I'm in Mongolia!!!

Well I can't believe that I'm able to update my blog in MONGOLIA, but here I am!! We are having a great time... let me see if I can give you a brief rundown of what we've been up to so far.

Traveling:
Our flight left Dallas at 7:40 on Saturday morning, we had a 4 hour flight to Seattle (on which we got one drink and NOTHING to eat - not even dinky pretzels or peanuts!). We had a pretty long layover in Seattle (4 hours I think), then we got on our plane destined for Bejing. The airline was a new Chinese airline called "Hainan Airlines" and it was the nicest plane I have ever been on!! I took lots of pictures, so when I'm home (and have my camera cord - didn't actually think I'd be able to get on a computer here!) I'll post them. We got TWO meals (well, the flight was 11 hours, so I guess it's only fair), which were really good. All the seats had their own personal plastic wrapped blanket and pillow, and then the flight attendants (who were dressed in traditional Chinese garb and were gorgeous) offered us socks and headphones to watch movies and play games on the screen on the seat in front of us. The amenties were great, the 11 hours on a plane (and not being able to sleep for some reason) were not! We got to Bejing, were there for another 3 or 4 hours, then flew into Mongolia, arriving around midnight on Sunday (we lost a day). We actually got to go to sleep (for me, it was the first time since I'd gotten up at 4:30 on Saturday - minus a short nap) around 2am.

Monday:
We got up pretty early and went to this place called "Millie's" for breakfast - they were Mongolian, but they served traditional (mostly) American breakfast. It was fantastic! Then we met two of the missionaries that live here full time - Chris and Stephanie - and checked out their feeding center they run in UB (Ulaanbaatar - the capital of Mongolia). It was so awesome - there were probably about 20 or 30 kids there, and they feed them once a day, and then they just kinda hang out and play. We got to help serve them food (some of them, that was their only food they get all day - many of their parents either are working or drunk and don't really take care of them... they just keep them because they get a monthly stipend for each child they have. It's really sad.), we played with them, painted the little girls fingernails, did face painting (which turned into arm and back painting as well!), and just had a great time. The little kids were so cute and sweet and excited to see us.

Later, we went to see Mitch and Baljima's apartment (they are two more missionaries that live here full time). It was on the top floor of a big high rise apartment building - really nice and modern looking... looked like everything was straight out of Ikea, and they had a spectacular view of most of UB. There we got to try Mongolian meat pie - which was really good.

After that, we went to their church office where they hold English classes once a week. They had about 30 young Mongolians (anywhere from 17-21) in the class, and they were SO happy to see us! They were dragging us by the arm to come talk to them, so anxious to talk to us and hear us speak English (and practice their own). It was really difficult to communicate with them, but it was so neat to do the best we could. They had papers with a few songs printed on them to help them learn to speak English, and so all of a sudden the whole room randomly busted out in a chorus of "Let it Be" - it was so surreal. Not to mention I am obsessed with the Beatles, so I was just like, WOW. This is so cool.

That's about it... I finally could not stay awake any longer around 9 and completely passed out. I was so pooped! I popped out of bed at 6am today... so I've had a nice long morning of tea and coffee, playing cards, a nice shower, breakfast... it's been a lovely morning. We're about to head out to visit the orphanage that Manna runs - I'm really excited about that. We bought more fingernail polish (that was a really fun way to interact with the kids, since we're not able to converse) and Tim is bringing his balloon animals.

Sooooo ya! There's my first update! The rest probably won't be as long - this was technically like, 3 days in one post... so sorry it was so lengthy. Props to anyone who is actually still reading this!!

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers - we had a safe trip over here and are having a fantastic time!!