Angry Cat Pinata

Before I start the post on the pinata, I'd like to say that the student did show up to Sabbath school. Please pray for her. She has an absolutely voracious appetite for knowledge, and a very open mind. She's also a plain old nice person, and I'm hoping she shows up next week.

Oh, and could the person from Nebraska leave a comment saying who they are? I'm curious. I didn't know I knew anyone in Nebraska, but it keeps on popping up in the hits.

We made a pinata. Originally it was for the weekly activity day, but then I realized that only one or two people would show up to that day and decided to do it on Sabbath instead.



Sorry for the terrible video quality, I think Boorma forgot she was holding a camera.
I think I might make another pinata this summer, it seemed like people enjoyed it.

I've deleted the automatic "Being a missionary means..." thing from the last few posts. I think I'll leave it in for this one.
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Being a missionary means two things: having a message to share (not all people do), and sharing it.

After seven months

I recently did something that I rarely do. In fact, it was something that I have only done three times before. I invited someone to church.
I'm going to hastily cover the shame of my inactivity by saying that I have invited many people to Bible studies, and preached a whole bunch of sermons, but I find my own excuses somewhat hollow. It all boils down to the fact that I have been somewhat shy when sharing my faith, which begs a question: what is an unshared faith? Is it really possible to believe in things as monumentous as eternal life or Christ's second coming, but then be hesitant to share them?
I don't think so.
The problem is that the arguments of atheism are by no means stupid. The best evidence for the existence and nature of God is the still small voice, which is exactly the evidence one does not have in times of doubt.
Recently, I was listening to a psychologist who said "People would rather change the world to fit their minds than change their minds to fit the world".... or something like that. I suppose it shouldn't be a quote. But what happens when the conflict is internal? I am a science major with somewhat left leaning political views, and my basic world view reflects this to a great degree. On the other hand I am a conservative Christian with a literal interpretation of the Bible (at least those parts of it that are not obviously poetic and figurative).
These two views have formed firmly established circuits. I switch between them like many people switch from mood to mood. Often I will think in one frame of mind, and suddenly realize that I am conflicting with my basic beliefs in the other (that statement goes both ways). So, when I am having a Bible study and someone calls the Bible outdated and backwards, then holds science as a shining example of modernity, I cannot give them my answer. I do not believe the Bible is backwards (though some things were meant for the people of the time, and are therefore outdated now), and I do not believe science is a shining example of virtue (last time we tried that eugenics happened). Still, the conflict remains.

And it doesn't help that most creationist scientists act as an arm of the Republican party, being neither carefully scientific nor purely religious.

-sigh-

What's a conservative Christian liberal to do?

I'll tell you if the person shows up to church. I think she probably will.

Pool / Billiards pictures

I needed to balance posting the sermon with posting something a little less puritanical.National Geographic always publishes pictures like this whenever alcohol is involved (why do they do that?) I would like to point out that that's a bottle of sprite on the table, but other tables had other things so I guess the picture is appropriate.
This guy (Chimba) has been playing since he was four. He toys with us, taking unnecessarily hard shots so that he falls behind, then sinks the last four or five balls in a row at the end of the game.

Itgil on the left, Gerlee on the right. Tsegee took the picture. They took about 30 pictures like this (as they always do when I leave my camera lying around) so I thought I might as well post one.

The only problem with playing pool is that it takes at least two washings to get rid of the smell of smoke on whatever you wore.

I made this shot. -bows- thank you, thank you. lol.

Sermon on Freedom

This will be my next to last sermon probably.
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What does it mean to be free? Most modern wars are fought in the name of freedom. One ethnic group fights another so that it can maintain its identity and have “freedom”. My country has fought several wars, supposedly so that other people could have freedom. Those people haven’t always appreciated our efforts.

Freedom is the most modern of values. Over the past few centuries the entire world has been demanding “freedom”. We want freedom to do what we want to do, freedom to say what want to say, freedom to go where we want to go. People talk about freedom so much that they sometimes don’t think about what they are saying. This is why I was struck by a verse I read recently:

Ephesians 3:1

“ For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles”

That doesn’t make any sense! I am a modern person with modern values. Prisoners have no freedom, so I think that being a prisoner is a terrible thing. Why would Paul say he was a prisoner of Christ, the source of all good?

I thought that perhaps Paul was simply talking about his current situation. He spent a good deal of time in prison because of his witnessing. In a few places he calls himself a prisoner “for Christ”. There’s a big difference between being a prisoner “of Christ” and a prisoner “for Christ”.

Fortunately Paul has a habit of repeating everything he says in slightly different words. This way, if we don’t understand the first time, we can read a little further and he’ll clarify.

In Ephesians 3:7-9 he says:

I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.

Being a servant is a little better than being a prisoner, but not much. A servant still has very little freedom. A servant does exactly what their master tells them to do. Interestingly, Paul says that he became a servant “through the gift of God’s grace”.

“I don’t need grace to become a servant!” says my modern mind. “I might need grace to get some kind of reward, but grace to be a servant? I need strength to defend my freedom, not grace to give it up. In fact, why would God even ask me to be a servant? I thought God wanted me to be free!”

Once my faith weakened. We all have highs and lows, and this particular time was a low. I wasn’t sure that God cared for me, or that he was even there. It seemed my prayers were empty and didn’t go anywhere. I decided that I needed some kind of test. For a month I would pray to God every day, asking him to use me. If there was no difference at the end of the month I would re-evaluate my beliefs. It was a stupid plan, but I wasn’t in a very good frame of mind.

So I decided I would pray this prayer:
Dear Father in heaven, I am your servant, and you are my master. Please use me for whatever you need. Show me how to do your work, and help me to be more like you.

The first time I said this prayer it was hard, which surprised me. It was very hard to say “you are my master”. We hear the word “servant” so much that it looses meaning. We often say “make me a servant” and forget that by saying this we are also saying “please be my master”.


But this prayer was very effective. It didn’t take a month to lift me out of my doubt and depression. It didn’t take a week. It took one heartfelt prayer. This is because one of the main reasons for doubt and sadness is pride. Once I had given up my pride, and my desire to prove what a great person I was, the doubt melted away.

I believe this is what Jesus had in mind when he said “the truth will set you free”. Sin controls our mind and our actions, and eventually destroys us.

John 8:31-34
“31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
33 They answered him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?"
34 Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.”

Still, can’t we be even more free? Why do we have to be either a slave to sin or a servant of Christ? Why can’t we do what we ourselves want?

There is a very good reason. We sometimes forget that the earth is a battleground. There are exactly two sides in this war; good and evil. There aren't, say, three sides consisting of good, evil, and me. Good and evil are fighting over every person here. There are no civilians. At any given moment you are serving a master, the only question is which master are you serving?

Which master did you serve this week? Can someone say that they were brought closer to God through your witness? If not, what can you do next week so that someone will be able to say so? It is impossible to passively follow Christ, the only way to follow him is actively. Which master should you choose?

Let’s look at this logically. Let’s chose the master that gives us more freedom. Which master allows more freedom? Why did Paul say that he was allowed to be a servant through “grace”? What’s so good about being a servant of God? I think it is because as a servant of God you have more freedom than you could even if it was possible to not be a servant of anyone.

Once Paul and Silas were preaching in the city of Philippi, and a fortune telling girl who was possessed with a demon started following them around. You’d think that a demon possessed girl would scream and curse, or perhaps throw things, but she didn’t. Instead she just kept shouting “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you how to be saved”.

This was one of the most destructive things the possessed girl could have done. By telling everyone that she approved of Paul and Silas, she was implying they were associated. It’s just as if you were trying to decide whether or not to make an expensive purchase, like a car. As you are inspecting the car a person who you know is a thief comes up and says “You can trust this dealer, he’s an honest man, and the cars he sells are dependable”. If that happened to me I would get out of there as fast as I could.

And Paul knew this. After a few days he got annoyed. He turned around and said "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" and the evil spirit left her.

This girl was a slave. By the power of God Paul freed her from slavery to the demon, but she was still a slave with human owners. When these owners realized that she couldn’t tell fortunes any more they were furious. They went and stirred up a mob. The mob hauled Paul and Silas into court. The judges had them stripped and beaten, then thrown into prison.

Chained in the dark prison, bruised and bleeding, Paul and Silas did what anyone would do. They moaned, groaned, cursed, and tried to sleep on the hard stones.
Did they?

Acts 16:25-30
25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone's chains came loose. 27 The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul shouted, "Don't harm yourself! We are all here!"
29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

Here we can clearly see the difference between being a servant of Christ and a slave to sin. We may think that people who sin are more free, but in reality sin takes away our freedom. It covers us, destroying our personality and turning us against ourselves and the people we love. Sin ate away at the free will of the slave girl until she was “possessed”, she was completely controlled by a demon. When Paul cast the demon out of her using the power of God, he moved her further away from satan and closer to freedom.

In contrast, being a servant of God frees us, and makes us more like ourselves than we were before. This is possible because we are creatures created by God, so when we go from rebelling against God to serving him we are returning to what we were designed to be; we are returning to our true selves.

Paul and Silas, as servants of God, were able to sing in prison. God then sent an earthquake which opened all the doors and made everyone’s chains fall off. What kind of earthquake makes chains fall off? When the jailer came down and saw that they had stayed willingly (saving the honor and the life of the jailer) he asked them “What must I do to be saved?”. He could see that these men were truly free. They knew their purpose in life, and they knew what they wanted.

Service to God is true freedom; more real than the freedom we always try to get for ourselves, more real than the freedom promised by any government. Jesus says:

Matthew 11: 28-30 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

In this world it is impossible to be your own master. This world is a battleground, and everyone is following a leader. Even by doing nothing you are following a master. What can you do to be free? True freedom is service to Christ, and serving Christ means doing his work. What work can you do for Christ?

Drunks

Most of you have heard this already, but I might as well post it.

Last Friday I made a quick "glance at the sun" dash to the store in true
Adventist fashion. I bought the things I needed and headed back to the school.
The store where I do most of my shopping is less than five minutes walk from the school, and I go there every other day or so. There's only one street to cross, so I run most of the way there for the sheer joy of running. I seldom run on the way back though, because I have to carry the groceries.
This time as I walked along the sidewalk a man blocked my path. This meant only one thing: he wanted me to give him money. It's happened to me a few times before, and it's never very pleasant. Beggars usually sit with a box in front of them, and street children have mostly moved to selling things instead of begging. If someone blocks your path they are not begging.

"Give me T500" he said (about 40 cents)
I would have done so, except that he had blocked my path, he was drunk, and all my money was in a wad. It's not smart to take out a wad of cash when someone blocks your path and tells you to give them money.
"No" I said.
"I need it for the bus" he said, and I believed him.
"No" I said.
"Give me T500" he said.
"I don't have any money" I said, lying.
"%$#@!, right" he said, swearing in Mongolian.
"%*$#@! you" I responded, also in Mongolian.
At this he became extremely angry and grabbed on to my arm. I regretted swearing. It never does me any good when I swear in Mongolian (or English, come to think of it) and that ignores the moral aspects of the whole thing.
There were people passing by all this time, and I hoped that someone would peel him off of me. I had no such luck. Instead the man turned and called to two other men who were coming towards us. They quickened their pace. Apparently they were his friends.
Fortunately when he turned to call them he let go of my arm. Not wanting to get into a fist fight (which I would no doubt lose) I ducked to the side and ran for the school.

So, aside from the swearing, several people have chastised me for how I handled the situation. They said that I shouldn't have lied and I said I didn't have any money. Let's take a vote. Is this kind of self preservation lie moral / ethical? I'd like to add that people usually leave you alone here if you say you don't have any money... ya know, just to say it.
Vote in the comments.

Silver

I haven't posted in a while, so I guess I should. I won't be able to upload any pictures because someone took my USB cord, so I can't transfer the pictures to the computer. I think Noel has it....

Anyway.

The school is on break, so this is my time to finish buying gifts for people, and get interesting things for myself. Honestly there isn't much else to do.
I am beginning to realize that I planned this year brilliantly (heavy sarcasm). I arrived here in late fall, when the last leaves were falling off the trees. Fall is dusty and windy, and everything is a gray-brown color. Soon winter arrived. Winter is also dusty, but there isn't as much wind. This is unfortunate, because on the calm days the smoke of the city just sits here in the valley, at times making it hard to see more than a few hundred yards.
Now it is spring. Spring is dusty and windy, and everything is a gray-brown color. You get the idea by now.
I will leave at the beginning of summer. Summer is sunny and green, with spectacular thunder storms almost every afternoon. Migrant hawks, swallows and cranes come to raise their young. Naadam, the most colorful Mongolian festival, is during the summer. The best fishing is during the summer. I'm not going to be here to enjoy it.

Really, just brilliant.

Anyway. I've been trying to buy silver lately because I find it interesting. I bought my first silver coin here for $3, and found out online that it was worth about $20. Since then I have kept my eye peeled for silver things.
The only problem is that there are so many fakes. My family owns a few silver things, but I haven't spent enough time staring at them to be able to tell a fake instantly. It is especially difficult because there are so many silver alloys, so you have to keep more than one image of "silver" in your mind.

I went to the outdoor market to buy a leather jacket (incredibly cheap here) and while I was there I bought two things that were "silver". The first was a Mongolian WW2 military medal for bravery ($14). The second was an item I don't really understand that is for holding tobacco and cleaning a pipe ($7).
I got back, examined both of them closely, and concluded that the medal was silver and the pipe thingy wasn't. I showed the things to a few Mongolians. All of them looked at the two items with an air of confidence and said exactly the opposite. The pipe cleaner was silver, the medal wasn't.
Itgil (the front desk worker) was quite adamant. We've had a few arguments since I got here, because we're both quite pig-headed. She said that we should go to a pawn shop, where they would tell us for certain. We went, but the pawn shop was closed. We then angrily stomped to a jewelry store, where they (like every other Mongolian we talked to) said that the pipe cleaner was definitely silver. However, they also said that the medal "might have a little bit" of silver.

Somewhat annoyed at having so many Mongolians tell me what was and was not silver, I decided to dedicate two days to finding out what the metals were

-Fair warning, it's mostly chemistry from here, but not well documented chemistry.-

Since then I have been doing an array of "chemical tests". This sounds fancy, but it really means I've been looking up everything that can be done using kitchen materials. The list is surprising.

1. Silver tarnish isn't silver oxide, it's silver sulfide. Silver oxide is surprisingly hard to form, and it's white, not black. Silver tarnish can be removed by placing the silver on a sheet of aluminum, dusting it with baking soda, and pouring very hot water on it. Some reaction happens, but I'm too lazy to go look it up. The end result is that some bits of the tarnish go to the aluminum (because aluminum is more reactive than silver) and hydrogen sulfide gas is released into the air. The gas smells like rotten eggs or onions.

I did this, and pretty much proved that the medal is at least partially silver. Most of the tarnish was removed and the bubbles smelled surprisingly unpleasant.
The pipe cleaner didn't smell like anything, and instead of dissolving the "tarnish" chipped off.

I then realized that the tarnish might be cupric oxide, CuO. Alloys of silver and copper turn black in response to heat because copper forms oxides quite easily (yes, "oxides", there are two of them). Cupric oxide comes off with acid.

So I tested the acid, and nothing happened.

Today I took the pipe cleaner to a university to measure it's density. I hate doing this stuff at school, but now that I'm not in school it seems that I'm always doing it anyway.

After 10 minutes of pondering signs written in Cyrillic and asking questions in broken Mongolian, I finally found the general chemistry laboratory. Then, after miserably failing to explain what I wanted to do, I went and found someone who spoke English. That took about five minutes.

They were very helpful, and even showed me how to use the balance (the electric scale required a "technician"). I was very grateful and told them to stop by for free English practice.

Anyway, the density we got was 7.4 g/cm3. The graduated cyllinder didn't have marks finer than 10 ml, so we'll be generous and say it was 7 - 8 g/cm3.

Silver is 10.49 g/cm3.
Copper is 8.96 g/cm3.
Zinc is 7.04 g/cm3.
Nickel is 8.91 g/cm3.

Interestingly, the alloy of copper, nickel and zinc (which would be almost exactly the same density as the thing I measured) is known as German silver because it resembles silver in many ways.

So I bought a tobacco bowl and pipe cleaner for $7, and it was probably only worth $5. If it had been pure silver it's melt value would have been about $70. It was a decent gamble, perhaps I can find a greater fool.

To celebrate the fact that I had lost money, I decided to spend money (wait, there's something wrong with that). I stopped at the store where I bought my first silver coin and bought five more for $15.
When I got home I passed a magnet over them as an afterthought. All but one (a Mongolian copper coin from 1915) was a fake. Small surprise, considering the fact that three of them were from central america.

I can't believe I did that.

I'm going to be very, very careful buying silver now. At least the fakes I have bought were cheap enough so that I can probably re-sell them for about what I paid for them in the US. (Fake cuban 1930's peso for $2 anyone?).