Where's the Beef?

Mark here. OK, it's Friday, 4:00 in the afternoon. Dave and Brook are teaching their class. Marla and I will be starting up in an hour. We've had a busy day already. We had invited Dave & Brook's teenagers' class for an American breakfast @ 9:00 this morning. So we had to pack up early, drive to the Community Center and fix blueberry pancakes, bacon, watermelon, OJ and coffee for the folks. Logistically, it was little bit of a challenge since we had only two small pans and the stove heated very unevenly. But, Becca and Marla were utterly indominable (what would you expect?) and put together a yummy breakfast. Just about all of the students showed up. They seemed to enjoy the food just fine - though a lot of the bacon went uneaten. After eating, we showed some film clips from American movies. The clips (from "Stand by Me", "Dumb & Dumber" and "Forrest Gump") were all about friendship. I was hoping that it would generate some discussion from the kids, but it sort of flopped. Dave and I ended up soliloquizing (if that's not a word, it should be) on the topic.

But all was not lost. After the meal and the film clips, we invited the students to hang around for informal conversation. A couple left; but almost all of them stayed. The Mongolian girls really wanted to talk to Rachel and Grace and find out more about teenage life in America. We had Terry (one of the long termers) and Becca and Peter there. (After all, our primary purpose is to form the connection between the locals and the long termers).

I turns out that Nomuun's brother is in Marla and my class - so we'll be looking for an open door with him.

Finally, after a half-hour or so of informal chatting, we had to leave for a previously scheduled tour of a felt "factory". Two of the students accompanied us on the tour, and had lunch with us later. Dave invited one of them - a very bright 17 year old named Munkuu - to come to the Mongolian Bible study on Friday afternoon. He seemed very interested. (Interesting note, his name means "eternal hero").

Also, when we toured the felt "factory" (which was more like a small, basement apartment in a soviet era apartment building) it turned out that the lady who owned the business was a friend of the lady who had us over for dinner (one of the first believers in town). The apartment had hand painted artwork hanging - a nativity scene, a Buddhist god, Jesus - an eclectic collection. Sharon, one of the English teachers, asked the owner if she believed in Jesus. Her response was: "I would like to..." So, we invited her to the Bible study as well.

Hence, the title of this post: "Where's the Beef?" On trips like this, there is a ton of activity. But, sometimes you wonder whether it is really accomplishing the purpose. Today, we began to see some of the fruit. It's sort of funny, but the real "action" is in the schmoozing - the informal chats.

We have another "American Breakfast" scheduled for Saturday morning for the adult class. We'll let you know how that goes.

Love you all,

Keep up the prayers.

See you in a couple weeks.

Mark