Thanksiving in Mongolia

Yesterday the Deans, John, and I all went over to the Patterson's house for Thanksgiving.  There were about six missionary families in all and we all had an excellent time. It was amazing to see all the typical American Thanksgiving food that was on the table in Mongolia!  I was especially delighted to see that someone had found stuffing, and lots of it.  It's great to see God's blessing in both the seemingly insignificant and the hugely important.

Last Sunday we held our first service in the new building.  What a blessing to have all that extra room!  God worked mightily last week in helping us to finish everything on time and keeping us safe.  There were several times in which I really thought that I might not make it through the day with all ten fingers fully attached.  The boards that we bought to make the walls were all different widths, and when your trying to make a flat surface to put sheat rock on, that can be a problem.  I was putting a small board in a wall for extra support, but after I nailed it in, I realized that it stuck out about a half inch from the other boards.  Well, I couldn't get it out and we didn't really have any tools other than a circular saw.  So I just took this huge, clunky power saw, and went away at this board.  It took about four passes and there were some close calls, but all in all, it turned out okay.  God really watched out for us and our safety in this project, and now we have an amazing building to meet in!

Today's Low: -4 Degrees Farhenheit

Yesterday, Ganperuv's nephew moved his ger to another side of town for work, so John and I went over to help them out. It was a really interesting experience. I've seen gers from the inside, and gers from the outside, but I have never seen all the layers. Countless layers of felt surround lattice-like wood and blankets. It was around ten degrees that morning though, so things were pretty cold. Taking apart the ger was interesting, but watching them cram it into a truck and transport it was even better. The ger was up on a hill, and the road coming up it wasn't really a road at all. There was some gravel, but mostly just dirt. Over the years, many deep pot holes have developed and it's quite the bumpy ride. Well, they loaded up the truck very high and made it just about as top heavy as possible. Then, they drove it down the hill. The pot hole were so deep that the truck would have just flat out tipped over if they didn't do something about it. So what did they do? They tied ropes to the top and had four guys pulling it to the opposite side that it tipped. OSHA would have been flipping out. It was great.

Building Project

The Mongolian church has seen a good bit of growth lately and in that growth, they have grown right out of there current building.  Earlier this week Pastor Dean was able to find a much bigger building to rent out.  It's a very nice building, but there weren't any dividing walls, just one big open room.  So John, Ganpurev, Don McIlvain, and I set out to make some.  We were going to start on Tuesday, but the electricity was out, so we couldn't use any tools and decided to wait until we had electricity.  Well, we finally started yesterday, and things are going very well.  John keeps on telling me about all the power tools that he would use for particular situations, but all we have is a dying battery powered drill, an impact driver, and a circular saw.  We're doing all right though.  It's interesting seeing a building project outside of the U.S.  I wish that some of the building inspectors from the U. S. could see all the crazy stuff that we're doing.  They would have a hay day marking us up.  At first we had hoped to have the first service this Sunday, but it's looking like that won't quite happen though.  I'm having fun with it and it's a nice change of pace.  Pray for safety since we are doing some pretty acrobatic stuff to put up these walls.

My English Is Falling Apart

After the first week of language school, I didn't think that I would survive a month. Well, two months later, it's still crazy hard, but not completely impossible. I'm finally starting to be able to use phrases and things I've learned. Natives talk amazingly fast, but we can pick up phrases every now and again. It sometimes seems as if my ability with my native language is falling apart. It's pretty weird. It's pretty funny sometimes to be talking and then just have a complete memory lapse.

Last Saturday, a missionary by the name of Roland Gay arrived. He first came to Mongolia seven years ago, but had to leave early this year because his wife was experiencing health problems. He's here for two weeks, and while he's here, Pastor Dean, Pastor Patterson, and he are working on some Bible translation. John and I sat in on a translation session yesterday, and it was incredible. It took just south of eight hours for John chapter 1, and they still didn't finish all of it. It was pretty daunting, but it gave me a new appreciation for all the work that goes into translating the Bible.