In the wrong era

I am so excited, last night I made sausage, from scratch, for the first time, and it was good.  Sausage, Yum, I want to make sausage balls for Christmas, and we just recently found Bisquick, for the first time ever here!  Merry Christmas to us.......sadly weird, I know, but it is the little things that keep us going.

   Sometimes i think we live in the wrong era, we grind our own meat, bake our own bread, cook everything from scratch.........but admittedly sausage balls, and sausage pizza, are from more recent decades.  Yum......

  Merry Christmas

In the News

Tonight Eagle TV will be running a human interest story on our family.  There is a huge problem of human trafficking here in Mongolia (as with most all 3rd world countries).  About 4 years ago, after we had just arrived here, two girls ask to take their picture with our family, so we allowed them to.  Then a few months later our language teachers and other Mongolians would tell us that they had ween our picture on television.  Well, we had no idea what they were talking about, or how this could be.  So it turns out that somehow a "nanny" agency got our picture and has been using it as an advertisement.  They say we are a "european" family (everyone thinks we are German because of all the blonde) that has hired, and been very pleased with a Mongolian nanny.

ALL A LIE.  So now the company has been contacted, confronted, and people are trying to get to the bottom of this lie and get them stopped.  They are hiring girls under false pretenses and getting them out of the country to do, Lord only knows what.  The people are so desperate to get out of the country, especially the young people.  There is no industry here, very few good jobs, so the jobs that are available, are so heavily sought after there are many, many people seeking the same position.  So, girls are being hired by this "nanny" service, that is operating under a complete lie, hoping for a chance to get ahead in life.

Lots of Snow

This year winter has been warmer than normal, this week the highs have been hovering around 0 Fahrenheit.  We have had more snow so far this winter than any of our 4 previous winters, it has been at least a dusting of snow almost daily for the past week.  One great thing about the snow is that it is a natural air purifier, and knocks all the coal smoke and dirt out of the air on the way down.  Here is a pic of Mackenzie all decked out to go play outside (for about 5 minutes)!

Isaac Day

Today we are Praising God for our Isaac.  December 3 will always remind me of fear.  3 years ago today our son was 7 weeks old and stopped breathing in my husbands arms.  We spent 4 unbelievably horrific days in the Mongolian hospital with babies dying all around us, but God saw us through and got us to the best pediatric hospital in France.  While in Paris it was confirmed that Isaac had RSV, a serious respiratory virus that can cause babies to stop breathing.  He was on a ventilator for 13 days because while in the Mongolian hospital he contracted the psuedomonus bacteria in his lungs also.  All the while God was watching over us and brought complete strangers to us to help us find things we needed and even a place to stay, in Paris, for free!  God is SO good.  He promises that He won't give us more than we can handle, and when we think it is too much, we only have to hold on to HIM.  Isaac is such a delightful little boy who has brought so much joy and laughter into our lives, I am so thankful for him and can't wait to see what God has in store for him in his life.  Here in this picture he is wearing Mr. Potatohead's teeth.

Why would you say that?

Yesterday we had a Mongolian friend come by.  She has been a Christian since 2005 and is really trying to follow Christ in her daily life.  She speaks some English, but it is pretty interesting how our conversations go from English to Mongolian and then back again.  Anyway, as she was leaving we were discussing some of the different sayings in Mongolian and also English that we always say, but don't really know where they originated.  Mongolians say "Going to the Salt" when they are going to sleep, I wanted to know where that came from.  Then she said, "Well, why would Americans say 'I am hungry enough to eat a horse'?  Just eat some horse!"  They eat horse here all the time, so that isn't an extreme hunger saying for them......It's all how you look at it.

My Worship service

Living in a foreign place that speaks a different language is really different.  It affects you in ways that you may never have expected.  Lack of a "real" church/worship service is something that really affected me.  Sitting in a service where all singing and speaking is in Mongolian, no English at all, I began to feel like a sponge that was slowly drying and shriveling up.  yes, personal devotions are wonderful, but not the same.  I have found a wonderful website with a great teacher that I truly enjoy learning from.  It is reviveourhearts.com and she is teaching a series now on God's Beautiful Design for Women, from Titus 2.  I have my own personal worship service, usually in  my kitchen where I spend at least 75% of my time,  she is stepping all over my toes about having our hearts and minds focused on God and how our attitude affects every aspect of our lives (ouch)

   SO check it out and get your toes stepped on TOO. 

Countryside Health Facts

Tony just came back from spending 2 weeks out in the countryside with some Mongolians from Eagle TV.  So while he was gone he learned a few interesting health facts that you might have never heard before.

   Wearing clothes to bed makes you colder, if you wear pajamas, you get goose bumps!  The guys kept asking Tony if he was alright because he was wearing pajama pants to bed.  (Yep, there are lots of funny things jumping around in my mind here, but I am just going to leave them alone)

   SO on the same vein, they also believe that wearing gloves makes your hands colder and hats, of course, make your head colder.  In defense of my own hat and glove wearing defense, I can't tell you how many Mongolian men I have seen with their ears completely or partially gone from frostbite.  I will just risk cold fingers and ears and keep wearing my gloves and hat.

   Anyway, another man told Tony he thought he knew why foreigners had more chest hair than Mongolians was because Foreigners shower more often, and the hair gets watered more!  Never mind the fact that I also shower every day......

   Speaking of bathing, Did you know that bathing too often gives you a cough.  It is preferable to bathe no more than once or twice a week.

   And NEVER drink cold drinks...  Drinking a drink containing ice is a sure fire way to have a sore throat. 

   Enough for now, don't want you to get too bogged down with all this health information, I will have to do this again to tell all the healthy benefits of camel urine and bear claws......bet you can't wait.