Things back to normal

It is so nice that Teresa is back with her new visa. Thank-you all for praying for her as she received her visa, had a time to rest, was able to buy some things we needed & cannot buy here. Refreshed Teresa will now be able to last the next 4 months of winter. While she was away in Bangkok she realized how different it is from Mongolia. Plants, trees & bushes of all shades of green are everywhere. She went from -35 Celsius to +35 Celsius. There is no winter & in Mongolia we have 8 months of winter. The food was full of flavour. Also shopping malls & markets filled with fresh spices, nuts, vegetables & fruit. The streets are clean, new clean taxis take you from place to place, the buildings old & new are clean & beautiful. In spite of all these differences which many of you would think are going against Mongolia we are happy here. God has given us his heart for the Mongolian people & love it here. Places like Bangkok are nice to visit to rest & refresh, but Mongolia is our home.

Our language is going well. On a regular basis Teresa & I are told by local Mongolians that our language is really good & they can understand us well. This is very encouraging as we both have many days when Mongolians ask us questions or want to have a conversation together to get to know us better & why we have come. However, most of these conversations end with us having to say "би ойлгүй байна" which means I don't understand or the Mongolians saying they don't understand us.I just have to keep telling myself & Teresa the same that we have only been studying this language for 9 months now & have a little over a year still left.


Please pray for the less fortunate here. last night we had a blizzard with blowing snow, 100km/h winds & temperatures of -47 Celsius. This morning when we woke up there were windows blown out of apartment buildings, trees were blown over, signs were ripped & roofs damaged.

Mongolian new year starts Friday through Tuesday. I am going to be eating a lot of food that all of you would be sick looking at & drinking milk tea from any of these animals (2 hump camel, horse, goat, sheep, cow.) God has blessed me with the gift of really, really, liking Mongolian food as well as their milk tea. This will be another opportunity as we will be invited into homes where members will see the love of Jesus in us by our love for them.

Please pray for our children. Kiel & Esme love each other dearly & others are amazed as to how close of friends they really are, but they both will be losing their 6th friend their age in June. Their last 2 friends close to their ages (a little younger) will be going back the the US for the summer. Teresa & I have already started praying that more families will be coming soon that they can befriend. This is a hard reality for missionaries, but is the time when families really need to come together to help each other during the transition of people coming & going. We have talked to & seen amazing missionary kids that have done well with the transitional life & have talked to them so we know what helped them become the beautiful people they are.