Smoke Gets in Your Eyes! ...And Dust Gets Everywhere Else!

Ah, life in UB.  Most days you can see the beauty of the mountains and the ever-blue sky.  In fact, it's sunny here over two thirds of the time, but once winter starts rolling in (around September) it's often a little less than clear.  The major power plants take on the ger districts to see who can launch the most particulate into the air and sometimes the battle gets pretty intense!

Here's the view out our window to the East, overlooking Peace Avenue and the sinking Chinese knife blade looking building.  Pretty clear.  You can even see the mountains in the distance, around 10 miles away.  We've accumulated a few pictures over the year to show you some of the varying elements that "cloud" our vision.  :)

11/27/2009 - The first blanket to lay over the city was the coal smoke.  You may recall me mentioning that UB runs east-west between two beautiful mountain ranges.  It's wonderful in both its beautiful and its ability to trap the smoke from escaping.  It was always much worse in the morning as the gers were keeping their stoves pretty hot in the average -30 degree lows we had this winter.  This was a fairly smoky morning, probably not the worst, but smokier than most.  By the middle of the day the smoke would make its way out for the most part.

12/17/2009 - Not all the effects of the smoke were bad.  As you may have seen in other areas, smoke in the air can make some pretty beautiful sunrises and sunsets.  All fall we heard about the smoke that was coming, and all winter we heard about the spring dust storms.

5/1/2010 - We finally got one.  The winds had been picking up as soon as the temperatures began rising and are now blowing between about 12 and 25 mph every day.  The day started clear and then very quickly began to darken.  The winds must have really been gusting because all our old windows felt like they could have blown. 

This is the view out our south facing window on the afternoon of a sunny day!  It continued for part of the day and then almost completely cleared up.  Reminds me of the moment when the Lord was being put to death and the whole sky became black as night...in the middle of the day!  Not sure what exactly the Father did to bring that about but it must have been pretty terrifying.  Besides the fact that the ground was shaking, the temple was getting ripped up (or should I say "down") and people were coming out of their graves!  It's in there, go read it!  Anyway, the dust...:)

And then just like that it had passed.  It was really quite amazing!  I even heard that some of the dust from one of our storms in Mongolia made it all the way over to Arizona and even to the east coast.  It's like blowing you a little kiss from 7,000 miles away!!!  Bet you never thought you'd be eating Mongolia's dust, huh?!  :)

Thankfully they should be turning off our heat in about a week so that oughta reduce the smoke output considerably.  Too bad we'll be leaving just as the temperatures are nice and warm, the dust is gone, and the rains come.  Gets pretty green here in the summer.  Speaking of green, there are little pockets of grass/weeds that are growing in the city now and whenever we see them we pick a couple blades and inhale that fresh cut scent that I will never take for granted again!

New Life...

“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; 
blessed be the name of the Lord.” 
- Job 1:21b

Theresa Marie Pearson

As many of you know, we were back in the States a few weeks ago to see Matt’s Grandma. We were so blessed to be able to go see her, talk to her, and spend time with her before she went to be with our Father. It was a wonderful time with family, filled with sweet memories that we will never forget.

One memory that I will always cherish is when I got to tell Grandma that if we ever had a girl that we would name her after her. She welled up with tears at the thought and was very touched by that. It was one of the last conversations I had with Grandma. We were in the stage of “trying” to have a baby, so we were eagerly taking tests in hopes to tell Grandma and everyone in person, but they were all negative. We eventually had to return to Mongolia and Grandma was still with us, much to the surprise of everyone. :) About 3 days after we returned we decided to take one more test, because I had many symptoms that I might be pregnant, even though the other tests were negative. Turns out, we were pregnant and didn’t even know it while we were home!! We called Matt’s Mom right away to tell her the news so she could go tell Grandma. Well, we didn’t get to share the news with Mom at that moment because she was in the middle of making funeral arrangements because Grandma had just passed away that morning. So, within a half hour we found out that new life had begun and that Grandma’s new eternal life had begun. It was an amazing day of joys and sorrows, filled with tears of both kinds. So, in the same day the Lord gave us a new baby and had taken Grandma home to be with Him. His timing is perfect.

Today was one of the most amazing days of our lives thus far…we got to see our baby for the first time! I was a little nervous at first because up until this moment, I wasn’t sure if it was really true. I wanted it to be, especially since we had told everyone already, but just wasn’t sure.

 But sure enough! Here is our little Monkey. :)

Everything seems normal and we even got to see the heart beating! Check out the video and see for yourself (it’s not quite as clear as in person, but it’s still amazing!).

We are all doing fine…I’ve been a little nauseous, eating all the time to keep the “feels like I’m going to throw up” feeling at bay. I haven’t yet, but just feel like it most of the time. I’ve also been very tired and needing more sleep than usual. Matt has been very supportive and understanding about my crazy cravings and need for more sleep. We are all growing every day, and can hardly believe that we have the “Mom and Dad” title! Our Creator is so amazing.

Thank you for lifting us and our family up the last several weeks. We have been so abundantly blessed! And we are so very blessed to have all your love and support!

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!