This week has been good with Teresa & I are continuing to learn монгол хэл (Mongolian Language.) The kids are doing well with their home schooling & we all are getting used to temperature change. Last week we had nights of -14 Celsius & days of -5. This week we are having nights of -5 to -10 & days of -5 to +10 Celsius. Added to the outside temperatures our central heating is on (no thermostats) so it is 28 to 30 Celsius inside. It is so hot inside when you are trying to sleep, but can't open the windows to cool off because the coal smog has been getting really thick. A couple of nights this past week it was so thick that I could only see 6 meters around me. The smell is really strong.
I laugh when I am walking in the the coal smog because it reminds me of being at my grandparents place in Sydney NS. The smell of the steel plant coal smoke stacks going all the time just down the street. улаанбаатар, монгол улс (Ulaanbaatar, country of Mongolia) feels like home. The smell, the constant hocking of vehicle horns, eating horse & mutton meat, drinking mare's (horse) milk tea & trying to speak Mongolian. It is home for me & I am feeling a peace that I never really felt in Canada. I know that Teresa has not come to the place where here feels like home, but that day will come.
Please pray for us as God is teaching us patience. It is hard when you want to accomplish more & expect more to happen than can be. God wants us to learn Mongolian & that is it for now. To be used you need to know how to communicate with Mongolians. For the next two years this is our focus because for most Mongolians that is all they know. Pray for Kiel because he has a cold & needs a good nights rest & Esme needs some friends (girls) her age to play with. Teresa is struggling with how long it is taking to understand Mongolian & I need some time to rest. I can't really explain how exhausting it is when 3 full hours everyday you are trying to learn something new about a new language & remove all of your English thoughts because it makes learning Mongolian even more difficult. Pray for Esme's understanding in home school classes. Some days are a real challenge for her.