Gimenez, who specializes in animal and range science relations in Mongolia and even has a few Mongolian students under her already. I am currently in contact with her and setting up to be in the graduate program at Colorado State University hopefully in the Spring 2012.
Well I think I've typed enough for my share. If you've read the whole thing, congratulations! I consider you as a committed follower. :)
~Caitlin Connell
Here it is, the beginning of the best way to stay in touch with us three crazy Connells as we prepare, travel, and and experience Mongolia in a way we never had imagined. Good thing we know God did imagine it all, and none of it surprised Him. Before we begin to discuss what is planned for the future in Mongolia (like I would even know for sure anyways), I guess it would be best if we each told our own story of how God called us to this country exactly halfway around the world.
Here's how it all started for me. My Grandma Sammie came up to me my freshman year spring semester of college, I guess it was in the first weekend in February. She just told me I need to go to Mongolia. I couldn't even recall where this place even existed. High school geography was 4 years before during summer school so I knew my own recollection had no results in my mind's search engine for the word 'Mongolia'. She went on to tell me about this organization called Life Qwest. It was a Christian organization and it had just been given 1,000 acres in addition to what they already had to use to be self-sufficient to feed their orphanage, elderly care centers, and provide for food banks. She showed me the brochure which pictured the cute kids' faces and all the agricultural applications. To be honest it looked cool but so did every other mission trip brochure I had seen. I had never felt God calling me to anywhere besides Texas. No other land mass interested me more. I had just begun to feel the weight of school's normal load and how many hours I had left looming in the future. I also, somehow, needed to pay for the hours so I needed to stay employed by anyone willing to give me a pay check for my labor. I knew God could want me on a mission trip one day beyond the border of Mexico perhaps, but I didn't have time then. I handed back the brochure and politely declined.
The truth is I was too busy, which I have found is a bad place to be spiritually. I had been begun to be apart of the Texas A&M Navigators and the Bible studies they offered. Still besides the weekly Bible study, I never had time to squeeze in a prayer meeting with them or hardly any other activity offered. The next weekend was a conference they provided called Renewal, and I was reluctant to go, mainly because of the price. Even with the half off price given if I completed the service project they offered, I wasn't sure i could afford it nor an entire weekend away from being able to study. Sonia Norvell, the female director, always urged me to pray about it, and I did but not whole heatedly. At the last chance deadline, she said she'd pay for me to go. I was really surprised and eventually was convinced that a weekend without studying would not be that bad. Truly, it was worth it. The conference was such a mind blowing experience. God really had made me realized that I was living so selfishly in my own agenda that I had hardly no room for His. After that Sunday, I felt a great revival in my heart in mind to stay open to the opportunities He may have for me that I may be missing in my blindness.
After a week of being on an intense look out for God's hand in my life, I travelled home the following weekend for the Katy ISD Livestock Show and Rodeo, where I could fade back into all the memories I had created there in my high school years before the present one I was in. As I talked to mom next to the goat pens and talked to her about Renewal and how awesome it was, eventually she turns to me and says, "Your father cannot sop crying about Mongolia." I thought, "Wait, where have I heard that before?" I said, "Really?" Evidently, Grandma had interacted with them about it with Mom, and Mom to Dad. They had both felt a need to go, they didn't know what they'd do, but they were gonna be doing something. (I'll get them to post their stories up soon.) With that I pondered. I went back to school to my World Rangeland's class to here that we had a week long lecture series on Mongolia that week. I pondered more. I researched more. It had seemed as a revelation to me.
I can give you a quick sum up of my life. I am the youngest of four kids. 6 years apart from the closest in age. They all played tennis and loved it. I hated it, and I had a tendency to do anything I could completely different from everyone else, really just to try and stand out. By the time high school came around, I joined FFA. At the time, the idea of being a farmer sounded like it would suit me since I had hated living in the city all my life. My junior year in FFA, I picked a paper out of my Ag teachers cowboy hat that read "Range Science". This was the career I had to research and present to the class for a project grade. After that, I fell in love and applied to Texas A&M for a degree in Rangeland Ecology and Management. After all that, from hating tennis to Texas A&M, God had prepared me to learn about "the Country of Rangelands"-Mongolia. I was studying what I loved, and it engulfed an entire country which survived mainly on its rangelands for thousands of years. It seemed incredible to me. I finally looked to God and said,"OK, I'm with You."
Since then, I have travelled two summers to Mongolia, the first on my own with a group of doctors and nurses from Irving, Texas, and the second with my parents. Now this will be my third year. After these experiences, I have come to desire to teach agriculture there in Darkhan, Mongolia one day. Before I do, I need to get my Masters degree. God has even provided a professor, Dr. Renandez-Gimenez, who specializes in animal and range science relations in Mongolia and even has a few Mongolian students under her already. I am currently in contact with her and setting up to be in the graduate program at Colorado State University hopefully in the Spring 2012.
Well I think I've typed enough for my share. If you've read the whole thing, congratulations! I consider you as a committed follower. :)
~Caitlin Connell
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