Twelve Degrees and Dropping

This morning, John and I took the bus to school. Right before we left, I combed my hair and put some water in it. Before we were half way to the bus stop, my hair froze. It was awesome! The cold is great!

I Almost Got Hit By a Car!!!

Mongolian drivers and pedestrians should never be within ten miles of each other. Unfortunately, John and I have the good fortune of getting well within that distance every day. We've had some close calls and all that, but nothing came as close as it did today. John and I were walking home from the Dean's apartment this evening. It was about 8:30 and already dark. There is a decent sized parking lot outside of their apartment that is fenced in. There is only one gate that both pedestrians and cars go in and out of. We were just a few feet outside of the gate. John was walking on the sidewalk and,for lack of room, I was walking along side very close to the curb. I was fiddling with something when I saw light moving along the ground straight toward me. I looked up and found myself staring down a pair of headlights (attached to a car). By the time I actually fully looked up, he was literally less than two feet from my knees. I jumped back and just barely evaided getting my knee caps lodged into the back of my leg. That guy had no intention of stopping whatsoever. And on top of that, he had at least five feet to his right to move around me. But no. He apparently wanted to hit me. God protected me though and now I have another good story.

Anybody Have Some Directions?

Last week our language school didn't have any classes. The Thursday before we left, they told us that the location of our school was moving further down the road. They said that it was by the Mongolian International University. It turned out that M.I.U. is two more miles down the road from our old school, so we had to get a ride. Pastor Dean was busy this morning, so a Mongolian he knows gave us a ride. That wasn't all too bad, but we couldn't really communicate with him very well. He just dropped us off at M.I.U. and left. So, when all the school told us was that it was close to M.I.U. I just assumed that it would be really easy to find since they gave us no other details. I was wrong. So here we are, two white guys standing next to a big Mongolian university, just wondering around. We walked this way, that way, and every other way with no success. Finally, John called a teacher and asked her where in the world we were supposed to go. She told us to find the big Catholic church and that it was directly behind it. So we looked around and at least four hundred yards from M.I.U. One actually cannot see the building from M.I.U. Well, we wandered on over that way. We went into the main courtyard of the Catholic church and found some of our fellow classmates. They said that our classroom was actually in the church. We then proceeded to just walk in the front door and wander around. Now there are four Americans and three Koreans just roaming through a completely uninhabited church. We saw classrooms, but no one was to be found. We gave up on that and went around the back side of the building when we saw the school's bus. Finally, we found out that the classes are on the opposite side. When we told Pastor Dean about it, he replied with this, "Only in Mongolia."

The Angels Rejoiced Today

About three weeks ago, an undesirable situation occured with a Mongolian man whose wife attends the church here. Without going into details, we were worried that his wife and children wouldn't be able to attend church anymore, or even be allowed to have any contact with Pastor Dean and his family. It was somewhat tense for a while, and we had a hard time even getting a hold of him. After talking with Pastor Jaquith, Pastor Dean and Pastor Jaquith decided that maybe we could offer for the Jaquiths to bring something from America for this man. We thought that that might open a door. One day, Pastor Dean had some errands to run that would bring him right by this man's house. Pastor Dean prayed that sometime that day, he would run into him and be able to ask him what Pastor Jaquith could bring. Well, he didn't see him at all that morning. Later, that day, John, Pastor Dean, and I went to the store to pick up some groceries. Lo and behold, there he is, standing in the grocery store with his wife. Pastor Dean talked to him, and he asked for two pairs of jeans. Pastor Jaquith brought him the jeans. According to this culture, because Pastor is older than he, he ows him much more respect than Pastor Dean (the same age). Well, to make a long story short, after Pastor Dean and Pastor Jaquith witnessing to him many times, he finally got saved this Sunday. Tonight he came back to church and said he already felt a peace that he had never had before. Praise the Lord! We all are elated at this gigantic breakthrough! The Lord is continually blessing this ministry.

Be Careful What You Wish For

John and I moved into our permanent apartment about two and a half weeks ago. We were without hot water for what seemed an eternity, but it looked as if a break through had been made this past Thursday evening. We got home and there was a sign on the main entrance that said we had hot water. Not expecting much, we tested it and low and behold, hot water. We got up the next morning and had hot water still, but we had to take showers at the Dean's anyway because all of our soap, shampoo, towels, etc. were over there. That was fine though, because we knew that that would be the last time we would ever have to walk all the way over there again to take a shower. Well, we were wrong. We got home Friday night and the hot water was gone. We figured though that it had just been used up for that day and it would be back the next morning. Right? Wrong. We woke up and still had no hot water. It was a very gloomy walk to the Dean's that morning. But wait, there's more. We got home Saturday night and tested it again. Hot water! Then as it ran for three to five seconds, we realized that it was steaming hot and unbearable. No problem though, right? Just the little faucet knob a little to the left, problem solved, right? As we turned it more and more to the cold side, we realized that it wasn't getting colder. We had wanted hot water so badly for almost two weeks, but when we got it, the cold went away. Well, we went to bed and got up Sunday morning in eager anticipation. Still hot water. Still no cold water. We're tough though... We can take a shower that's a little hotter than we'd prefer. So we tried it. Not so much. It was scalding hot. I tried to get my hair wet by just barely moving it into the water's path. I slipped with the shower head, and burnt my own head. So a few third degree burns later, we were mostly clean, and very awake. People say that there is nothing like a cold shower to wake you up in the morning. Try the other end of the spectrum. But finally came Sunday night. We got home and there was not just cold water, and not just hot water, but both. We took showers that evening since we figured that it was better to get it while it was there than to wait and be sorry. Well, we've had hot and cold water ever since. Welcome to Mongolia.