[From internet cafe in Ulaanbaatar]
6-27-04 - We are in the process of unpacking our belongings. It turns out that all eleven of us will share the same apartment. The apartment is on the top level of a four story complex. The stairways heading up to our unit is really dark and will require extra caution at night. Speaking of which, it does not get dark here until around 10:00pm. After arriving around 3:30pm today, we took a thirty minute bus ride into the central area of the city. Our living quarters is situated in a university district with many bars and clubs. As we pulled into our building quad area I noticed a few boys huddled near a trashcan. They were picking leftover food that others had discarded. Mongolia has thousands of orphans who form mini gangs and roam the city. They spend the cold seasons underground in the city sewer areas. Apparently there are occassional roundups by the government to move these kids into orphanages. However, some of the kids do not like the discipline of the orphanage institutions and those who are rounded up usually end up running away to return to the streets. We prayed that as a team we would not fall into the mindset that our wealth in money is our primary source of outreach to the students of FCS 1 camp. FCS 1 is a university Christian fellowship with roots to an Intervarsity chapter established by some Korean staff workers in Mongolia about five years ago. Right now there's a general feeling of fatigue among the team. We start with a full day of activities tomorrow and there's a sense that we are not prepared to run through everything- English lessons, Bible studies, praise, prayer time and breakout workshops (body worship, guitar lessons, origami and English Christian songs). We will also be cooking for the FCS 1 fellowship on Tuesday and Thursday and we haven't had the chance to shop or familiarize ourselves with the groceries. Even now, God I feel that I could write on and on about what we need to do to be ready for tomorrow. In the end, we have to remind ourselves about your redeeming grace and how you have been faithful to us through the highs and lows. As we spent some time with the students this evening over a delicious ("goy") dinner, I could sense a gratitude in their hearts [in Christ] despite their poverty (some students cannot even afford to buy a coke or pay for bus fare to get to class). We thank you Lord for their example and testimony as to the living water. May we have a restful night of sleep and calming peace towards our tasks. Allow us to be vessels of your unchanging love and may you be glorified through us.
[From internet cafe in Ulaanbaatar]
6-28-04- Got up around 7:00am this morning. Can't say I slept too well as I didn't have a pillow and couldn't sleep on one side of my body too long because of the hard wood floors. The shower situation is interesting because we have to use a bucket and the shower stall itself is very small - almost like something I'd find in a Hong Kong apartment. I'm really excited right now and just looking forward to meeting the students.
...
We had a full first day at the FCS 1 center. It didn't take us long to realize that the students command of English was very diverse depending on whom we were teaching. The day started with some large group activites. We sang, "My Life Is In You Lord" - a song the students were familiar with. Afterwards, we played a few rounds of "pachi san", but with so many people in the circle, it was difficult to get the pattern even halfway around the circle. Next, it was time for the Bible study and a lesson on trials and temptations taken from chapter 1 of the book of James. We used an English-to-Mongolian dictionary as well as a Mongolian phrasebook extensively. We also found out that using picture illustrations on the white board helped tremendously. Jen and I were partnered in a group with three other FCS 1 students. Two from the group were missing and we expect them to show up tomorrow. The main concepts we tried to convey was the distinction between trials and tempations and why/how we should remain joyful toward trials. The illustration we used was of a seed (us) and trials as the storm and rain. The temptation was for us to always pray/hope for sunshine to the point that we cannot withstand any storm. After the Bible study, we reached headed out to lunch with the study group. Tom joined us and we had "broshki" which is a deep-fried pastry with ground meat and onions stuffed in the middle- very delicious (I kept saying "goy"). We returned back to the FCS 1 center for the afternoon English lesson and used the lesson to study salutations. We finished early and even played two icebreaker games - "telephone pictionary" and "never". By then it was around 3:00pm and we did our specialized breakout sessions. The students could choose from four options. Chun and I helped to lead the origami sessions and we had the students learn to design a box (bottom and top separately) and embellish the boxes with cut out designs. We spent the last fifteen minutes folding a fish and hope to use that for Wednesday's project. There are a total of five breakout sessions (M, W, F on the first week and W, F on the second). We lift up the students to you. It was nice just to spend time with them eating together, learning Mongolian, teaching English, playing basketball, praise, etc. I can sense that many there cannot find the words in English to express to us their faith. Let all our words be few and the music fade at times so that we are drawn back to the heart of worship.
[ rest of journal will be entered later as I'm out of time now ]