Merry Christmas from Mongolia!!!

Merry Christmas from our humble home to yours! As you all wake up to Christmas morning our Christmas day is coming to a close. It was a great day of rest, reflecting on the true meaning of Christmas and time with each other. Here is our cute little tree and all the great cards you have sent our way. Thank you so much for remembering us this Christmas - your gifts, packages and cards were warmly received with much excitement and thanksgiving! :) Here is a little peek at our First Mongolian Christmas...

First of all, I have to show off our tree skirt, a beautiful doily hand-made by our very dear friend - sent all the way from MN just in time to put the finishing touches on our cute little tree.

After Skyping with the Carlsons we had Christmas breakfast (or more like brunch)! Red and green bean biscuits - the green are made of Mung beans with rosemary, oil, and salt and the red ones are made of Adzuki beans with stevia, cinnamon, chicolin, cloves and vanilla for a little sweeter biscuit. Yummy!

 

After a relaxing afternoon at home, we headed out into the -22 degree weather to have Christmas Supper at Modern Nomads, about a 20 minute walk down the street. Our team leader and his wonderful family gave Matt a gift card for his birthday. We had checked the place out a few weeks ago and they had it all decorated for Christmas so we were excited to go there for our Christmas meal.

It was a very nice restaurant with lots of "nomadic" decor...and very nice staff. :)

And the food was DELICIOUS! We had a meat platter (that apparently comes out flaming!) with mutton, beef, horse and pork, each one individually seasoned just right. The beef was just like a good ol' fashion pot roast. We also had french fries which were also quite yummy and white bread on top (the whitest I've ever seen)!

 

 We love you all so very much and hope you have a blessed Christmas day!

Merry Christmas!!!

The Trials and Triumphs of Teaching

Our teaching experience began every day with some mad-dashin', last-minute prep stress coupled with the delight of sharing meals with Josh and Jennifer (our fellow newbies).  You are looking at Jess' [soon-to-be] famous millwheat pancakes!  Ямар гоё юм бэ!

Our first day was one of the most tedious as far as the tangible things that needed to be prepared.  Our grammar focus for the first 7 days included the simple past, past continuous, and simple past verb tenses.  Ex. "While we were preparing for class we wanted to cry." (Past Cont.)  Or, "I had thought about quitting the last couple days but the Lord lifted my burden and it was a great success."  (Past Perfect)

Most activities required us to do a little pre-teaching including explaining new vocab, giving instructions for activities, etc.  Here, J & J are introducing some new words for their activity.  We went back-and-forth between us two couples, each one usually building on the next.  Our leader Aleta really laid a lot of it out for us beforehand so we just had to take the concepts and make them work for our own individual preferences.

Drawing off some creativity from another teammate, along with a good idea from Jennifer, we came up with the "Verb Vest" activity.  Partners ran around the room grabbing the right Post-it slips off the wall and applying them to their partner's vest.  Each person had to shout out the verb in the correct tense and stick it on the sign.  Nearly all of our activities required our students to get up and get talking.  This is vastly different than the way we, and certainly they, are used to learning.  Like Aleta said, it's always the "wa-waaa-wa-waa-wa" from the front of the classroom.  Many of our students were fairly sharp with the grammar but could barely get a sentence out of their mouth.  By the end of the two weeks they all had improved dramatically!

On days 9 and 10 the students (which were all English teachers) got to do the teaching.  Here we see "The Knot Game" which practices using prepositions:  "step over our arms", "go through...", etc.  This is considered a "practice" activity because there is no new information being exchanged.  They are just using what they know and nothing is hidden...except maybe the way out of the knot!  :)  The vast majority of all our activities are considered "communicative" because they require the exchange of unknown information.

Now, you might think the gal on the left is on her cell phone, which, I guess she is, but she has a nifty little dictionary/translator on her phone which we let her use...most of the time.  It was hard at times being in a role where you have to lay the smack down every once in a while, but amazingly, just raising your hand and waiting until everybody else stops and looks is unbelievably reliable!  For me knowing the right balance of how much to let the students speak in Mongolian vs. English was pretty difficult.

For us in our Mongolian class, we would be lost if our instructors never spoke English.  Hundreds of questions have been cleared up with just a few quick words in English and then we move on.  Our language learning experience really gave us empathy for our students.

PARTY TIME!

After the students finished teaching, we passed out the ice cream, milk, cookies, chips, water, and had a great hour or more of just socializing together.  It was amazing to experience the closeness we attained after just a few days together.  We learned about their families, holidays, customs, relationships, and the list goes on.  The program we offered here, and much more so our Excel program (which we'll teach next year), is unlike anything they've experienced.  The Lord has used this custom designed program to pierce a deep niche in the education system here in Mongolia.  Now that we are in UB, word is starting to really spread about our program and we can only pray that God would raise up more teachers from the US and Canada to come join the work.

 

Here we are with all our students!  In case you're wondering why some of them are hardly or not even smiling, it is because in Mongolia it is customary not to smile for pictures...we're kinda working on changing that one!  :) 

While J, J, J, & Aleta were preparing the scores and certificates, I got to teach them "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!"  Now, you might have sung that a hundred times, but consider this:  Imagine standing in front of 13 people who have heard of Jesus but do not know him.  Who is this baby King?  Why are ALL THE ANGELS OF HEAVEN worshiping him and singing this good news?  What is the song asking when it beckons us to, "Join the triumph of the skies"?  What is glory and why would we give it to him?!  What does it mean that God and sinners can now be reconciled?!  And what does this have to do with that peaceful child, mercy mild, lying in a manger?

By the eighth day I was a gonner, but God lifted my burden and J&J gave us a little extra help.  We were all brought to the max and plenty of sin was revealed all around.  What an amazingly loving, perfectly designed trial God gave each of us to make us more into his image.  And what a gift and blessing it was to end day 10 the way we did!

One of our vocab words for the week was "triumph".  I yelled out, "Now show me 'triumph'", and they all threw up their certificates in victory.  It was an amazing two weeks!

Amazingly, ALL the students that finished the course passed.  We had one woman, who should have passed with her mouth closed, stop coming for the last few days because of an illness so she missed the test (20% of the total grade), her practice teaching (another 20%) and 4 days of attendance.  It was a real let down because she was so sweet and her English was more than good enough to ace the course.  That one thing aside, it was a sweet triumph for us and for them and we let them know how great we thought it was.  We had about 6 of the students who were cutting it pretty close to the passing mark and we encouraged them to come every day and do everything we asked them.  They did it!  And they were proud!

For now, we are very glad to be done and have a few days of rest.  We love you and are so thankful for you keeping us lifted up during this very difficult time.  Tomorrow we are back to language study!  Please do feast on the delights of Advent this year and make sure you pay attention to the 3rd and 4th verses of all those Advent and Christmas hymns...our anticipation and longing this season is not for a baby in a manger...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, our first Thanksgiving in Mongolia was very nice! We had the day off from our teaching practice due to to Mongolia's Independence Day. We spent the noon meal with the Detherage's and discussed our next few days of teaching and such (had to do a little work before the play). :) After that Matt took me to the store and surprised me by letting me play on some nice electric pianos. I would love to get a piano here and maybe start teaching some lessons (and get better myself!).

 

After that, we came home and I made our Thanksgiving Feast! Fried Chicken (with millet flour and olive oil), mashed potatoes and green beans! MMMMmmmm...was that yummy!

 

Then I made dessert! That's right PUMPKIN PIE! The pumpkins here are so cute and little, I didn't even know it was a pumpkin until someone told me what it was. :)

 

Here's My Masher, hard at work!

 

Mmm...pie filling! Cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and eggs...

 

Here's the crust...millet flour and olive oil. (Next time, I might use butter instead. A little butter here and there is ok.)

 

The crust was a little runny so no side crust, but that's ok.

 

Just before hitting the oven...

All done!

 

Yummy, yummy!

 

 Not to bad for no sugar or milk! I'll make a few adjustments next time around, but Matt liked it...of course he likes pie no matter what kind it is!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We love you and miss you all and hope you have a blessed Holiday Weekend!

Love, Jess'n'Matt

Have a Coke, America!

Happy Thanksgiving, America!  Have a Coke on us!

Even in a land far away we are never far removed from "signs" of the US.  Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, ours was wonderful, we look forward to posting about it very soon!  I hope on this special day of remembrance that you remember more about the aspirations of our founding fathers than the carbonations of our fizzy fountain drinks!

The true history of why the pilgrims came to America is fading into the past, but let us not forget that the God they served and died for is alive and well today as we make our pilgrimage throughout this world to our eternal land of freedom...not to get away from a king, but to joyfully live forever in the splendor of the King of Kings.  May you embrace this pilgrims' voyage and listen to the voice of the one to whom the wind and the waves still obey...

We are so thankful for him and for all of you...

Fun with Food

 

 Well, I thought I'd give you all a little update on our new diet. Things have been going ok, but somedays are harder than others. Some days I want to cry when I see people eating pizza and yummy desserts and ice cream, and other times I remind myself what it would do to me later (but usually it's hard to convince myself of that!) I have found some neat things to eat here in Mongolia that I didn't even know we had until I went looking for them. For instance, beans like Mung, Aduki, Kidney, Navy, Pinto, Black, and Lentils, as well as millet and buckwheat. And we can make the Mung, Aduki, Millet, Buckwheat, and brown rice into flours that are gluten-free in place of wheat flours (which broadens the list of things to make quite a bit!) My eczema seems to be getting better, but the during the first month they say that it can actually get worse before it gets better due to the effects of the Candida dying off. And this last week I experienced a bit of that with a couple of sleepless nights of itching and burning on my hands and feet, but I think things are back on the up and up now. Our Father has been teaching me a lot about putting my desires for Him above my desire for bread and desserts. It's not an easy battle, but I'm learning to look to Him more and more to meet my every need. I'm very thankful for this time of trial to bring about a change in my thoughts towards Him and the things He has blessed us with. Please keep us lifted up as we look to Him for our every need and comfort instead of food. :)

So, I thought I would share a little bit of the yummy things we have been blessed with here in Mongolia to make sure you don't think a diet without sugar, flour, gluten or fruit would make us starve!

 

(In the photo on top we had Gazelle and veggies! Gazelle is not normal for the city folk, but one of our friends shared some meat with us that his parents in the countryside had given to him.) Here we have beef, zucchini, red pepper and onions.

 

And of course, Chinggis Khaan eggs.

Fried zucchini (dipped in cornmeal, millet or mung bean flour and egg)

 

Hamburger and cabbage with tomatoes
(Cabbage has officially been removed from my diet as it had adverse ol-factory affects on those around me - if you know what I mean. Maybe we can work back into that one slowly some other time.) :)

Food is so beautiful! Red and green onions with garlic, to go on top of our chicken below...

Chicken breast with scalloped turnips

Roasting Millet...millet is so yummy! Like a cross between brown rice and potatoes, with a little nutty flavor to it. We roast it first and then add water and it gets 3-4x its size in about 20 minutes.

Mung bean crackers! Mung beans are green, and so is the flour.

I season them with a little salt, rosemary and a dash of mixed seasonings and out comes yummy crackers! (We've actually modified this a little bit now to where I make them into Mung Biscuits and they are a little softer in the middle and quite tasty!)

Oh, no! "Not to 50!" (for all you Princess Bride fans!)
Matt likes finding funny faces in the little things of life. (I say finding because he didn't try to do this one!)
Just a little beef pot roast with potatoes, carrots, turnips and onions for our friends coming over later.

And here is one of the days I wanted to cry. I was so excited about buckwheat flour so that we could make tortillas. Unfortunately, we can't get the buckwheat ground fine enough, so it turned into a crumbly mess (you can see a little remnant of the crumbles around the edges).

 

Here is another shot at buckwheat. Buckwheat is quite yummy, but seems to be a little too crumbly to stand alone...a little millet flour would do the trick, I think. Here we have buckwheat, onion and cabbage bread. (This was the culprit that led to the demise of cabbage in the diet. And all I can say is...oh boy, too much cabbage within 2 days.)

 

And here is Matt's creation...the cute little leftovers from all our fun with food.

It's been a crazy journey, but we look forward to learning what He has to teach us through all of this. And hopefully He'll give me some added creativity and grace to try new things and maybe even learn how to cook!

Thanks for your encouragement and thoughts during this time! Much love to you all! ~ Jess

Two Thin People Being Sanctified By...Food?

Many of you that have known me for a good portion of my life know how eating has always been one of my favorite things.  I remember the grocery bill growing up was often $250-$325+ every two weeks for 3-4 people.  Granted, my friend Larry and I could scarcely be eaten under the table and he and I single-handedly kept the Maple Grove Cub Foods' inventory turning over with great regularity.

I remember the countless number of people who would say to me things like, "If you keep eating like that...," and, "You know that'll catch up to you some day," or even more often, "Just wait until you're 21...25...etc."  I kept rejecting this wisdom as my pants were still the same size and besides that, I really like food.  Sure enough though, as I passed through college and into my mid-20's I realized that my appetite was decreasing and seasons of mild chubbiness were increasing.

To further protract this nonchalance about (and overindulgence in) food, I've had very active jobs painting and hanging lights for over 10 years that have kept me thin and kept me from realizing any issues I had with food.  Finally when I hit 29 my metabolism started slowing down and at 30 it just took a siesta!  The fall of 2007 (passing from 29 to 30) was the fattest I've been.  Not that I was "fat" or felt fat or that I have any issues with that (just FYI), it's just that my belt ran out of notches and I had to get some bigger shorts!  I was eating out most days whilst hanging the lights and the Lord finally revealed to me the next Spring that I hadn't been hungry for six months!  I ate when it was time or when something looked good and not when I was hungry...and I ate a lot!  That's when I knew that food had really become a problem, and a spiritual one at that.

So why does this matter if I'm "relatively" thin compared to most people my age?  That right there is indicative of a major spiritual problem in our culture.  We judge ourselves based on our performance compared to the next guy and not in relation to the truth.  In the midst of many other sinful things being cleansed from my life over the years, food has been creeping in and becoming a vice.  And it was very hard to begin getting a handle on as most everybody in my life still expected me to eat like a horse and a few people even made it very hard to resist at times, not in anything but good Minnesota hospitality, "Eat some more, want some more, you should have some more, come on, I know how much you like..."  You get the drift.  :)

Now it is time to make this a front burner issue as my dear, sweet Jessica has dietary issues of her own.  Many of you know that she has a skin condition called eczema, but no one we know has seen it quite like hers.  She is at the point where having anything with sugar, even just a little, feeds an overgrown yeast condition in her gut called Candida and her hands break out in a flaming, itching rash. She has tried many different topical remedies, but the problem lies within.

When we were in Colorado for training we went on a strict Candida diet and within five days the pain largely went away and there were no new spots.  The old ones had mostly healed up as well.  Of course, at our commissioning party the last day they had a room full of desserts, which we ate, and let's just say the flare up was overnight.  Once your body gets this out of balance it takes several months before you can have any kind of "normal" eating, but it can be done, and by God's grace we will.

The American diet for decades has been utterly horrible and it's sad to see that so much of the junk food we eat is appearing all over the shelves here in Mongolia; right before our eyes it's changing.  There are very few overweight people here as of now, but in a few years the earth might tilt a little more to the east if they don't get a clue on the junk food.  On a positive note, things like fresh vegetables arrive here by the truckload all the time and we have wonderful produce to choose from.  Every week or two there's new things!  It is fairly exciting to be living in a rapidly emerging country.

Please keep us lifted up as we are in a dash to find foods we can eat and different recipes to vary the few items.  Basically, we can have many of the vegetables (minus corn, cooked carrots, potatoes) and most of the meats.  We can supplement this with various beans (kidney, black, navy, mung), eggs...uh...I think that's about it for now.  Once Jess' system gets cleansed out a little there are many things we can start to add in with a rotating cycle.  We've even found buckwheat and millet here which are both very healthy but are on the "limit" list for now.

Surprisingly enough there is a GNC just down the street so we've been able to get some probiotics (an essential in fighting Candida).  We've been on the diet for a few days now and already her hands have subsided and are starting to heal, it's amazing to see the corralation.  In fact this picture was take today.  Two and three days ago they were much worse, keeping her up at night, and full of bumps and clear fluid.  We've cut out all sugar, including fruits and grains.  Last night Jess sat down with the the list of "OK Foods" and made a list of all of them that we can actually get here.  She whipped up a pretty fancy meal plan and today we went SHOPPING!  It was great!  This really helped the morale and there are actually some super yummy meals coming up in the next couple weeks.  Last night we had ground beef with fresh cilantro, tomatoes, onions, yellow peppers and spices on top.  It was so fresh and delicious!  Today I borrowed the Detherages' coffee mill and turned our mung beans into flour so we can have tortillas, chips, breadings, stew thickening, and who knows what else.

Sorry for the length of the post but we really want you to know about these things so you can intercede for us on our behalf.  It's amazing how something so seemingly simple can turn into a pretty big thing, but we know that this is for our good and that we will be given everything we need to persevere through these difficult early stages.

We love you all so much and are constantly aware of your role in us being here.

Matt-n-Jess

Our 1st Beast

I clearly remember the summer about four years out at Grandma's when I started feeling guilty for eating a man's share of cracker-breaded, fried fish without ever having cast a line, sat for hours in the sun, or worse yet...stood for hours behind the shed cleaning the catch.  I knew I must learn this, so I went out to help my uncle Bob and he showed me how.  Ever since I've felt total peace of conscience about eating as much fish as I could.  :)  This series of events, along with many years of pondering and being amazed by muscular structures, has adequately prepared me to deal with four kilos of beast...beef since you're wondering.

There were a few obvious lines that led me to a good place to start.

 

I was absolutely in awe at what I was seeing!  Each muscle was completely surrounded by smooth, very elastic, and very strong membranes allowing each muscle to contract and move independently of the others...how amazing!  This is where I must yet again assert that these kinds of things are fearfully and wonderfully made.  Even though evolution as a theory is crumbling in the scientific world, and even though the beauty in what has been made is self-evidencing to all that there is a maker, people still suppress these great truths.  One day soon, all will be made plain...and those who believe will rejoice!

Well, here we go!  It has to get worse before it gets better!  :)

 

This is about half of the meat we collected.  These two large pieces we cut into yummy looking steaks, and yes, we are definitely looking forward to eating these!

And now we grind our 1st beast!  Even though we cleaned the grinder beforehand I still thought we should run some of the scraps through to get any oil residue off of the machined parts.

Just like that, several pounds of steaks and ground beef...all for about $1.15/lb.  It won't take long to pay back the 30,000₮ (about $21)  for the grinder, and better yet, no more chunks of bone and sinew in our meat!  As of this post, Jess made some mashed potatoes and meatballs for lunch...mmmm, mmmmm!

Hopefully now you appreciate more what goes into getting good meat to the table...we sure do!  :)  We are so thankful that our every need is being met and we pray with thanksgiving for all of you.

Love, Matt-n-Jess

New Life!

This little guy flew into our apartment the third day we were here in Mongolia. He was our little welcoming committee. :)

 And here is an update on my flowers I planted around September 4th. You may have seen them in our Ger video. Back then they were in 3 pots and 2 of them weren't even up yet! They got so big that I had to give them their own pots. All this new life from 3 little packages of seeds! Just reminds me how we can plant and water, but only He can make it grow! I believe we have Gerbera, Forget-Me-Nots, and Qcinnun basilicum (whatever that is). It seems like there are about 5 different kinds instead of just 3. (Side note for all my Lifetouch buddies...I felt like I was organizing a class group for this photo!)

Love ya all! Jess