Saturday, September 5, 2009

Things back in full force

Hi everyone. Well things are back to normal (as normal as they can be) for the next little while. Teresa & I started our language classes & the kids started home schooling for the year. Here is a picture of the kids, Teresa & my (2 days a week) classroom. It also sides as our dinning room 3 times a day.



Both of our language instructors really like the white board, markers as they instruct us at home. Here is another picture of one of my many full boards during a class. This board only represents between 5-10 minutes of a 3 hour class.



Fall has come, happened & is about to leave in only 2 weeks. August 30th our temperatures were 27 degrees Cel. September 2nd they dropped to 10 degrees Cel. The past 2 days our daytime temperatures ave been 5 degrees & nighttime -5 degrees Cel. Walking to class & home from class I think every Mongolian muttered to themselves or a friend, Тэр галзуу (he is crazy.) The reason is I was a stubborn Canadian refusing to wear a sweater or jacket September 3-4th. It is suppose to be T-shirt weather for another month. Well not here. өчигдөр (yesterday) it was just too cold & I wanted to be a good example to my children. I did not want to hear, "dad it's not fair that you don't have to wear your jacket, but I do."

I am excited that central heating will be turned on next week because it is getting cold in our apartment at night. This means that we will have hot water again to wash dishes & get showers/baths. It is something we have gotten used to not having. Although when it is -30/-40 Cel. outside warm water will be nice.

I will have to go buy many things this week to get ready for winter. The first thing is a new front door to our apartment because the one we have doesn't have a seal & our lock has broken. That is one thing you learn quickly here is that your rent gives you walls & floors, that's it. The rest you are responsible to change/pay for. The next thing is very good air purifier/filter. The sand, silt & coal dust (air pollution) is manageable now because the air moves quite a fair amount. But during the winter that will change. The city is totally surrounded by mountains on all 4 sides which creates an upside down bowl of cold air locking all air pollution down at building level/street level. Our windows will change from white to black from coal dust. During the winter months we found out that we live in the worst area of the city. We have two of the largest гэр хороолол (ger districts) on two sides of us & each ger will be burning coal almost 24 hrs. a day for the cold months. Winter like temperatures -10 to -40 here are from the months of October to March.

Before I forget back in August our YWAM leadership conference was an amazing experience. As you can see in the slideshow on the right side of the site there were/are about 70 Mongolian YWAM leaders & only 15 leaders from the rest of the world here in Mongolia. I was/am very excited about being part of YWAM here in Mongolian because they are extremely successful at bringing up, training, leading & finally handing/transferring the leadership to local Mongolians. They are to be the ones leading because they know their people best. Our role as foreigners are to walk alongside them, mentoring & giving assistance so that they can lead themselves. A Friend & former seminary director in Canada said "that in ministry we should always be in a place where we are essentially working ourselves out of our position. Leaders come & go, but it is the local people that need to take ownership & lead their people because they know them best." YWAM here in Mongolia I think know how to do this & is doing it well.