Journolia: A journal of life in Mongolia.: May 2020

Saturday, May 30, 2020

German Mountain Sunset on School Year

The girls in Germany trekked up a nearby mountain to mark a significant event.

School is almost out and soon their dorm sisterhood will be separated by space and time zones.

Mongolian Traditional Script Class

My friend Jonathan joined me in class last week.

He knows the vertical script quite well since he lived in Inner Mongolia.

Here we are after learning the traditional script numbers 1-9.

Here I am on the last day of class for the year, with some of the calligraphy script I had to learn to read with Tserma Teacher. The poem behind us is like a poem of eternal blessing.

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Girls in Germany Celebrate Staff and Sisters

Birthdays are celebrated with fanfare at their dorm.

Maggie (above) celebrates their dorm mother Cheryl on her birthday.

For those with birthdays in summer, like Lydia , they celebrate a little early.

Maggie crowns her as princess of quick thinking, among other things.

Getting Close to the End of School

Mrs B, alias Mom helps Josiah with a school project.

We're on the home stretch, and making them both stand the test.

I think we could safely call the COVID-19 2020 school year a stress test for all!

Restarting Basketball Training

Right now kids are still not allowed to congregate.

So we're focusing on preparing coaches...

Been a long 3 months so we're getting back in shape.

Saturday, May 09, 2020

National Day of Prayer in America

No matter what your politics, a pandemic is a good time to pray to God in unity for healing.

So many great prayers were offered for the world and country across denominations and faiths.

I especially recommend to you the two-song ensemble at the end of the prayer service.

You can hear these songs and prayers for the pandemic by clicking here.

"Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!"

Psalm 33:12

Quarantine Lock Down Loosens

Churches and schools are still closed, but gyms are open again! Looking at the calendar, the last day we were able to train in the gym was February 4th.

In late April, Mongolia canceled school until September. I was thinking we might get into gyms in June or July if we're lucky. Imagine my surprise when on May 1st we heard gyms were open again. We walked in our rented gym and saw a pick-up basketball game going! It had been a long hiatus.

We met with the managers and agreed to reactivate our use of the gym as of May 5th. That is almost exactly 3 months of the whole country being shut out of indoor basketball. Can you believe it?

It caught us a little off guard, and everyone else as well. So it was only three coaches at training. It's still not allowed for kids to gather or be seen in public. So we have more time to prepare for when kids can start to gather, probably closer to September 1st, when school starts.