What an amazing couple of days...

Greetings all. Its about 9:00pm on Wednesday and thought I'd try to post some about what we did the past couple of days. I'm doing Sunday and Monday tonight, and will add Tuesday and Wednesday tomorrow morning. (also will add pictures from Monday tomorrow morning).

Sunday

We awoke early and enjoyed a quick breakfast and a cold shower (later in the day we found out the hot water is more reliable late at night). We met with Ewen and his family at 9:00am and set out for church at one of the sister churches (Eternal Pillar Wesleyan in the city of Nalik sp?).

Dan and I drove to the church with Naara and her husband Geelge. Had a nice time riding with them and trying to learn some Mongolian. Once we arrived at the church we spent a few minutes meeting the family who's land the church is on, and got to share tea and some jam/bread with them in their Ger (traditional Mongolian home).

Once finished, we moved over to the church and began the service. Great time of praise and worship to start and then a time of testimonies by the locals about how God had been moving in their lives. Very powerful. Then we were allowed to share. Dan, Ross, and I shared brief testimonies, followed by Mike delivering a sermon on prayer. Mike did a great job, and the people really connected with his message.

After the service we loaded up the vehicles and headed out to the countryside for a traditional Mongolian afternoon by the river. It is hard to do justice describing how beautiful the countryside is here, so I'll go back in this post tonight and add some pictures, but let me sum it up by saying its like a cross between Montana, the Badlands of South Dakota, with a dash of Yosemite thrown in. A pretty mountainous countryside, with wide valleys and great views. We drove for about an hour, and made a stop at the top of a mountain pass for some great pictures and a little rock climbing. We then drove on for another 20 minutes down to the river where we found a spot and unloaded for the afternoon.

The traditional Mongolian afternoon by the river is quite nice. Peaceful, quiet, and relaxing for sure. We ate a traditional Mongolian picnic of "Hobhoc" which is a lamb, root vegetable meal cooked in a milk can on the fire with hot river stones placed inside the can. Once the meat is done the stones are removed and passed out to all, so you can "handle them" which is supposed to have a beneficial medical effect (kind of like a hot stone therapy). The food was delicious and the time was great.

We spent the next couple of hours swimming in the river and climbing the mountain right behind our chosen spot. Incredible views and really enjoyed to time with our Mongolian friends (Naara, Geelge, and some of the church leaders from Eternal Pillar). It was also a great time to get to know Ewen and Pia, and their boys, who were excited we were all willing to get in the water.

After about 4 hours there, we loaded back up in the Land Cruiser and drove to another "picturesque" spot called Turtle rock. Reminded me of one of the major rock formations in the west. Like a combination of Black Hills South Dakota, Yosemite National Park, and Montana all rolled into one. Very beautiful and picturesque. Dan and I befriended a heard of goats, and worked on our Mongolian Goat herding/calling.

After that we drove home about an hour and change, returned to the Building 28 apartment and spent some time journaling and talking about our day. Then crashed and went to bed.

Monday

Today we awoke early and had a quick breakfast. We went over to Ewen and Pia's apartment to learn a little bit about how the windows were to be installed. We also learned a huge prayer request was answered in that we personally weren't going to have to put the windows in, but just removing the old ones. We headed over to the apartment and spent the morning pulling out the windows. Just before lunch Ewen, Geelge, Ross, and I went to the "Hardware Market" to pick up supplies and get educated on where to find things. This was a pretty interesting place. (i'll add some pictures later). Imagine what you'd get if a Home Depot married a Antique Mall, and produced a child...this hardware market was that child. 100's of shops, all selling a rough mix of "hardware" antique mall style.

It was really fun to see all the shops and get a lay of the land. Of course this brought a little fear cause Ross and I realized we were going to be on our own in these shops the next couple of days once Ewen left.

The rest of the afternoon we worked on getting the other windows out and beginning the removal of the tile from the kitchen and bathroom. We also had a great group of helpers from the church who began helping Dan, Ross, and I with scraping old oil based paint off of all the ceilings. They quickly put us to shame in speed and efficancy.

After we called it a day, we took Geelge and Ewen and Pia's boys to dinner in order to give Ewen and Pia some time to pack for their trip to Switzerland the next day. It was a good evening, and upon our return we readily crashed as we were all exhausted.

Tomorrow i'll write more on Tuesday and Wednesday. Please continue to remember us in your prayers, here are some specifics you can remember:

1. Prayer for the upcomming men's retreat, both the men who will attend, our ability to find a translator, and for the message that God has led us to share.

2. Continued prayer for our health and saftey.

3. Continued prayer for our families at home.

4. Our day tomorrow, ton of work to do.

5. Prayer that the tile we need comes in early tomorrow.

Look forward to sharing more tomorrow.