Food, Friends and lots of FUN!

One of the first orders of business in Chaing Mai....FIND THE DQ!

And we did. Here we are with our teammates and friends from Canada. The 6 of us hit it off at training in Colorado and spent some good quality time together in Chaing Mai. We hit the beach with our Canadian friends as well, so you'll hear more about them later.

Also on the menu....PIZZA HUT!

We had to get all the junk food cravings out of our system. Pizza Hut restaurants in Asia are way nicer than in the States. They are quite a bit fancier in general, but are still about the same price or even a bit cheaper. :) And still the same yummy smell of pizza when you walk by! Although, the topping choices are a little strange...shrimp on pizza?

 We really loved Thai food, especially at the little places tucked here and there where you could get a meal for $1 each. This was our first eatery of this sort and it was really yummy. We ended up each getting 2 dishes...here's a taste of one of them....

We especially liked all the fun ingredients in the Thai food such as lemongrass, coconut milk, curry and many other new flavors. One of my favorites was a Massaman Curry dish with chicken, potatoes and peanuts. I found a pre-packaged sauce and bought a few to have back here in UB. I think we may even be having that tonight! I'll let ya know how it turned out.

Here we are at another local eatery with some of our other friends from training. It was so good to see everyone again and catch up on life in their part of the world. We've made some really great friends through our organization...everyone has just been so wonderful - from the staff in the US to our team here in UB to our friends scattered around Asia. We're so blessed to be in such a great community...more like a family really.

And of course, it was so great to make new friends along the way as well. This dear family was staying at the same place as us before our conference started (here we are having our free buffet breakfast!). They are like-minded folks from Australia and are taking a year to travel around the world with their family! They are staying for about a month in each place so they can really experience the culture. It was so great to get to know them and share our experiences (and a few meals) together.

All you can eat breakfast...mmmm, mmmm. 

Let just say we had several opportunities and struggles on our trip to overeat (during conference we had 3 meals a day of buffet!), and our Father worked on us a lot during that time. At first we were so excited to try everything, especially since my skin was doing so well and the food wasn't causing any problems. But we knew we needed to limit ourselves, even though our eyes were much bigger than our tummies. :)

We are still working on doing everything for His glory....even eating well!

May you also continue to do the same!

Many more stories to come.....

The Journey Begins...

After two nice flights and a 130 degree temperature swing we found ourselves at this quaint little Thai railway station just on the outskirts of Bangkok.  We opted to take a combination of airplanes, trains, buses, etc., in order to save some cash and to see the country.  We definitely got all we wanted and more!  For the first several miles out of the station we were shocked to see a mini slum between the tracks.  It was strangely warm and inviting...

Right from the get go we loved Thailand!

Looking out the train window we immediately soaked in the lavish green countryside.  Endless, constant GREEN!  We had just left frozen, brown Mongolia so this was such a relief.  The Thai countryside was filled with endless little fields and waterways with random little structures erected here and there.  We loved all the little dirt roads and motorscooters.

After a good share of the day had gone by the landscape changed dramatically to hills and then mountains.  Not much "Rocky" about them though, lush, lush, lush.

Once we had finished climbing we were loving a third kind of terrain containing elements of everything we had seen thus far.  The "dreamy" effect, as Jess calls it, is from shooting through the dirty train window.  As nice as that is, sometimes you just gotta go the extra mile to get the real thing...

...which I gladly did!  Whoo-hoooo!

Wow, what a crazy and exciting beginning to our trip.  So much to tell...

Good to be back in Mongolia.  Pray that we dive into our teaching with all our strength, overflowing from God's precious, sustaining grace.  1 Peter 4:10-11  To him be the glory!

Love you!  Many more posts to come...

Matt-n-Jess

Our New Year's Бууз party!

Happy New Year from Mongolia!

We hope you all had a wonderful New Year's celebration.We know we are a few days late, but there is still much of the year left to celebrate what our Father is doing and will do in the days ahead. We thought we would share our New Year's Eve day with you all. In Mongolia, they like to celebrate just about every occasion with a beautifully decorated cake and lots of yummy food.

Here we are at Гэрлээ's (pronounced Ghair-thlay) house. She is one of our wonderful language teachers and she invited us over to her home to teach us how to make Бууз (bodes), a traditional Mongolian food.

This is quite the skill!
Гэрлээ was so sweet and used wheat flour for the first time just for us. And it turned out that her family liked them better than with the white flour! Matt said that she just might start a new Mongolian tradition! Inside we have beef, cabbage and onion finely chopped.

The different designs are just beautiful!


But it's not as easy as it looks!

Once the Бууз are all wrapped up, they are placed in a steaming tray and steamed for 20 minutes.

When they are done you need to fan them in order to cool the outside so they don't stick to your fingers.

Here they are! Hot, fresh, now! These were the best Бууз we've had in Mongolia. Usually they are made with mutton and a piece of fat that turns into liquid as it cooks...but we prefer the beef sans fat. :) Turned out her family liked them very much, too!

We had quite the feast for our New Year's celebration...potato salad, carrot salad, Бууз, popcorn (good ol' microwave Orville!) and cake...along with great friends and lots of laughs to finish off the old year and ring in the New Year.

 May your New Year's resolutions be met with a godly resolve to follow Him above all else in 2010!

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...