Trials to Triumphs

Romans 8:28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose."
God has been teaching us many life lessons and turning all things to good as we adjust to our new culture and face some interesting trials of many kinds:

TOP TEN TRIALS TURNED TO TRIUMPHS
10.Traffic Jams. Large herds of livestock in the middle of the road making us late to school. Lesson learned: Don't be in a hurry...enjoy every moment...even inconvenient ones.
9. No toilet paper in public restrooms. rrrrr....it's so frustrating when I forget to bring tissue in the bathroom with me. I always leave the house with my pockets stuffed with toilet paper! Lesson learned: always come prepared!
8. Filthy kids and dirty feet. Normally we let the kids get really filthy before getting out the next set of clothes to be destroyed. (We are really blessed that our friend's helper offers to do our laundry every couple days...)Also, the kids never wear their shoes out in the country despite all the glass on the ground...I spent a few days getting a bit upset, but I surrendered...I guess Mom lost that battle. Lesson learned: Choose your battles and don't worry about the small stuff.
7. Getting Electrocuted hurts! I was feeling a bit overwhelmed about making so many decisions about what we needed to buy and dealing with adjusting to our new culture...then I reached up to turn on the light and it zapped all those feelings right out of me! (I cried for a bit from the pain and everything else came up and out as well! Quick way to deal with a lot at once!!!) Lesson learned: "220 will do that to ya"...Deal with your feelings before other measures must zap them out for you! (a great psych analogy!)
6. Full and Fat. Mongolians are very hospitable people and we don't want to offend them by turning down any of the food they spent lots of valuable time preparing for us! We are willing to try almost anything and we try to be thankful no matter what. We even eat lots of fatty meat and sweet bread pretty regularly...(and if you know us, that is pretty rare most of the time!) Also, if we are sitting at the table and we finish the food in our bowl before anyone else they will give us more food...and more....and more.... Lesson learned: Be thankful always and pray continually. AND Eat very slowly!
5. Getting attacked by the neighborhood dogs. Dogs here are NOT friendly. I went running the other day and a dog came thrashing threw the fence to get a piece of me. Thankfully, his owner started throwing rocks at it and calling it off before it got it's fill. So much for running here...at least not near the houses! Lesson learned: Find more creative ways of doing things...ie. carry rocks in your pocket or exercise in your own yard!
4. No hot water...I spent an hour heating up water boiler after water boiler to heat up the freezing cold water in the bathtub so that the kids could have a bath (after a week without having one). Finally, the kids got in, soaped up, THEN ELI PULLED THE PLUG! Oh, I was mad and the kids were mad when I had to dump freezing cold water over their heads to rinse them off! After I apologized to the kids, I went back in the bathroom and the hot water was working! That figures!!! Lesson learned: Patience is better than a bath!
3. BUGS, BUGS, AND MORE BUGS! Our ger is FULL of bugs at night sucking our will to live! Last night Larry and I were up til midnight smacking our little green hungry friends! Even more appealing, our outhouse breeds flies...which means killing at least 20 a day and missing a hundred more. Lesson learned: I (Krista) am the fly swatting champion! I hold the record of killing 4 flies with one swat! (Anything can be entertaining if you have the right attitude! Even killing flies!)
2. Sick tummies. We retreated from the ger for a day to get out of the heat and rest in a cooler apartment while we were all sick from a stomach virus. Averi was getting sick every hour, Eli was using the toilet...often...but still bouncing around like it wasn't fazing him, and Larry and I were sick in bed. The kids hadn't watched any movies while we were in the ger for 3 weeks so they were happy to watch movies all day while we slept...
Lesson learned: We are very loved! 6 families ministered to us while we were all very sick for a day. One family let us borrow their car to drive to the apartment, a couple families secured the vehicle for us, our team doctor brought us medicine and checked up on us regularly, a couple families brought us some drinks and chicken noodle soup, and everyone offered to help with anything else we might need. Wow! It's so great to be a part of such a wonderful family of friends!
1. Striving to learn a very tough Language. We survived our first week of language learning! Only a few tears later(by Krista of course) we are glad to be moving along and able to practice some of our new words with our host family.
Lesson learned: celebrate each and every small victory, always laugh at yourself, and track your progress on how far you've come not on how far you have left to go!