The Backstory Pt. III: Waiting for Mongolia

 

           

Seoul Apartment #3 had the best view

  As our original plan to start out in Mongolia before taking a tour in the U.S. had been interrupted, we did not initially make any effort to settle into a final living situation after our honeymoon. We hoped to get into Mongolia soon to reunite with Yaejin’s family and church, and perhaps have a second ceremony among them. For the time being Yaejin’s entry into the U.S. was good for another two months. When Mongolia showed no signs of opening in late August we started looking in to having her stay legally extended, contacting ports of entry which we hoped might be favorable toward her situation of not being able to return to her country of residence. Unfortunately, because of her Korean citizenship and the fact that she had in fact entered the U.S. from Korea, most of the bureaucratic officials with whom I spoke offered little assistance, saying merely that Korea remains open for entry. Once we enlisted the aid of a very effective immigration lawyer we were able to get her a single month’s extension through October 17. Hearing conflicting reports of Mongolia staying closed until 2021, we decided that rather than extending one month at a time and dealing with the constant uncertainty of awaiting last-minute approval over and over, we could just apply for a proper family visitor’s visa at a U.S. Embassy overseas. This would allow her to stay in the country for another 6 months without having to worry about her status, which we felt certain would hold us until we could get back in to Mongolia, with the added benefit of me being able to go back to work at my interpreting job. The downside was that according to our research, U.S. Embassies were only conducting consular services for citizens in their immediate location during the Pandemic season (why the pandemic should affect whom they can work with at the embassy, especially with travel largely restricted, was and still is beyond my sympathy). That meant we could only get her visa at the embassy in Seoul. So off we went to a mandatory 14-day quarantine for a week of touring and obtaining a U.S. visa for Yaejin.

We started working on the Visa application while still in quarantine. Jakin was in Seoul, also awaiting his opportunity to re-enter Mongolia on a special flight, and he was able to take our deposit for the visa interview to a local bank while we were not allowed out of our room. Only after the payment was processed were we asked to schedule her interview online and discovered that there were no dates available before late January – four months later and beyond my eligibility to remain in Korea! We were shocked. Nothing in our online research or phone calls with the embassy had given us any indication that we would not be able to get her visa in October – we had no intentions to pay for such a long stay in Seoul, even if I was allowed to remain in the country so long. Our entire purpose for flying across the ocean to Korea was now going to be nullified! We tried calling the request notification of any cancellations, but ultimately we were forced to return to the U.S. on her visa waiver again, only good for 90 days. “Oh well,” we thought, “hopefully Mongolia will open up before we have to get out of  America again.”  We could not have guessed what would happen instead.

We landed in Detroit after a 12.5-hour flight from Seoul, and started feeling anxious. We had expected to be re-entering with a visa. Would there be any trouble? But the fact of the matter was that we had no way to get back to her country of residence, she had no real life in Korea, and we had obviously not been trying to do anything under the table, because if we had been attempting immigration why would we have left the U.S. in the first place?!

When we showed our passports I was asked why I had been in Korea. I answered that it was accompanying my wife to get a U.S. visa, then she quickly moved on to her and was finished with me. Without many questions she told Yaejin to go with an officer to another room. I was told to get our luggage and wait. I couldn’t go into the waiting area with her, and we couldn’t communicate in any way. For an hour I stood in the customs baggage claim, hoping and praying. An officer came out to corroborate our stories, asking what our “plan” is if Mongolia continued not to open up. We didn’t really have a plan, so I said we’d have to look in to what we can do to live in Korea or America or something. About an hour later they asked for our bags so they could “check them to make sure there are no signs of us intending to immigrate.” Later I found out that they were telling her to sort through our things and make sure anything she needed was in a suitcase and I would have the rest. I’m not explaining in thorough detail because it’s too frustrating to relive here, but the result was that I was told that she’s not allowed in, she’ll be on the next plane back to Korea, if I want to get on the plane I have to rush to buy a ticket from the airline (nearly impossible given the amount of time until departure). I asked if I could speak with my wife to decide together what to do next, and was told that I could in a bit, until 20 minutes later they said “There’s not enough time, you can’t see her.”  My head was swimming and I had no idea what I should do. We couldn’t communicate anything, so I didn’t know if there’s any reason I should not fly after her (such as the need to apply for anything in the states, etc.) I decided I would take our scheduled connection to Atlanta and fly to Korea from there. About an hour later Yaejin was finally able to text me by purchasing the in-flight wifi, and we decided I should wait before heading over. They had escorted her onto the plane like a criminal and instructed the attendants not to give her passport back until they were about to land in Korea. I’m giving a rushed account here, but suffice to say it was awful and shocking. I felt in a daze for the next 3 days, feeling very tangibly how my new marriage had changed part of me, and thought over and over about the verse from the wedding ceremony, “What God has joined together, let no man separate.” (Mark 10:9) because it was such an unnatural and crippling sensation despite having been very accustomed to being alone just months prior.

We soon determined that there was nothing I needed to accomplish in the U.S. at that time, so I went back to Korea at the beginning of November. Due to our disappointment with the American system and lack of confidence that we would be able to get back in there, or for how long, Yaejin’s father started making serious efforts to get us special entrance into Mongolia. He had not been concerned with this, assuming that things were fine as long as we were in the states and there was no rush for us to come over, but now that we had been forcibly separated he decided it was worth bringing us over. He got in contact with someone with some access to the special flights which occasionally were being allowed to enter the country, albeit at a premium price and compulsory 21-day quarantine at a five-star hotel at the user’s expense. The rumors about when, how often, and which of these flights we might apply for were varied, but it sounded likely that we could get on one from Seoul before the end of 2020. Once this course of action was determined and there did not seem to be need for me to work on it while in America, I rejoined her in Seoul for our second Korean quarantine in a very pleasant apartment we booked for one month. On the third day we heard that the first ever Mongolian (non-quarantined) case of Covid-19 had occurred, and the virus had started to spread in the country. The next week we were told that all special flights scheduled for November had been postponed to December.

At the end of the month we had to book another apartment in Seoul. Although our period of required isolation was only for the first two weeks, without regular jobs to attend,
 churches restricting attendance, and very few acquaintances to see (and those whom we did have were naturally occupied with their regular lives) our time in Korea remained fairly isolated. We hoped that we might be able to get on a flight before February, but since there was no knowing when we might get on a flight, or how much notice they would give us once we were actually approved for one. We booked the next apartment for another month, just through the end of the year. In the mean while Yaejin’s interview for a U.S. visa was still scheduled for January 22, so by our reckoning we could go to America if Mongolia didn’t work out before I was required to exit Korea. After what we had been through in October I didn’t want to risk leaving without her and trying to come right back in. Thankfully, a family friend of Yaejin offered us an apartment to stay in for the remainder of our time in Korea.

Department Store in Seoul

Got to share Christmas dinner with some local family friends,
and enjoyed the city decorations after!

In January Yaejin was granted a visitor’s visa to the U.S., and as we still had no sign of Mongolia changing anything, we planned to go back there for the next few months. But again we faced guff from USCBP upon entry, though the agents in Atlanta were much more agreeable than in Detroit, allowing me to go back with her. They expressed concern over our lack of income or clear ties outside the states. Again, we were bewildered that they think we would attempt to immigrate after all our attempts to not do so thus far. “If he sends her back this time” I thought to myself “I’m just going to immigrate somewhere else. I can’t keep putting her through this long journey to suspicion and rejection.”  

Thankfully, the agent’s decision was not to bar entry, but rather to limit us to only three months – half the time we expected. Nevertheless the fact that we could get in together and stay for a while was relief enough, and we were very fortunate to be able to make it just in time for my my last grandparent's memorial service with my mom's side of the family. Two weeks later, we were also able to participate in an unexpected funeral for my dad's brother. While the circumstances were terribly sad, we were so grateful that God allowed us to be there in person to honor their legacies.

I contacted the immigration lawyer who had helped us and he assured me that we could certainly extend her stay if necessary, and that in his opinion we had been mishandled in Detroit, as the transcript of Yaejin’s interrogation showed that she had answered everything correctly. While this assessment did not change anything to immediate effect, it was reassuring to us that our trauma was not self-inflicted. Ultimately we did not have to solicit more help from the immigration lawyer, as we were finally able to be confirmed for a special flight from Seoul to Ulaan Baatar News of this development came abruptly, however; merely two weeks before the day we needed to depart the U.S. – during which time I had to mail my passport and visa application to the Mongolian Embassy in D.C. This turned in to another crisis because of the short timeframe we had and a miscommunication with the post office in which my qualification that “it just needs to get there fast” was met with “we’ll ship it priority.” Now, semantically “priority” sounds like a faster than regular option. And since I was requesting speed over cost I assumed it was the fastest way to get it there. I don’t know why I didn’t think of going to a courier service instead of the USPS,  but I soon learned that “priority” is actually low priority, as it’s about the slowest possible method. The USPS in has used the pandemic as a reason to drop their quality of service far more than businesses, and my documents did not reach the Embassy until Thursday evening – eight days after I shipped it and 4 days before we were supposed to fly out! It was clear that the post office would not get the passport back to me in time. Amazingly, we were able to be rescued by the one and only acquaintances we have in D.C. – a providential connection which had just been rekindled. They kindly volunteered to drive to the embassy and overnight ship my passport back to us, and it arrived on Saturday! The next task was to get written evidence of our Covid-free status. Travel regulations demanded that we produced results within 72 hours of our departure, and the requirements would be likewise for the Seoul-Mongolia connection. Ideally a Sunday test would provide us with results in time for the flight and still be recent enough to apply for the latter flight (which was Wednesday in Korean time), but clinics were not offering tests on Sundays. If we waited until Monday morning we could definitely be in time for the Mongolian flight, but would not have our results in time for the Monday departure. Therefore, it seemed inevitable that we would need 2 test results – a printed copy for Monday, and results emailed to me from Monday morning which we could print out in the Incheon Airport. By the time we came to this realization it was Thursday night, so we spent almost all of Friday making phone calls and trying to figure out where we could be tested that would give us printed results in time for Monday afternoon. Again we were saved by a family connection, as the manager of a pediatric clinic agreed to give us special tests which could provide results for us on Monday morning, just in time for our flight.

Everything was set for us to start our long trek to Seoul to make our connection to Mongolia. However, the night before our departure, at 12:30am we received a phone call, saying that we were bumped from the Mongolia flight! There would be no purpose in flying to Korea the next morning if we had no connection to make there. I immediately called Delta to see if it was possible to change our flight, though it was doubtful with less than 24hrs until departure. I stayed on hold until around 3:15 before giving up to sleep. God’s providence was revealed the next day, however. With the errands we were undertaking in order to be able to suddenly move our lives across the world, much of our time in America had been constantly on the move. We had been able to visit with many of those with whom we had most wanted to spend time, and said many goodbyes. Now we unexpectedly were granted an extra week of no plans. This gave us a welcome opportunity to take “vacation” at my parents’ house with them and no errands to run.

We enjoyed an outside leisure day instead of flying!

I was supposed to pick up our test results -- now a waste of money and effort – at 9:30am, and I planned to just get them without revealing our change in plans, in appreciate for the exception they had made for us. When the clinician came to my car, I noticed he did not have anything in his hands. “I’ve got some bad news” he said. It turned out that the laboratory had experienced a system-wide computer crash and was unable to process our results after all. He looked morose as he believed this error to be responsible for us missing our flight. What a pleasure it was to alleviate his remorse by telling him that the flight had already been cancelled by other means! And what a mercy it was that God arranged for the delay to be out of our hands rather than a matter of not preparing for the covid testing thoroughly enough! Furthermore, we realized that we would not be allowed to check more than one bag each on the Mongolian flight so we had to repack our belongings to accommodate this limitation. Had we travelled as planned, this would have presented a problem at the Seoul airport in needing to find and enlist shipment to get half of our things to Mongolia! Perhaps most amazingly of all was that I was able to get through to a Delta representative the next afternoon, and incredibly she rescheduled our flights for the following week, even though our departure was supposed to be in less than two hours! Moreover our rescheduled flight would cut out a connection, saving us a total of 12 hours so that we could depart on Tuesday morning instead of Monday – negating the need for us to get two separate Covid tests.  It quickly became evident that the Lord had been behind our midnight phone call, and we were far better off for it.

Sigler Back Yard in bloom

Our flight the following week went according to plan. The entire Airbus A350 was loaded with fewer than 40 passengers, so the 14-hour and 20-minute flight was relatively empty and comfortable.  

We were able to negotiate with airline representatives in Soul to have our bags transferred to the MIAT (Mongolian Airlines) flight, transfer terminals, and find our gate with enough time to spare for an unrushed dinner. However, the MIAT plane was nowhere to be seen, and the staff at the desk were all Korean rather than MIAT representatives. The plane arrived about an hour after our intended take off, and once we had our tickets scanned we were treated to the humorous sight of all MIAT staff being covered from head to toe in hooded white jumpsuits, latex gloves, and face shields over their masks. Suddenly we felt like an infected contagion of refugees, as though we were fleeing the infested world for the clean, sterile safe haven of Mongolia – though in truth we are more fearful of catching the virus in Mongolia than we have been anywhere else! This alarming “uniform” was shared by all MIAT staff during and after the flight – but before we could take off, we had to deplane again.  After everyone was seated and the doors were closed, an attendant asked everyone to get off the plane and leave our baggage in the overhead bins. Apparently one of the passengers from the arriving flight had recorded a high temperature, so the seats had to be disinfected again. The fact that we had all been seated and buckled in was neither deterrent for them nor encouragement for us!

When we landed in Mongolia they told everyone to stay seated and only disembark when our names were called, which they would do in groups. We were called after about an hour, but soon found ourselves in line with the people from the previous group called anyway. Our passports were wiped off and we and our bags were sprayed with some sort of disinfecting mist once we were through customs they divided all passengers into vans to take us to our reserved hotels for 10 days of mandatory isolation.

The Backstory Pt. II: Wedding

 

           We planned to marry on June 20, 2020 in Ulaan Baatar. After all, with ten younger siblings it only made sense for our ceremony to be held where Yaejin’s family wouldn’t have to travel! But the Mongolian government went into total lock-down shortly after Yaejin had returned in early February – initially for just 30 days. By now we all know that the pandemic situation would drag on far longer than we knew at the time, and hoped things would open back up in 2-3 months so that we could follow through with out original plan. Mongolia kept extending their lock-down by a month at a time, claiming intention to re-open at the end of April, then May, then June; each time announcing at the last week of the month that they would remain closed until the end of the next month. So April and May came and went without any flights coming in, and very few going out. Once it became evident that Mongolia would remain closed until further notice Yaejin’s parents selflessly told her that to just try to get out of the country and be married abroad.

This decision did not come easily to Yaejin. Setting aside the prospect of not one of her family or friends being able to attend our wedding, but also we had no notion of when we might be able to get back in to Mongolia. During the months of lockdown she had translated Phase 1 of the Harvest discipleship and started two separate discipleship groups within the missionary team, which were both yielding godly results. While we knew that God was calling us together, it was a drawback to have to abandon what seemed to be a providential pandemic-time ministry and the progress being made in the church members’ lives through these groups. I also was not sure if it was right to carry on with our marriage without her family present.  Seeking the Lord on this matter, Yaejin was drawn to the passage of Psalm 45 when it says:

“¹¹ Listen, daughter, and pay careful attention: 

         Forget your people and your father’s house.    

    Let the king be enthralled by your beauty;  

    honor him, for he is your lord.

¹² The city of Tyre will come with a gift,  

    people of wealth will seek your favor.

¹³ All glorious is the princess within her chamber;

   her gown is interwoven with gold.”

Yaejin decided that she would take her parents’ recommendation and get married away from them in the U.S. – pending one last test she decided to conduct as a sort of “fleece before the Lord.”  She would ask them once more whether to really go on, or rather to simply wait and see what happens and when I could get in to Mongolia. She secretly determined that she would stay and wait if either of her parents gave any reluctance or hesitation in urging her to leave for America, but when she asked, both her mother and father quickly said “What? We already decided this, why are you questioning it now? Go, go!” And so she did, with a clear conscious and her parents’ blessing.

She was able to get on a special flight to Seoul, and we then purchased a second flight from Seoul to Detroit to Lexington and moved our wedding date to July 25. The border control in Detroit detained her for a time, which we had feared due to hearing many stories about how the American agents see red flags whenever a foreigner comes for romantic relationship purposes such as dating or marriage. They were apparently more convinced of our legitimacy due to her wearing the engagement ring, and a phone call to me to corroborate our stories did the trick that time, though in hindsight it feels like an ominous foretaste of our dealings with Detroit CPB. She arrived in the late afternoon on June 19, 2020; just a day before our original wedding date. The next morning my filmographer brother suggested shooting that day for a video about our story. I was unsure, as it was our first day reunited after an uncertain separation and thought we might need to just spend the day quietly. Thankfully, I was convinced, and the result was the video showed in the opening of our wedding ceremony, which went a long way to introducing us to one another’s yet unmet friends and family and provided great context for her Father’s prayer for us, which we believe was very powerful in juxtaposition, and encouraging to all who watched it in the family of Christ.

We were furthermore blessed by Yaejin’s eldest brother Jakin being able to make it to Alabama from Moscow to walk her down the aisle. Holding the ceremony in the main sanctuary at Harvest Church allowed for ample seating distance between attendants, yet concerns for pandemic protocol did cause us to regrettably miss some whom I would have been most desirous to have present. But we believe that the Lord brought those who needed to be there, and it was in large part thanks to our separation from her parents that we ended up simulcasting the ceremony, which ultimately allowed for many more to celebrate with us than would have otherwise.  The ceremony and reception all went quite well thanks to the masterful efforts of several of our friends of old; all in all it was a day we quite enjoyed and during which we felt greatly honored beyond our merit! Yaejin has often remarked what a joy it was to be only mildly involved with the planning of our wedding, as it resulted in very little stress for the two of us, and furthermore because she did not have much reference for what would be expected at an American wedding to begin with. Those who did the planning created such a meaningful day that we feel represented our relationship well and gave glory to God.

The Backstory Pt. I: Pre-Marriage

 

           Yaejin and I met at the beginning of 2014, when she came reluctantly to Sendai, Japan as an English teacher at Meysen Academy, where I was finishing up my first year in the same position. For me it had been a step toward my dream of staying in Japan for good, though I had long held hopes that I might end up in less of an English-heavy environment. For her it was simply a temporary work experience through church connections and by no means birthed from any interest in Japan itself – although she did pick up the language quite admirably over the two years she ended up living there.

We were established as classroom neighbors and unofficial partners due to several factors, and quickly developed a warm and altogether platonic friendship. Yaejin was an excellent teacher, so my “advisory role” to her was mostly relegated to interpretation between her and our Japanese coworkers or the occasional student’s parent. Our classrooms were adjacent to one another and shared a door which we often left open during our setup and clean-up times, that we might talk across the way while performing those tasks. During one of these talks the topic of life goals came up, and we established that I wished to remain in Japan for good, whereas she was eager to get back into the evangelistic work she had been doing before coming to the school. Thus we determined that our interests and callings were in different directions, and therefore were not to consider one another to be under any threat of misunderstanding in the nature of our friendship.  Sometimes we would meet outside of work as well; at first with other coworkers, and later just with one another when most of our other friends’ schedules failed to align with ours. We greatly enjoyed each other’s company, and were conscious of a loneliness we felt for my impending departure from teaching at the school, once decided. But it was not until months after ceasing to be coworkers that either of us were aware of any affection transcending friendship. Looking back I vaguely recall having some notion that Yaejin would theoretically be very agreeable to live with, and would encourage me to engage in worthy priorities besides; but I cannot say for sure at which point that occurred to me.  Hearing about her missionary work in Mongolia certainly did inspire and challenge me to re-assess my own commitment to the gospel I claimed to hold supreme.

The final moment of clarity for me occurred during a conversation with a friend, regarding the common speculation of the viability of meaningful friendships between the sexes, and my first inclination was to cite Yaejin as an example – her being the only of my close female friends that he would know – and as I made my claim I was internally convicted that I was no longer speaking truthfully to use her name for the point I was trying to make. Aloud I quickly provided other names, but privately I realized that I had somehow crossed into a different perspective toward her from which I had assumed myself utterly safe – that point upon which the bond of our friendship had been allowed to deepen in the first place. I thus resolved, and validated on the advice of  a mutual friend, that I bore an obligation to tell Yaejin about this change in my affections, or else betray a key basis of our friendship.

In fact, Yaejin was not at all pleased with the revelation at first, lamenting its affect on our happy friendship. Somewhere along the line the idea seems to have grown on her, though I didn’t feel assured of any reciprocation until the last time we met before I left Japan in December of 2015. To her mind we were parting for good, so she allowed herself some unguardedness in saying goodbye, assuming that I’d adjust to American life and gradually stop contacting her. However this first indication that there may be a possibility for us along with the period of change in life I was entering and interest in international missionary work compelled me to consider our eventual reunion quite likely.  I would go on to spend the next spring in Cambodia with a team in Yaejin’s mission network and travelling throughout India with evangelist Glenn Cunningham, seeking to determine whether I could really envision myself doing that sort of ministry work for my own vocation. While I was in India Yaejin made her own  move back to Mongolia for a brief visit with her family before joining an evangelistic team in Korea. The simultaneous transition for us probably helped engender more frequent contact with one another, and I started making plans to join her team in Korea on an exploratory basis, determining in my heart that I would give up on our relationship if I found the lifestyle with their team to be intolerable.

Beside our own questions about whether our lives were headed in complimentary trajectories, there was an additional complication in that her family and indeed missions network at large pretty much assumed that anyone “outside” of their network would not make a suitable partner. Thus our relationship was entirely undercover on her side; and for my own part I tried to keep it mostly behind the scenes because of the uncertainty of it having any clear destination and slight embarrassment that I was pursuing such venues where I was not immediately welcomed, when elsewhere I might have been more easily accepted. So I fully expected my time with the Korea mission (2-3 months) to be “undercover” in the sense that I would not be spending a lot of time one-on-one with Yaejin there, but would rather be assessing the team’s effectiveness, lifestyle, and congruence with my own philosophies. Of course, it would be known that we had been coworkers and friends, so we wouldn’t be acting as strangers, but I was considering the venture as a make or break experience. However, after having been accepted to visit with the team, I felt compelled to email Yaejin’s father and let him know upfront that I had an interest not only in evangelistic work but also in a potential future with his daughter – at this point still very much not considering marriage a foregone conclusion, but all the same I felt it the right course of action. To my surprise, my next correspondence was from my contact with the Korea team saying that he was very sorry to have to un-invite me from visiting their team! Mr. Choi had contacted them and asked them to keep me away because of expressed interest. While I was commended for my honesty I was kindly requested to find other ways to serve the Lord – somewhere safely away from Yaejin!  Yaejin was also ordered by her father to cease contact with me and focus on her own work. She did call me once more to tearfully inform me of this edict and ask me not to give up on us even though we couldn’t be in communication. For my own part I felt offended and weary, and was ready to put the relationship on the back burner while I emotionally recovered. That is not to say that I thought we were “over;” rather, I assumed our paths would have to reconvene at some future time if it was God’s will.

Eventually I decided to get back into using my Japanese and applied for some interpreting jobs, accepting an ill-fated one in northern Georgia before moving on to a better one in Kentucky where I was very happy living among family and friends. In December of 2018 I visited another one of the teams in Yaejin’s network and had a very pleasant experience, determining that I could probably be happy working with their team, but I was reluctant to leave the happiness I had found in Kentucky, and so waited six months to request long-term acceptance on their team. When I finally did ask, I was told that it was not easy for them to bring in foreigners to their team at the time, so it would not be possible for me to join them on a long-term basis.  By now it had been three and a half years since Yaejin and I had seen eachother in person. Met with yet another roadblock to ever reuniting, I felt that I needed to simply enjoy the blessings God had given me in my environment and work. Yaejin too felt the strain of our never-ending long-distance relationship and the stress of all its uncertainty was reaching a sort of breaking point, and resolved that the only possible solution for us would come from consulting her father. We didn’t have any clear idea how he might react to her confession that we had remained in touch all this time, and Yaejin was apprehensive about how he might take the news, but nonetheless certain that it was the right step to take.

To our relief, he reacted calmly – even warmly – to Yaejin’s confession. He was surprised to hear that I was still in the picture, but took it as a good sign that I had stayed interested all that time, and told her “in that case he should come here and meet us, and if things go well I’m sure his parents will want to meet you as well.”  Well that cooperative offer floored us! All this time I had been seeing Yaejin’s father as a barrier between us, and now suddenly he became the open door to our long-delayed reunion! Yaejin relayed the invitation to me on Thursday, August 29; adding that her parents preferred me to come before her oldest two brothers left the country in less than three weeks. I was on the plane 10 days later, on September 8. Despite language barriers and my relatively unknown status to her parents, both were graciously welcoming and accepting to me. Her father wanted to start having long conversations with me right away to explain their ministry, family, and church network; in all its strengths, weaknesses, and particulars. As soon as the second or third day he was making comments like “I’m only telling you this because you’re going to be family;” a remark that Yaejin and I both took in outward ambivalence but inner jubilation. I was in Mongolia for nearly eleven weeks, during which time I was able to not only connect with Yaejin’s immediate family (10 younger siblings) and church members, but also participate in an evangelistic tour to some several small villages along the northern border. Yaejin’s father also announced to the church that she would be going back with me to the U.S. to meet my family and that we would return to Mongolia to be married in June, for which we were given kind applause, as the Mongolians were pleased and proud to hear that the wedding would not take place in Korea or America or any other more developed country than their own, as many of them had taken for granted.

We travelled together to the U.S. a week before Thanksgiving, though with a mishap that lead to a free night in a four-star hotel in Beijing and great confusion and scrambling in the Beijing airport regarding the legality of our unplanned entry into China and efforts to track our luggage and ascertain whether it was getting placed onto the flight (it wasn’t). We caused the rest of our delayed group (all Mongolians, who can freely enter China) to wait for about 3 hours on a bus -- enough time for them to have been taken back and forth from the hotel several times over! But Mongolians tend to be very easy-going and didn't seem at all concerned with the delay. Our running around was repeated at the Beijing airport the next morning when our luggage still had not been transferred to the plane as we were promised it would be. In order to solve this we had to go in several "DO NOT ENTER"s, "EXIT ONLY"s, and "EMPLOYEES ONLY"s but eventually we were told it worked out -- and we only had to do without our luggage for ten days or so before it reached us in Alabama! But it made for a humorous re-telling.
We were able to spend Christmas with my family as well. Yaejin got to meet all of the Sigler side of the family at my grandmother’s funeral in December, and some of the final days of Grandma’s house being in the family I was able to use the great oak tree in the front yard to propose on January 5. As Yaejin’s return flight and our final separation drew near, there started being rumors of a new, highly contagious virus sweeping China and spreading to other parts of Asia, so we changed her return flight through Beijing to one which crossed through Seoul, and parted ways for what we expected to be three months at the longest. Days after Yaejin returned to her family, the Mongolian government effectively shut down their airports and borders.