11/19

Train Tickets have been purchased for December 5th. This is our departure date to leave for Russia! Right now our visa paperwork is in the process. Please pray this all gets done in time. Thank you

11/14  

We serve such an amazing and kind God...

Right before we received an important e-mail for our China visa - Russia e-mailed us! They said that our invitation letter was ready! We were able to get an extension on our Mongolian visa (which was incredible in itself) so now, no more China trip. We will plan to leave either the 28th of Nov. or the 5th of Dec. Depending on when we receive the visa. For those of you who are anilitical -this visa will be a student visa good for one year. 

This photo was taken today! Just the beginning of winter, with a temperature of just 3 degrees F.

We are very thankful for all the winter items churches gave us, we are definitely using them! 

11/8

We have officially purchased train tickets to China. We have found ourselves in a crunch, but we still know that God is in control. We hope to return to Russia around the beginning of December. Please pray for this.

What a busy week! We had two birthdays: 

                  Our friends little boy turned 1                                  Kaleb turned 2!

We had two different parties full of people. We all had a great time, but we're all a little tired.  

10/28 

Today's language lesson was incredible. We studied out of a children's book, yes that's our level. It was not only simply wording but the content was  interesting. It was about God. For once, we understood what the story was saying. Generally we have to learn the new words, which we did today too. But then we have to figure out what the text says. Today we already knew what it said, we just had to figure out the details. How Cool! By the way, we read that God is a spirit and we can't see him. We also learned about Moses' encounter and that even he just a saw glimpse of God's glory. 

 This little boy sure lit up our house. Our boys just loved him.

Kaleb shared his toys and Ethan simply stared.

Believe it or not this little boy is smaller than Ethan!

Don't let the clothes fool you, he's only 5mo. old. 

10/20

This lady is someone we come across often. She sells small products not far from our home. Everytime we would go by her, she would smile and give the boys free suckers. Kaleb loves that! Then we started talking with her and realized that she knows Russian. We were surprised when she invited us to her home. She was very kind and even loaded us with goodies when we left. We are thankful for the opportunity to experience some culture but more importantly to hopefully have an impact. Please pray for this lady and her family to learn about Christ. What they know is Buddhism and that is what they follow. This has burdened us to learn the language more proficiently to be able to share Christ.  

10/18

We are rejoicing in the Lord! We just heard that we now have an invitation back into Russia! Praise and Honor to our Lord.

Now, it will be mailed to us here in Mongolia. Then we must take it to the Russian Embassy and ask for a visa. The date we are allowed to enter Russia is November 20th and our Mongolian visa ends November 25th. Then we must make travel plans. Please pray that the rest of these steps can get accomplished in a timely manner.

Thank you for your prayers. 

10/14

Amazingly we have been hugley blessed here in Mongolia. We have a renewed ethusiasm in ministering to people. We have been able to have several different Mongolian friends in our home who are unsaved. Please pray the Lord will use us and work in their hearts. These people do speak English, but not the best, therefore we have a barrier. Pray that we can befriend these people and show them some of God's characteristics. I have always heard the phrase "You may be the only Bible people read." We see how important it is for us to be spiritually fed so that we can naturally display Christ to others. It really has been wonderful to meet and get to know individuals who God has put in our path. Thank you for your prayers.

10/04

We saw a 4 story tall Buddha today. It's was unbelievable and very sad to watch the people worship it. 

9/24

Today I (Michelle) rode all of the public transportation. I left the family home to go meet with a new friend. I thought I could easily get on one bus to get me where I wanted to go. That was a funny assumption. It was my first time to even ride a bus here. To say the least I ended up lost and went on an electric bus to finally get to my destination. Then on the way home I took a mini-bus. So, that covered three public transportations in one day! There are a total of 4 here in our city. The fourth would be the taxi, which we have down to an art. 

9/17

                                                                                             Here is our wonderful babysitter!     

Don't worry, the boys are playing safely on the tracks for this photo. 

9/11

We're here in Mongolia! The train ride was actually pretty fun and the kids did great. The Lord took very good care of us during the trip.

Mongolia has been quite a bit different than Russia. The first thing that stood out to me as different was the fact that we no longer "blended in". The boy's blonde hair stands out like a sore thumb. We get stared at a lot. Everyone seems to love the boys and the girls just giggle as they pass by us on the street. Truly we are all adjusting surprisingly well.

We are taking a weeks worth of Mongolian language this week and then we will begin again on Russian. We had to take some Mongolian just to survive here. We have been meeting several Mongolian's who speak some English. We have already been to one families home for dinner. We met them at the playground.  

Thank you for your prayers. Please pray for us as we learn Russian starting next week. 

8/26

We leave this Thursday evening for Mongolia. Which would be Thursday morning for anyone living in the US. We are taking the train to UlaanBartaar. This will be a 55 hour trip. Please pray for us that we would have patience and our children would also handle it all well. Thank you.

8/20

We want to give a big thank  you to the Ballinger family. This family has helped us tremendously. They are missionaries in Mongolia. As you know, we will be moving there in less than 2 weeks. Chris Ballinger found us a place to live!!!!!! God's grace is flowing abundantly over us. 

Yet again we find ourselves packing. If you have ever moved then you understand what we are experiencing. It's not like we have a lot of stuff so that makes it a bit easier. Now we will adjust to all new things again, but in a different Country. Our visa application is still being worked on. This may become tricky with us leaving the Country and trying to apply for the 3 year visa. Yet, we have to leave for at least 3 months b/c of our visa now. Please continue to pray for us and don't forget to thank the Lord for providing us a place to live in Mongolia.