Life is a bit crazy

I have not been able to update the blog in a while. I'm not sure if that is good or bad. It means we have been keeping plenty busy actually living life rather then writing about it. But that is just a nice sounding excuse :)

I have decided to expand the content of this blog. It has mainly been a way to update people on our family, I now want to add a few posts on what God is teaching us, and how He is working in our ministry. So you can look forward to those posts as well. As for now here is an update on... well Kaylee.

Kaylee is doing good, she has an occasional cold/cough but pretty healthy. Her bottom two teeth have broken through but still pushing up. They no longer hurt as much. She is now eating dinner with us. Thanks to a handy food grinder we were given she eats what we eat.
We had a good Christmas. Kaylee was sent a lot of Toys. Of course all the toys from America have both English and Spanish. I'm not sure why parents can't find Mongolian language toys :) Shauna's big gift this year was a rocking chair that has been set up for a few months. (It makes those few middle of the night crying sessions better.) I, Jeff got enough money for tools that we should be set once we start to build the house. Meaning I should be able to buy 2 cheap Chinese tools of everything I will need. I figure most will burn up by the time the house is finished. With most tools I figure I can buy 3-4 Chinese one's compared to the cheaper American tools.

Headed for the Big City

Well we had an interesting trip heading into Ulaanbaataar.  Kaylee needed her 6 month shots and we were going to watch our friends two teenagers while they went on a trip.  We were supposed to be gone about 12 days but it ended up being 14.  That is life in Mongolia.

Our trip started out the day before as Jeff was putting on a heater thingy on the radiator.  He put a little hole in it.  So, he went to have it fixed and a  Mongolian welded the hole.  Jeff said it was fine.  He didn't tell me before we left he gave the weld a 50 % chance of staying together or breaking.  Not good odds for Mongolia. We left the next morning and the first 2 hours were okay.  Jeff noticed the heat was high and took a look.  Needless to say the weld did not hold.  I was really worried that we wouldn't make it into town.  We trodded on as we put water in all along the way.  We got to the next big city Arawahare and bought a bunch of water. 

Jeff went to the bank and when he came out and started the car it would not start.  I fretted because I didn't really want to take a microbus into town.  Jeff took a look and noticed the cable to the battery was loose.  He was able to fix it easily enough.  I thank the Lord it wasn't any more serious than that.  From Arawahare to Lune it is a paved road and so we did really well.  It didn't leak much at all.  Right before we left Lune we filled up all the bottles and topped of the engine fluids.  70 km. from Lune to UB is really bad road and the hole got much larger and we lost water faster.  We stopped and asked a herder where some water was because we were almost out and not near civilization.  I prayed so hard that we would get there and that people would be praying that we would arrive safely in UB.  Jeff taped up the hole using electical tape and duct tape.  We put the last of our water in and about 5 km later we hit the paved road.  Another 5 km and we hit a hotel and they had plenty of water.  The Mongolian worker was so helpful and let us have as much water as we needed.  The engine had gotten really hot.  I was thinking of ways to get into town without the car because I didn't know if we would make it.  We were about 50 km from UB. 

Well now we are back in Bayankhongor, so as you can see we made it back.  You never know what to expect when you live and drive in Mongolia.

Who's new to Byonkhongor?

We are!!  We have now been in BH for just over 1 month.  Jeff has been here a little less but we will get to that.  We moved out around the 15th of September.  We drove our new vehicle and arrived in 12hrs.  The only thing that happened was our new roof rack collapsed and we had to repair it about 1 hr outside of UB (the capital).  We moved into our friends house right away.  She is a single American gal so her house is a bit small but very cozy and toasty warm!  We have had the wonderful adventures of water delivery by horse cart, brownouts with the power (same as UB), fire building at night to keep toasty warm, and Mongolians following us around town to see the blond haired blue eyed now 6 month's old new foreign baby in town.  Here is a picture of the house we are staying in.

 

I (Jeff) and friend Dustin went back to UB to load up all our stuff on a big truck and have it delivered out here.  About half way back we noticed some antifreeze leaking ... to make a long story short we limped back to UB and arrived after an 18hr trip.  When we got the car into the shop the head was cracked.  Thankfully it cracked between two cylinders otherwise we still might be waiting to get to UB.  We are pretty sure there was a hole in the heater core and when we changed out the fluids the stop leak that was in the coolant was "watered down" and opened up the hole.  I have now seen more of the inside of my engine then I have ever wanted to see.  Our stuff was loaded up and delivered while we were still waiting in UB for the car.  We ended up spending an extra week in town.  I was able to price some stuff out for building a house though so it was not all wasted.

 

I have been meeting with the XAB members.  They gave me my work permit and now that the summer seminar season is over they are a little less busy.  I have done one example training of a CHE lesson and am working with a guy named tsigmed.  I am also teaching some informal English lessons and trying to maintain our car.  (hole in exhaust, add a block heater)  Actually Dustin is much more skilled at that kind of stuff I end up helping him.  Although he says second time around I'm on my own.  Hopefully that head doesn't crack again!

 

We have visited 3 churches and have about 6 more to visit in town.  Things are going pretty well, Kaylee has adjusted the quickest we are still finding our place here.  The JCS team has been great about helping us out.

Update on K-Lee

Mikayla is now 18 weeks just over 4 months old.  All our Mongolian friends say she looks like a Barbie doll.  Then they say that she looks like her father ... I'm not sure what they are implying by that.  Maybe if I had long hair I could get a job as a model, hahaha.  I doubt anyone is actually looking at what I'm typing here anyway everyone probably just went straight for the pictures.  I figure I will just type a bit more so it looks like I did something rather then just put up a bunch of pictures.

 

      

 

                                              

Getting to Mongolia

Murfeys law states that "If something can go wrong, it will."  Based on this law it is always good to budget twice the time you will need in order to actually finish the job, order the extra parts when you get the new item, or in the case of getting a visa for a 3 month old little girl - call the embassy 2-3 times per week.

 

I did this with Kay-lee's passport that we sent to the Mongolian embassy 1 month before leaving.  (On the website they state it takes 2 working days to process the visa application.)  Since I was not sure how many applications they get for a 3 month old I was as detailed as possible even sending in my (the fathers) passport verifying that we did in fact have a student visa and would be allowed into the country.  Nevertheless I called the Friday before we were to leave on the following Tuesday morning and they finally decided to actually look at the application.  (This was my 4th time talking to the same man.  I had also left a few messages,)  The gentleman commented "Oh well you already have a visa."  This was stated 2 times in the application not to mention the fact all he would have had to do was open the passport when he received it.  So then he said that he would get it processed that afternoon and next day deliver it by FedEx.  No problem that meant that it would arrive Monday morning a whole 24 hrs before we would be flying out.  This was cutting it close but what else could go wrong?

 

Well the time for delivery came and went Monday morning so I called the embassy to verify he had sent it.  "Well FedEx was closed Friday evening so I have not sent it yet.  It is now 21 hrs until we leave for the airport.  After a few frantic phone calls and talking with FedEx they sent a courier to pick up the passports in DC they are then flown to Ft Wayne and a courier will deliver it to our house.  It was pretty expensive but the tickets were booked, we were packed, and my parents were showing up in a few hrs to say a final goodbye.  Does it occur to others that God seems to always live and move only during the 11th hour?

 

Throughout the day I checked on the passports via the website, all was looking good until the passports never showed up.  I called again... the passports are at the airport we have called a courier to pick them up.  Great we are staying 5 min away from the airport in Ft Wayne no problem 12 hours before departure is a little close but God is good!  Ooooh Noooo, God is even better; the airport they were talking about is Chicago, the passports missed their plane to Ft Wayne, now it will be 2:30am.  Of course the online site said that they had made that flight to Ft Wayne ... hmmm.

 

Thankfully at 2:33am My and K-lee's passports arrived with all of 6 1/2 hours to spare!  Only in America can something like this go so wrong but yet still happen.  God Bless America!!!

Mikayla Turning Over

Here is a very short video of Mikayla turning from her stomach to her back. Shauna tried to catch this on video for about a week.

CHE Training

There is nothing more refreshing on a hot afternoon then a cold drink of water, or in my case a Mountain Dew.  This past week (mid June) I have been drinking from a fire hose.  Not literally, that would hurt a lot.  I have been taking a Trainer of Trainers seminar for the CHE program.  This is the Community Health Education program that our Mongolian friends want us to help them with in ByonHunger.  The training was pretty intense but very practical for what we want to do in Mongolia.  Here are some pictures of the training.

    This is the whole group.

 

   2 cool guys from Modesto CA.

 

   Of course you can't have a seminar without the coffee breaks!!

 

One of the things I really appreciated with this training is the highly participatory element in the training.  I also like the fact that I do not own the program but the Mongolian's own it from the beginning.  CHE is a development approach that uses local resources to meet local needs.  The focus is on prevention and teaching at the family level.  It will be a slow start and a lot of community meetings but eventually the Mongolian people will be able to identify and meet most of their own needs.  We can't wait to get back and start doing the work.