It's the Ice Cream Man!

One of the highlights of our new home....

We get to hear the Ice Cream Man travel all over UB!

Matt and I wrote a little song...enjoy!

"Taking out the trash with joy,
But this song is just a ploy.
I am not the ice cream man,
So please bring me your garbage can."

 Look at the children running to get some ice cream!

The Fading Glory of the Flowers of the Field and the Surpassing Glory of the One Who Made Them Both

The one who would spend his days passing by the flowers of the field without marveling at their beauty has forgotten his sense and has wasted his senses.  Those who's gaze can be pulled away from the beaten path of stress and success have discovered an endless array of wonder...so much so that the things that are seen have been worshiped by those who are seeing and yet cannot actually see.  And the ones who would day by day ignore the beauty of the earth have possibly found the thing they admire most instead is the one who stares back at them from the mirror. 

Both have gone astray...

The ancient writer Peter, while quoting a still older source, said this,  

"All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of the grass.  The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever." 

All of what is seen is passing away so it seems strange to me that for millions of people the enjoyment of the beauty that they see terminates at the object of their sight.

My friends, this should not be...

Because we have preferred the things that have been made over the one who made them we have fallen under the contempt of our maker and have been given over to fill up our desires with everything under the sun.

Like the flowers of the field we will return to the dust; but in a way that is unlike anything else that has been made we will have to deal with the maker of all things.  Where then is our hope? 

"I lift my eyes to the hills.  From where does my help come..."

My help comes from the very one who made heaven and earth!  And this same maker, who said,  

"Though your sins be as scarlet...

also said,

...they shall be whiter than snow."

I was fortunate to see the beauty of a flower under the blanket of the snow, and I bless the one who's beauty far surpasses all of what has been made because it all has been made by the same one, who, along with his words, will never fade away...

"Believe in the one who's crimson flow can wash you so you can be whiter than snow."

Oh, the weather outside is...CRAZY!

I can hardly believe it's snowing in September! This is definitely a first for us. Yesterday I (Jess) had on a t-shirt and was almost sweating it was so warm (about 75-80 degrees), and we woke up this morning and it was snowing!

 We heard the weather can be quite moody here. We asked one of the locals last week when it starts to snow around here and he said November 7th, which we thought an odd date, but he said that is because it is his birthday. Apparently, before then it can snow, but he says it doesn't stay on the ground for good until Nov. 7th. This summer they had snow in July, so they have officially had snow in every month!

As I Went Down to the River...

One of the main highlights thus far has got to be the day we spent with our new friends last Sunday.  We congregated at their usual place out in "the burbs", loaded all us fish in a few cars like sardines, and headed out east of town to a wonderful park along the river.

As much as we were trying to stay with the group, we had to sneak off for a couple minutes to soak in the beauty.  It is by far the closest thing we've seen to sights we're used to in the States...it was wonderful!

On the way in we paused to stop and reflect a while on all that was, is, and is to come.  It was such a neat treat to see the leaves changing colors.  Fall is one of the most wonderful times in Minnesota so this was medicinal mentally, spiritually, and otherwise.  And to think, all this was made with a word...

 

 We all gathered together for a time of teaching, fellowship, and making new friends.  This old woman and I walked arm-and-arm together for about 15 minutes on the way to the river.  I'm sure that'll be toppin' the "memories" chart for a while!

Jess and I plopped down behind this cute little guy!  :)  Since we couldn't understand what was being said we just ended up having a little nonverbal playtime.  I love universal truths such as these.  :)

 

 OK, so is it just me or are babies getting cuter all the time?  I'm not saying anything about anything but I found myself thinking I could have stuffed this one in my backpack without anybody noticing...or at least wishing I could.  ;)  She's a sweetie!

 

We ate, laughed, acted out a few old-but-good'n stories, played games, and made all kinds of new friends.  We were divided up into three teams and I eventually realized that every activity we did was being judged and scored.  I got to be the Great Physician in our skit and even got to say a few lines in Mongolian!  Jess and her team got to be a big fish and barfed a guy out on shore. For one of the activities we had to perform a dance so my teammate Jennifer and I tought them a modified version of the Electric Slide, counting out all the beats in Mongolian.  neeg, hoyer, gorow, dooroo, neg, hoyer, gorow, dooroo...   :)

It was a small foretaste of every tribe and tongue...I can hardly wait!  I'm pretty sure we'll see these two guys on that day, I hope I get to spend some time stuying with them this year.  Our team got all dressed up in branches and coal dust, what a riot!

 It was a really special day for these three ladies and they celebrated by taking a quick swim in the river.  We were honored to be there with them for their special day!

What a glorious day!  We got to see the beauty of fall, the joy of extended family, and taste of the wonders that are to come!  Thank you to everyone of you that has gotten us here and kept us here through thought, word, and deed.  We know there are more of you than we know and we lift up thanksgivings for you very often.  Please keep us lifted up in the days ahead and hope along with us for countless more opportunities to strengthen our siblings and to add to their fold.  We love you!

The Gift of Light

In our apartment building we have a very nice woman who keeps our stairwell clean, takes out the trash, etc. In Mongolia it is very commonly understood that these women are treated fairly poorly. They often live at the bottom of the stairs in what is the equivalent of a small bedroom. I have no idea if they even have heat or not in the winter, which, if you've talked with us about the weather here, that's hardly an option.

The first day we arrived we were brought to our new apartment and shown how to work our fancy puzzle-lock on our front door. Jess and I went out for a while with our new teammates and when we came back to our apartment I quite excitedly got out my four-sided puzzle key. :) I'd remembered from the demonstration that the key had to turn clockwise so I gave it a go. One clunk of the deadbolt and then...nothing. So I went back three clunks the other way, which I knew was wrong, but it wasn't working so I gave it a shot. When that didn't work I went all the way to the right again. I must have gone back and forth three or four times, ALL THE WHILE our stair cleaning lady and her counterpart from the next well were standing right next to us watching the whole thing.  We all shared a couple quick laughs but bottom line, we weren't getting anywhere.

Then Jess kindly and unfeministically offered to give it a try so I just couldn't pull the man card, plus, I knew I wasn't getting anywhere and thought it would be good opportunity to forsake my pride. Within seconds she had it open and all of us roared with laughter and I made sure to look at our stair lady so she knew it was OK to join in, and she was glad to! :)

We saw her a few times over the next couple days and she and I shared many kind looks. One time she looked at me and it looked like she could hardly believe that we wanted to be kind to her. I kept remembering how people generally look down on these ladies and was seeing first hand how an uncommon gesture of love can have a powerful effect. Love is a language that transcends all barriers. Think of our sin and what barriers had to be crossed for us to know true love. In this is love, not that we loved him, but that he loved us and sent his Son in our place...

What followed was most amazing and quite affirming. Pert'near the next night we were coming up our [usually dark] stairwell and noticed a super-bright, white glow coming from up by our door. When we came up around the corner we saw a brand new florescent pigtail bulb hanging right outside our door. Now, we're not 100% sure that this was the direct effect of the aforementioned cause, but I remember the second I saw it I said, "She gave us a new bulb!"

If this is true, then she gave us the gift of light. How ironic, that's the very thing we intended to do.








Please keep her in mind and hope along with us that we have many opportunities to interact with her as we learn the language. As Jess and I were eating some homemade soup the other night we both had a strong desire to look out for her this winter with a warm heart, our warm home, and hopefully lots of warm soup.

Rejoicing with you that the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. In light and love, Matt

Tour de Ger

Here is a video of our new apartment in UB! "Ger" actually means house. 

 Here is our building. We are on the third floor and the 2 windows on the left end. Our apartment goes all the way through and has windows on three sides. This is the north side.

Hope you can stop in for a visit soon! Loves, Jess

The Journey Here

It's so good to be here. After a little delay in Houston, we made it to Mongolia (although a day later than we had expected). Our Father was gracious to us at every turn, taking what we thought was a bad situation and turning it into good. We really needed the extra time to sleep in the hotel, since we were up until 3am the night before we left trying to fit our stuff into 4 bags instead of the 6 we had originally planned on. When we got to LA, we had to wait 6 hours for the Air China desk to open up to check into our next leg. We waited at Starbucks with all our luggage piled up in the corner. We shared our table with a nice group of people from England who were waiting for their relative to arrive from Australia. When the desk opened, we found out that our connecting flights from LA and Beijing were not re-booked in Houston and therefore were canceled since we didn't show up for our flights. Thankfully, there was a kind woman at the Air China desk that helped us figure out what to do. We had to go to the other airline and get proof of our delay. The woman also was kind in booking us on the flight with lots of leg room, which was a huge blessing. She was so kind and thoughtful, we wanted to give her a big hug! I (Jess) was also thankful to be able to sleep for 9 of the 12 hours to Beijing. When we arrived in Beijing, we found the airport to huge and very beautiful in its design, but dark and errily quiet. We went through several check points and made it through the automatic temperature reading station without a problem (which I was a little worried about!). When we arrived in Mongolia we found that only 3 of our bags had arrived with us. But thankfully, our teammates 4 bags that were missing when they arrived the day before, had come on the last leg of our journey with us. We were greeted by one of our teammates in Mongolia and loaded up the car and headed to our new place! The next day we heard from my mom that the Beijing airport had called them asking where to send our bag. The transfer tag had come off and thankfully we had their address and phone number on there in case something happened. So, our final bag arrived the next day with big straps with Chinese writing on them. We were glad that all had arrived safely. Our bags took quite a beating though. It's amazing to see what happens to them on their long journey. We had a dent in the rim of our stainless steel water filter that was in a box inside our suitcase and my airbake cookie sheet is slightly bent and smashed a little. :) We're so excited to be in our new home. We spent the first week getting acquainted with the shops and markets around town (along with our teammates who have been here for 3 years already). It made us all the more excited to learn the language so we can start forming relationships with people like our stair cleaning lady and the fruit stand lady and all kinds of people who we have met so far.