National New Year Feast

Survived Tsaagan Sar - the Big New Year

We just got done celebrating the Lunar New Year. Wow, what a lot of national food! That, coupled with the word of the holiday "eat!", made for a very filling festive three days. The exact same food at every house we visited: Tea, Mutton, Meat Dumplings. Mix in some candy, vodka, horse milk, home made pastries, and you get a feel for how these three day just kind of blurred together. In all we vistited 8 homes across 200 kilometers.

It was like Mongolian culture on steriods, or for the kids...on sugar cubes. Those little square granulated delights decorated every table without fail. After all, it's a holday that celebrates all things white, and table sugar does a nice job of making the kids feel festive, and adds a frenetic dimension to the parents' frame of reality to be sure.

We made it through with no serious sicknesses, which seems like a miracle, and perhaps it was. We thank God for our continued health, and that we have a whole year before the next New Year festivities!

Here we are in costume for the Mongolian Lunar New Year Festivies of 2007.

Johanna Speaks and Eats

When Johanna says something memorable, I usually suggest Renee should write it down.

This time I thought about taking my own advice. So, remembering that this journal is as much for us as for you, I want to record what may be Johanna's her first complete sentence.

We're at dinner, and she asks me for more of the tasty noodle dish called Tsoivang that we're eating. She hands in her empty bowl, we pass it back full, and go on to filling the next bowl:

"I need spoon", she clearly enunciates. I of course don't hear it, and ironically enough, I turn out to be the one who's holding it.

Renee turns and says to her: Did you just say"I need spoon"? Johanna happily answers, "Yes".

Kids on TV

So a television crew showed up to our schools Lunar New Year party. They interviewed a few of us, and a couple of our kids sang songs in Mongolian. Today we ran into several people who saw the broadcast on TV. I guess seeing foreigners speak/sing Mongolian is entertaining if not news worthy. At the very least it's something to write home about.

Have a Bowl of Cookie Dough

So I'm visiting a family yesterday. Mongolian hospitality never asks if you're hungry. They just start rousing around the kitchen to scare up something, usually of a dairy derivation, to offer you to eat. A cup of tea is handed to me and a huge bowl of what looked like yellow sugar cookie dough with raisins in it was placed in my hands. There was a big table spoon stuck in it.

Then came the directions to do in my predicament: "Eat oil", is what the man of the house repeatedly said. Just like cookie dough, this substance's main ingredient is some kind of grease.

The daughter in law of the house was sitting in the living room (well it's a one room cabin really) with a bowl on her lap, creating an other holiday food for the upcoming white moon new year.

Well fortunately Mongolians are not as big on cleaning your plate as Americans. So I didn't have to polish off the heaping cereal-sized bowl of this pasty yellow substance before I left.

But as I think about it now, you've got to love a culture that not only allows eating uncooked dough, they encourage it. It has become one of Mongolian's National festive foods. Perhaps not surpriszingly with it being referred to as "fat" or "oil" is really pretty good.

Hospitality Wars

The national new year celebration is gearing up. White Moon is celebrated on the same date as Chinese New Year, starting this February 19, through the 22nd. Mongolians will prepare thousands of mutton dumplings, and give gifts to hundreds of guests visit their home.

The cost of this unfortunately is secondary to the need to show hospitality. Mongolians are so strongly programmed to show hospitality, it's amazing and perhaps the gem of the splendor of their culture. But unfortunately the observation of this holiday seems to play this good character trait against them.

People are so generous and concerned to show others a good time, that this also happens to be the season of people taking loans to buy all the stuff they need to celebrate the holiday. Sound familiar anyone? If you wonder what Americans did for Christmas before the age of credit cards, just cast a glance at today's Mongolia.

I hope our friends' desire to show good hospitality is not the same as Americans making sure we give our kids as good or better gifts than their friends get. I hope their not keeping up with the Jones'. It's just sad to see people taking loans to spend what they can't really afford to buy what they don't need. Competitiveness aside, human nature appears to be alive and well in Mongolia.

Not That Cold

Yesterday afernoon the temperature was dipped down to -25 (-13 F). That was about the coldest I've seen so far.

But then later in the evening, it started to lightly snow and had warmed up to about -15 (5 F).

So maybe this weekend it will be warm enough for some sledding or other outdoor fun.

Even when it's cold, Johanna likes to ride. She just doesn't like to hold on.
She's not quite saying, "look, no hands!" But if I know her, she's thinking it.

Prodical Power

Here's a shot of the dramatic telling of the prodigal son story. I realized today from Luke 15 that Jesus told it in response to religious people who were always close to God, obeying his rules and or at least WORKING HARD at it. They objected to Jesus eating with unreligious and 'unclean' people. Why?

Just like the older brother in the story, they more about their own so called love for God, than about seeing other people transformed by God's love. It hit me today that the Pharasees and teacher's of God's words were jealous of the attention 'the sinners' were getting from Jesus, God Himself.

The older brother in the prodigal son story, far from rejoicing that the younger son was found, like being back from the dead, He is jealous that the attention of His father is heaping on a person considered undeservering or 'less'.

The real thing that the older brother doesn't get is that the love the Father lavishes on his found son, is the exact same love he has for the older son. The Father is rejoicing because he not has a perfect opportunity to demonstrate how much love he has for his sons.

But he and the Pharisees are robbed of receiving that love because they won't join the party that rejoices over the lost, the messy, the undeserving. They don't see that rejoicing over the lost person, coin, or sheep just proves the value of ALL sheep, coins, or above all lost sons and daughters of God!

Self-righteous people won't join the rejoicing heart of the Father, which is mercy, and sacrifice and celebration. And in doing so they miss out on His mercy and celebration for themselves. But joining in the rejoicing of God's heart, we again taste and remember his mercy on us, in our own story of faith.

And realizing God's grace in our life is like renewable wind from heaven, power for doing what needs to be done, no matter how hard it may seem. Where do you fit in the story? Read it here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2015;&version=31;

The Unthinkable in Worship

Today at church, the new people were standing to introduce themselves, say where they're from, and whatever else. Though they don't seem to be any less embarrassed about doing this that Americans would be, they don't seem to mind doing it.

One new guy sat in the front row, wore a suit, and introduced him and his wife as believers.

Then the welcome song is sung to them and all the other first time visitors....

Another song or two later and the church leader says goodbye to everyone.

But not before the guy in the front row stands up, grabs the guitar, announces that he's a praise song teacher, and starts playing and singing. Now the unthinkable comes in when you imagine this scene in the church you attended last week. Can you imagine a visitor bum-rushing the show at your church? The response here? Everyone heartily joins in and sings loud and with feeling the chorus: "We sing your praises Jesus!" Under Jesus I guess we're all just part of the family, visitor or not. It was a funny but refreshing experience for me.

A footnote, we were visitors ourselves. We drove 90 minutes north at the invitation of our church in that city. Our pastor put together a drama, worship and testimony team and conducted half the service. The local pastor and worship leader preached and led songs for the other half. The last song...well, next to the last, was a joint effort by both song groups. Then came the guy who jumped up front for the unplanned finale.

I hope God enjoyed his children cooperating in worship as much as I did.

Ice Rink - Near Home

Happy New Year!

To celebrate we stopped by the local ice rink. People were pretty excited about the holiday, everyone saying Happy New Year and chatting. They also set off fireworks from right on the ice, and we heard a big display will go off tonight at midnight. So the girls are pretty excited about New Years. And so are our Mongolian neighbors, and now maybe we are too.

No Skates her size, so Lydia settled for ride on a chair/sled.

Mystery in Christmas Madness

Considering the slower pace of life here, you might expect us to be less hurried that all the bustle I imagine in North America at this time of year. Maybe we are. But at least by Mongolian standards, this week feels like a blur, and it's not even over yet. We had guest in town last night for dinner. This afternoon was the girls' Christmas program at school. Tomorrow is our school's Christmas party. It happens to be scheduled for the exact same time as the C&MA project center Christmas party. This is the place where all the cross stitch and quilting work is done, where our health clinic operates, and where some of our collegues have offices. So we don't yet know how to be in two places at once. But we're having friends over afterward!

Then we have church Sunday. Dinner at friends Sunday night. And then we're invited to another Church Christmas celebration at 3pm Christmas day.

We were talking to some Norweigen people lately, and they painted a relaxing picture of Christmas in their country. It sounded like all the parties were actually AFTER Christmas.

You know that lull that comes after all the presents are ripped, and gifts are returned? You kind of think to yourself...What do I do until New Years? I submit to you the answer: Have your Christmas party! And enjoy some time away from all the bustle before we celebrate Christ's coming to revel in the mystery and wonder of it.

Think about if someone said to you first this morning: "you will see a baby laying in an farm animal's dinner?" That would be a strange thing to say. Not as strange as seeing that sight just as it was told. The awe of Jesus is not so much that he was laid in a manger, or that it was prophesied exactly so we wouldn't miss it. His mystery is in Who He is. And when the world seems crazy and erratic, we can find our peace again in remembering who we are not in how much we give, receive, shop or socialize. We can find our place again in remembering Whose we are. Recall His mysterious birth, as a reminder and historical precursor to our spiritual birth and remember your wonder at that first glimpse of a life lived in faith and peace.

Thank God we're not hosting a Christmas party. Maybe next year. After Christmas!

I enjoyed reading something on the mystery of God lately. Have a look.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6631954

 

ICE SKATING

Well good news and bad news. On our way to school last week we saw a portable fence being erected in the shape of an oval. The next day there was dirt heaped up all around the outside of the fence. And then we figured it out. The hose was stretched over the fence from a nearby apartment, filling up this fenced area like a huge bathtub. They craned in a little building with a chimney coming out of it, and poof, an instant Ice Rink.

Now when we walk home from school we see kids having a big go on the ice. We tried to join in one day, but found they didn't have kids sizes. Probably the only one of us that could be fitted for skates would be Renee. I guess if we break down and go skating in our boots over Christmas break, Renee will lead the way.

IM Family Portrait

All of the CMA families serving together in Mongolia gathered over Thanksgiving weekend. Here we are after enjoying a great meal. Thanksgiving weekend wasn't all eating though. We had a lot of spiritual and mental excercize to do. Saturday and Sunday was spent dreaming and seeking a revamped mission strategy. Our Field Director arrived on the same flight as us 14 months ago. And this summer, more new and returning families came to serve Christ in Mongolia. And we are a multi-national family. We have people born all over the world: Canada, Korea, Vietnam, South Africa, and America. It takes a village. And ours is global. 

Country Girls

On a recent trip to the countryside, Maggie and Lydia try their hand at feeding some calves. 

Family Visit

Visits to Mongolian homes are usually a hit with the kids because of all the treats that come out. See Johanna's elated smile smeared with jam from bread and butter set out for us on this morning.