Intro to Mongolia-
We arrived safely in Mongolia and our team was picked up by John Koehler, (a good family friend working here) on Sunday afternoon just in time to attend an English speaking church service where we performed a drama and shared a couple testimonies. That sounds fairly straightforward, but we were running an hour late on the train, we hadn't practiced this drama in a couple weeks, and we who were sharing had no idea of what we were to say – but needless to day, after praying about it all… it just really came together perfectly… we then went out for a meal, and quite honestly, we were all a bit nervous, because we hadn't heard the most amazing stories about the cuisine, but we were very pleasantly surprised! It was great! Over dinner we got a briefing of what our week might look like… first thing that stood out was our chance to hang out with kids in community centers, then one day we were to go horseback riding out in the country, we were going to have two showers, we'd be staying in Gers (Traditional Mongolian housing, a bit like a hut… ours without electricity or running water). We would get two showers during the week. This was looking like an interesting week! Now, I can't go overly into detail, but I'll share a couple of things I've noticed, and some of the highlights.
The biggest thing we noticed was the people, their smiles, soft-spoken demeanor, their eagerness to make friends… we are really blown away by how much we've fallen in love with the beautiful people of Mongolia. This country is beautiful as well, as we traveled a bit into the countryside one day, we were all just staring out the van windows in awe of the mountains, rock formations, rivers and forests… in the midst of all this beauty, however, is a lot of emptiness and suffering. People have the freedom to be a Christian, but many still don't know of Jesus. The church is small, but growing!
We have had two days hanging out with kids, that was amazing... they were yelling and running around saying things in mongolian which we didnt understand, but we had tons of fun! Love doesnt speak a language, it is a language! We'll all remember their faces in our minds eye, and from the many pics weve gotten... they actually took most of them - lots of future photographers here! haha. Another day, we got to go out into the coutryside and hike, ride horses, chase yaks, and climb big rocks... it was such an adventure, especially with Sonya, our spunky aussie, nearly falling off the horse she couldnt stop at full gallop - i was trying to catch up to her to stop the horse... but wasn't gaining on her - a few times she nearly came off, but by the grace of God she was able to throw herself off after the horse slowed to a canter - shes fine, a little sore, and I was having an interesting time yelling at my horse to go faster and wondering why this was so fun! It was the best first horse ride ive ever been on!
Gods really been showing us his wild side, and the way he values the growth of our character more than our healthy bodies... and if it takes a little soreness, or nausea to make us grow, He'll allow it! Its great seeing how simple, yet at time, incredibly hard it is to live like he wants us to... love your neighbor, love your savior... its just that simple, but its at war with what the world says.... i guess we're just trying to take it one step at a time and show people Christs transforming love here in Mongolia! and its truly a blessed adventure -
Anyways, im running out of time here, we head to the countryside tomorrow - pray for our 14 hour drive! I will be away from computers for about 2 weeks, so dont expect any updates... but do expect great things to happen -
God is good... maybe not tame, but good.... and beautiful thats what i see in Mongolia~