Life...More Abundantly

Our University

2011-12-03T03:50:00.001-06:00

This year we are teaching in the English Education department at Mongolian International University (MIU). We really enjoy teaching at MIU. We have great students and it is an atmosphere that is enjoyable to work in. The following are some pictures that we took after the first snow. These pictures were taken before they repainted the fronts of two of the buildings. Joshua and Jennifer are standing in front of the D building. This building has the library, cafeteria (in the basement), administrative offices and classrooms. Many events are held in the Main Hall in this building as well.

The scaffolding is in place for repairs.

In the distance is a hotel that as faculty we can get a discount at if we stay there.

The brick building with the soccer goal in front of it is the T (Thanksgiving) building. This building has classrooms designed for the fashion design department. There is also a book cafe that is quite cozy. The high school (MIS) also meets in this building.

This is the M (Main) building. This is the building where we have our office and all of our classes. Jennifer is heading in to start the day. In the basement to this building is a bakery where they train people how to bake breads and other goodies. The baked goodies fill the halls with a pleasant aroma! Our next post will be to catch you up on some of the events and outings we have had with some of our students.

Bus rides to work

2011-12-03T03:31:00.001-06:00

Many of you have seen our Facebook posts about our bus rides, or have heard us talk about them. We thought that you might like to see a bit of what we are talking about. The first few pictures are before it started getting really cold. As you can see Jennifer is in her light winter coat.

This is the bus stop that we anxiously await for one of the two buses that will take us to work. It is usually quite busy!

These two pictures are of a bus ride home one evening from work. There is still room for another 50-100 people on this bus!

As it gets colder outside the windows frost on the inside.

This is a bus ride home in the afternoon on a Saturday. Usually Saturdays there are less people and traffic. However this Saturday had several people out and about.

Making Tortillas

2011-10-30T04:41:00.000-05:00

As many of you know we can get almost anything in Mongolia nowadays. One of the things that are not imported are tortillas. Last year Jennifer started making tortillas on her own. They are relatively cheap and easy, just time consuming if you make many. One of our teammates loves to cook just like Jennifer, so they got together for a tortilla making afternoon. Here are some pictures of Pam and Jennifer making tortillas and their creativity with adding different herbs.

Making the dough.

Pam helping to roll out some of the dough balls.

Yummy! Tortillas cooking in the skillets! Pam made one a heart shape!

The cooks in the kitchen.

Pam is still rolling out dough!

The finished product of 3 batches of tortillas. The cooks made 141 tortillas total. One batch was plain (regular) tortillas, the second batch was onion and herb (oregano and basil) tortillas, and the third batch was herb (basil, Emril's orginal essence, and garlic). One of Joshua's favorite snacks is tortilla chips. The herb tortillas make for different flavored chips! Yum! Yum!!!

Time

2011-05-16T11:07:00.045-05:00

Have you ever noticed that though time is consistent it often doesn’t feel that way? There are always 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day. We cannot decide that there will be more or less. It is always the same! However, there are days when 12 hours feel like 3 and others when 12 hours feel like 36. But the seconds always tick by at the same speed.

We have been feeling the clock speed up over the past two weeks. As is usual, it was not until the end of the semester that things got really crazy. Actually, time has been moving very quickly since we returned from Thailand in February. Our spring semester was quite short. Because of end of year testing in the Mongolian schools, it is best for the teachers in our program to finish before they begin testing the first of May. So we obliged and all three city teams were finished teaching by the first week of May.

We were actually the last one to end, but that was partially because all of our students were in their first year and were not graduating. Therefore, we had our last class on May 7^th. Since the students had been reading The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe we decided to watch the new Disney version for our final listening seminar. There was popcorn and drinks, and we showed the movie via a projector. The students all seemed to enjoy it. We would have loved to discuss some of the deeper themes in both the movie and the book but, alas, the time escaped us. However, we hope that the book influenced their thinking as they read it and did homework on it.

After the class, we all went to a nearby restaurant to eat lunch together. We had food, fun, and photos!!!

There were many hurdles to jump this year, but we are so thankful for our group of students. They all worked hard and stuck in with the program even during the busy and tough times. As Jennifer and I move on to university teaching next year, we are sad to see our students go. Since Craig and Sarah are moving to western Mongolia to start a business and we are transitioning to university teaching, all of our students will get new supervisors next year. They were sad to hear this, but we hope that they will continue and graduate from the program in the spring.

An event that need not go unmentioned is our fourth wedding anniversary. Yep, we have been married for four years! Since our anniversary is on the 4^th and our teammates’ is on the 5^th, for the past two years we have had a joint anniversary celebration dinner. As both we and they got married four years ago, we have spent as many anniversaries together as we have apart. Talk about team unity!

Baring unforeseen problems, we plan on doing the same next year. In similar form to last year we went to a restaurant called Millie’s. It is geared toward westerners living in Mongolia and serves some delicious food. The owner is a Cuban guy that has been living and working in UB for many years. It is kind of ironic that the best hamburger I have ever eaten was made by a Cuban guy in Mongolia!

We ate hardy and then returned to Matt and Jess’ apartment for ice-cream. We had a great anniversary and are so thankful for each other and the time that we have been blessed with!

Things for next year continue to develop. This past year there were three teacher training programs in the city. Two of the programs had several students complete their second year of study and graduate. Since our organization is diversifying, the remaining students from all three city programs will be combined into a single class that will meet in a central location to all of the students’ districts. A few things will be changed for next year but overall it will remain similar to this year and previous. However, at the same time, our curriculum coordinator will be piloting an in-school teacher training program, hopefully. That is the idea anyway, but it is too soon to know if the proper support and response will be there for it. Two or three others will be working in a high school to help retrain teachers and instruct the students. Jennifer and I will be working for a university but are still not sure which one. Only time will tell.

Since our class finished on the 7^th life has been a dash to the finish line of this semester. I mean we have literally been running! Seven days is not a lot of time to have wrap-up meetings and get together with people before we leave. Traveling has begun to sound restful. Though time has been speeding by, we have been able to accomplish a lot and visit with a lot of folks before we and they head out. It is sad to know that Craig and Sarah will not be living and working in UB next year. We have really enjoyed having them as teammates and will miss them. They at least will still be in Mongolia though. Sadly, there are many others that will not be returning. We have been able to see most and wish them well on the next adventures of their lives. In addition to our teammates, we have met with a Mongolian friend in our building and a few Korean friends. We have discovered that it is tough having to say goodbye about every four to five months. During the summer, we spend three months in the States and then have to say goodbye to friends and family to travel to Mongolia. We are in Mongolia for about five months and then have to say goodbye to our Mongolian friends to travel to Thailand. We are in Thailand for a month with friends who live and work across Asia and then have to say goodbye to return to Mongolia. We are in Mongolia for three to four months before we once again have to say goodbye and travel to the States to start the process all over again. I don’t care who you are, that wares on the emotions.

By the time you are reading this, we will have already traveled back to the States. We are looking forward to being back, but there is another type of stress that comes with that transition. Please think of us during the summer months. Our desire is to be refreshed and productive. It may be a vacation from our work in Asia, but there is to be no vacation from life. We hope to be an encouragement to others and challenge them and you to seek His will in your life every day.

The beauty of time is that as it passes it always brings something new, and there will be new stuff coming your way the first of June!

Time at Terelj

2011-05-05T22:05:00.000-05:00

As the school year is winding down, things have been pretty busy for all here in UB. So on April 27th we all took a break and escaped to the countryside for a day of festivities, fellowship, and food!!! Around 9 am, we boarded a tourist bus in the center of the city and headed east to the national park called Terelj. The road was bumpy, but the fellowship with our teammates and two friends from afar was great. The trip out didn’t seem to take too long at all!

Terelj is a beautiful area of mountains, rolling hills, woods, and meandering streams. The weather was exceptional which made it more enjoyable to be outside. Though the wind blew rather consistently, it was warm, at least as long as the sun wasn’t hiding behind clouds. It took about two hours to make our way from UB to the ger camp that was our final destination.

In case you don’t remember, a ger is the traditional Mongolia nomadic dwelling. It is the same thing as a yurt, a circular structure covered by a wool shell with a stove for heating. Though you wouldn’t think it, they are actually quite warm in the winter as long as the stove remains lit.

Reservations for two gers had been made, so we had plenty of space to gather or escape the wind if need be. Shortly after we arrived, we witnessed the preparation of sheep for traditional Hor Hog. The meat was quite fresh. We knew that because it was tied to a pole looking around when we walked up.

Mongolians do not believe in spilling a sheep’s blood on the ground when they kill it. It has something to do with dishonoring the sheep that is giving its life for food and bringing bad luck. Because of this belief, a sheep is killed, at least for Hor Hog, by slitting a small hole in its underside, reaching in with a hand, and pinching a major artery.

It may seem strange, but it actually appeared to be a rather human way of killing the animal.

We all stood around and observed as a Mongolian man killed and then swiftly skinned, gutted, and butchered the sheep. Nothing is wasted!

The wool is used, the innards are set aside to be cooked, and the blood is collected to make blood sausage, a delicacy that we sadly didn’t have the pleasure of trying. (However, Jennifer and I were not heartbroken about that!) The meat and bones were placed into a metal container with hot rocks to cook.

During our time at the camp, we actually had two Hor Hogs. What a load of food! Our first was cooked with potatoes, carrots, and cabbage while our second was only the meat. The meat turned out to be pretty delicious for mutton!

Our second go around, we had the innards to try. I had to try some of the intestine. That is an experience that I don’t plan on repeating any time soon (hopefully never).

A picture is worth a thousand words!!

The kids had fun searching for Easter eggs that the adults had hidden all around the ger. It was fun for the non-egg seekers to watch the young Americans and Mongolians scatter for their quarry.

The camp was surrounded by awe inspiring mountains. It was fun to walk around and take in all of the beauty. There were eagles catching the updrafts and sweeping across the sky just above our heads. There were cows wondering around the grounds and even eating some leftover Easter eggs that the kids had forgotten to take inside a ger. There was even a group of Korean students who had a blast getting their pictures taken with us!

During the afternoon, some played volleyball while others went for a hike or took a nap. It was fun to be away from everything and not have to worry about responsibilities that were going undone.

Before our supper, our country leader led us in a time of reflection concerning Easter. We sang a few songs in both English and Mongolian and then had a time of uplifting together.

Sadly, that was the last all team get-together that several of the people will be at, so we gathered around them and committed them into His hands. We are saddened to see our team dwindling, but it was a joy to have Matthew and Pam, the two new additions to the team, with us.

Jennifer and Pam

After eating more mutton (and a little bit of intestine) we got a group picture, cleaned up, and headed back to the city. It was after 9:30 when we got back into town and around 10 when we got home making us two tired and worn out travelers. We are so thankful for our team and the time that we had together in Terelj!

One Month

2011-04-15T03:29:00.015-05:00

One more month exists before the completion of our second school year in Mongolia and our return to the United States for the summer. I mean one month literaly. We will board a plane on May 15th and arrive in the States on May 15th. Talk about a long day!

The time has passed quickly, perceptively more so than last year. I wouldn’t entirely contest that it has passed more quickly because of busyness. When we began the year we expected to be very busy throughout. However, we soon learned that teaching one day a week doesn’t take up a lot of time, especially when that three hours is split between three teachers. Granted, the student observations and grading homework has been time consuming, but we have not had a large number of students. Because we found extra time, we filled it with other things. Joshua devoted two days a week both last semester and this to graduate school work. Jennifer has acted on a committee or two and has been tutoring two people (more on that in the newsletter). Life itself takes considerably more time for us to live here than it does in the U.S. In short, we have stayed busy enough to cause the months to pass quickly at least in our perception. We are thankful for the time that we have had and for the experiences as well. This year has been unique. Last year had its set of challenges as we made Mongolia our home for the first time. This year has had a different set of challenges as we continued to live life day in and day out in Mongolia. We have been plunged into the teaching program that we were only told about last year. We realized our lack of experience and ability. We have felt our lack. It is in that lack that we have and continue to seek His sufficiency.

A Little Bit of April

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The process of ending out this year and preparing for next has been a long and painful process. As has already been mentioned, going into our time at Thailand, we lacked a desire to return to Mongolia next year. During our time there, we were guided to return for at least one more year. Our organization has been reeling with the outgoing of the former country director and incoming of a new one. Many things that had not been said finally came out and have facilitated the process of change and expansion. However, it is difficult to expand when the number of people is decreasing. Not only will the former director no longer be working with our organization, we are also losing several very valuable teachers. But we are assured that He is in control. This is another of the reasons that we have been spurned to remain faithful to the work here.

Currently, our organization focuses exclusively on the retraining of Mongolian English language teachers. This has been the case for well over a decade. With the change of location from the countryside to the city and the passage of time, it has been identified that what we are doing needs to be modified to fit our current situation. Training of teachers will continue, but what that looks like is still a mystery of sorts. Next year, there will be a team of teachers who will finish up the requirements of our current student class, but at the same time there will be a process of reworking that program to be more effective in the current and future eras of English teaching in Mongolia. However, this is potentially no longer going to be our sole focus. There have been many ideas on the table. Some doors have opened while others have closed or are nearing that point. One option is of placing our teachers in high schools to help train the English teachers of that particular school. Another option has been to work side-by-side with some of the Mongolian teachers to hopefully exemplify good communicative English teaching as well as build relationships. Yet another option is to place some of our teachers in a university to teach English as well as teacher training to some of the future English teachers of this country. It is still uncertain at this point what we as an organization will be doing next year.

Despite the ambiguity there are two things that we know for sure. First, Joshua will once again be a team leader. This is nothing new, but the team of which he is leading will likely be far different than this year. Our preference would be to teach university. This is what we came to do and feel most confident in doing. This is in no way assured at this point though it is the direction that we have been asked and feel most led to go. Much still rests on the direction of our organizational leadership and opportunities.

Second, we will remain in the apartment that we have been living in this year. This is big for both of us. Not more than a month ago, it was announced that practically all remaining teachers would have to move next year because of the reorganization of teams. That would make three moves in three years for us, something that neither of us liked the thought of. Despite that, we were willing to move should that be deemed absolutely necessary. However, after a large amount of reasonable protest, our director has been moved to allow us to continue living where we have already put down roots and begun to build relationships. We are very thankful for this.

We all realize that though change is both good and necessary it is uncomfortable. We are seeking His guidance and wisdom concerning what we will do and where we will be next year. More details will come as we learn them ourselves. But for the time being we would like you to join us in seeking wisdom and guidance and peace of mind concerning our work for next year.

Blessings to you and your family until you hear from us again!

Spring

2011-04-06T02:10:00.000-05:00

After spending a month in balmy northern Thailand, it was not a lot of fun returning to the frozen north of UB, Mongolia. We were happy to get home after having been gone for a month, but the sub freezing temperatures became a little much. While much of the US was already seeing flowers and green of all kinds, we were still tramping through snow, ice, and slush.

Finally, that is all past. About a week ago, the temperatures finally soared above freezing. This may sound a little surprising, but it feels quite warm here once the temp hits the mid 30s. That may be for one of two reasons. One, it has been well below zero for three to four months. After so long at those temps, even freezing feels warm. Two, Mongolia is dry as a bone. Maybe it is a little of both. Whatever the case, we are happy to be able to shed the winter coat and clothes and begin working our way into the spring clothes (pretty much the same as winter just in fewer layers).

The only nasty thing about the warm up is the wind and dust. All winter, the ground has been frozen. It is windy but only makes things a little colder. After the warm-up, the wind which blows pretty regularly out of the west picks up a lot of dust on its way into the city. Because the city is located between two mountain ranges, one north and one south, the wind and dust is channeled right through the city. Whereas two months ago the city was shrouded in smoke from the coal burning gers, it is now covered with a swirling cover of dust which varies in density. We have found it quite important to keep our mouths shut if we are walking outside while the wind is blowing. It is also quite surprising how quickly we get zapped of energy when we are outside in the wind.

The wind through an open window can even frustrate computer work.

When we were young, we learned that spring is a time of new birth, a time of refreshment after winter. Mongolians see spring a little differently. Traditionally, Mongolian people believed spring to be the worst season of all. At first, that seems a little shocking but makes sense after hearing the reason. The Mongolian winter is long and harsh. Aside from a handful of other places on the earth, Mongolia is one of the harshest environments and has one of the fiercest winters. Mongolians are a hearty people who have over a long period of time learned how to adapt to and live through such winters. It is amazing to think that many Mongolians still live all year long in a felt covered tent. Winter is harsh and rough on both people and animals, so by the time spring comes, everyone and everything is simply worn out. We can attest to this fact. Though we don’t exert a lot of energy during the winter time, the season still drains us. Spring, though much warmer, is a very unpredictable time of year. One day might be warm and the next might bring snow. This kind of dramatic change can wreak havoc on an already worn out system. For this reason, it is common for many animals that survived the winter to die in the spring. Therefore, it is traditionally viewed as the hardest though not harshest season. In the city, it is a little different. People feel the drain of winter but not so much the ill effects that those in the country often experience.

Spring time signals two things for us. First, it brings birthdays! There are several team member birthdays in the spring but especially in April. One of them is Jennifer’s. Her birthday came on the 3^rd while Jessica’s, one of our teammates in the Han Uul district, came on the 4^th. In celebration of Jennifer’s birthday, we had our team over for peach cobbler and ice cream after our morning gathering at fellowship.

We had a good time “partying” together.

On Jessica’s birthday, we had our weekly team meeting at her and Matt’s house. She fixed us lunch, but Sarah brought the cake and Jennifer made some delicious whole wheat rolls to go with lunch. That evening, we had dinner at the house of our fellowship leader, so Jennifer made another cake to take for that. The rest of us have simply enjoyed partaking in the birthday festivities!

Speaking of visiting our fellowship leader’s house, that was a fun time. Come to find out, their family moved in December into an apartment building just across the street from our apartment building. We just now found that out. They have been wanting to invite us over for dinner (we had them over to our house early last semester), but there had not been a convenient time for all of our schedules and their’s. Sunday, they invited us over for Monday dinner, and that time worked for all of us. Their oldest daughter speaks very good English as that has been her degree focus in university. Their older son also speaks decent English. The rest only speak Mongolian. The six of us foreigners brought our combined Mongolian brain together and were able to have a unique but fun conversation. For dinner, we had a yummy soup, rice, fried egg, and some kimchi (?). It was all very delicious. For dessert, we ate the yummy chocolate cake that Jennifer brought. After dinner, the family pulled out photo albums (a very Mongolian thing to do with visitors), and we enjoyed looking through them and joking about past funny hair styles and lengths. Some of the pictures were of the younger children playing Asian instruments. In honor of the birthday girls, the father asked the younger daughter to play a piece on a dulcimer type instrument. That was quite a treat!!

Second, spring signals that we will be returning to the States very soon. May is a very busy month for school teachers in Mongolia. The entire month is nothing but rounds of tests for Mongolian students. For three weeks straight, the teachers are swamped with giving and grading tests. Because of this, our program has sought to finish of the courses that we teach by no later than the first of May to free up some time in the teacher’s schedules. Therefore, our final class of the year will be on May 7th. Because everyone is finishing by the first of May, we have been given permission to leave on or after May 15th. Though we would like to experience some of the Mongolian summer, we want to maximize our time in the States, so we will be returning to the US on May 15th. Our plans for the summer are still a little unclear, but we know for sure that we will be in Wheaton, Illinois at Wheaton College for the month of July. During the time before that, we will be visiting with family and friends while seeking rest, refreshment, and fellowship. We know that the summer will once again pass quickly.

We apologize that this post has been later than usual. Life has been both busy and stressful over the past month. Thank you to all who read this and lift us up. We would be able to do nothing apart from His graciousness and your generosity.

Thailand Travel Log, Part 2

2011-03-07T02:23:00.001-06:00

January 23,

After three nights at the Rainforest, we moved this morning to the YMCA in the northwestern part of town. For some reason, I can’t shake thinking about the Village People. That’s weird! Honestly, it is hard to look at the next two weeks positively. Who likes the idea of doing school work in Thailand? At least it’s about a hundred degrees warmer here than Mongolia!

January 26,

Things haven’t been quite as busy as we were expecting. It has been a nice ease into the grad program this week. Our accommodations are not too bad. It is off the main road, but there is a large mall within ten minutes walk. In fact, if we look out our window we can see the mall. It has been a nice place for Jennifer to go walk while I have been in class. It has also been a good meal stop. There are a couple pizza joints, an Auntie Anna’s Pretzel place, Duncan Donuts, Dairy Queen, etc. We love Thailand!!

Class has been more enjoyable than expected. There are about fourteen of us. Three-fourths of the class came to Asia at the same time we did, so we already have a familiarity with most of them. We have also made several new friends including two married couples living in Vietnam. It has been fun to meet new people and share stories.

The other great part about being where we are at is the little convenient store just outside the YMCA door. It may not look like much, but they have the best fruit smoothies in the world. What is even better is that a large smoothie is only a buck! Besides smoothies they also have great milkshakes, coffees, and various snacks. It has already become a regular stop and will probably continue to be through our stay here. The couple that owns and works at the place are also very sweet. They speak pretty good English and love to interact with the grad students that frequent the Y every year at this time.

January 29,

Time really flies when you stay busy. The first week of class is over, and our time at the Y is half over. As an encouragement to get through the week, we decided to make a trip to a popular attraction today, Saturday. We went to Tiger Kingdom!! First, there is not much better than a tiger in the animal kingdom. Second, there is not much better than getting to actually be in the presence of a tiger without a fence separating us.

The attraction of Tiger Kingdom is that you get to go in a cage with tigers that are not drugged in any way. There are handlers and rules to follow, but it is perhaps the most natural encounter that any person can really have with a tiger.

We got a group of friends (new and old) together and made arrangements for a saung tau (a popular red truck taxi) to take us to Tiger Kingdom which is about 45 minutes outside of Chiang Mai. Having a group made the trip more affordable and more enjoyable! There are three groups of tigers that one can choose to be with: biggest, medium, and smallest. We all decided to do the biggest and the smallest. After entering a door reminiscent (in a much smaller way) of Jurassic Park, we were conducted to the cage of the biggest tigers. We had to leave our loose articles on a table outside the cage before climbing into the cage. What an exhilarating feeling to look up and see two tigers just a few yards of open ground away.

We approached the tigers from behind as the regulations stated. Several of our group were a little hesitant at first, but the handlers encouraged us to rub away. The tiger’s fur was much softer than you would think. How incredible to rub, pet, and scratch a creature of such great power and prestige!!

The tiger, of course, was loving the attention and did not really appreciate the handler constantly waking him up to get pictures. Though a tiger is always a wild creature, these had obviously become very accustomed to people and had probably had people around since they were cubs.

Before we left the big tigers, one rolled over so that I could rub its tummy. WOW!!! Our incredible time with these two years olds came to an end much sooner than any of us would have liked, but that only meant that it was time to visit the two month olds.

We had to take off our shoes and wash our hands before going into the infant area. The young ones were so cute! They were like big kittens.

Jennifer was allowed to hold one in her arms like a baby, and one spread out on my lap for a little snooze. As small as they were, it was evident that they would grow up to be big and strong. At two months, their paws were already as large as Jennifer’s hand.

There are no words to adequately describe how awesome this experience was. There were also a couple four month olds, but we spent most of our time with the youngest ones. Again, our time with these wonderful creatures ended too soon, but none of us will ever forget that experience!!

A little scary, isn't it?

While at Tiger Kingdom, we had two more join our group. As they played with the small tigers, the rest of us had some lunch at the restaurant. Since we had a driver and a truck for whatever and however long we liked, we asked him to take us to the Orchid Farm that Jennifer and I went to during our elephant camp day. We all had such a wonderful time strolling leisurely through the flowers. It was nice to have more than thirty minutes to explore this wonder of creation.

By the time we were done there, we were all so tired that we were ready to head back to the Y. What an adventure!! PTL for the opportunities that He has given us!! Our time in Thailand is much more than the work of the grad classes. We are resting and enjoying just another aspect of this wonderful world we live in!!

Thailand Travel Log, Part 1

2011-02-26T02:18:00.000-06:00

January 20 (Bangkok),

Traveling the world is, at some times, highly overrated. Like right now. We left UB early this morning for a short (four and a half hours) flight to Seoul, South Korea. The Incheon airport is really nice. Aside from looking suspiciously like a western mall, it also has traditional Korean culture centers throughout. Our layover there was too short to do all the things that we would have liked to. We did get to see a traditional music presentation and make parchment/ink pictures all for free.

We had a great five hour flight to Bangkok and arrived there around 10 pm last night. We are still here. (Insert glumness and extreme fatigue) The Bangkok airport is okay but not for setting around all night… I think I just fell asleep for a second because there’s a small wet spot on my paper. Thankfully the flight to Chiang Mai is just over an hour, and it is leaving shortly.

January 20 (Chiang Mai),

What a beautiful morning it was! It was also great to finally get here. We feel like we just traveled to the States, but we are still in Asia. The sunshine and feeling of completion gave us a short boost of energy. We took a cab to our hotel, the place we stayed last year during pre-conference, and got checked in quickly even though it was before 9 am. This is our vacation time. Once classes start next week, I (Joshua) at least will be busy practically till conference is over. Our vacation time is about to begin with sleep. After a valiant attempt to read our books (that didn’t work so well), we ordered room service and watched TV. The bed feels great, so we are going to get some much needed rest.

January 22,

Since we are spending all of our time during vacation here in Chiang Mai, we have decided to do some of the more touristy things this year that we skipped out on last year. Yesterday, we stayed pretty close and just relaxed, that is, until mid afternoon. Then we took a Scorpion Tail riverboat cruise along the Mae Ping River.

It wasn’t long or fancy, but we practically had the boat to ourselves. The hour and a half ride included us, a friendly couple from Nebraska, and the comedic tour guide. The tour included a brief history of Chiang Mai (a city whose name means “New City” but is over 700 years old, older even than Bangkok), a description of certain riverside sites, and a brief stop ashore for some mango and sticky rice which is a local delicacy. We laughed and talked and had a great time cruising through the city.

Today was our big event. After eating our delicious Thai style breakfast, we were picked up by a tour van and taken to a local elephant camp. Elephants are a big part of Thailand (no pun intended) and its history and something that we gravely missed out on last year. We determined to not do so again this year. The first leg of our day long excursion was a float through the jungle on a bamboo raft. A bamboo raft is nothing more than two layers of bamboo tied together.

It was a little disheartening to see water coming up between the bamboo poles, but we also knew that if it sank we could just stand up (the water was only about knee deep). Once we got to smooth water, I was asked to help pole the boat. Though style was perhaps lacking, I at least did not overturn the boat.

Perhaps the coolest part of this trip, besides the knowledge that Rambo 4 was filmed in those jungles, was the constant sight of elephants wandering along the river bank and up along the hills.

After we set back aground, we ate a delicious albeit hurried lunch in order to make it to our Ox Cart ride. Exciting as it was, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t want to ride that thing for a long distance. Again, I was asked to take the reign though quite literally this time. The driver, after introducing his oxen Moe and How, asked me to cross over the railing and take his seat while he took my camera. The oxen were well trained, so I didn’t really have to do anything. But, it felt pretty cool. I mean, how many other people can say they have “driven” an ox cart in Thailand?

The third leg of our journey was the much anticipated elephant ride. Thankfully, there was a high platform from which we were able to mount our steed.

Again, the road was a bit “unstable” and certainly not for the faint of stomach, but all this we could overlook from the sheer AWESOMNESS of riding an elephant through the Thai jungle. As our ride came to the river, the mahout dismounted taking with him my camera. It was perhaps a bit more unnerving to sit atop an elephant with no “driver” than to “take the wheel” of the ox cart; however, we got some great pictures out of the deal!

After an awesome elephant show where elephants danced, played soccer, and even painted, we greeted a mother and her young calf.

Our time at the camp now over, we stopped at a hill tribe village. This was not part of our trip, so we sat and waited patiently for the rest of our group. What a strange group it was! We hit it off with a young couple from Munich, Germany who had also been at our hotel. We also talked a bit with a young man from Australia. Also in our group, but whom we didn’t speak with much, were a group from Chili, two men from Italy, and one man from

Japan

. We were quite the “party” group, but the diversity also made it rather interesting.

Our last stop was at an Orchid farm. The Orchid is Thailand’s national flower and symbol as well as Jennifer’s favorite flower.

There were more varieties in one place than I even knew existed, so our thirty minute stay was anything but long enough. However, our day was quite exhausting, so it is nice to be back in our room.

Now I have to face the fact that “vacation” time is nearly over. We move tomorrow to the YMCA where I will be occupied with classes for the next two weeks. Work in Thailand just doesn’t seem right!

A Little Bit of Life

2011-01-12T00:04:00.001-06:00

Since the last two posts were mostly text, we decided to throw a bunch a pictures your way this time! They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and if you are like us, you probably enjoy the pictures more anyway!! With that said, feast your eyes on a plethora of pictures from our life and a few bits of text as well ( I was an English major, I have to write something!)

These were taken before it became Winter and are just a few views of the area near where we live.

These are in the west side of town near the home of some teammates. We thought they looked like sand sculptures, but they were actually made of concrete. Kind of neat none-the-less!

Here sits the fearless attendence keeper with an eye out for late comers; and trust me, we have them every week!

This murial is painted on the back wall of one of the classrooms we have used. It seemed very unique and colorful! We later learned that that classroom is a music room among other things, so the piano keys kind of make sense now!

Huge green beans, home made bread bowls with clam chowder, and home made hamburger buns OH MY!!!! Man cannot live on mutton alone (actually we don't live on it much anyway)!

Ah! Let it snow, let it snow!! Sadly, we haven't gotten much more than this, but we had snow on the ground for Christmas!

Our neighboring ger covered in snow. Check out the wooden slats standing upright next to the fence. You guessed it!! The bathroom!! We just think about that and we get cold!!! PTL for an indoor toilet and running water; its the little things in life!!

The next picture is of our least favorite mode of transportation, a microbus. It is little more than a souped up minivan with a crazy Mongolian driver and about 20 people (or more) squashed in it!! You can probably understand why we prefer to take the bus!

Here is proof that I do help around the house! This may be all I do, but its better than nothing!!

Right Dear?!

See the napkins next to the sink, the white stack. Would you believe that they have an expiration date?

Well they do! We are good though, they don't expire for another two years!! Nothing like a napkin past it's prime!!

You may be wondering what this is all about. This is the light in our half bath. We had it on one day when it went out. We thought it might just be the bulb but found that the wire had burnt in two!! When our landlord's son came to fix it, we learned that the original electrician skimped on his work. PTL our apartment didn't burn down!! The building wouldn't have gone up because it is concrete, but our apartment could have been toast!!

The Mongolian rule for crossing a road, get in a large group and then walk across regardless of what is coming. There is a crosswalk right there too, but those mean little here. Road crossings test a person's true metal, guts, or stupidity!!

Maybe not quite a plethora by definition, but this post is going to have to last you. We are leaving for Thailand on January 19th and won't be back until February 17th. We will get another one out for you to read after we get back! By the way, THANKS FOR READING OUR BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Bit Scared

2011-01-04T07:40:00.000-06:00

Living abroad can at times be unsettling or even scary. Whenever a person is exposed to a completely new and foreign environment it can and usually causes stress of some kind. We are very thankful that Mongolia is not a particularly rough country to live in. We have had protection and little need to fear. With that said, there have been a few occurrences that rattled our cage a little more than we would have liked. As I said last time, I am sure there have been other events that just don’t come to mind right now, but the following three occasions rank as some of our scariest living abroad moments.

One of the biggest problems faced by Mongolians and foreigners alike is pick-pocketing. Throughout the city, it is imperative to constantly be on guard for pick-pockets. Whether out of need or greed some have made it their profession to steal from others. While foreigners are the most likely targets, even other Mongolians fall prey to these events. We know of some Mongolians who have lost three or four cell phones in less than a year! When we first got here, we were warned by our country leaders to be careful and to keep an eye out for such things. We were told the most likely places to be stolen from and given tips on how to best avoid this problem. For several months we had no problems at all even though we had been to some of the “hot” areas. One day, after visiting a nearby market, I (Joshua) had my pocket picked for the first time. We had bought a blanket that was rather large and bulky. For ease of carrying, I was holding it in front of me with both arms wrapped around it. We were preparing to cross the last street before we got to our apartment building when a man stepped in front of me and stopped. My momentum carried me into him for an even more abrupt stop. At the same time I stopped, I felt a hand reach into my right pocket and pull out my wallet. There is no feeling in the world like the abrupt knowledge that someone else’s hand is in your pocket. It was that feeling alone that bothered me for the next few days. Though my reflexes may not be the quickest in the world, I was aware enough of what was going on to grab the hand after if left my pocket. Of course, I was still holding the blanket and was unable to see the hand. I turned around to look at the guy who I was holding while telling Jennifer what had happened. She grabbed the guy who stepped in front of me to ensure that neither one of them got away. At first, I thought I had the wrong guy because of his innocent reaction. It was only after making quite a scene (there were lots of people around plus at least one cop across the street) that the guy returned my wallet and then all of the money that he had pulled out of it before handing it back. Thank the Father for watching out for us! Of all times to have my wallet stolen, that was one of the only times that I was carrying my check card. It occurred to us later that we, by catching them in the act, publicly shamed those two would-be thieves. The thought here is that if a thief can get away with stealing, good for him. If he should get caught while trying to steal, shame on him. It is the responsibility of the person being stolen from to realize it. If he or she didn’t, then they deserve to be stolen from. Regardless, this event shook me up for a few days and caused us to be super protective and suspicious for several weeks.

Another problem in Mongolia is alcoholism. A majority of the male population stay drunk a large portion of the time. This is a very sad truth. It is not uncommon to see a man, even in nice clothes, passed out drunk on the sidewalk. One time, I moved a drunk man’s legs out of the road because he had passed out with half his body sticking out in a busy thoroughfare. Others stay just sober enough to be able to work or drive. During our class last spring semester, we would take a taxi home from the school every night because the buses had stopped running. Most taxis we took were decent enough and the drivers friendly enough. However, we had a more interesting drive one night. Our teammates were in the States, so another female teammate joined us to assist in the lessons. After hailing a taxi and telling the driver where we needed to go, the girls climbed in the back seat while I sat in the passenger seat. Shortly after leaving the school, it became obvious that the man was highly intoxicated. Traffic in UB is mostly crazy to begin with. Mixing that with a liquored up driver made for a most frightening ride. The driver however did not see any problem. In fact, once he figured out that I could speak some Mongolian, he made a continual effort to carry on a conversation with me. Later we realized that keeping him occupied with conversation was probably a good idea. Needless to say, all three of us were uplifting the whole way home! Most taxi drivers and rides are fine. Aside from the nightmarish traffic and a little daredevil driving on the side (sidewalk sometimes!), taking a taxi is not a bad idea. However, after that event, we chose to take the bus as often as possible.

The last event takes us back to just after we arrived in UB in 2009. Mongolia seemed new, unfamiliar, and in some ways frightening. We didn’t know any of the language and were living smack in the heart of town. The day or two after arriving, our country director cautioned us to not venture outside after 11 pm or open our door for anybody except those we knew, at least for the time being. As I said before, Mongolia is mostly a safe place, but we had not fully become aware of that. Combined with our jet-lag fatigue, those cautions took on a whole other level of fear in our minds. I think we said at least once or twice “What did we get ourselves into?” However, we had little to worry about. We had no strangers come knocking during the day and we did not venture out after dark. But one night either our first or second week, we were awoken by what sounded like a knock at our door. We had left some windows open in the front room and thought that they had caused the fright. While checking on them, there seemed to be a sound at the door, but we were both so sleepy that it was hard to tell for sure. We closed our bedroom door and crawled back into bed. A few moments after closing our eyes again, we heard a loud bang at our door. Doubting our hearing yet again, we just lay there listening. A moment or so later, we heard the noise once more. Knowing that nobody we knew would be visiting us at 2 in the morning, we decided it would be best not to answer the door. Shortly the noise stopped and we were able to go back to sleep, after much uplifting of course. More than likely, it was probably a drunk person who either had the wrong door or knew that new foreigners were living in that apartment. Either way, answering the door was probably not the best idea, and it did cause our hearts to beat a bit faster for a little while.

As I said above, we are very thankful that nothing major has happened during our time living here. We have heard many stories far worse than the ones that we just shared and are thankful that these are the worst we have to tell. However, please continue to uplift us and our safety.

Next post, we will share numerous random pictures and a few random stories or facts!

funnY Time

2010-12-14T03:59:00.003-06:00

There have been many unique and humorous experiences while living cross-culturally here in Mongolia. In fact, it is kind of hard to think of them all and to narrow the list down to five. As sure as we post these we will think of something else funnier, but we hope that you get a kick out of these stories.

At number five, this story doesn’t have much to do with living cross-culturally, but it was a funny part of our life last year. When we arrived in Mongolia, we expected to be living is a small and non-fancy apartment. We were pleasantly surprised to find an apartment larger than our last one in the States. It was also clean and very nice. However, the bed was another story. After walking into our apartment for the first time and taking stock of things, Joshua sat down on the bed. A rock would have been softer than it. We were blessed to have a bed with a Chinese mattress! Suffice it to say that we didn’t get a lot of sleep until we got a foam mattress to go on it. While that story in and of itself is pretty funny, what happened next was great! One night, after lying down, the bed collapsed under us. We got up and removed the mattress to find that the bed was nothing more than a frame of wood, wood that had dry rotted so bad that the hardware wouldn’t stay in the holes. We pieced the thing back together for the night only to have it break again the following morning. Then we got serious; we pulled out the duct tape! You would think MacGyver had gotten a hold of that bed after we were done! Sadly, our tape job didn’t do as well as we would have liked. After another collapse, we pulled the bed apart, put the rock mattress and foam on the floor, and slept that way for the rest of our time in that apartment. The real fun thing was trying to piece the thing back together before moving out this past spring. We got it together the day before moving and tried to sleep on it, but after reclining and hearing it pop, we quickly got up and slept on the floor one last time!

Number four also occurred shortly after we arrived last year. Within our first month, we took a car trip into the country to visit a very popular and important religious monument called Mother Rock. If you remember, we wrote a post about this event last year. After getting a ways out of the city, the roads stopped, and there were no buildings except for the occasional ger. The biggest event, aside from cows and horses in the road a few times, was meeting another vehicle. Since there were so few other people “out and about,” having the opportunity to chat with another passing vehicle was apparently an important social event. It was reminiscent of the time before cars when people would stop along their path in order to “shoot the breeze.” However, chatting was not the only order of business! Along with the absence of buildings was the absence of bathrooms. Not a big deal for those adventurous outdoorsy types! Not even all that big of a deal for us except for the fact that the social gatherings were the pit stops as well. In Mongolian thought, it is not the responsibility of the person taking care of business to get far out of sight but the responsibility of the other folks not to look. We were still new, this had not yet sunk in. Needless to say, it was a little unusual to look up and see several people taking care of things just a few yards away. It is also important to note that there was a serious lack of hide-behind material such as trees, and the wind was blowing very frigidly. I got one word, Burr!!

This was a purely innocent picture. I had no idea it included what it does until I picked it for this post!

Number three was one of our first interactions with a Mongolian individual. We, along with our teammates, were walking to the home of another country teammate and his family. We happened to veer off course and walk through a gas station. After turning into the gas station, we heard and saw a car zoom in behind us. We thought the usual, the guy needed gas; however, the car stopped behind us, and a young man jumped out and ran up to us. At this point in our time here, we did not know any Mongolian which was okay because he came up speaking English to us. Feeling a little accosted, we heard him saying, “You help me. I help you. We be friends!” He repeated this several times, and we could get little else out of him. I called the friend that we were going to meet and had him speak to the man. Come to find out, he saw Americans (we stand out) and wanted us to help him learn more English. In return for our language, he was willing to help us in any way we needed. This is very Mongolian. If I do something for you, you owe me. Free gifts are not usual. We said we would help him, so he gave us a ride to our friend’s house and stuck around for an English book study. Before it started, he left to get his girlfriend and brought her back, but for about half of the book study, he left her in the car while he was visiting with all of us. Jennifer and I met with him a couple times, but the relationship was short lived. He changed his phone number and stopped trying to contact us.

Number two happened less than a week ago. It was Saturday, and we were hanging out at the school where we teach our lessons. We had a little bit of time before the lesson needed to begin. Several students had arrived and were getting settled. I (Joshua) sat in a chair at the front of the class waiting to begin. In the moments of boredom before beginning, I was scanning the room. I stopped at a large sign hanging on the back wall. I had seen the sign before while in there for other lessons but could not understand the Mongolian on it. Out of pure curiosity, a desire to expand my Mongolian database, and to break the pre-class silence, I asked the students what it meant. I didn’t point it out though. I just asked “Could someone tell me what (insert Mongolian here) means?” I should have suspected that something was amiss when the students turned a light shade of red and started giggling. By the way, all but one of the students there at that time were female. I was oblivious, and Jennifer was otherwise occupied, unaware of my question. After a few tense moments, one of the students said something about the Red Cross. Believing that it was difficult for them to translate the few words I said, I took this response to mean that it was the motto of the Red Cross. That was wrong. Turns out, the four words on the poster on the back wall of the classroom say something akin to “Be safe and healthy, use condoms!” Can you say “Awkward!!” Of all the things I could have said in Mongolian to a classroom full of women!! The blood eventually drained from my face, and class began. Later, I realized that there was a condom package on the poster with wings like a dove coming off of it. You cannot make this stuff up!

The sign! A bit blurry, but you get the point!!

Number one on our list of funniest foreigner moments again includes me and our cat Jejeg Baatar (Mongolian for Little Hero). Last fall, we adopted a stranded kitten and added him to our family. Since we found him in our stairwell, we took him to the vet to have him checked out. It was cool but fine to carry him in a thin-walled cat carrier. The vet was only about a ten or fifteen minute walk from our house, and Jejeg did fine except for freaking out when we crossed the road (don’t we all!!). We were told to take him back in December to get some shots. December came, and it was about -20 degrees outside. Fearing that he would freeze before we got him to the vet, I had a somewhat brilliant idea. I put Jejeg in my coat! He was still small but refused to stay in one spot. All bundled up, we left our apartment. Aside from having a very unusual lump in my middle that was moving, Jejeg would occasionally stick his head out of the jacket by peeking up over the zipper. You can only imagine the looks that we got that day!! For one thing, we are foreigners. Most people don’t pay us any attention, but others will just stare at us for being us. For another thing, most Mongolians hate cats and consider them evil omens or spirits. Can you get the significance of this picture? A foreigner walking around with a cat sticking its head out of the jacket. After seeing a few looks, I refused to look at people until after we got to the vet. Jennifer got a kick out of it though! After getting his shots, I tucked Jejeg back into my jacket. Being the curious cat that he is, he refused to stay put in the lower part of my coat but tried to climb into my sleeve. We removed him, wrapped him in the pink towel that had also been in my jacket, and Jennifer carried him like a baby. The looks on the way home where of curiosity to see a foreign baby and disgust to see a white fuzzy face hidden in the folds of the towel. There was also the occasional meow now and then. I don’t think either of us where ever so glad to just get home. Usually we try to keep a low profile, but that was difficult to do that day!

Next time, we will share our four scariest living-in-Mongolia stories. Perhaps a little less entertaining, they will still be interesting and informative.

Mouthwatering Mongolian Morsels

2010-12-06T01:18:00.001-06:00

The answers to the Mongolia trivia questions in the November newsletter are:

1) C. 13   There are far more horses and animals in Mongolia than people!!

2) True   The Bogd Han National Park which is just south of where we live was established around the mid 1700s. We have hiked and camped in this park.

3) B. 5,000 ft   Ulaanbaatar is just under 5,000 ft above sea level but the highest point is well over that!

4) A. Indian Jones   In case you didn’t know, Roy Chapman Andrews was the first Paleontologist to find intact dinosaur eggs and nests in the Gobi.

5) True   Though there are other “wild” herds of horses in the world, Mongolia has the only remaining truly wild breed of horse which has never been totally tamed and domesticated.

In this blog post, we are going to introduce you to some Mongolian cuisine! Prepare for some mouthwatering descriptions of some of the best Mongolian foods we have eaten. Feel free to drool a little, but don’t let anybody catch you because they might think you are going crazy!

There are thousands of restaurants in Ulaanbaatar. Some are big, fancy, and expensive. Some are akin to a more western dining experience. Some are Indian. Some are Italian. There is even one that is Mexican though we would not call it that. And surprise of all surprises there are not only Mongolian Bar-B-Q restaurants but there is also a Kenny Rodger’s Roaster, not that we can afford to eat there. Alas, the only thing missing is a McDonalds or Burger King. The most numerous of restaurants in UB are the guanzes. “What the heck is that?” you are probably asking. A guanz is a Mongolian café of sorts. One can find all sorts of traditional Mongolian foods in a guanz. Most of the time, they are also very cheap. Thus these are the restaurants that we eat at the most.

A guanz is usually small sometimes in a building that doesn’t look very sanitary. Once you get by that though, the food is most often delicious and very affordable. While there are many guanzes around our apartment building, two have arrested our attention and patronage. They are located across the street from our building very close to our meeting place and the school that we teach in. Because of this, it has become a habit of ours to eat at one of them at least once or twice a week. When we teach a double workshop, we will eat at one of these places during the hour lunch break. Also, every Sunday after meeting we eat lunch there. We have frequented one so many times that we know the owner, waitresses, and the cook. It is fun to go in some place that often and know the people and they know you.

The most traditional Mongolian food that a person can get at a guanz is called Buuz. Buuz are like dumplings which have meat, generally mutton, and are steamed. Sometimes they might have cabbage or onion, but the traditional way they are made is with only meat and fat. The fat of course becomes liquid when the Buuz is steamed and remains that way as long as it is hot. Because of this, a fresh Buuz will be full of hot liquid, so you have to be careful how you bite into it.

Besides Buuz, another traditional food is Khoshur. Khoshur is a deep-fried meat pie. Sounds good, right!? These are flat and a little larger than the size of your hand. They have less grease than Buuz and, if cooked well, are nice and crispy. They can also be found with potato, cabbage, or kemchi filling, all of which are very nice. One variety that we have never tried is the horse innards Khoshur. Not real sure if we will ever be quite ready for that one!

Another dish that is usually crispy is Bansh. Bansh are like Buuz but a little smaller. They are meat filled dumplings that you can sometimes find steamed but most often fried. Fried Bansh (pronounced sharshan Bansh) is usually drizzled with mayonnaise and served with a Mongolian potato salad and cabbage salad.

Another dish that we like is called Tsooven. It has chunks of meat that have been cooked in oil with carrots, onions, and noodles. The noodles are firmer than most Italian noodles and are more like Oriental noodles. The dish is usually a little dry and tastes even better with some soy sauce on it. Tsooven is very easy to make, so Jennifer has even made this a few times at home. We have also eaten this with a Mongolian family in there ger; however, that meal had a lot more fat than we prefer.

Paroshky is kind of like khoshur but the outside is made with yeast, so the breading gets thicker. Paroshky is not a native Mongolian dish but is more Russian. It is likely that Paroshky became popular during the years of close ties between Mongolia and the Soviet Union. Paroshky usually has meat, rice, and onions but can also be found sometimes with potato and peppers or sausage and egg. This is another one of our favorites!

There are so many other interesting and tasty dishes that this post could go on longer than you would care to read, so we will conclude our list of food items. You can see a few more dishes in the pictures. A good explanation of Mongolian cuisine would not be complete without talking about milk tea. Milk tea (called suuta tsaa in Mongolian) is perhaps the drink of Mongolia. It is served hot which is very nice when the temperature is well below freezing outside. To make it, chips of black tea are scrapped off a block into a pot of water. A large amount of cream, milk, etc. is added. Though it is called tea, the dairy aspect is the predominate element. Some people add butter or animal fat in order to flavor it, and salt is always added. The end product is creamy and salty with a hint of black tea flavor. Though this was not our taste last year, we have become very accustomed to it this year and usually order it whenever we eat at a guanz. We can get instant milk tea packets, but the fresh made stuff is by far the best tasting.

It has been evident this year that our tastes are changing. Things that we tried last year and didn’t like, we are trying again and finding that we enjoy eating them. Though we are not as extreme as Craig, the specific fats and greases of Mongolian food have actually become more appealing and tasty! Who knew!?!
Here are a few more Mongolian food dishes that we enjoy! Hope you enjoy them too!

Other Guanz Foods

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Next time, we will share our top five funniest foreigner-living-in-Mongolia stories! You won’t want to miss that!!

Food, Food, and Various other things!

2010-11-17T03:00:00.015-06:00

We also promised at the first of October to tell you about our grocery shopping. It may seem mundane, but anything done in an unfamiliar context is anything but mundane. In the States, we (or Jennifer) would jump in our car once a week and go to Wal-Mart and other grocery stores like Kroger or Aldi in order to get our food stuffs. We would even take coupons and watch sale adds in order to get the best price for the things we needed. Things are a bit different here. First, we don’t have a car to hop into in order to go to the grocery store. Second, there are few grocery stores as we would call them in the States. Third, we have never seen a coupon in Mongolia and sale adds, not to mention sales, for food items are extremely rare.

Our Favorite Mini Market

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We have to eat, so we find what we need. While there are few conventional grocery stores, there are small convenience type stores all over the place. There is no need for a car since our main grocery store is right across the street. This has been one of our favorite places to shop for food and basic items since we returned in August. The picture shows where it used to be. It is now in the basement of the same building but with the same general layout as before. We have frequented it so often that the owner and most of the ladies who work there know us. It reminds me of a time when people in a community actually knew one another. Honestly, how many people do you know and see regularly when you are running your weekly errands? What we can’t find here, we can usually find at two other more traditional grocery stores which are about ten minutes and fifteen minutes walking distance from our apartment. These larger stores carry more import goods. If we have a craving for or need something that is less Mongolian, these are the places we go. One is between our house and Craig and Sarah’s house which is very convenient since we walk to their house at least once a week. This is also the store where we get our breakfast cereal! Yes, we have found a reliable and cheap source for imported breakfast cereal! The boxes we get are usually 750 grams which last a while, and at just over 4 dollars, they very reasonable even with our limited budget!

Another Favorite Store

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There is another store that we go to often, the Eggmart!!! It is next to our apartment building all of a minute walk from the outside door. Guess what we get here? If you guessed beef, you need to think about it a little more. We get all of our eggs as well as chicken from this place. We can get both cheaper here than any other place we have found. They also have turkeys for a reasonable price. This year we will have turkey during the holiday season! Two were purchased for our all team holiday meal, but we got one for us as well. We love turkey, and it is not a popular meat in Mongolia. Last year, we were quoted $100 for a single turkey. The ones we got for the team meal were about $28 a piece. A little pricey but affordable!

Occasionally, we need to go to a market. Two markets that Jennifer went to regularly last year are located to the north in the center part of town. Sometimes when we have to go into town we will swing by one or both of these places to stock up on stuff that we can only get there or that is the best price there. Walking into town has not been uncommon for us, but we generally take a bus. A third market is east of us. It is our least favorite market to go to, but it is also the best place to get certain things. The quickest way to get there from here is by micro bus, a souped up minivan that can usually fit twenty plus people. Needless to say, we try to avoid these except when absolutely necessary.

There is no guarantee that any of our regular stores will have what we need at any one time. Frequently, we may have to look around or do without. However, things here are much better than they were a few years back, as we have been told. Today, there are a lot of things available that used to not be including a wide variety of import items from Germany (we love the Germans!), Russia, China, the USA, as well as other countries. Many of these things are not only available, but they are affordable. Most food and staple items are regularly available, or if something is not around it probably will be in a week or two. It is certainly not the States, but we have nothing to complain about and are very thankful for the blessings that we have!

Next time we will tell you about our favorite Mongolian restaurants and food! Mutton and fat, there ain’t nothin’ better! (That is actually Craig’s opinion not ours!)

The Ins and Outs and Back Ins Again

2010-11-09T21:20:00.002-06:00

Life in Mongolia is progressing normally. Our workshops are on a regular schedule, we are getting accustomed to the homework grading, and it is getting cold. Though it is just the first of November, we have had several snows including one that has remained on the ground for several days. It is this time of year that we think of when we think Mongolia. This is probably the case because the majority of our time spent in this country has been during the frigid months. Mongolia doesn’t really seem like Mongolia if we don’t have to bundle to go outside or watch our step while walking so as not to slip on the ice and break something. This may sound sick, but we actually enjoy the cold. There is a beauty in the cold months that cannot be matched by the warmer months. Besides, the warmer months aren’t as entertaining, there is no ice!

As promised the first of October, we are going to give an update of our class structure as well as more information about the curriculum that we are using. As is to be expected, we have had several more students drop out of the program over the past month. Two of Joshua’s dropped because they were pregnant and did not feel that they could handle all of the added responsibilities of EXCEL. Others have quit because they are currently too busy, and some we just haven’t heard from. This brings an element of discouragement, but most of the students who began the program are working hard to continue.

We currently have twenty-five students still in the program. Craig still has his original ten, Jennifer has nine which may be eight on Saturday, and Joshua is down to six. It is understandable that some have dropped because EXCEL is not an easy course. Besides being required to attend at least one if not two three hour workshops a week, they must also complete a sizable homework packet every two weeks and be observed teaching in their classrooms by their supervisor twice during the semester.

Teaching Fun

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We are in the thick of the semester right now as we near the mid point. The students turned in their third homework packet this past Saturday, and we have been actively grading. Each homework assignment is comprised of three parts: Methodology, Literature, and Listening. In the Methodology section, students must read a section about English teaching methodologies, answer ten or more questions regarding the reading and their own classroom experiences, and complete two classroom application activities. This all requires a great deal of planning and writing on their part. In the Literature section, students must read two chapters out of a literature book (usually simplified), answer a number of comprehension questions, and write half to full page answers for one or two deeper thought questions related to the reading. The literature book for this semester is a simplified version of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. In the Listening section, students must listen to a short audio clip and answer twenty or more comprehension questions. To wrap it all up, there is a writing exercise in which the student is required to write one page about a particular topic and their thoughts, feelings, etc. The writing exercise is usually related to the listening topic.

The course teaching material is likewise split up into three sections: Methodology, Oral, and Listening. The semester includes several three hour workshops for each topic. The Methodology is considered to be the most important material because this is why the government wants us to teach the program. The topics vary but are all related to how each teacher can become more effective in teaching English as a foreign language in their classes. The Oral material focuses on teaching new topics while having the students listen and talk usually to each other. The underlying goal, at least as we were told last year, is to get all of the students talking as often as we can. This is also the principle that we are trying to instill in them as teachers. Language, after all, is a subject that one cannot remember without using. Listening workshops challenge student listening comprehension. There are other aspects of the course that are involved to some degree in all lessons, but for sake of time and space, they are going to be omitted at this time. Perhaps we will give some more detail at a later date.

This post will be continued in one week with information about grocery shopping in Mongolia. Stay tuned for the latest information from your very own Mongolian correspondents!

A Sad Farewell

2010-10-24T19:59:00.006-05:00

I appologize that this post is later in the month than I had anticipated. Jennifer and I have had an interesting month, and I hope to fill you in on what has been going on. We had an unexpected journey to the States, so I am not going to talk about our grocery shopping and class structure right now. I will cover those things next time.

About one week before we returned to Mongolia in August, we learned that my Grandpa Milan Ruble was diagnosed with bone cancer. It had spread throughout his body, and there was nothing that doctors could do. The final assesment was that it was simply a matter of time. This was very hard for us to learn. Grandpa had battled with blatter cancer for some time before having an extensive surgery which removed several organs. The aftermath of that operation was very hard on Grandpa. It took over a year before he was back to the way that I remembered him.

We visited with him and Grandma in Missouri the week before he found out that he had bone cancer. I will never forget that time. He had already been struggling with illness and was weak, but he was still Grandpa. He told us stories about when they were younger, many of them we had heard before, but we enjoyed them nevertheless. Grandpa and Grandma visited three congregations with us and heard our presentation that many times. They didn't mind, in fact, Grandpa said that he enjoyed hearing us talk about Mongolia and what life has been like. They sat through the hour plus long slide shows at home and enjoyed them! You know that they loved us!

It was very hard for us to return to Mongolia knowing that we may never see Grandpa alive agian. After much consideration, we decided that when the time came for Grandpa to pass, if at all possible, we would return to the States. Some said that he had up to six months, but we figured it would be less than that. Grandpa was very tired from the past few years of struggle, and the cancer took its toll quickly.

The end of September, Grandpa was in and out of the hospital. The first of October, it was determined that the only thing keeping him alive was his IV and medicines. Knowing that death is not the end, Grandpa decided to be taken off the IV and let nature take its course. With this decision made, we got round-trip tickets to return to the States for two weeks believing that he didn't have long left.

The day after arriving, we went to see Grandpa in the hospital. He was very weak and in pain, but he was very happy to see us. The trip was long and hard, but I will never regret going back. It was such a joy to see Grandpa's smile and know that we had brought him such happines. Both that day and the next, we were able to talk with Grandpa. After that, he was so weak and frail that he was not able to do much of anything. For the next week and a half, we watched Grandpa die. This has got to be one of the hardest things that I have ever experienced. Grandpa was always a big, strong, happy man; so it was very difficult to see him like that. However, our Father saw us through everything.

Grandpa passed from this life to the next in the early hours of October 18th, one day after his and Grandma's 57th wedding anniversary. We think that he was holding on for that. Because he had lived on longer than anyone had imagined, we were getting very close to our return to Mongolia. On the 17th, I had concluded that we would not be able to be there for his funeral, but He works all things out. The funural was held on the 20th, and we flew out on the 21st. Though it was a sad experience, I was very thankful to be able to attend Grandpa's funeral and honor him and his life.

Grandpa Milan was one of the greatest men I have ever known. He had a strong faith, and he loved his family. I would not be half the man that I am today apart from his influence. I thank Him for the time that I had with Grandpa even though it seems all too short now.

In Memory of Grandpa Milan Ruble

1936 - 2010

You will never be forgotten.

Another Month in Mongolia

2010-10-05T02:27:00.001-05:00

This one is a little long, but we wanted to fill in some more details of what is going on around here.

One month after we got here last year, we were still feeling lost. We couldn’t speak any Mongolian, and we were definitely feeling the culture shock. Living life drastically changed in a short amount of time. However, thanks to that time and those experiences, we have been able to readjust to our life in Mongolia well. Our Mongolian may not be great, but we can communicate in many situations. We still don’t know everything, but we know a lot more than we did. We don’t have a lot of friends, but we have way more than we use to. Everything comes in its proper time.

As promised in our last big post, we are going to tell about our current team situation, our training time, and our schedule.

Last year, we came in at the same time as another couple. It was the first year for all of us. Together we learned, made mistakes, had things stolen from us, laughed, and cried. At this time, they are expecting a baby, so they have chosen to remain in the States until after their baby is born. In returning to Mongolia, we felt like something was missing. Our teammates were not here. However, in their time of absence, He has blessed us with a new pair of teammates, Craig and Sarah. Though our time together has been short, we have already grown as a team. We are no longer new comers to this work, but we are still pretty young. Craig and Sarah have both been at this for a lot longer than we have, so they bring an experience to our team that has already been very valuable. They have faced many of the same things that we are struggling with and have been able to offer sympathy and suggestions. Our time of fellowship and work with them has truly been a blessing for both of us.

Team Mongolia as a whole looks very similar to the way it did at the end of last year. Sadly, two did not return. One young lady moved on to a new profession in the States and will not be returning to the work here. The other lady was not able to return because of financial difficulty. We all miss their presence, but He has provided those to fill the gaps. The new comers from last semester have completed their training time and have begun teaching in the other two districts. Right now, the east side team has four supervisors, the west side team has three supervisors, and the south side team (that’s us) has three supervisors. On the leadership team, we are still short one family that will be returning from their year furlough around the end of the year.

After we all returned from the summer, we met together three days for our all team training. The location for the first two days was a nice hotel in the center of town. With all three teams living in separate sections of the city, it is important for our all team get-togethers to be in a central location. These two days were filled with organizational matters, curriculum training, discussion topics, other important info, and time as a family. Though it was busy, this time was very valuable. On our third day of training, we went to a resort south of town called Nukht. It is located in a beautiful valley. Our time there was focused on team vision and individual relationship building. It was a beautiful day, so during the individual time, I climbed up the side of one of the mountains. While standing on a bare outcropping of rock about 150 feet up, two eagles began circling overhead. They were catching the updrafts and then diving at each other in play. One hovered for a few moments within ten feet of me. What an exhilarating opportunity to take in the wonder of creation! That evening, we had a team dinner at a Mongolian Bar-B-Q restaurant in town.

Our last day of training was the first day of September. We learned during training the dates of our entrance exam and first class. It was exciting to finally get this information, but we were a little overwhelmed that this time had finally come. We gave the entrance exam in our district on Saturday September 11^th. We had an impressive number of teachers come for the test, but only 9 were able to pass the test. Because of the small number of teachers that had tested into all of the districts, it was decided by leadership to offer another test for all of the districts in a central location two days before our seminars were set to begin. We did not think many would show up, but we were proven wrong by the throng of teachers that poured in. There were so many that we were scrambling to find more classrooms to give the test in, and we called nearly the whole team to come help. In the end, we counted over 130 teachers that had come, and our district had over 30 students. Though it was a headache, all of the districts saw an impressive increase in their student enrollment.

All of the district programs began their seminars on Saturday September 18^th. The other districts are changing their seminars to other days of the week, but we have chosen to continue teaching on Saturday. We had a very impressive showing on that first day. Statistically, we will have several drop out before this semester is over, but we are trusting that those whom He wants in our class will remain.

We will continue posting blogs during the first and middle parts of the month. Remember that you can check up on us any time on Facebook or by e-mail. If you have not received our last newsletter, then it should be on its way. If for some reason you don’t receive one, please let us know. If you have never received our newsletter but would like to, then we definitely want to hear from you!

In the next post, we will give you more information about our class structure, curriculum, and grocery shopping!

Videos

2010-09-22T07:56:00.003-05:00

Check out our Youtube channel, TheDetherageTrio, to watch some videos of our life. You can just click on the link to the left, and it will direct you to our channel. We will post new ones as we make them! I just put a few new ones on there from our recent hiking and camping trips. Enjoy!

Back to Life

2010-09-21T20:43:00.002-05:00

This post was written on September 2nd, but we were unable to post it until now. Our plan is still to post during the first and middle parts of each month. Therefore, we will post agian during the first week of October.

As of this writing, Jennifer and I have been back in Mongolia for a week and a half. We had a safe but long trip, and all of our luggage arrived intact with us. We thank Him for keeping us safe and for getting all of our luggage here! We also thank Him for a nice home to return to. The final leg of our flight landed in Ulaanbaatar at about 11:30 pm on the 22^nd (local time). After going through customs and claiming our luggage, it was well after midnight, and we had been up for a very long time. Our good friend Odko met us at the airport and drove us home. Praise Him for friends like Odko!!

Our first few days back were consumed with unpacking and reorganizing our apartment. We also needed to get the necessities of life, such as bread and potatoes. Life here resumed rather quickly even though it was difficult to leave our families again. We are so thankful for His mercies and care. Without them, life would be so much harder.

As most of you know, we are now living in the southern district of UB, Han Uul. Life here has been different than it was in the city’s center but in a pleasant way. There are few, if any, foreigners that live in Han Uul; and generally, tourists do not come here. Therefore, the population is not as familiar with having foreign tourists around much. We have already been accepted by many people as just a part of the community. Most people around here know where we live, and many are very happy to see us and get to talk with us. It is refreshing to be in a part of town where we are not viewed as tourists. We have also felt very safe in going out of our house. We have not felt threatened or got the feeling that people were trying to take advantage of us or steal from us. We felt both of these often while living in the city.

Even though we are not in town anymore, we are close enough that we can walk in if we need to. We have stretched our legs often since returning, partly because we did not do a lot of walking while in the States. It only takes about an hour or a little less to walk into our office. If we do not feel like walking the whole way, there are several buses that get us very close. For logistical reasons, we will probably not do our shopping at the same places we did last year. However, there are many small shops around our apartment building that carry most of what we use or need. We have noticed that many things are more expensive than they were for us last year, but we are confident that He will provide what we need with the resources that we have.

In our next blog, we will tell you about our team, training, and upcoming schedule!

Communication Plans

2010-09-16T02:42:00.000-05:00

Our use of the blog and Facebook accounts last year to communicate with you all was sporadic at best. Therefore, we are going to try to plan our communications a little better this year. We will continue to write a once-a-month newsletter that will be sent out by physical mail and e-mail around the end of every month. We will endeavor to write a blog post at the beginning and middle of every month. These will update you on things that we do not include in the newsletter and will share more of our thoughts and feelings. In addition to these methods of communication, we will post a comment of the week every Tuesday on Facebook. From time to time we may send out special messages via e-mail. Our desire is to keep you well informed about what is going on in our lives and what He is doing in Mongolia. There is no way that we could be here without your constant support. Thank you for your concern and uplifting. We appreciate you all!

Please feel free to respond to any of our messages, posts, or comments. We love to hear from you and are very encouraged to know that people are actually reading what we are writing. From time to time, we may be slow in responding, but your remarks will be well appreciated and cherished! As always, please remember to follow the communication guidelines in all correspondence.

Thank you again for all that you do!!!

P.S. We would have started all of this a month ago, but we have had issues with getting our internet hooked up. Sorry for the delay in communications.

Too Long

2010-08-17T21:16:00.003-05:00

First, let us apologize for the long period of silence since our last posting. The past few months of our life have been very busy. When we had a chance to write a post, we either forgot or were too tired. When we thought of writing one, we did not have the time. Again, we are so sorry and will keep up with this a little better from now on.

We will update you on what has happened over the past few months and what is coming up soon. In June, we returned to the States but not before moving to a new apartment in the southern district of Ulaanbaatar. It seemed like our things had multiplied like rabbits; but thanks to some great friends, we were able to get it all moved in one trip! We stayed in our new place for about a week before traveling to Alabama. Thus began our fast-paced summer stay!

Before a week had passed, we travelled to southern Illinois to visit with Jennifer's family. We were with them for two weeks. Joshua enjoyed watching much of the World Cup!

Next, we transited through Nashville, TN where we stayed a weekend with friends and spoke at our former fellowship.

We rolled back into Huntsville, AL where we began going through all of our belongings on this side of the world. What a job! It was also encouraging to see how much we have been blessed. After camping at Stone Mountain outside of Atlanta, Georgia for the Fourth of July, we had a two day yard sale and were able to sale off many of our things. We only hope that those things that were a blessing to us may be a blessing to others now.

Shortly following this time, we travelled to Oklahoma City for the national association meeting of our denomination. It was a great time of fellowship with many old friends and of refreshing.

Following the meeting in Oklahoma we travelled to Missouri to visit with Joshua's grandparents and family. Our visit was good. Shortly after our visit, Joshua's grandfather learned that he has 100% bone cancer. That may have been the last time that we can visit with him in person in this life. Please lift this up. It is hard for us to leave knowing this.

After Missouri, we have been in Alabama mostly. We had a quick weekend trip to IL for a visit with two fellowships and good friends.

The last few days we have been up to our elbows in the arduous task of packing. No little thing when it seems you have more things than bag space. We fly back to Ulaanbaatar early Saturday morning. We will hopefully arrive in UB late Sunday night local time.

We are getting back about a week and a half before our team training begins and will use the time to readjust to the time and culture. We will also be preparing for the new school year.

Please lift us up. We will be meeting many new challenges this coming year. We will be better with the communication, promise!

Spring in UB

2010-05-12T00:07:00.002-05:00

After months of frigged temperatures, spring has finally arrived in Mongolia!! Over the past few weeks the daytime temp has gone from the high 40s to the low 70s! It seems like everything that was frozen for so long is beginning to thaw. There are signs of new life around the city, small though they may be. It has also been evident by the number of people out and about. Here are just a few picts of the area around our apartment.

This is the main artery of the city, Peace Avenue. Across the street is the bus stop that we use at least twice a week. We can get a bus from here to take us across town to the school we teach at. In the past couple weeks, this bus stop has become a haven for vendors, gobs of waiting passengers, and pickpockets!
The majority of the city and surrounding area is mostly dirt. Now that the ground is not frozen or covered with snow and ice, the dirt has been loosened and stirred by the constant wind. The trouble now is dust storms. On our way home from class the other night, we drove through dust as thick as fog. The wind, which was blowing at blizzard speed, was bringing the dust into the city from the surrounding country.

This is a school that stands between our apartment and our teammates' place. Other than when this picture was taken, there are usually thousands of little kids everywhere most of them eating ice-cream!
We are not really sure what this means, but we think it is a little funny.
Most of the trees and bushes are still leafless, but grass is slowing coming up in patches. Many places have begun planting new trees and watering existing ones. We asked one of our students when the dust stops blowing in and things get green again. She said June! Well, at least we will see green things in the States!

There has certainly been a change in the air. As with spring in the States, it seems like people's attitudes have been changing, and life has been taking a different aspect. For one thing, the sun is up by 6 am and does not set til well after 8 pm. Fourteen hours of sunlight is a bit different from the 6 or 7 hours we got all winter! Another change is the increase of tourists. All winter, we were looked at by the locals as belonging here. Now, we are getting more and more suspicious looks. We don't mind much. Not many tourists can speak Mongolian!

Knowing that we are leaving soon has made us to look at UB from a familiar aspect. Over the past eight, almost nine, months this place has become our home. It has its ups and downs, but this is our town. It will be good to be in the States for awhile, but we will miss this place and will look forward to getting back. We thank our father for this, because the feeling has not come on its own.

Digging Deep

2010-04-12T22:45:00.004-05:00

We are starting to feel like a baseball team late in a heated game. Our bullpen has been drained and reserves are growing few in number. It has been a hard fought course, but our stamina is beginning to give way. The time following our trip has gone by in a whirlwind. We hit the ground running and have had little time to look back. Many things have been very difficult, but we have learned a lot. We can also tell that we are being worked on and prepared for things ahead.Shortly after we returned, we began teaching two groups of Mongolian English teachers. The goal of the classes has been to prepare as many of our students to be able to enter the higher level training program this coming fall. Unfortunately, our classes have taken a real hit. Many of the students that we started with have dropped the course. We are now down to 16 students between the two classes. Our goal is to challenge them, make them talk, and help improve their individual skills. The small sizes have allowed for more one-on-one interaction. We have some great students and want to help them as much as we can.

All of our students are women, so it is a little easier for Jennifer to interact with them. However, through talking with them in class and through their homework assignments, we have all been able to learn many things about them and tell them more about us.
We team teach between the two classes and share the teaching load among three of us. Jennifer prefers to teach the lower level students, and Joshua enjoys the challenge of teaching the higher level students.
Sometimes Joshua likes to "help" Jennifer while she is teaching, but she doesn't care for that at all. Actually, we were just modeling something for our students. Many times we have to act out what we are teaching to help them understand better. We always knew those years of charades would come in handy some day!We want the students to talk as much as possible and communicate in English. As we have well learned, it is one thing to know a language but another thing to communicate in it. We want our students to be comfortable communicating in English so that they can better teach their students. It is a lot of fun to listen and observe the activities. Sometimes there is no telling what we will hear. Our two-week practicum class last semester gave us a whole toolbox of speaking structures to use in the classroom. It gives us a variety of options and can be very entertaining for our students. Who said that class had to be boring? Of course, we usually jump in as well. We don't want our students to have ALL the fun!Sometimes it can be challenging to help the students understand the lesson point or the activities. We are constantly evaluating how to present the material in the way best suited to our student's level.

These classes have been a real learning experience for everybody. We have seen improvement in many of our students, and we have been challenged to teach better. Somedays we just have to stop and remind ourselves that this is still our rookie season. Many things have been difficult. It has provided many occasions for doubt and discouragement. However, I was recently reminded that we don't have to be perfect; we just have to be faithful in what we are doing and do it with all we got for the glory of our Father. With this under our caps, we are preparing for the final push of the semester. We want to finish well.

With all of this in mind, we have felt it necessary to make some organizational changes in our classes for the rest of the school year. The details are complicated, we are still trying to figure them all out, but if all works out we will be able to better encourage and challenge each of our students appropriate to their individual levels.

Beijing The Final Act

2010-03-29T01:27:00.007-05:00

To my amazement, I am still talking about our trip. Unfortunately, things have been busy since we got back to UB, so I haven't been able to finish this up as quickly as I would have liked. However, this will be the last post about our amazing trip.We were able to be in Beijing during the Chinese New Year. What an incredible experience! We had never seen or heard so many fireworks in all of our lives. The pictures do not do justice to the display. At midnight of the Chinese New Year, the entire sky was lit up, and it sounded like the city was exploding. We love fireworks, but there were so many that we were actually scared.While we were there, we couldn't pass up an opportunity to see the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. I doubt that there are any other Olympic sporting event locations as iconic as these. The Beijing games were exciting, and it was great to be able to see the places were Olympic history was made. Josh also decided that he could have been the mascot. Check out that pose! The day after Chinese New Year, we visited the Temple of Heaven. It was customary for the emperor to offer a sacrifice to Heaven the first day of every new year. This practice ended over a hundred years ago, but we got to see actors present what that event was like.

After nearly getting crushed at the Temple of Heaven, there were a lot of people there, we went to Tienanmen Square.

Tienanmen Square and the monuments and buildings in and around it were very impressive. It was also a great place to get a sense for China's cultural situation and future.

Our final stop in Beijing was the train station. After a week in China, we boarded an early morning train and headed north-west into Mongolia.

The scenery along the way was fantastic. Just outside of Beijing we began cutting our way through mountains. On the other side of the mountains, the land flattened out and soon became quite desert like. We even got to experience our first dust storm!

Another interesting element of our journey was the changing of the train wheels. The track gauge in China is different than the track gauge in Mongolia. Because of this, the train wheels have to be changed every time a train crosses the boarder. Therefore, the last stop in China was about four hours long. The local crews lifted each car, disconnected the current wheels, and connected the proper size wheels. All of this may have been a bit more interesting if it hadn't been midnight at the time.

When we awake the next morning, we knew that we were back in Mongolia. The landscape had changed from a red dirt to white, everywhere. We saw numerous herds of animals including this herd of camels. If you look closely, you can see their humps. So far, these are the only live camels that we have seen in Mongolia. I say live camels because we have begun eating camel meat on a regular basis. Just another one of those crazy foods to add to the ever growing list. Actually, camel meat is very good.

We had a wonderful time on our trip, but we were happy to get back to Mongolia and the work that we are doing here. The semester has been flying by, but we have had a renewed purpose and sense for why we are here. Our time away was refreshing and renewing. Now we are pushing towards the end of our first year and looking forward to the future.

Rolling with the Pandas

2010-03-19T03:36:00.005-05:00

One of our last days in Beijing we visited the Beijing Zoo and Aquarium. The best part about the zoo was the Panda exhibit. We love pandas, but it is difficult to find one outside of China unless you visit a large zoo. We were able to see one in Chiang Mai, but the Beijing Zoo has ten. The picture above is of five young Pandas rolling around and chowing down on some bamboo.

Would you believe this little guy didn't even offer us any. How rude! That is okay. I don't think bamboo would have settled well with our systems. This one reminded us of Jennifer's dad.

This guy was chillin' outside (literally, it was much colder in Beijing than it had been in Chaing Mai). We caught him waking up from a nap. Notice the tongue.

I think it may have been "stick your tongue out at the American" day at the zoo. However, this Coon was originally from North America, so he should have been a little nicer. It was kind of funny to see a North American Raccoon on display at the zoo. A little taste of home. Except most we see in the States are on the side of the road a little less lively than this one.

It was a little cold the day that we were there. This Jaguar decided to try and stay out of the cold as much as possible. At least we got to see his head.

It seems all creatures have the show-offs. You would have thought this guy was a king or something.

This was a little sad. Many of the cages were small and not well heated. This monkey's cage was open to the cold. We didn't even realize that there was a baby until I zoomed in with the telephoto lens.

This is also sad. Would you believe that this is the first yak that we have seen since we moved to Mongolia? We had to go all the way to China to see a yak. Apparently, not many yaks live in UB.

The Beijing Aquarium was located inside the Zoo. Visiting both made for a full day of walking. However, we did go to the Forbidden City two days before and the Wall the day before. Walking was a big part of our time in Beijing.

The Aquarium was not the largest that I have ever been to, but it was still very impressive.

While we were there, we got to see a Dolphin and Seal show. This was the first one that Jennifer had ever been to. It was pretty neat even though we couldn't understand anything that was being said.

Walkin' on the Wall

2010-03-01T23:04:00.014-06:00

This one has been a long time in coming, but it was the best part of our time in Beijing. Our third full day in Beijing, we were picked up in the morning at our hostel by a rented vehicle, driver, and tour guide. We picked up Matt and Jess at their hostel then headed to the Great Wall of China! It was nice to reconnect with our teammates after a week apart and catch up on all the fun things that we had done. It was also great knowing that we were on our way to the Great Wall. Growing up, this was one of those things that we always wanted to see but never thought we would get to. We have been so blessed! We visited the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It is a little farther from Beijing than another section, so it is not as crowded. The wall was considerably higher than the entrance, so we took a chair lift up. To get down, we rode on the tobbagin run. You can see part of the track in the bottom left part of the picture. It was extremely fun!This was our tour guide on the ride to and from the wall. Once we got to the wall, she let us go off on our own. She suggested that we go to the right because it was a more challenging section.We ended up climbing more steps than we had in a month. It was certainly challenging but well worth it. There is an old Chinese proverb that says no man is truely a man until he has climber the Great Wall. That day, we all became men, even the women!We deffinately did not want to goof up going down these stairs. One little trip and a person would go a long way before he or she stopped. Evey one of us had at least one little wobble.Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few more for you to look at.And you thought all the leaning things are in Pisa! Actually I just had the camera croocked at the right time.There was a snack vendor set up on the Wall. After our hike on the first half we stopped and grabbed the world's best power food, a Snickers! There is nothing like eating a Snickers on the Wall, except for the fact that they were really cold and kind of like eating a rock.
Here is Jennifer after her ride off the Wall. The slide run was great fun! Our time at the Wall was amazing! It was incredible to walk on such history. We are so thankful for this opportunity!

Beijing Part 1

2010-02-26T06:44:00.014-06:00

Our fourth and final destination was Beijing, China. We decided to visit China this year because we have a Chinese visa. When we came to Mongolia last August, we had to get a Chinese visa to transit through Beijing. However, instead of getting a one-time transit visa, we got a one-year multi entry visa. We figured that we had already paid for this one, and we wanted to visit China sometime anyway, so why not go this year? Other than Chiang Mai, this was the main stop of our trip. Our original plan was to fly into Beijing, spend a week sight-seeing, and take the train from Beijing to UB with our teammates. A few weeks before we left UB, our teammates were asked to visit a friend's family in the country before our return date, so they decided to return a little earlier than us. After we parted ways in Bangkok, we were on our own mostly until we arrived back in UB. We were alright with that though. We were a little nervous but not about to miss out on an opportunity to visit China.

Our first day was interesting. We were unable to buy our train tickets before we left UB, so our first order of business was to get tickets back home.After spending the entire day trying to figure out how to get train tickets to UB, we ran into the right person and ordered our tickets. While we were waiting for them to be processed and delivered, we took a walk. This building stands not far from the train station. It is part of the old city wall built during the Ming Dynasty about 500 years ago. This was the south-east corner of the city and a primary defense point against attack. Attached to this fortification was a section of the wall about 1.5 kilometers long. We had nothing else better to do, so we walked the whole section.

This section of the wall was hollowed out to make way for the first train line heading out of Beijing. We thought it was pretty neat to be that close to such history, but this was only a drop in the bucket compared with the next two days.

After the train ticket ordeal, we got down to being tourists. The first and only order of business for the next day was visiting the Forbidden City. It was our only planned event because it is, after all, a city. This is a picture of the iconic Tiananmen gate of the Forbidden City that looks out across Tiananmen Square. It is also the primary entrance for the Palace Museum.

Here is Jennifer in front of the gate. It was quite chilly the day we went, and we had just come from Thailand. Come wind, come cold we were not going to be discouraged from spending time at such an historical site.

The Forbidden City, named so because no commoners could enter, was built during the Ming Dynasty some 560 years ago. It is a self-contained city and the largest palace complex in the world that once housed around 10,000 people. Not all sections are open for visitors, but a large portion is. We were able to get an audio tour program in English that was GPS tracked and would tell facts and stories about the palace as we walked. Walk we did! We spent 5 hours roaming around the palace but did not see the entire place.

There are multiple palace buildings with thrones throughout the complex used by the different emperors for different events. This throne however was the grandest of them all and was located in the central and largest palace building.

There were different galleries throughout the complex that highlighted life in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. This was one of our favorites out of the display items, a pair of chopsticks made out of gold and jade. As outrages as this might seem, we also saw a golden toothpick.

Joshua stood at the door and knocked, but there was no answer. It was probably a good thing. Our feet and legs were already worn out. We had a blast, but there was only so much we could do.

This is a rare thing in Beijing. Jennifer is standing alone in a large open area. There are hundreds of buildings, walkways, alleys, and open courts throughout the Forbidden City. A few times we got a little lost and had to keep walking until we found where we were again.
We had such a great time! It was incredible to be able to walk around in the Forbidden City, a place that neither of us ever thought we would get to visit.

Kanchanaburi/Bangkok, Thailand

2010-02-25T04:33:00.013-06:00

Our conference finished the night of February 2nd. The next afternoon we took the overnight train from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok. It was scheduled to arrive early in the morning, so we decided, before leaving Chaing Mai, to catch another train from Bangkok to the city of Kanchanaburi. However, our plans did not take into account Thailand train schedule reliability. This was our departing platform at the Chiang Mai rail station. It was a really nice place and very easy to understand and get around.Here we are, chilling on the train. Jennifer was being productive while Josh was trying to figure out train schedules. The book on the table is "The Bridge Over the River Kwai." Josh decided to take that to read since we planned on visiting the Bridge over the River Kwai.

Unfortunately, our train arrived over two hours late into Bangkok, so we were unable to take the train to Kanchanaburi. However, we had made reservations at a guesthouse and needed to get there before 2 pm. After a restless night on the train, we set out to make our own way to Kanchanaburi. Thankfully, we were approached by a travel advisor in the train station who directed us to a place where we could buy bus tickets direct from the Bangkok station to Kanchanaburi. We were tired, stressed, and just wanted to get there; so we got the tickets which we found out later where way overpriced. Just the thing for tired, stressed tourists. The bus ride took a little over two hours, but we were dropped off right at our guesthouse. We checked in and left our bags before setting out for our first destination.

Kanchanaburi was the sight of an Allied POW work camp during WWII. Thousands of British, Australian, and Dutch troops were forced to do slave labor building a railroad for the Japanese army. So many POWs and native workers died during the railway's construction that it was aptly named the Death Railroad. Kanchanaburi has the largest of three Allied POW cemeteries in Southeast Asia. It was very moving to see the cost of war and the number of young men who were literally worked to death while in the prime of their youth. This was by far the most beautiful cemetery that either of us have ever been to. We were very pleased to see the care that is given to keep this place in such good condition. It is a fitting tribute to those who lost their lives while serving their enemies.
Kanchanburi was really put on the map because of the Kwai River bridge, an infamous portion of the Death Railroad. This bridge has a very interesting history. It not only served as an important point along the supply route from Thailand to Burma, but it was also used to highlight the mistreatment of Allied POWs by Japanese troops in the book "Bridge Over the River Kwai." However, the actual history of the bridge is much better than the book.
While there, we had the opportunity to walk across the bridge. The bridge was destroyed by Allied bombers towards the end of the war, but it was rebuilt by the Thai government several years later. Most of the railroad itself is not the same as was laid in WWII, but most of the bridge has original materials. War damage can still be seen on a few of the lower supports.
Another interesting thing about our stay in Kanchanaburi was that our guesthouse bungalow was actually in the Kwai River. The accommodations were not great, but it was pretty cool to sleep in a bungalow suspended over the river.

After two nights in Kanchanaburi, we were ready to go back to Bangkok. The temperature was a good ten degrees hotter than Chiang Mai, and we did not have air conditioning. Noon our third day, we took a bus back to Bangkok for a lot less money than we spent going out there. We were able to find our guesthouse this time. It was the same one that we were going to stay at on our way to Chiang Mai, but this time we had the address. It was a great place where we met a lot of interesting people. We spent two and a half days there just resting before heading to Beijing.
We hit 7 Eleven (all 8 along our stretch of the street) a few times while we were there.
You can't read the label, but these were Hot Chili Squid Lay's chips. They were not bad, but I doubt they are going to be a big hit in the States any time soon.
Our main outing while in Bangkok was a sky train ride to a mall. I know, "Another mall?" Actually, there were three right next to each other. The one we spent most of our time in was huge. It had the largest book store in Thailand on the fourth floor, the largest aquarium in Southeast Asia on the basement level, and five car dealerships on the third floor, not to mention a department store the size of most malls. It also had a massive food court on the first floor with several hundred choices of food items. We walked around for awhile, but the size of the place was just too much for us.
Bangkok was an interesting place, but we were both happy that we were only there for a few days. However, our hotel was great, and we were able to rest more before moving on to China.

Chiang Mai Part 4

2010-02-23T20:40:00.010-06:00

For the first week, we had to find our own accommodations. The schedule was simple and completely up to us. The second week was our conference, so we had to move to another hotel and we had a pretty full schedule for the majority of the week. On the first day of conference, we got up, ate breakfast, and took a red taxi truck over to our new place of residence.Our time there may have been busy, but we got to hear from some amazing speakers and fellowship with old and new friends. It was wonderful hearing stories of what is happening and what life is like in the other countries that our organization provides teachers to. The hotel itself was also very nice other than the fact that the elevators were so slow that we usually had to walk up or down nine flights of stairs to get to and from our room. However, we had a great view! The weather was perfect while we were there. It was not too hot and there was a constant cool breeze that blew over the city. Almost every day was clear and sunny. There were some incredible displays of color when the sun came up and went down.Most of our evening meals at the hotel were eaten on the terrace pavilion. It was a little taste of paradise! I am not just talking about the atmosphere, the food was great too! We had fresh tropical fruit for every meal on every day that we were there. While staying at our conference hotel, we got to check out some more of the local nightlife. Every night of the week there is a market somewhere in the city. The Sunday Night Market was the largest but a little distance from where we were staying. The regular Night Market was about a block from our hotel. We visited both while we were there. Aside from the endless stands of merchandise, there was a large variety of local style foods. Our favorite was called a Roti which was a pan fried crape with bananas in it covered with chocolate sauce and sweetened condensed milk. Talk about good! We just wish we could find some of those around Mongolia. Matt and I are eagerly anticipating a Roti being made at our hotel. These were good but they didn't have bananas in them. The Rotis from the street stands were the best.
During our time in Chiang Mai, we visited this place more often than a Roti stand. We made several visits to the Chiang Mai Ram Hospital, but we were able to get most all of our pressing medical work taken care of. It was really a blessing to be able to go to such a great medical facility. For the past three months Josh has been in constant pain from two warts on his feet. After our first visit to the Ram, the warts were no longer a painful problem. This was probably one of the best and most efficient hospitals that either of us have ever been to.

The week of conference flew by quickly, but we really enjoyed spending time with friends in both recreation and fellowship. It was a great time of refreshment and joy, two things that we desperately needed.

Chiang Mai Part 3

2010-02-23T02:56:00.004-06:00

One of the great things about conference time is that it gives opportunities to see and visit with people that work and live in different areas of the world. It was great to catch up with some of our new friends that we made at orientation in July.

The last day before our conference began, we and our teammates met up with two of our friends from China and went to the zoo. Just a bunch of crazy party animals checking out the exotic wildlife. It may not have been the best zoo that we have ever been to, but many of the different animals put on quite a show for us. We had a great time!

One of the Chiang Mai Zoo's biggest attractions is their Panda Bears. Pandas are incredibly cute as it is, but this guy was just waking up from a nap when we visited him. On the other hand, he may have just thought we were all a bit boring.

Yawning seemed to be a catching habit while we were there. Perhaps we were boring.

This guy is not yawning, he is roaring. Wow! Talk about a frightening experience. I am glad there was a huge ditch between us and him. However, I think he was just trying to impress the lady lion, but she seemed to think he was a bit of a showoff and wouldn't give him the time of day.
This zoo showcased many endangered species including the Northern American 7 Eleven. Yes, this picture was taken in the zoo. While the North America variety of this species is rare to see in the wild, its Thailand relative of the same name and logo is thriving. We did not do the calculations, but I believe that in Bangkok a person is never farther than 50 yards from the closest 7 Eleven.

While at the zoo, Josh made a few new friends! Just in case you couldn't tell, Josh is the one in the middle with the goofy grin.

Now this one beats all. This little guy got so board with us that he went to sleep. Actually, he was asleep before we got there, but he didn't even have the decency to wake up for us. Oh well, he was cute enough he could get away with it.

After chilling at the Koala cage for a while, we stopped by these guys for a little grooming before heading back to our hotel.

After getting back from the zoo, we took a dip in the pool and then went to dinner with a nice Australian family that we met at our hotel. For desert we got a tub of ice-cream from 7 Eleven and played a game of cards with our teammates. The time of rest during our first week was priceless. After the stress of last semester, some time to relax and reflect was just what we needed.

Chiang Mai Part 2

2010-02-22T08:06:00.008-06:00

Our first week in Chiang Mai was very relaxed. We took advantage of this time to do the tourist thing and rest as much as possible. Chiang Mai has a lot more to offer than we had ever thought it would. For one, we had never really heard about Chiang Mai until we learned about this annual conference. Turns out Chiang Mai is a very interesting and beautiful city.It is not a very large city, so it was easy and cheap for us to travel around. We would usually take a ride in a tuk-tuk or a red truck taxi like the one in the picture. A tuk-tuk is a motorcycle style vehicle with a two seat bench built on the back with a top covering it. That was certainly the way to experience Thailand. The sides were all open, so the breeze could just blow around us as we were driving. It was quite nice. After the frozen north, a little sunshine and warmth was wonderful!A few days after we got to Chiang Mai, we decided to take a look around the old part of the city. We began walking to the center of town but decided along the way to hire a tuk-tuk in order to save our feet and maximize the sight-seeing time. We ran into a tuk-tuk driver who offered us a good rate to take us to the major Buddhist temples of the city. From an architectural and historical standpoint, the temples of the city were very impressive.The city itself is over 700 years old. Many of these temples are equal in age. However, many more temples have been built all around the city since its establishment. This was an interesting part of our stay but certainly not our favorite.

A few days after our temple viewing outing, we went to a huge mall with our teammates. You may be thinking, "Why did they go to a mall in Thailand? Weren't there other things to see and do?" We have got two words for you: Diary Queen!

Ah yes, the frozen treats that are DQ Blizzards! Again, you may be thinking, "Haven't they got enough of blizzards? They do live in Mongolia." Indeed, we have had our share of snow this winter, but we have had no Blizzards that included Oreo cookies. Besides, we were in Thailand, and it was much warmer at the time. While we were indulging, we ran into some good friends from Tibet. They are the couple in the middle on the top and bottom. There is nothing like visiting with friends over a DQ Blizzard!

After walking around the mall and eating our ice-cream, we parted with our friends and stopped at the Flower Market on our way back to the hotel. The Flower Market is exactly what the name indicates. Two sides of the street lined with nothing but flowers. Most of the flowers were some variety of Orchid, one of Thailand's most noted flowers and Jennifer's favorite flower. Joshua was so overwhelmed by the number of cheap Orchids that he went crazy and bought Jennifer three colors and varieties of them.

Jennifer took three empty water bottles and made three beautiful arrangements out of her flowers. Many of these flowers adorned our hotel rooms for the next week and a half. Not a bad way to spend about $6.

Chiang Mai Part 1

2010-02-21T01:31:00.008-06:00

We counted up our travel days not long ago and discovered that we traveled for 29 days. Needless to say, a lot can happen in that amount of time. We had so many wonderful, and not-so-wonderful, experiences along the way that it would take far more posts than you all would care to read to tell about them all. Therefore, over the next week or so we will try to hit the major highlights of our trip in a series of posts. Today we will start at the beginning, where any good story should.

We left Ulaanbaatar the morning of 01/20, flew through Beijing into Bangkok, and got lost on the streets of Bangkok in the middle of the night. This was not the way we would have liked to begin our trip, but we survived thanks to a little vertical provision. The next morning we left Bangkok by train bound for Chiang Mai, the capital of northern Thailand. The train ride was 12 hours long, but we had the opportunity to see a lot of the Thai countryside.

The view out the train window was quite spectacular. The entire countryside was covered in differing shades of green and bright colors. After living for the past few months in an area where most natural colors are brown, gray, or white, a little variety was very nice. We also saw some of the native population, both people and animals. It was very exciting to experience so many different aspects of the country in one day.

Our train was comfortable and forced us to sit and do nothing for several hours. This is something that we had not been able to do during the course of the past several months.

For the first portion of our train ride, the country was flat farmland. Over halfway through the trip, the country became very rocky with surrounding mountains. We even went through a few mountain passes where we could look out over the top of the jungle which was two to three hundred feet below us. We were a little nervous at times but thrilled to have the experience.
We arrived in Chiang Mai at 8:30 pm and walked to our hotel which was very close to the train station. We stayed at this hotel for the next five days. During that time, we took care of some pre-conference business, visited the hospital, and rested. Our hotel was located down an alley off the main road. It was very beautiful and peaceful. It was also located along the edge of the city, so we got to see and experience a lot more of the local life and culture than if we had only stayed in the center of the city.
I actually think there are more motorbikes in Thailand than dogs, but in this candid shot you get to see both. To match the number of motorbikes and scooters, there was a large number of mechanics and scooter shops. Some stretches of the street outside our hotel were lined with nothing but scooter shops.

While we were there, we also sampled a large variety of the local food. There is nothing like walking into a hole-in-the-wall restaurant and getting a plate of Thai noodles. Yummy! It was tasty, plentiful, and cheap; the perfect trio!

Thailand or Bust

2010-01-19T02:05:00.002-06:00

We would prefer Thailand over Bust for the record. Every year around this time our organization has a conference in the northern capital of Thailand, Chiang Mai. All teachers are required to attend; but it is meant to be a time of relaxation, refreshment, and fellowship. There are business aspects to this trip, but hopefully there will be a good portion of R and R.

I am writing about this now to inform you that we will not be posting for the next month. Thank you to those of you who keep up with our blog, and sorry that we do not post more often than we do. Life is hectic wherever you live. Sometimes something just has to hit the back of the shelf for a little while.

After we get back from our travels, we will include a lot of information, stories, and pictures. This trip will indeed be an adventure for us both. We fly out of UB on 01/20, or our tomorrow, morning. We are going through Beijing into Bangkok where we will be spending the night. On 01/21 we will travel by train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. We are very excited about this opportunity to see a lot of the Thai countryside. We will be in Chiang Mai for nearly two weeks and then will spend a few days back in Bangkok sight-seeing before we start our journey home. On our way back, we are stopping off in Beijing for a week to sight-see. We have both always wanted to visit the Great Wall. This year it seems our dreams will come true. We are very excited about and thankful for this amazing opportunity. After our time in Beijing, we will take the train to UB.

We are excited but a little nervous. We have never traveled on this side of the world before. Frankly, we never thought we would be living on this side of the world let only travel to some of the places that we are getting ready to visit. Lift us up during this time. We know that He goes before us and with us. This is yet another adventure of life that makes it more exciting. We appropriately named our blog "Life...More Abundantly" because we have experienced aspects of life that we never thought we would. In a month, we will have experience numerous more. We will include you in these adventures after we get back to UB, our current home.

End of the Semester

2010-01-18T01:03:00.004-06:00

Friday was the last official day of our training Semester here in UB. It is hard to believe that we have already spent over four months studying the language, learning about the culture, and preparing to teach starting next semester. Our time here has been a difficult one. We have had many ups and downs and, at times, have considered that this is not where we need to be. However, the place of His choosing is often not the one that is most comfortable.

This semester has gone out with a bang. I am not speaking literally unless you consider the racket we made chasing our first Mongolian mouse. Yes, you heard me right, we had a mouse. Even though it has been -30 F regularly, a mouse was somehow able to sneak into our house. You may be asking yourself, "Don't they have a cat?" Indeed we do, but I doubt he had ever seen a mouse before because he was a little uncertain what to do when he finally found it. Long story short, we had to tear our bedroom apart in order to track down the little bugger. Our hunt was successful, and the unwelcome visitor was slain. Even though he was little help in bringing about the death of the assailant, Jejeg was very proud of the end result and acted as if he had vanquished the foe all by himself.

Before our mouse experience, we gave an English placement test to a group of prospective students for our class next semester. We had a very small group of English teachers attend the test. We were expecting more, but only a few came. This is problematic because we need enough students for two different classes, an advanced level and an intermediate level. Because we had such a small number, two people who work with the office will give another test while we are traveling.

The next day after our mouse experience, we took an end of semester Mongolian language exam. It was not too difficult, but it highlighted what we have learned well and what we have not learned at all. We have been very encouraged by the level of Mongolian that we have reached in such a short time. There is much that we do not know, but we are capable of having simple conversations in only Mongolian. We were given our test results today. All four of us did well, and our teachers where proud of us.

We have learned a lot this semester, but we have also learned that we have a lot more to learn. That may sound confusing, but let it set for a while and you will catch it. No matter how much we have learned or what we have done, there is always room for improvement. This semester has been a set of new challenges and learning experiences. Next semester will be a whole new set of challenges as we step into the classroom full-time. We are thankful for the experiences that we have had and for what we have been taught. We are most thankful for the One who has supplied all of our needs during this time.

Christmas: Mongolian Style Part 2

2010-01-02T00:42:00.008-06:00

Ah! Christmas Morning! What a blessed day it is when we can celebrate the most precious gift of all ages! It is also a time of remembering the laughs, food, friends, and family of celebrations in years past. This Christmas Morning was no less special. We awoke refreshed and in a cheerful mood. Jennifer fixed a wonderful breakfast! We ate homemade biscuits and gravy with Mongolian bacon (different than what we are used to but yummy non-the-less). As we feasted we listened to streaming Christmas music over the Internet from the Nashville radio station that we used to listen to when we lived there. It was a nice taste of home! After breakfast, we Skyped with Joshua's parents. So that they might take part in our joy, we waited to open our Christmas box from them until we were talking with them. Technology has made it possible for us to share in the holiday together even though we are a world away! Following our conversation with them, we opened the few presents that we had gotten for each other. It was a wonderful time! Jejeg even got a new toy from Grandma that he enjoyed playing with all Christmas day.Our main meal of the day was a Barbecued Brisket with Sweet Potato Casserole, Green Bean Casserole, and Dressing. Apple Pie and Ice Cream topped the whole thing off. It was a delicious meal! Jennifer did a wonderful job, especially considering that she had to make a lot of it from absolute scratch. Ever tried making your own cream of mushroom soup and fried onions so you can make a green bean casserole? Just another of the joys and challenges of living in Mongolia.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing. We read for a while, watched a movie, and overall did as little as we could. It was such a wonderful time of rest and reflection! We were so thankful for the opportunity to rest that we had been given. Later in the evening, we Skyped with Jennifer's family. After a good time with them, we headed off to bed.

The day after Christmas, we had our all team Christmas party. For lunch, pizza and salad were on the menu. The pizzas had been ordered from the restaurant below our apartment, so we picked them up and got a taxi to the west side of town where our party was at. Almost everybody was there. We had a great time of fellowship while eating! After the food, an announcement was made that some people in attendance had received holiday mail; however, in order to get the mail the people to whom it belonged would have to do a crazy performance. Unfortunately, one of the cards was for the two of us, so we had do something to get it. Once all the mail had been handed out, we did a gift exchange. We then shared what gifts we had received. Afterwards, we had a long time of sharing and uplifting. People played a few games, we ate sweets, and we loaded into taxis to go home. The time went by fast, but we enjoyed the opportunity to be together and celebrate with our friends.

We hope that Christmas was a joyful time for all of you as well. Thank you so much for your thoughts and well wishes during this season! We love an appreciate you all! May the true joy of the season fill your hearts throughout this new year!!

Christmas: Mongolian Style Part 1

2009-12-29T00:29:00.007-06:00

Wow! It is hard to believe that Christmas has already come and gone. Some of you may be lamenting how quickly the festivities go by while others of you may be releaved that it is over. Whichever attitude you may have, allow us to share our Christmas time with you.

Our festivities began earlier in December when we purchased a small Christmas tree from one of the local stores. It is a great little tree about three feet tall! We bought a box of lights and a few ornaments to "spruce" it up a bit. It is amazing how much Christmas cheer a little tree can bring. Included in subsuquent packages were two stockings and a few more ornaments. All together, this little minagery helped us get more into the Christmas spirit.

However, as we all know, Christmas is about far more important things than just a few decorations. Christmas is about the time with family and friends. Unfortunately, since we are currently living on the other side of the planet we were unable to physically visit with our friends and family in the States. We were not able to attend any of the Christmas parties or drink any of the Egg Nog (not real upset about the Egg Not part), but we were able to spend some time with our new friends here. We actually did have a Christmas party at our home on the afternoon of Sunday December 20. We set this time as an opportunity to gather once again with our students from the two-week pracitcum course that we taught the end of November. Eight of our students were able to come! We were very excited to see them all again and to share a little more of our lives with them. Our teammates and one of our leaders were in attendance as well bringing our party total to 13 people and 1 cat. This is not bad at all when you consider how large our apartment is. This may not seem delightful to some of you (especially with those Christmas parties still fresh in you minds), but it was such a wonderful time! The close proximity aided in conversation. We ate homemade soup and stew (made with horse meat) for lunch and then had decorated Christmas cookies for desert. After several hours of visiting and showing pictures, we Americans shared some of our Christmas traditions, we all read a few portions of the Christmas story in both English and Mongolian, and sang two Christmas carols. Once we were all finished our students presented us with gifts. We were given a beautiful wolf picture painted onto leather as well as a leather pencil case and a leather key holder. No one really wanted to leave, but several of them had things they needed to do. Four of the students stayed to watch the Nativity Story movie on the big screen (we barrowed the company projector for the evening). Before everyone left, we set a time to get together with them again after the start of the new year. Several of them have continued to send us text messages and e-mails. We are very exctied to have these new friends and look forward to future opportunities to share with them!

Unfortunately, none of us thought to take pictures during the party. This is a really good picture of our students on the last day of our practicum session.

Following the Christmas party, we had our sights set on Christmas day and a three day weekend. We have been working very hard the past few months and were looking forward to a little time to rest and reflect. Our week was busy but went by without any problems. The anticipation continued to grow all week. Last year, Christmas was kind of a depressing time for us. This year, we got more giddy the closer it got. We may be far from home, but the joy this Christmas was overly abundant!

On Christmas Eve, we invited our teammates and Muhammad (one of our new friends) over to our apartment for dinner. We feasted on Italian Stallion (a dish of horse meat stewed with Italian seasonings and served on a piece of bread) and vegitables. We drank hot tea, played games, laughed, and shared the joy of the holiday together. This was also the first Christmas that Muhammad has ever celebrated before. What a treasure to be able to celebrate it with him for the first time!! We were all tired, so we parted around 8:30. We went to bed that night anticipating a good night's sleep and Christmas morning!

Christmas Cookie Time

2009-12-22T01:38:00.001-06:00

Everybody loves cookies during Christmas time! Well, at least we do. Jennifer and I made a load of cookies this past weekend to have for a party with our former students. We will give more information about the party in a coming post. Not as many cookies were eaten during the party as we had expected. Don't get me wrong, the students enjoyed the cookies just as much as the next guy. Joshua enjoyed them even more if you can imagine that!

In the true spirit of Christmas (and because we didn't feel eating them all would be good for our health) we decided to share the remainder of the cookies with our Mongolian teachers and the men's group. These were all the leftover cookies. Unfortunately, a few of them did not last for long after the picture was taken.

We both took great joy in decorating the cookies. It is the small things that bring a lot of joy and bring back memories from our childhoods.

Cookies are fun and decorations are great, but we are reminded that the greatest part of the season is remembering whose birth we are celebrating. May we encourage you all to remember why you are celebrating. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Boxes, Oh How Exciting!

2009-12-08T18:04:00.003-06:00

When we were living in TN, we almost dreaded going to the mailbox. It seemed all we ever got was junk mail or bills. Since we moved to Mongolia, our attitude has changed. We do not even have our own mailbox and physical mail is kind of scarce. We always love it when we find out that we have a card or a box! Yesterday afternoon we got a text message from one of the office ladies telling us that we had packages! Oh the joy! We dropped what we were doing and rushed off to our office to retrieve two boxes. We were thrilled! We had been given special instructions not to open one of the boxes until Christmas day, but the other box was fair game.

After a bit of effort (the box had been well sealed) Jennifer was able to open the package. It seemed like Christmas already! It is the little things from home that make life so enjoyable. We never knew how much sloppy joes and tacos would mean to us.

Our cat was even able to take part in all of the fun!

Thanks Mom and Dad!

Meat Market

2009-12-06T07:04:00.004-06:00

Since we haven't blogged much in the past few weeks there is much that we need to catch up on. Therefore, it only makes sense to write two when we have time.

A couple of weeks ago we decided to go with one of our Mongolian friends out to the primary meat market in Ulaanbaatar. Unfortunately, we did not think to take the camera with us, so I will attempt to paint a mental picture for you.

Warning: This may be more vivid than you desire especially if you don't eat meat!

Odka, our Mongolian friend, picked us up early on Saturday morning. He was going to the market for his family anyway, so we had asked if we could go along too. He was happy to have us along. We left our house at about 7:30 am. The first rays of the sun had barely begun to lighten the sky. The air was cold and crisp. A thick haze of smoke, caused by the vast number of coal burning Gers and plants, lingered over the city. The smoke captured each ray and shattered its light across the sky. The colors of the sky ranged from a pale orange on the horizon to a deep grayish blue directly above us. The streets were fairly empty, so we made good time in getting to the market which is located at the northern edge of the city in the middle of a Ger district. The early light illuminated the numerous Gers on the surrounding hills belching forth their contribution to the haze. The market had already been open for a few hours by the time we arrived, so there was a considerable number of cars and people. Odka was able to find a spot large enough for his car. We were not far from the action. Upon exciting the car our breath became as thick as the smoke hung over our heads. The sounds and smells of our immediate environment were now quite clear. Massive trucks loaded down with the dead carcases of thousands of animals were clanking into the market every few minutes. The bellowing voices of the meat merchants boomed over the din of the surrounding crowd. The cold was evidenced by the large clouds of condensation that escaped their mouths. People, all bundled up in thick coats and hats, wondered around the trucks looking at the endless supply of meat. Some with handcarts made their way through the crowd with a yell or a push. I felt like we had just stepped into a picture out of a National Geographic magazine. We entered one of the buildings and purchased the quantity of meat that we wanted. While making our way back to the vehicle, we were not only threatened by an on-coming truck but we also saw an animal carcase that was still steaming. It was quite evident that this particular creature had been alive only a few moments before.

We purchased ten kilos of meat (about 22 pounds) while we were there. Five kilos were beef while the other five were horse. All together we spent about $20 for the lot. Not too bad for that much meat.

We Made It!

2009-12-06T02:38:00.002-06:00

After two hectic weeks, we are finished with our teaching practicum. It is hard to believe that it has already come and gone, but we are relieved. It was one of the most challenging experiences that we have had since we arrived in Mongolia, but it was also a great time of learning and growth. We came to teach English. Now we feel more prepared to do that.

We started our class two weeks ago with twelve Mongolian English language teachers. When we finished on Friday we had thirteen students graduate. It was quite exciting to not only have everyone come the entire time but to also have more finish than started. That is very unusual for many of the programs here.

Our students had a wide range of experience. Several had been or were currently Russian language teachers. Some had been teaching for many years while others had only been teaching for one year. Regardless of what they had done and where they came from, all of them were equally enthusiastic about bettering their English abilities. They were such a joy to teach and work with! We saw everyone improve during the two weeks that we were with them. They taught us so many things about teaching. Having been with them has helped us be more prepared for our real classroom next semester.

During our time together we not only shared a lot about ourselves and our culture, but we were able to learn a lot more about Mongolia and its customs and traditions. During two of the activities in our second week we learned a lot about two Mongolian festivals, Наадам and Цагаан Сар. For those of you who can't read Cyrillic, the festivals are Naadam and Tsagaan Sar. We were very excited to learn more about Mongolian traditions and celebrations. It was even better that we were learning about them from people who celebrate them every year. It is one thing to read about something in a book or magazine and another to hear about it from someone who really cares. We could see in their eyes what each celebration meant to them.

Overall, we had a lot of fun together. The curriculum in our organization is focused on making the students talk a lot in English. In order to do this, the program has many activities and games that get the students up and talking to each other. Many of the activities are so fun that the students forget that they are in a class. Such was the case in the picture above. We actually had to create the activities for the last three days of our class. To emphasize three past verb tenses that we had been teaching, we had each student wear a stylish vest with a verb on it. One student stood in the middle with a paper "bopper." One student in the circle had to yell their verb in the appropriate tense and someone else's verb in the same tense before the "bopper" had a chance to smack them. All of us took part and had a lot of fun. We practiced and reinforced what had been taught without the students even realizing it.

We were able to be an influence on our students and to be a part of their lives for two weeks. Many of them opened up and shared some very deep things with us, and we were able to respond with an open heart and a smile. In turn, we were able to share much of our lives with them. On the final day of class, after the party and certificate presentation, our students refused to leave. They all sat down and told us how much they had enjoyed the class and that they were not ready for it to be over. We have invited them all to our house for a Christmas party later in the month. The class may be over, but, with luck, we can still be a part of their lives.

Keeping Busy

2009-11-29T03:22:00.003-06:00

Needless to say, we have been really busy the last few weeks. For this reason, we have been a little negligent in updating the blog. It may be long in coming, but here it goes.

This past Monday we (Joshua, Jennifer, and our two teammates) finally began our two-week teaching practicum. It has been shuffled around several times because of the impact that H1N1 has made in Mongolia. It was finally decided a week from last Friday that we could have our practice class. We were nervous and felt a little under prepared, but we were set to teach. The Mongolian English teachers that had enrolled in the course all taught classes in the morning, so we had to adjust our class hours from the morning to the afternoon. We did not complain about this because it gave us more time in the morning to make final preperations for the day's class. However, this also means that we have a limited amount of time in the evening and night to be able to prepare and do other neccesities of life.
The class goes from 1 pm to 4:15 pm. The teaching load has been evenly divided between us and our teammates, but we still have a lot to prepare for each class. We have 14 students who are all great! They all have varying levels of English abilities, but all have improved during this past week. It is both exciting and encouraging that we are able to help each of them! It is so fun to see them learn and to take part in their joy. One of our leaders made a very interesting comment. She said that it is funny how we are able to help others because we learned something that we didn't even know we were learning. How awesome!
Our experince has been a rollercoaster of feelings. It is been stressful, exciting, frightning, discouraging, thrilling, uplifting, and overall tireing. However, we are where we are and are doing what we are doing for a purpose. We have been strengthened and encouraged. We still have a week to go before we are finished teaching. We all know that it is going to be difficult and tireing, but we are learning a lot. This time will be invaluable to us next semester when we are teaching every week.

In the next few days, we will be administering a test and grading our student's practice teaching times. These are all new experiences for us. Please remember us during this coming week.

After all of our class is over, we will update you on how it went.

Getting Chilly

2009-11-14T01:01:00.002-06:00

You may remember that we had our first snow in September. Well, after that day, which was rather chilly, the temperature went back up. Up is a little relative. Our high temperatures ranged from the mid 40s to the mid 30s on a daily basis. However, about four weeks ago the temperature decided to drop rapidly. We are now lucky if the high temperture makes it into the double didgets. The high today was a balmy 4 degrees Farenhite. Although right now, at 3 in the afternoon, it feels like 13 below. The low for tonight is a teeth chattering 19 bellow. It is always a little unnerving when the Weather Channel says that the temperature will be "bitterly cold." We have the possiblity for snow in the morning with a daytime time high of 3.

The only problem about the cold is that our main mode of transportation from one place to another is walking. We bundle up as best as we can, but sometimes we just get cold regardless. Thankfully, all of the buildings have really good heat. Most of the time we are sweeting under our coats before we can get them off.

The one thing that we are dreding the most is the comming summer. Alabama and Illinios in the middle of summer are going to be our undoing. If you see us stuffing ice down our shirts during the summer you will all know why.

Жижиг Update

2009-11-06T01:56:00.009-06:00

If you didn't remember, Жижиг (Jejeg) is the name of our cat. Being the proud cat owners that we are, we figured you all would like an update on our feline. Жижиг has quickly become part of our family. He can be a bit agrivating at times, but for the most part he is a good kitty. We think he has been good for both of us. He has made us laugh so much. He also likes to crawl up in our laps and take a nap.
Unfortunatly, because our schedule is so demanding, we have to leave him at home by himself a lot. We have turned our spare room into his room. The floor is littered with his toys, he has a nice box for a bed, his litter box, and food are all provided for him. However, he gets lonely, so whenever we are home he likes to spend time with us.

He just makes himself comfortable wherever he can find a place to lay. This includes our laps, stomaches, legs, arms, and feet. During the day, when we are home, he will crawl up with us and sleep, but we never know when he will wake up into play mode. Whenver he is not sleeping he usually wants to play.Even though he is generally a good kitty, he often needs to be reminded that he is not the master of the house. Sometimes we have to banish him to his room for a little while to teach him that he should not bite or play too rough.However, we don't think he has life too bad. The majority of his time is spent doing nothing,but we love him! He has brought us a lot of joy and laughter. He has helped us relieve a lot of stress and remember that life is not that bad.

Morning Surprises

2009-11-03T02:57:00.007-06:00

Today we got up to a beautiful sunrise, ate breakfast, and prepared for language class like any other morning. We bundled up since the high temperature for the day was only supposed to be in the mid 30s and headed down the stairs. Much to our surprise, we discovered that our apartment building has a new indoor swimming pool! Actually, one couldn't get more than a good wade out of this body of water, but it was large enough to cover the entire floor between the stairs and the outside door. First, this was quite a sight for us since we were still partially asleep. At first we thought our eyes were playing tricks on us, but that would have been too easy. Second, after discovering that the pool before us was not a figment of our imaginations, we had to determine a means to cross over it. This was no small puddle of water. There were at least two inches by the time we left this morning. Thankfully, someone had strategically placed three large stones in the water making it possible for a person to cross from the staircase to the door without soaking their shoes. This was not the most stable means of walking, but it served its purpose. When we returned to our apartment building after class, we found that the pool had only grown in depth. Whereas it was only two inches when we left, it was at least three inches by the time we returned. By that time someone had set a bench on the floor as a means to ford our new body of water. This was much easier than the rocks but was still not as sturdy to walk on as we would have liked.

What caused this lake to form is unknown to us. We believe a pipe broke during the night causing the flood. Our only concern is the type of pipe that busted. When we returned home we noticed a distinct smell lingering above the water as well as things floating in the water. You can only imagine what that might mean.

Whatever the cause or type of water, we are not complaining. We are the adventures type, and this event only added variety and excitement to our day!

Round One

2009-10-28T01:00:00.003-05:00

On Monday we taught our first real English class. We and our teammates were assigned several activities to lead during the three hour class. These activities are similar to some that we will be using regularly when we get into our actual class next semester. Monday provided us with some practice time under the watchful eye of our country curriculum director.

Nerves abounded and sleep fled, but we prepared as best as we could. On Monday, following our language lesson, we walked to the school where the class was to be held. We got there early enough to set up the room and do some last minute preparations. Slowly, our students arrived. We ended up having 17 Mongolian English teachers in attendance. This was a good number but less than what we were expecting. Our curriculum director began the lesson with the first activity and then handed it off to us for the remainder of the time.

The activities were fun and the students participated well! We did well considering it was our first time teaching in Mongolia. Some hindrances were pointed out, and some positive changes were suggested. Over all the experience was a good one, and it has prepared us more for our two week practicum class that we will be teaching in less than two weeks from now. Round two is just around the corner, and we have a lot of preparing to do!

Fun All Around!

2009-10-26T07:08:00.003-05:00

When we set up this blog long before we left the US we thought that living in Mongolia would produce daily adventures, many of which we would convey to you on a regular basis. However, little did we know that life, even in Mongolia, has a day to day routine. Many of the things we do on a daily basis are adventurous by our normal standards, but in the two months that we have lived here they have simply become routine. Therefore, we often don't seem to have much to write about. We do try to update the blog as often as possible and do think of you all often. Please forgive us if we don't update as often as we would have originally liked.

Now, for the blog post! One of the primary aspects of our organization is team. We work in teams and do many things throughout the week within our team. Beyond our particular team, there is the greater Mongolia team. In order to promote greater teamwork and relationships between teachers we have monthly get-togethers. Some are for fun while others are more work related. These times are a great way for us to get together and share in what we are all doing. Normally, we do not see much of each other because the three teams here are spread across the city. One team is on the west side of town, another is on the east side of town, and the third (our team) is in the center of the city. Therefore, it takes time to get together, but it is well worth it!

On Sunday evening our whole team gathered at the west side's apartment for a pseudo-Halloween/Fall Festival Party. In the spirit of the festivity, all in attendance were asked to dress up. Needless to say, there was an interesting assortment of costumes. For dinner we had a baked potato bar and a yummy carrot salad. Afterwards, we had cake, cookies, and apples. The meal was topped off by homemade mulled apple cider! We played games, sang songs, and had a wonderful time of sharing together. Also, in attendance was a dear couple from the States. They were here for a short visit and where able to take part in the fun. Here are just a few of the crazy costumes, including ours. Try to guess who we are dressed as.
Amidst the stress of living and working in a foreign country, such activities bring a lot of joy and laughter. We are very thankful for our team and for their generosity and hospitality. They make life a little more interesting and fun!

Our New Addition

2009-10-16T03:58:00.007-05:00

For those of you who follow our blog regularly, we apologize for our delay in posting something new. We have had a very hectic schedule, and it is only going to get busier. This has caused a good deal of stress and anxiety over the past week. However, we are trying to lean on each other and, most of all, the one who directed us here. In the midst of all our stress, we have an exciting announcement! We have a new addition to our family! No, we are not expecting a child (yet), but we adopted a cat. For those of you who know me (Joshua) well, this might come as a surprise. From the time of my youth, I have not been a big cat fan; however, once you hear our story you may understand the transformation.A couple weeks ago we visited a fellow teacher's house and played with her cat. We were already under a lot of stress and pressure, but being around the cat was surprisingly soothing to our nerves. After dinner that night Jennifer and I began talking about the possibility of getting a cat, but we made no plans to do so in the near future. Little did we know, our lot as pet less people was about to change. On our way home from language class a week and a half ago, we found a kitten in the stairwell of our apartment building. He was sitting on a high window ledge cold and frightened. The sight was more than we could bare. We had no desire to leave him out in the cold to die, so we took him to our apartment. He warmed himself by the radiator and ate a little food. It was not long before he stretched out on our laps to take a nice long snooze. Needless to say, we were both sunk. If leaving him out in the elements to begin with was not an option then sending him back out into them certainly wasn't. We verified with our landlord that we could have a pet and then began thinking of a name for our new kitty. Knowing that he is a Mongolian cat we decided he needed a Mongolian name, so we dubbed him Жижиг Баатар (it is pronounced Jeejeeg Baatar). It means Little Hero!
Not knowing how healthy or sick our new little fellow might be, we took him to the vet a few days after finding him. Along with our fellow cat owner,we went to the only vet in Mongolia. Thankfully our fellow teacher knew about it and where it is located. It was started by a group of foreigners who came to train Mongolians how to care for animals. It provided jobs and valuable information to many of the Mongolian herders. We learned that our kitty is in perfect health for his age and only needs a little more calcium in his diet. Being unfamiliar with the price of a vet in Mongolia, we prepared for the worst. However, his checkup, vaccination, and de-wormer medicine only cost us about $13. Those of you who own pets are probably picking yourselves up off the floor right now. This too was such a blessing because, as I am sure many of you can imagine, we are not swimming in Төгрөг (Mongolian currency). After his vet visit, we bought him some food, litter, and a few other accouterments to make his life more enjoyable.

He has been such a blessing! Having him has helped alleviate a lot of stress. Besides, we know that we rescued him from certain death. Pets are not a common thing in Mongolia. Many people have dogs but train them to be defensive attack animals, and cats are not widely liked at all. They are considered to be bad luck. It was evident when we found our cat that he had already been tormented and beaten. We feel like he was left on that window just for us. He has quickly become a very spoiled member of the family, but we think he is worth it!

New Creations

2009-10-05T04:29:00.005-05:00

When we came to Mongolia we knew that we would experience and eat many new things. We were expecting a few familiar things as well. Turns out that we have seen and eaten a lot of familiar things, including pizza. You can not imagine how thrilled we were about that! Jennifer, being the masterful cook that she is, decided to make a pizza of her own for dinner a few days ago. I, having eaten her pizza before, was very excited about this idea. Our thoughts drifted to the toppings. What should we pile onto this masterful creation?

Remember my first sentence?

Feast your eyes on Jennifer's new creation which we have dubbed The Mongolian Steppe. Feel free to drool a little. It turns out that many of the things we are used to take on a different spin living in another country. The toppings on this bad boy included horse meat (yes, we do eat Trigger), onions, mushrooms, and cilantro. The thing was quite delicious!! However, I doubt many of you have ever considered horse meat on a pizza. We have had to adjust to many things, but this place is our home. We are able to make it feel that way by the things we do and make even though those things may be done differently. Different is not bad but beautiful. We are thankful for what we have and what has been provided to us.

I challenge all of you reading this to remember us and lift us up to the Father every time you eat pizza.

We are thankful for all of your support and need it every day!

Class Time

2009-10-02T22:36:00.003-05:00

Every weekday from 9am till noon we gather around this table to fill our minds with the Mongolian language. Most days our heads hurt after class, but we also have a lot of fun too.
We have two wonderful language teachers who have been very patient with us. We have learned so much from them and are very thankful that they are our teachers.

At the end of every lesson we record what we learned that day so that we can listen to it later.

Who said you couldn't have a little fun while studying. Somedays laughing is the only way to maintain our sanity.