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Mongolia: "I Could Not Live Without My Faith" Print E-mail
Written by UCA News   
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Lucia Otgongerel has neither hands nor legs, but after becoming a Catholic, her life changed from depression to joy.

Otgongerel's joy comes from teaching seven special children at Faith Center, a little school that St. Mary's Parish in Ulaanbaatar opened last September.

She teaches basic skills, such as cooking, cleaning, reading and writing, to her mentally and physically challenged students, aged 15-19.

Otgongerel, the sixth of eight children, was born 30 years ago to a herder's family in Zavhan, a remote province in Mongolia, about 1,200 kilometers west of Ulaanbaatar. She uses artificial legs to move about, and though she has no hands -- her arms end at the wrist -- she can do just about anything requiring hands, including cooking, sewing with a needle and computer work.

She became a Catholic after she began attending Mass in 2002 and now lives in Nisekh, a ger (felt tent) suburb of Ulaanbaatar. Her classrooms are decorated with embroidery and paintings that she and her students created.

In the following interview, she tells UCA News about her faith and work.

UCA NEWS: What was life for you before you became a Catholic?

LUCIA OTGONGEREL: I was born in a small village. The school was near, so I could go there on my own legs. They are very short because I have only thighbones, no knees and lower limbs. My friends often carried me on their backs to school.

It is very difficult for a person like me in the countryside. I could not become a good herder. It is hard without hands, and especially without legs. After finishing eighth grade, I had a car accident and had to stay at home for five years. That was very hard because I could do nothing.

Then my elder sister brought me to Ulaanbaatar and I got artificial legs for the first time. Those very simple Mongolian prostheses hurt a lot.

Three years later, the same sister helped me get German legs, and I've had them almost 10 years. The legs changed my life. I went to cooking class and eventually became a cook. The legs were necessary to stand up in the kitchen.

Even without hands, there is nothing I can't do. I can open doors with keys, sew, work on the computer, use the cell phone, cut up food, cook -- nothing is impossible! I like embroidery and beads. People are surprised when they see my parents' house, decorated all over with my needlework.

When did you first go to church?

My sister took me to church once in 2001. She is not a Catholic but she knew the lady who was the bishop's secretary.

I liked the church, but I began going regularly only in 2002.

I liked the Mass. It felt like something from a fairy tale, especially the songs. At that time, most songs were sung in English by foreigners, very beautifully. I could not understand the words but they kept ringing in my ears. So I always went back to hear the beautiful singing.

How did your faith develop?

I believed in Jesus in 2002. Before that, I was only interested, but I had no faith at all. I went to church but did not pray.

One day, I had a difficult thing I had to face at home. I never prayed before. Standing at the bus stop that day, I was really worried because I had this really hard thing before me.

The bus was not coming, so I prayed there for a long time. I prayed the rosary. The bus did not come until I finished one whole decade. By the time I got home, the answer to my prayer arrived. That difficult thing was no more.

At home, I told my young brother and sister I wanted to pray for about 30 minutes, and asked them to please leave the ger. So they left. It was hard for me to pray when others were around.

Since then, I pray a lot, every day, all the time. I pray a lot and cry.

When young people in the church see me like that, they just leave me alone, and when I come out of the church laughing, they know I was praying.

It would be hard for me without prayer. I pray every morning before I leave home. From 7:30 to 8:00, I pray one decade of the rosary. Later in the day, I also read the daily readings and meditate. I try to implement the message of each day's reading. It gives me much power.

Prayer is an important part of my life. I am alone a lot, so I pray all the time. I make time to read the Bible. I am also writing a book about the church in Nisekh and about faith.

My faith is very important to me. I could not live without my faith.

I used to be depressed a lot and felt unable to do things. I was a very different person before becoming a Catholic.

I wanted to tell many people about my faith, so I started with my family. Several people in my family followed me. My niece is now baptized. My younger brother, my older brother's children, and my two friends come to church, too.

People seeing me somehow get interested in God and the Church.

Our church in Nisekh is like a family. I have been teaching catechism there to seven adults, five women and two men.

What about your work?

Most of my time is taken up by this school. This work is very beautiful. The children are not ordinary, so we can't have many in one room.

I now have seven students and feel I'll soon need a helper. They obey me very well, but at first they did not know I was their teacher.

During this first year I learned how to work with each student.

What has that been like?

Violetta, a Polish volunteer who worked in the Rainbow Center for a year, showed me how to teach challenged children. She taught me very intensively for two months, and then I read many books about how to teach special children. But mostly I learned from the children themselves.

My students are between 15 and 19 years old. They all are very different and have different problems. So, I must work differently with each one and I am developing different programs for each. They can choose what they want to do. There is no point pressing them. If they don't want to do something, I just place the thing next to them. It may take a week or longer before they want to try a new thing.

The goal is for them to do simple things at home -- draw pictures, do things -- not just sit at home doing nothing. I expect results only after 2-3 years. I would like to do more with a helper. I want to teach these children to make their lives easier. Some can never live alone. Only a few could live independently, but only after I teach them the basic skills.

One 15-year-old boy is brain-damaged so he can't speak. From 3 years of age until recently, he would do just one thing: jigsaw puzzles. My achievement with him is that he started sewing. I hid all the puzzles, so he had to start something else. He picked up sewing on paper, following the lines, and also coloring. I just placed the pencil next to him, for a week. He would not touch it for a while, but now he wants to paint all the time.

One girl, 16, is a slow learner. She loves to work, but she can't read and doesn't understand numbers. She is practically blind, so letters and numbers are very hard for her. I worry about her. She went to a special school for slow children for seven years, but she learned nothing. I will start teaching her letters, or maybe Braille. She is so poor, and her stepfather beats her when he gets drunk. I am so sad to let her go home every day.

One girl is quite good at work and at reading, too. She can learn to take care of herself. She makes good food and cakes. She can cook and sew. I am pressing her to learn to read more, but I am not worried about her future.

What challenges do you face?

It is difficult when I am sick. My kidneys are bad because my legs do not bend at the knees. The doctors say the way I move my body while walking is too stressful for my kidneys. Because of my kidneys and it is hard to step up on a bus or go downhill, I would like legs that bend at the knees.

It is hard to be alone at home, living in a ger and making a fire when it rains or is cold. I live next to the church building in Nisekh. The people who mind the place are very kind and sometimes make a fire for me before I get home. The ger is very cold in winter, when the outside temperature can reach minus 35-40 Celsius.

Lately, I started to hire a girl to make a fire for me because it is hard to accept kindness free of charge from these good people all the time.

What are your plans for the future?

I plan to bring my parents to Ulaanbaatar because my mother is old and sick and can't walk anymore. It will not be easy for country herders to live in a city, but I believe they will have to come. She is 68, and my father is 73.

My parents sold their small herd to buy a ger for my youngest brother when he got married. Now they have nothing but a little house in Zavhan.

I have not seen them for three years. I have to save up 115,000 tugrug (about US$100) to travel there. I need to see them, and decide if I must bring them soon or whether it can wait a little.

I earn 170,000 tugrug a month and save from that. I need to save more money to buy them medicines and milk because their pension is less than 70,000 tugrug a month. Right now, I can't afford to buy milk for them, so I am saving money for when I bring them here. My other siblings are not very well off. They have many children and are quite poor. Some have bad husbands.

I want to take care of my parents and my sister who first took me to church.

First, I have to try to make my own life better. I would not want my parents to come here and starve. In the countryside, neighbors and relatives give them some milk and food. Here, only my sister and I will take care of them. I have to work really well so that I can help them.

My parents are very happy about me because I'm very successful. All my life, they worried a lot about me. Parents worry about their children even if they have hands and legs, but they worried even more about me because I was born without them.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 13 August 2008 )