The Marathon Begins

Yesterday this verse came alive to me.  Psalm 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands."  I went out to the countryside, just outside of UB, to a national park called Terelj yesterday.  It was just beautiful.  I was amazed at how much the landscape could change so quickly.  It has these giant rocks, reminding me a lot of Red Rocks in Colorado, but the rocks are not red.  I hiked up a hill overlooking a valley and just sat on a rock and prayed.  There has been so much on my mind with the busy weeks coming up and seeing so many children and families in such great need.  The Holy Spirit really spoke to me about how He is at work in people's hearts who are facing difficult circumstances.  There is really only so much we can do as humans, but the Holy Spirit can truly change people's hearts and attitudes.  It also was a great time of praise as many awesome things are happening in our ministry, which the Lord deserves the praise alone.  And seeing amazing mountain and rock structures, along with the vast blue sky of Mongolia, I couldn't help but praise the Lord.  He spoke earth creation into existence.  How AWESOME is that!  And how unbelievable that the Lord wants to have a personal relationship with us, so much that He sent His son to die for our sins so that we, who trust him, can be justified and join Him in heaven one day.  Every day I am amazed by the depths of the love of our Lord!
As my title eludes to, the marathon begins tomorrow.  Well most of you know I am not a runner, but these next few weeks will be like a marathon which I am very excited for.  My friend arrives tomorrow.  She will be joining the team that arrives the end of this week, but she is coming a bit early to serve at an orphanage and hang out with me.  I am thankful to share about our work with a dear friend.  Then the team arrives the end of this week.  A pediatric cardiologist from Texas leads this team every year and they partner with Samaritan's Purse.  They will be doing a week of searching for children with heart defects down near the Gobi desert and then a week of operations and cardiac cathetarizations on children to repair congenital heart defects.  I am thankful I will get to join their team.  Myself and another CHP staff will be going to the Gobi and then we will be involved with the surgical aspect of things as well.  This is awesome as many children will get their heart defects repaired right here in Mongolia.  As you can imagine their are many prayer needs associated with this trip.  I will list some of the prayer requests below.
And as this team wraps up, I get to fly home with a special boy who is having surgery at Mayo.  I will be transporting him, his mother, and an interpreter.  This is very exciting as this child is able to receive surgery.  And then I will fly home for my brother's wedding.  I am so excited for Justin and his fiance Joanna.  It will be a fun week spent with family and friends in celebration of a very special marriage.  I feel very blessed I get to go home for it.  And then, I will fly to North Carolina to go to SP's headquarters.  I am pumped to spend some time with our team stateside who supports us so well in Mongolia.  So these next five weeks are exciting and BUSY!
I feel like I am settling into things well here.  I have been able to hang out with some friends who are great.  There is a Thursday night study and fellowship that I went to last week and was so thankful for the fellowship and encouragment.  I am really enjoying my international church.  Language study came to a hault with all the busyness of work with the team coming and sending off many medical records for children newly enrolled, but I think in October when I have more time, I will make that a priority.  I know enough to get around, but wish I knew more.
The weather is getting cooler.  Two days this week, it was just plain cold, even seeing snowflakes, but it warmed up nicely this weekend.  The heat has not come on yet in my apartment, so I have to bundle up a bit, but thankfully I brought a lot of warm clothes.
Well please join me in prayer for the following:

• That the Lord would open the hearts of the families we meet these next few weeks with searching for children with heart defects and repairing the defects through surgeries or cathetarizations
• That we can get our container out of customs.  Yes we are still working on this and we think we have all things in order to pull it tomorrow.  This container has all our supplies for the mending part of this trip. 
• For the families as they travel to UB for repair of their child's heart defect.  May they have safety in travel both ways, may the see the love of Christ in what we do, and may the children recover quickly. 
• That many successful surgeries and cathetarizations can be performed as planned with little complications
• Open communications with all members of team both Mongolian and Americans   
• For all the details and logistics to come together well and smoothly
• Safety in travel for the members of the team as they arrive this week, for our trip down to the Gobi, return travels, and my trip to the US. 

Well thank you for all your prayers.  I really value them and that keeps me going and will keep this team coming strong.  I will update when I can.
Blessings,
Em