Holidays and an Announcement for Summer!

    

Inside the State Department Store, Celebrating its 100th year.

    Merry Christmas, everyone! This update comes later than I would have preferred, but I trust that everyone's holiday festivities keep that fact from being conspicuous. As long as I don't draw attention to my tardiness I doubt anyone will notice.

    We have felt busy in the recent months (until our Christmas break now). In addition to my Korean lessons 4 evenings per week I have settled in to a good pattern of daily Mongolian lessons just before noon, which has yielded tangible results. I continue to teach and enjoy my daily English class of 11-14 year-olds, and have generated more (albeit enjoyable) work for myself in incorporating a geography phase of each class for which i make slides featuring the nations' flag, border outline, and location on the globe (with these three they can guess what the country will be), capital and largest city, population and global rank, head of state's title (President, King, etc.), currency, official languages,  major religions, and pictures of as

The "Key Facts" slide from my geography lessons.

many of the main things the country is known for as I can think of/find. 

It's a topic I and the kids both have a lot of fun learning, but has ended up cutting into most of my free time -- specifically that last part, where I have to determine what aspects to include, then find suitable pictures to represent these things and make slides of it. I'm hoping to cut down on these more trivial slides in order to lessen the burden each of these countries has become to prepare, but sometimes it's necessary to give them a sense of what the countries look like today and what most people know about them. 

    Besides these daily tasks I now lead a 30-minute school Bible class every Monday evening, we are continuing our Wednesday night youth group (for the most part going well, we feel. we recently got them all to write down some topics for us to cover in the group and submit them anonymously, which has been helpful to see where their attentions are focused), and every other Sunday morning I share a devotional message/ sermonette. I am supposed to start a job with the English curriculum next week, and need to see how that will interplay with the other activities in which I am involved.

    For her part, Yaejin has started teaching piano to the women here on MWF mornings, after which she teaches English to two of the younger guys. Her official work hours for the NGO cashier are 4 hours on MWT, though she ends up having to do extra bits here and there as different expenses come up and whenever the standard Mongolian pay days fall (15th and 30th or the weekend before). She co-leads a women's small group on Tuesday and Friday nights, helps me with the youth group, and continues to do some online language teaching a few times per week. 

Christmas time at the Zaisan Mall.

    In all of these things, I think we have increased our awareness of our roles here as more internal support than external outreach. That works perfectly for me as my linguistic ability and cultural knowledge and interest suit me for it, but Yaejin feels passion for evangelism as well, and is wondering how and if that will come back as a major focus of her ministry here. That possibility has been further hindered by our next significant life development -- pregnancy! 

   For those who haven't heard, we are expecting a little Sigler this July. This has created great excitement among the family and church, as the youngest church member is four now and the Yaejin is the only married member of her family and friend group so there aren't any of this next generation yet. All of her siblings feel a novel strangeness at the prospect of being someone's Uncle or Aunt and their parents being "Grandma&Grandpa." The youngest siblings (11 and 12) are especially excited about being able to teach the baby their games and help out with him or her, no longer being the youngest around. So far everything seems to be coming along quite smoothly and healthily, and I'm sure Yaejin could expound upon that for those interested. That's the biggest announcement for us, and I'm hiding it away here in the middle of my update! True readers will see it 😁

    Other than that, we have had a good time with the holiday season! Yaejin did a wonderful job of planning out a nice Thanksgiving meal so that I wouldn't feel absent from that worthy celebration, and it was good fun for the whole family, as she planned out different dishes for each of them to be responsible for. My job was to help the youngest three accomplish their assignments: fruit salad and pasta salad. 

The crew starting their tasks.                                Meanwhile, I led Team Grocery-Store Run after they finished their jobs.

    We held the meal at her family's house, and her parents were very impressed with everyone's work and were interested in the American dishes. Her father kept saying "I can really feel like this is the authentic American taste of Thanksgiving." 

That evening we had our second Thanksgiving meal, as the English teacher prepared one at the school for all of the students to try. This was followed by a time of sharing for each student, from the youngest to the smallest, which was a nice time. A couple of the kids actually shared touching things beyond the typical responses, one of whom broke into sobs when saying that if her parents hadn't chosen to come live with this team she wouldn't have learned foreign languages and might not have come to know Jesus.
    And one of the youngest boys was very cute in loudly sharing his English phrases "Thank you for the house I live in. Thank you for the Parents I have." and looked very proud of himself when everyone clapped for this answer. 

              

 

    

School Thanksgiving

    Our Yuletide season was marvelous as well. We had a nice time getting into the spirit of the season with Christmas Hymns, theming for our small groups, snacks, movies, and so forth. I've always loved Christmas (as should, I believe, all Christians), but I think that depth of meaning is possibly even heightened for me when I'm in places that don't give it as much fanfare. As if the onus of not letting the season pass by without sufficient appreciation is more on my own actions. Or it may just be a factor of getting older and ever growing in appreciation for miracle of Christ's coming. In any event I think Yaejin and I have made a concentrated effort to experience the season to the full in light of its meaning. Many of my Christmas thoughts are covered in the podcast I recorded with my two brothers, which I invite everyone to try. Other than that I would just say that it is a miraculous time of year in which the presence and goodness of God is more easily felt by many people throughout the world, and that God choosing to become a man is the greatest thing that's ever happened. Accordingly, I wish hope and pray that all of yours were merry and full of His presence. 

Outing with the younger siblings

          

Christmas Cookies

My youngest brother-in-law got a little

carried away with the little fish cookies!

Christmas Cookie Party