Glorious Vacation

Today was our first of ten days off of school.  It was great!  This morning John and I came over to the Dean's, ate breakfast, then started some projects for Pastor Dean.  The current church hymnals we have are rather small and the notes are hard to read.  Pastor Dean has a copier that can enlarge pages to various sizes, so this morning I stood in front of a copy machine for a little over an hour enlarging pages.  I thought that I would get tired of it, but I was very thankful for the brainless, yet productive activity.  I think that if I kept at this language without a break at the rate I was going, my brain would have exploded.  After my "secretarial" work, John, Pastor Dean and I went off to the Monday prayer meeting with Bro. Patterson.  The Pattersons are leaving for the States for two months on the 24th of this month, and John and I are staying at there house while they are gone.  Their apartment has three bedrooms, and the girls bedroom is bigger than our entire apartment.  Needless to say, we're very excited!  So after prayer, we went over the Patterson's house for the walk through and final instructions.  Over all, I had a great first day off, and I'm looking forward to many more.

Deal of a Lifetime

Last Thursday, the temperature dropped down to about -25 Farenheit for most of the day.  After school, John and I had to run  to the "Black Market" to get some rugs for the church.  The "Black Market" is probably the largest market in Ulan Bator, but most of it is outside.  Well, John and I first tried to take the bus, but it took twenty minutes for the right bus to come, and when it finally came, it was so completely packed, that not one more person could squeeze into it.  So, we finally gave up and decided to walk.  Needless to say, after spending all that time outside in -25 degree weather, we were both pretty cold.  We both bought nice warm jackets back in the states before we left, but for whatever reason, mine just wasn't keeping me warm enough, so I decided that while we were at the "Black Market" I'd look around a little and try to find something a little warmer.  There are probably ten to fifteen leather jacket vendors just inside the main gate.  I stopped at the first one and was looking around a little.  I tried one on, but it was way to small.  As I turned around to take it off, I saw almost a dozen Mongolians standing outside the booth I was in looking at me.  We found at that they were all leather coat vendors.  The moment they saw that the jacket I tried on was too small, they all dispersed.  Moments later, most of them came back with what was apparently the largest coats they could find in their booths.  They all wanted me to try theirs on and as I tried a few on, the began to haggle each other down for the lowest price.  It was great!  I ended up with a big warm leather jacket for way less than I would ever have found in the States and I didn't even have to haggle the price, they did it for me.

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.