Picture UPDATE

October trip to Paradise with MIS

The Bridge we had to walk to get to Paradise - it was every man at his own risk!

Everyone brought meat and food to share

This is the Mustangs Homeroom

The meat was Korean BBQ and it was DELICIOUS!!  These kids can cook!

Michelle Lee, our Director on the left

Sunny, our Chinese teacher on the right and Bilgae (student)

It was beautiful in its own way

Trying to get a decent photo!!!

Everybody was wowed by the ducks! The only wildlife we saw!

Hanging out and talking in the cabin

This is Parker from Oklahoma - a new teacher this year

These horses knew how to run!

The locals come to gawk at the inexperienced horse riders!

Tommy had a real stubborn horse

He wouldn't budge and his eyes are telling me so!!

This is Lucy and she's a dog lover!

This is Ara who is not a dog lover climbing the tree to get away!

Birthday cake for Faith

There she is blowing out the candles

Then they smashed her face in the cake and it was a food fight after that!

Sunny got it good!

Pretty sight

This cow was walking next to me back to the bus. He had his eye on me

One last look at the river

Our school portrait

This is Kimberly from Canada who joins in on our Bible study and two of the pixies!

The Happy Group

Except for Nergui on the right - she doesn't look too happy

Playing Spoons on Game Day

Pure tension

This is Zolboo

Hurry up and pass!

Zolboo's sister Tsoomo

Grabbing for the spoons

Look at the determination!

The loser had to sing a song!  Richard sang a love song to me

Here is Altjean

Nergui, Richard, Emily, and Anu

Signing Off..........

The Absence of Color

Recently while sitting at my computer my photos came up on the screen display and I was not only struck by but absorbed in the vibrant colors of the photos.  Colors are brilliant, rich, and beautiful.  Here in Mongolia, we are in the season of non-color.  We see every extension of brown, brown and brown.  It is very dull indeed.  

I teach a photography class to our High School students and gave them an assignment of taking portrait pictures.  Happily, I showed them many examples of portrait pictures discussing color, light, backgrounds, and composition giving them many ideas of what they can do.  I was looking forward to seeing the results.  However, next class as they displayed their pictures there was such an absence of color and the pictures were so dull and boring, that I found myself so disappointed.  I then reiterated the assignment regarding color, light, backgrounds and composition and they said to me, “we have no color in our apartments, we have no bright clothing, and our parents work too hard and are too tired to dress up for us to take their pictures!”  I was shocked.   But upon reflection I discovered it is true what they say.  The apartments here are all painted dull beige, the curtains are the same.  Everyone wears dark clothing because it is such a dirty city and keeping things bright and clean is work indeed!  Parents are way too busy for their children.  Most children don’t even see their parents till 10 o’clock at night when they come in from work.  Children are mostly independent riding the buses by themselves at all hours, fixing their own meals, doing their own wash, etc.  

This is the state of society in Mongolia – no color both in the physical and the inward soul for many.  No color – imagine a world with no color and little joy.  I find it appalling and shocking!  God is brilliant in color, light, and the warmth of love and beauty in all His being.  Shouldn’t his children also express such?  I’m beginning to understand the reasons that people are so moved when shown love and care.  There is such a lack of it here.  

I’m so glad that God made the sky blue in whatever country you may live and He creates such brilliant sunsets that all may enjoy and see the brilliance of His creation.  He wants His people to be people of beauty, inward beauty - the reflection of Himself and to express and magnify His beauty to all people so that they may know the warmth and kindness of His love and be drawn to it. 

Exodus 28:2 “And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty."

Psalm 90:17- “And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”

Isaiah 28:5 – “In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people”

Isaiah 61:3- “To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.”

Exodus says the Priests garments were to be holy for glory and beauty.  I think that is lovely!  We are to be holy, filled with His glory - beautiful!  May the beauty of the LORD our GOD be upon us!  Amen!

"For they shall not be ahamed who wait for Me."

Isaiah 49:23b - "For they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me."

How lovely a verse and how true! This thought brings me to the other scripture..." But those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

It has been difficult to blog lately.  I've been feeling rather blah and tired and I've also been sick...again!  I have felt rather numb inside.  But last night we had a young lady over for dinner who works in the cafe near our apartment.  She has a true deep relationship with the Lord.  We were talking about her past and how she came to know the Lord and while reminiscing she was overcome with joy at how the Lord had been so faithful to her as she recounted events and words which the Lord had spoken to her.  I think she left encouraged and strengthened by her own testimony! 

Getting back to the verse in Isaiah - "For they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me."  Sometimes we feel perplexed, sometimes we feel discouraged or weary, or pressed beyond measure...this little verse is good for these occasions.  We will not be confounded if we wait on the Lord!  He will come and lift us up, open our eyes, restore our faith and build us up!  God is faithful who promised......   Isn't it amazing that just by reading the scriptures we feel refreshed.  That's because they are Divinely Inspired!

Yesterday, as I was teaching our Girls Bible Class I realized something.  These girls don't need another class of learning facts and knowledge - they need the instruction from above - the words of life and power to help them through the things they are facing.  As they were all looking at me with this dull expression writing down information in their notebooks, I felt heartsick! Oh, God help me to provide a class which is dynamic in life and power and which will be life changing!

Life is full of challenges every day, sometimes it is overwhelming....yet I can say that this verse is true! true! true!  "They shall not be ashamed who wait on Me" and "Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength" and not just their strength but "they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary!!!!" "they shall walk and not FAINT!"   Bless the Lord!  Our God is FAITHFUL! 

An Imprisonment of Sorts

The cold weather has come and with it the winds which bite already and its not that cold - merely 40F!  The heating has not come on yet and the buildings are cold.  Our work place is cold, our apartment is chilly! There is a looming dread - the coming of winter!  You can feel it everywhere and see it in people's eyes.  There is a sort of "on edge" feeling.  People are doing more indoors.  The family above us have what sounds like 2 children!  They are indoors more now and so they are running back and forth in their apartment all day and all night.  It's getting annoying!  Our apartment building has 10 floors and many new people have moved in.  They are working on their apartments.  We hear banging in the evenings!  It must be the "winter" pastime to fix things!  The noise level has increased - the banging in the apartment building, the kids running back and forth, the buses outside and the traffic - horns blowing - people shouting! 

Today, while riding the bus home we had quite the entertainment...if you could call it that.  We got on at our stop and found a seat!  Such a pleasantry to find a seat and not fall prey to the lunatic driving these bus drivers subject us to.  Anyway, we got on and the next stop 2 men and a woman got on.  The men were obviously drunk and the woman was very unsettled.  She would sit down and then the man would come and move her somewhere else.  So there was this strange movement going on while people were coming in and going out. In the meantime a man enters the bus and stands just in front of me and starts talking. Next stop this woman is shouting at the lady who takes the money.  The lady who takes the money is brushing her off in a very forthright sort of way.  Up comes the drunk man from the back of the bus and he begins to shout and the ticket lady hits him in a brush off fashion.  He hits her back.  A fight breaks out and others have gotten involved trying to hold the guy back.  A burly policeman is on board and he hauls these two drunk men and shoves them on the floor of the bus. He is trying to haul them towards the door and thrust them out.  But a real fight is happening.  This is all just a few feet from where I am sitting. (Richard is behind me in another seat). The man who came in front of me is telling me he is so sorry - this is Mongolian life!  But in actuality he is blocking me from this fight and in a way I am being protected!  God's provision once again.  The shouting and thrusting and rolling stops the bus and the bus driver tries to help the burly policeman throw them out.  They are relentless in their shouting and fighting back. The policeman gets them to the steps of the door and is pushing but they are shouting and carrying on.  One man is out of the bus and the woman but the other man is hanging on shouting and for some reason the policeman steps back and lets him carry on.  The woman comes back in and is screaming at the ticket lady!  The bus driver turns around and takes the money from the ticket lady and hands it to the drunk man and basically says, "Get out!"  But he doesn't!  He holds on with the door open shouting but the bus driver starts to drive.  There he is hanging on shouting with the door open while the bus is moving.  Suddenly, the bus jerks to a stop and he goes flying out the door rolling on the ground.  The lady shouting jumps off the bus and tends to her man screaming in a fitful pitch!  Meanwhile, the bus driver slams the doors shut and takes off!  Everyone is relieved!  The man turns to me and says, this is the problem in Mongolia - so many drunks! "What was that all about", I asked? He said, "They wanted change and the ticket woman wouldn't give it them because they were drunk!"  I wonder if that was the real story!  Anyway, our conversation goes on and turns to America.  "Where are you from? Why are you here?" etc. etc.  But I am thinking of those people and their lives.  They were obviously poor, miserable sort of creatures with not much in life to live for.  That is the state of many of these people - they are imprisoned in many ways.  They are poor, they have little, they face the harshness of the weather, the hardness of life.  What is life but to drink and forget?  How desperate life is without God!  

The bus driver in the blue/orange vest - the girl and the drunk guy falling on the ground

The burly policeman and the bus driver trying to throw the guy out!

One guy is out you can see his hand on the lower right of the picture but the other guy is resisting!

Still trying!

This guy is holding on for dear life!  The girl is trying to escape! Guess who is snapping pictures?

 I am kind of dreading this coming winter!  I've heard some say its not been this cold in September for 14 years!  Ahhh - what does it mean?  Will we survive?  I, too, fear the imprisonment of being shut in.  I fear for those people living in the gers who have to go out and pump their water at a pumping station and haul it back to their gers so they can heat it up and wash!  I'm afraid to walk to the bus stop and get to work with that chilling temperature penetrating my innards!  And its only September!!  So...it begins.  The good thing is God is here - so it can't be all that bad!  He will be our strength and stay, I trust so!