Homestay from Renee (news as of 9/10/05)

We got our internet set up the middle of this last week, but the placewhere we are staying does not have a phone, so for now we only can write whenwe come here to the apartment for something.How is everyone there? Tommorrow (Sunday) will be a week since webegan our homestay. It is going pretty well. We have already tried sheephead--I even had to choke down two peices because I got invited into the grandmothers room where she was feasting after they had already broughtus our taste. I was just innocently walking down the hall:) They are allvery hospitable and they of course love the girls and spoil them terribly. Ireally think their teeth are going to rot with all the candy.Some quick prayer updates. We just completed our first week oforientation with the team. It was very encouraging. Good to learn about Mongoliaand the team we will minister alongside. We were just informed that forlegal purposes we have to begin language study with a two week crash course onMonday! Yes, Monday. Originally, they told us we could begin after ourhomestay on Oct. 1st but now our Visa situation is giving us a monday deadline. In some respects it will be good because we will actually be living with Mongolian speakers to practice with. Our hesitations lie inthe fact that our apartment looks like a bomb exploded. I tore through allthe luggage to find warm clothes for this month, but nothing is unpacked.We are having furniture built--dressers, etc. But there is no where to putthings away right now, and while living with our family and doing orientation, we have not had time to go shopping for washing machine mattresses etc. I don't have to tell you--as a mother, you can seewhere this would make for a disorganized maybe frustrating life while tryingto be a language student. (I guess I will have all the long, cold, winter toset up house huh?) Anyway, another hesitation is that the Feilds--ourcurrent informant for the field and the homestay are going home end of Sept. fortheir 3 month home assignment. They are helping us procure a house helper/nanny and carpenters for furniture. I kind of feel like time is running out to have access to their help. That leads to the last hesitation--my girls. We have options open for my schooling times and locations and their care, we just have a lot of decisions to make acouple weeks earlier than we thought.I guess this is a good segue to the prayer requests:Pray for the decisions we need to make about school times, finding a caregiver, if Maggie will start preschool, and how I want to organize mytime and tasks for the next year at least, while in school. You know Iam not good at making quick decisions. Pray for His wisdom for Jeremy andI.Pray for Dennis and Marilyn, the new feild directors that were on oursame flight. While doing their homestay, their 3rd floor apartment wasrobbed two nights ago. They took the computer and camera and all his winter clothes. They are pretty shook up and are reallly feeling the loss ofthe computer as it had all the feild stuff on it too and the robber hasaccess to everything.Keep praying for Jeremy's knee--it has become infected. A Korean doctorsaw him for free yesterday and reopened the wounds and cut away dead fleshand gave him a shot!!! Pray for complete healing of the knee that he may beable to use it again soon.Pray for protection against the enemy--he is trying hard at every angleto discourage. Lord give us eyes to see and your Word to combat theseattacks.I have stayed healthy and the girls--praise the Lord, I have even dranktap water a couple times. I am managing to choke down the steamed saltymilk tea served at least 3 times a day. They say this winter is going to be avery bad one:) We can get a taxi to anywhere in Darhan for 9 cents!