Far, Far Away

My beloved left me this Wednesday past to go to the far away land of Mongolia. No, he's not moving there. I know I am a pain to live with, but I don't honestly think I'm that bad. He's actually there on a medical missions trip, accompanying some pediatric cardiologists that he used to work with who have a non-profit called For Hearts and Souls that, among other things, do heart caths & procedures for children in these far away lands.


He's very excited to be able to participate not only through the medical aspect, but to also minister to these children and their families to show them Christ's love. It's been something he's been looking forward to for a very long time, so it's hard to believe he's actually over there now.

It costs almost $6 a minute to call him on his cell phone over there, so we won't be talking much. Luckily, he does have periodic Internet access in his hotel room (yes, it's a missions trip, but you think the Dr.'s are going to rough it? The pictures of the hotel look nice) so we get to email and use MSN Messenger occasionally. Mongolia is 13 hours ahead of us, so we're not often awake at the same time.

I asked him if his skin color blends in with the Mongolians, and he told me it does more or less. Apparently more, because he said a tourist (he thought Japanese) asked to take her picture with him. So either he really does blend in, or she thought my man was hot. Which he is.


I looked at pictures of Mongolia the other day, because I don't really know anything about it other than that it's called Mongolia (I never was good at geography) and it looks really pretty there. I guess the city itself is pretty nasty (I think he's in Ulaan Battar, the capital), but most of the population is nomadic, raising wild horses and such. It is quite amazing, actually. I also saw an article talking about how Mongolia is one of the last unspoiled travel destinations left.







The language is a little crazy, a cross between maybe Russian & Mandarin or something (no surprise, since it's sandwiched in between Russia and China). Definitely not a roman alphabet. That would drive me crazy. They should really consider changing that. Here's an example of the Sabbath School lesson over there:



Tomorrow Filipe's going to try to meet up with the pastor of the Adventist church over there, who happens to be Brazilian. Go figure. So he's excited also to be able to talk with someone who can understand him!

The kids really miss him, and every time the door beeps (thank you ADT), they drop what they're doing and yell "Daddy!" so that's kind of sad. But it's nice to see them missing their Daddy. I guess you could say I miss him too! I'm counting the days....