Thank you..

I wrote this on January 28 but didn’t have a chance to post until now. I actually have more recent things to post about, things that God’s been teaching me lately that’s been very encouraging and eye-opening but I guess it’ll have to wait for another time when I have the opportunity to type it up/post it.

Thank you for your prayers-- I can really feel the power of your prayers as I've been feeling much more refreshed and encouraged these past couple of weeks. I can’t express how encouraging it is to know that people are praying for me and walking with me even when I’m so far away.  Not sure what it was at the time but I was feeling pretty discouraged about ministry and my own personal walk with God.

Life has been much better lately. Mei and I are teaching super cute 8th graders (around 13-14 years old). Two of them heard the gospel last weekend and wanted to make the decision to believe. PTL! When I was having a text message exchange with one of them, she asked me when I would return to America. I told her I wasn't sure but I'd be here for at least one year (thinking that that's "good news"). She replied "ohh!! :( one year is very hurry. If you go, I'll miss you :(." In some ways, its true. In 1 year, she'll only be in 9th grade. But where will I be? Even if I stay for 5 years, until she graduates and goes to college, will it be "enough"?

Lately, I've been realizing how much I lack godly wisdom and how important it is for me to pray continually for God's guidance in all areas of my life.

As the new semester approaches, I can't believe it’s already been 1 year since moving to UB. At the same time, I can't believe it's only been a year (feels like much longer). So much has happened and I can only wonder what life will be like 1 year from now. One thing that I'm convinced of-- I'm in good hands. :)

Can you pray for me?

Not sure who reads this :P, well, I know at least a couple people do, but I just need a place to share.  I don't usually share too "personal" prayer requests in my general updates/emails to people back home, but definitely needing a lot of prayer these days. It's been a really rough past week--I've been having frequent headaches (possibly due to stress and fatigue).  Not sure exactly what's causing all the stress, besides feeling a lot of pressure in teaching our Advanced students by myself (I've done it before and yet this time feeling more pressure than previous times).  Also feeling this weight of feeling like "I can't do this" (in terms of being this "successful missionary").  In some senses, it's a good place to be, feeling like I can't do anything, I'm so incompetent in trying to share God's love to others.  It forces me to remember why I must be fully dependent on Jesus as my Vine.

But it's still hard.  So, if you happen to read this, please pray for me.

In other news, I think I'm starting to feel the difference from being overseas the first two years and now being away from the States for the third year.  The first two years I could feel much support from people back home, but perhaps this is the beginning of the natural fade.  I think most missionaries feel this, as the years go by, it's easy to be forgotten.  However, I'm so thankful to God for the few people who email me and tell me that they're still praying for us and the work going on out here (and I'm thankful for those who don't have a chance to email but are still faithfully praying).  I have to admit, I was a bit discouraged when I sent an email to people back home and the only response I received was from someone asking me to remove them from the email list (clarification: I'm totally okay with her request because I understand that people also committed to praying for other things and it's overwhelming to try to keep up with everything).  But God is good, He reminds me that we're not alone out here. :)

Merry Christmas!

Sukhbaatar Square

Walking around UB, the songs "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas", "Winter Wonderland", "White Christmas" all seem pretty appropriate. I used to think the concept of Broomball (walking with your street shoes on ice) was pretty fun and cool--little did I know that I'd be walking on ice everyday!  Sometimes it's fun but sometimes it's just dangerous. Our Mongolian friends told us that it's a "common thing" for people to break an arm or a leg. That combined with the very aggressive drivers around UB; hehe, you have to be careful.

We've been really busy preparing for the Christmas party (we have one for high schoolers and one for university students). It was quite a success in some senses--over 90 people showed for our high school Christmas party! in other ways, it was pretty difficult trying to pull off such a big party with our limited resources and all the rush.  Somehow we managed to pull it off though--so thankful for God's grace through the whole process.  Nevertheless, I was exhausted this past weekend.

Apparently, Saturday was the beginning of the "really cold" winter weather.  Sounds strange since we've already been trying to survive -20 some degrees, but now we're moving into the -30s and and even inching toward -40. Scary.  If you're reading this, please pray for my teammate, Chloe. She's been sick almost the whole winter (starting around Novemeber).

Anyway, just wanted to send out a random update. Hope you're all doing well this Christmas season!

When the going gets tough...

...the tough get going?

Honestly, this week has been one of the toughest out here in Mongolia, perhaps just due to physical exhaustion.  The days have been so busy with our teaching program (usually we teach in pairs but since we only have 4 teachers, I taught a class of 15-20 by myself).  It shouldn't seem too bad but I happened to get sick this week so it was a rough 3 hours each day, trying to engage the students, be funny/interesting, and teach good lessons.  I really praise God for how He sustained me as well as my teammates (Taurus, Chloe and Mei--Lorin was on a trip to Lanzhou).  This week was definitely a stretch physically, mentally and spiritually.  In order to establish better relationships with the students, we hung out with them directly after our lessons until late into the afternoon, which meant we skipped lunch for the past few days.  With all the nonstop interacting, the never-ending vacuuming/mopping/washing cups after the kids leave, and also being in full-swing of our college ministry, life has been crazy.

On top of it all, this week the temperature got pretty brutally cold (lows of -25 degrees Celsius (-13 Fahrenheit)), to the point where I didn't want to go outside anymore (partially because I was sick).  Despite the difficulties of the week, it definitely drew our team closer and brought us to our knees in prayer.  Not only did a handful of children pray to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior, but we were able to grow closer to these School 50 students and try to shower them with as much love and affection of Christ as possible.  All in all, I'm very thankful for this rough week-- the Lord be praised!!

A Church Hike

Some pictures from our recent hike:

Youtube Video: Hiking with UB ICA

Family Portrait

A blurry pic taken from my phone.  I really love this picture and I'm glad i brought it to Mongolia haha. It's my one-month old birthday!  The best part is, my mom is 27 in this picture, which pretty much how old I am now.  Crazy to think that at this point in my mom's life she had two kids! This picture reminds me to pray for my family and to thank God for His blessings.

Hot Water

So I heard from various friends that they recently discovered that I've actually been updating my blog! PTL  ppl are actually reading this! :P I'm not really good at writing really deep, inspiring things but I just wanted to share random tidbits of daily life here in Mongolia.

Our hot water cut out about a week ago, which is not surprising because that usually happens every summer during VSET. We took bucket showers in Lanzhou, China last summer on vset bc the hot water for the shower was broken, but that was still doable because we had buckets, hot water boilers and a scooping thing. However, on VSET in Mongolia we usually have none of the above so taking a shower in the ice-cold water is almost unthinkable. There are other inconveniences to ice-cold water too: for example, its really hard to wash raw chicken goo off your hands hehe. I think every one of these experiences makes me appreciate accessible hot water more though, especially the "instant" kind that just comes out when you turn the handle to the left (in Beijing the fire had to light and then heat the water before it would come out hot).

We have many friends who live in gers and they don't have hot water (unless they boil it). I asked my friend how they shower and she said they have to pay money at a public shower or they go to a relative's who has an apartment. That's pretty crazy but knowing that that's many ppl's life makes me think twice every time I take a hot shower.

Btw, the hot water came back faster than expected-yay! We heard one summer it was out for two months *gulp*. Also, weather update, it snowed/hailed again yesterday! Its almost June and its still sporadically snowing... Amazing!