Monday - Work Day #1

stacks of magazines
Originally uploaded by Wanderings

Since we aren't able to do the musical we had originally planned to fill up most of our time with, Mike and CB have come up with a number of projects around the school for us. We spent a good part of Monday working on those projects.

In the morning, we were in their school library sorting through the curriculum shelves -- pulling everything off, trying to match sets, and putting the incomplete sets in boxes and piles to be given away. We hope to spend more time sorting and labeling the new fiction books that have been donated and then reorganizing the library to accommodate them. (For those of you who are wondering, it is a lot more exciting to reorganize someone else's library than it is to work in my own.)

In the afternoon, while Scott and I (Jen) were meeting with the Mongolian worship team (more on that later), the rest of our team was back down in the school sorting through the storage area. This will be a major project of deciding what to keep, what to trash, and where to store it all. It's great to be able to do this during the summer when we can spread everything out and chip away at it every day.

tastes like beef

tastes like beef, originally uploaded by Wanderings.

We had our first Mongolian meal today: montone bods and hushuurs. They were both made with horse meat, which was a first for all of us except Sharon, I believe. Rachel couldn't quite bring herself to eat the meat of our beloved equine friends after that first bite, but the rest of us dug in with gusto (well, we tried). Some of us aren't feeling so well at the moment, but on the whole, we can agree that as our first experience of Mongolian food, this was fairly tasty.

a purpose-driven trip?

In one of our early team meetings, Scott said he'd like us to go through The Purpose-Driven Life as a team while we were in Mongolia. So every morning (all three of them so far) we meet up in the apartment that the Nadens and Bridstons are sharing for an hour of reading, discussion, prayer, and debriefing. It's becoming an awesome time to be together as a team, to express how we're doing, to argue about what we're reading, and to refocus.

This morning, Ron led our time together and shared a quote by Mother Teresa that I wanted to pass on to all of you. We are quickly realizing that so much of what God is and will be teaching us here will only be of lasting value if we bring it back with us.

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you. Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have; it may never be enough. Give the world the best you have anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

~ Mother Teresa