Warm Winter News from Germany

Johanna and her dorm sisters dressed up for "Galentine's" festivities. 

And heard a talk from their teacher's love and marriage story.

Some of them got away for a day of sledding this month as well. 

Here's the whole sledding crew in front of an alpine "Edelweiss Hut" 

Clara's Basketball Team Wins International High School Championship!

Congrats to Clara and all the Wolves at the American School of Ulaanbaatar!

Sadly we had to watch the game remotely, at least it wasn't from across the world.

 Here we are at a coffee shop across the street.

IMBA Training Pivot: Spin Move

We had around 30 students training at IMBA through about 8 weeks of extended winter break recently.

Our training continues with fewer students now since half of them have returned to school in the afternoons.  Less is more.  Fewer students allows us to focus more on advanced moves.  This also helps coaches build deeper relationships with IMBA kids. You can see more at IMBA.MN

Happy Lunar New Year 2022!

We were invited to Pastor Lxavga's Home Friday, the 3rd day of the New Year on the outskirts of UB.

It was our first ever Tsaagan Sar since moving to Ulaanbaatar since the holiday was canceled in 2020, and we were evacuated to the US in 2021.

We invited our friend Jonathan along with us, for his first Tsagaan Sar in Outer Mongolia. 

Pastor "Luke" cooked beef this year instead of sheep for his foreign friends.

Then we visited a family who works with us in their apartment in the city.  They also cooked beef this year instead of sheep dumplings.  You can see their festive table behind us as we play ankle bones.  

You start with a big pile of shagai or ankle bones. You flick them together to try to win "all the marbles". 

But it was hard to beat our hostess.  Happy Lunar New Year of the Water Tiger! 

Team Visit to Terelj National Park

Just outside the park, we visited this neat lodge which in summer in on the waterfront.

We had homegrown Seabuckthorn juice instead of hot chocolate.  

And then in the National Park, we climbed up to this Mountain Lodge, which has a nice restaurant.

The kids ordered pizza...

But the adults ordered traditional Lunar New Year food of mutton dumplings and fried pancakes.

They even had one of the best sledding hills we've ever seen in Mongolia.

Johanna Getting Over Omicron Spike at Boarding School

Johanna caught COVID on the way back to Germany from Mongolia.  At first she had symptoms with no positive test.  After several days, she got a positive PCR result and was quarantined in her own dorm room during finals week.  Thankfully she was still able to talk all her tests, and got out of quarantine early after only 5 days.  Here she is reunited with her roommate, visiting through a the balcony window, another dorm sister who subsequently tested and quarantined in her room.  

And here they are reuniting with the rest of the dorm family after restrictions were lifted.

Here they are gathered around the old kitchen island for a meal in celebration.

Thank God for those who served and brought food to all those that got sick or quarantined.  And thank God everyone is feeling healthy and happy now.