Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Fun Weekend

What a great weekend. The weather was nice 25-37 degrees, got to meet new people & had a picnic with fiends. Over the weekend a friend of Teresa & I had friends come to visit from the US. While Jeff was in shopping for house supplies I got to take all of his friends to the Түүхийн Музей (history museum.) They had a great time learning more about Mongolia & it's түүхийн (history.) Afterwards we met up with Jeff & went to an American restaurant that calls themselves Mongolian, but most Mongol's do not eat what they serve. It was a great time to share & get to know them more.

Saturday everyone that is part of JCS in Улаанбаатар (Ulaanbaatar) got together for our annual picnic. We all piled into micro buses & headed Southwest for the mountains. Jeff's friends came along for our annual JCS picnic where we had our 2nd Mongol horhuck. The only difference this time was that we had хонины (mutton) instead of ухна (goat). They also added a bottle of red wine to the мах (meat) to tenderize it. I could not believe how tender the mutton was & how good it tasted. I really like Mongolian eating. However, this differed from our last horhuck & you can tell this one was mostly made of non-Mongol's because there were no guts to eat. Thinking about that still makes me laugh.

After we arrived back at JCS Jeff's friends came back to our house because his mobile phone was stolen & we couldn't call him. While at our house the team could rest & use our internet to e-mail family back in the US to let them know they had arrived safely. We fed them & aloud them to rest & feel like they were home again. We were able to share some more & really connect with them. Part of who we are is hospitality. We want people to feel loved & cared for when they come our way & to send them off with joy.

We are enjoying these last few days of summer break before we are back to classes next week for the rest of the summer. I will be posting some of the pictures from our JCS picnic tomorrow.