Kathmandu, Nepal

Nepal - a country in turmoil, a country with a changing government. We arrived here only yesterday and will be staying just over a week. The status of Kathmandu appearas, intially, to be calm and collected at the moment - the Seven Party Alliance and the Maoist groups are currently holding talks. If you should care to know more about the Nepal situation please visit www.nepalnews.com for the latest news.

Between our departure from Beijing and our arrival in Nepal we spent four days on the road with a good three and a half days of that in Delhi, India. Delhi is hot. We just sweated the whole time - morning, afternoon, evening - and tried just not to move too much. The time spent in India was grand and just the experience of being there for three short days in the culture and the people. We stayed at the International House of Prayer during our time in Delhi and were able to participate as well as observe the intercessory ministry that they have there. It was also a grand chance for our team to spend a bit of time praying as a group and individually (or as a couple). A brief, but grand, stopover that we were blessed with.

Kathmandu is lovely. We are in Kathmandu valley, elevation 4383 feet above sea level, and the view from atop our awesome accomodations (the best place we have had to stay all outreach, hands down!) is of beuaftiful, rugged, green mountains ringing the valley in every direction. There may also be a chance to view Everest, directly to the east, on a clear day with the right conditions - we hope so.

As this is now my second version of this post (the first was eaten by the evercursed Internet Explorer "Security" feature - use Mozilla Firefox as a browser, that's my view on that) I will curtail it here. We will begin ministry tomorrow and continue for a week afterwhich we will shortly be flying out. We would appreciate prayers for a safe and God-focused time while here. Hopefully, with an internet place right next door and only $0.33 USD per hour, further updates will follow...

On the road again...

And so Mongolia has now become a part of our traveling history as we now venture off to another country. A lengthy update is warranted for the experiences over the last two weeks, however, time and the government in this country are preventing an update from occurring - it seems that access to my blog site has been restricted by someone other than blogger.com as I am still (obviously) able to update the blog site...

The last number of days, including the travel down from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing have been quite full and completly blessed. It is quite clear that the care of this team is in the hands of One much greater than any. The short story is that we are leaving Trevor behind. He is in the hospital, in good hands and in excellent care after experiencing some serious lows of pneumonia complicated by asthma.

Please keep him in prayer as he stays behind to recover and for the rest of the team as we move on without one of our leaders and friends. It's pretty amazing how life can take a turn - even one day - but it is even more amazing how we have been watched after from above...

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The air is crisp and cool here with sunshine - heaps of sunshine. We are in downtown Ulaanbaatar at an internet cafe using the day to adjust to the city, to the culture, to just being in Ulaanbaatar.

I would like to post more on the previous country in which we spent a chunk of time, however, I will not yet do that as we still have to pass back through the country on the way to our next destination...

For those of you familiar with Alaska, namely Fairbanks, the climate here and the hills around remind me of Fairbanks. The temperature at night dips to ten degrees (F) or so above freezing and in the day will warm up to at least 50 degrees F or more - but it's the sun that makes all the difference - it feels so much warmer with the sun raining down from above. Oh, and clear blue sky - don't ask me when the the last time we saw more than a glimpse of clear, blue sky... Maybe a month ago - ah?!!!

Spring is still in the making here. June, July and part of August are the summer months - very similar to Fairbanks. This isn't quite Alaska though - something about the different language and the different people...

Ulaanbaatar reportedly has around 1 million people - I don't know if that is right, but it sounds ok. The point is this is a city unlike many others that I have been to previously, not that I would expect otherwise. It's unique in itself and as Christina and I walked into the city from our accommodation (nearly an hour to where we were headed) I couldn't help but think that maybe this is a city similar to what a person would find in Russia. It seems that the Mongolian language is itself not exactly related to Russian, however it appears the written script is at least. Ok, instead of further rambling it is just safe to say that Ulaanbaatar is a city unlike any other and Mongolia a place like not other. Visit if you should every have the chance - oh, and take the train from the country to the south.

We will be in country for maybe two weeks - the back end of the schedule is a bit rough at this point in time... Our ministry will begin either today or tomorrow and should be grand. We are excited to be here and are looking forward to the experiences for that God has in His plan for our team. We'll let you know how it goes...