Family Christmas by Skype

For 25+ years we have shared cocoa and cinnamon rolls with our daughter on Christmas morning. Thanks to Skype we can still do this. Of course, our 8am Christmas Day is 4pm Christmas Eve Olympia time. And 8am Christmas day in Olympia is midnight 25Dec Mongolia time.

Who needs a fork?

When a big piece of cake is at eye level and the fork is way too challenging, who needs a fork?

Cultural Buddhism

Altho Ariuna, Liz's tutor is a strong Christian, her parents are cultural Buddhists. They rarely go to a Buddhist temple or confer with a lama, but in their home they keep a cabinet with Buddhist idols, photos of the Dahli Lama, Prayer beads (right) and a Shaman blue-silk scarf (khatag). This is very common in Mongolian homes.

New Year's Eve feast

Liz's tutor, Ariuna, invited us to her mother's apartment for Shin Geel (New Year's) feast.
1st course - milk tea
2nd course - 14 salads (cabbage, carrot, beet, tomato, pickles, fruit, egg salad, macaroni salad, etc.)
3rd course - mutton and beef butz (dumplings) with spicy ketchup and sea-buckthorn juice.
4th course - store-bought layer cake and candy
At the end of the table is Orgil, Jim's tutor, Ariuna's boyfriend.

Coming to town

Usually we walk to work, school, church and shopping. But there are many ways to travel in Mongolia. We live on one of the 3 busiest streets in Ulaanbaatar (UB), and horseback riders are a common site.

Coal salesman at work

Here's the local coal salesman breaking up the blocks of coal and bagging them. When I was a kid, Tennessee Ernie Ford sang, "You load 16 tons (of coal) and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt." That's the life of this man. It's -30F.

The sheepskin on the pile of kindling is probably the remains of last night's supper. When you butcher a sheep or goat (in your bathtub), you set the skin outside your workplace and a truck will come by and buy the skin from you.

Missing manhole covers

Remember when we said that sometimes the manhole covers get stolen for scrap metal? This happened outside our apartment last week.

Merry Christmas

Gratitude

Last week I helped give a ger (a felt tent) to a widow. She works as the cook and "house maid" for a Mongolian family. She is grateful that this family permits her 31-year old daughter to sleep on their kitchen floor. The kitchen floor is in a 2-room shack. There is not enough room for the widow to sleep on the floor also so she sleeps sitting in a wooden chair with her head on the table. Her daughter is dying of cancer. They expect her to die in January.
JCS received donations to buy gers for poor people. This widow and her daughter will have their own ger, two mattresses on wooden bed frames, a coal-burning stove and two stools. The local Mongolian church set up the ger and will provide coal and food for several months. The widow and her daughter are grateful for these tangible gifts showing God's love.

Blood

Stood in line yesterday afternoon at a Russian clinic behind teens in black dresses, white pinafores and huge white hair bows. We paid $4 each (up from $3 last year, then took turns sitting in chair right next to the receptionist's desk. As we rolled up our sleeves, the desk was suddenly surrounded by a dozen people coming back for their results. They all seemed eager to see what foreign fore arms look like. Glad it was just a blood test. We've heard there isn't much more privacy for other procedures. We visited with our tutor for 15 min in the hall and then had her go back in for our results. She was told Jim's PSA was 0 but Liz's WBC was way too high and she needs to see a dr. The number was the same as it has been since her CLL diagnoses. Praise the Lord. All is well.