Home Safe

Ok, I promise I will update this soon with the daily updates from my trip. I think I missed three days due to illness or how late it was when we finished for the day or lack of power but I accounted for the missed days in other entries so fear not, you won't miss anything. I arrived back in Colorado at 9:30 yesterday morning, 14 hours later than I was supposed to. Ugh. To start with, my flight from China went from a 12 hour flight to an 18hour flight due to multiple delays. They pushed the plane back from the gate and let us sit there for 6 hours with 300+ people on board and no AC. Horrible. Plus, until just before we actually left, I had no way to call my family and say I was going to be late. The worst part about being stuck in China was the fact that I was stuck by myself. Just a few days before, Tsogoo and I had been stuck in the center of Dornogovi but it is much better to be stuck with someone than by yourself. It didn't matter that the person next to me was a native English speaker because I didn't know them. I wanted my friends back! When we got to San Francisco, 6 hours behind schedule, I went to the desk and they said they couldn't get me on a direct flight to Denver but could fly me to Houston in four hours (at midnight) and then on to Denver. So I got a free meal in a restaurant, courtesy of Air China, and waited around for my flight to leave. We arrived in Houston on time, I boarded my Denver flight after a couple hours, and.....waited on the tarmac due to weather. Thankfully, we were only half hour late getting in to Denver and my bags came through just fine.
Also, I was very grateful that the three border/customs officers I dealt with in San Francisco (yes, three) were the nicest border guards I have ever had to face. It made everything so much easier. They easily could have detained me because I had been in the countryside and handling livestock but they didn't! Nor did they go through my backpack even though I declared some felted cashmere. Animal byproducts are a huge concern from foreign countries due to disease but because I didn't have any leather, it was ok. Now, my experiences with American border guards in the past have been far from positive (except once) so when I saw three checkpoints, my heart sank. I was tired, I was late, I had been handling livestock and in the countryside, I had animal byproducts with me (one of which was a gift), and I'm not a natural-born American. I really wasn't looking forward to being taken aside, questioned, having my stuff gone through and possibly seized, but God prepared the way and made them very easy to get along with. Two were a tad bit snippy but nothing like usual and the last one was so pleasant.
Yes, I had a wonderful time in Mongolia. The trip definitely had its challenges but it was so worth it. I made some lifelong friends and God taught me a lot about submission to authority. He reinforced that I can always trust Him (something that He's been trying to teach me my whole life) and because He has taught me so much about trust in the past, I was able to relax more in some situations.
Before I end for tonight, let me give you a quick introduction to some of the people who will be mentioned in my other updates.

Altaa- my Mongolian mama; head of teachers for Dornogobi
Tsegii- my very dear friend who trusts God amazingly and is grateful for everything; the leader of our first team; she is married to Tsogoo
Tsogoo- my brother, my friend; the veterinarian on our team and Tsegii's husband
Naraa- my dear sister; character teacher on the first team
Kherlan- dance teacher on the first team; full of laughter
Bhyna- the veterinarian in our first community who welcomed us into her home on many occasions and at all hours; a close friend of ours
Namjaa- a believer in the second community; a leader of the church there; a good friend of ours
Temuujin- English teacher on the second team
Urynga- Naraa's best friend and the leader of the second team
Tsoomoo- daycare worker on the second team
Tsomoo- large animal veterinarian at Vet Net who helped me in the office
Saraa- Tsegii's friend who took Tsogoo and I in while we were in the center of the province and showed us amazing hospitality
Sara- a longer-term (4 month) shuttle from Australia who was my roommate upon my return to UB

**Important note: Tsoomoo is a girl and one of the teachers, Tsomoo is a man and one of the vets; the spelling makes the difference. Also, Saraa is a Mongolian believer while Sara is an Australian who is in Mongolia temporarily; again, it's the spelling that tells the two apart in writing.