Bat-Enkh Update

The past few days have been rather busy. We did have some nice weather on Saturday which allowed me to prune the roses and also to get out and golf for the first time in five months. Of course Sunday then began with rain and finished with a wintery mix of sleet and sloppy snow flurries. In Ohio...you pay for nice weather.

It was cold this morning, 36, but finished out clear and warm with temps in the low 60's.

We had fun with Bat-Enkh this evening. We wore our traditional Mongolian hats from Bat-Enkh's visit in 2004, Karen whipped up a "Mongolia beef" stir-fry dinner, and we finished with traditional Mongolian New Year bread and tea.

Here we are on our back deck wearing our Mongolian hats.

We snapped a picture of Bat-Enkh holding a bag of "Mongolian Beef Sauce" we found at a local clearance store. He said he'd never heard of "Mongolian Beef Sauce" before but judged the sauce to be very delicious and gave it his Mongolian seal-of-approval. It made the beef and veggie stir-fry very tasty indeed.

Bat-Enkh with the Mongolian Beef Sauce bought here in Coshocton.

Bat-Enkh then brought out a "loaf" of bread they traditionally make to celebrate the Mongolian New Year. He brought several loaves to take with him to Philadelphia on Wednesday. He has a Mongolian friend he's going to visit in Philadelphia who greatly misses the bread. He'll stay with his friend for a week before returning to Mongolia.

Karen and I with the bread before breaking it up to eat it.

It's a very hard bread made with flour, water, oil, and maybe a little sugar and salt. The bread can be steamed to soften it. Bat-Enkh said he remembers making them as a child with his parents. They stack these things up in a circle and build a little structure on the dinner table which they then cover with milk products or candy as the family tradition requires. To see a picture of what the whole thing would look like, click here.

Tomorrow we're off to Cleveland as Bat-Enkh has asked to do some site-seeing up there. Then on Wednesday we'll leave Coshocton about 3:30 AM to get Bat-Enkh to Columbus in time to catch his 6 AM flight to Philly.

Having Bat with us again has been wonderful. We're going to greatly miss having him as part of our daily life and routine at home, at MMS, and at church. We would love to go visit him in Mongolia one of these days. We'll see what the Lord has planned!