Our first day(s) of travel was WILD!
We left our hotel in Atlanta at 3:45am, hopped on a plane to JFK. We had a 16 hour layover in NYC and got to adventure out of the airport which was so cool. A group of us got to visit the Brooklyn Bridge, Ground Zero & Times Square. We navigated the subway, metro & airtrain which was and adventure all in itself. After a lonnggg day in the city we hopped on a flight to Beijing. Just before we were about to land we were quickly rerouted to Shenyang because of weather. We never got off the plane in Shenyang but were there for about two hours. Once we finally got the all clear we landed in Beijing with almost no layover. The Chinese security was really tight and my carry-on bag had to go through FOUR times! Pretty crazy, and totally looking forward to doing that again when we’re in China next month. After about 56 hours of traveling, we finally landed in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia!!
The excitement of finally being in our first country was such a cool feeling, but it was quickly changed when I learned that my bag did in fact, not make it. This feeling of defeat was something I did not experience on my own because four others in my squad were in the same boat. We quickly went to the customer service desk and told them about our lost bags. All they could do for us was give a number to call back at 5pm that night. I was sad to hop on a bus knowing my bag was going to be left behind. Sad to say that, that 5pm call was not a good one, they still didn’t have my bag.
The 8am call was MUCH better. After translating our host told me that they found my bag!! Which is super cool, buuut now I’m a 9 hours away from it in a city called Erdenet. At this point I will more than likely be going the rest of this month without my bag but my team has really rallied behind me not having any of my belongings. I’m SO thankful to be on an all girls team this month!
I really think the Lord is trying to teach me that we don’t need anything and everything extra is a blessing. Starting month 1 of 11 with absolutely nothing is ROUGH but I have Him and my safety and protection is in Him. Also, I brought way too many clothes so I’m taking this as a sign that I need to drop a lot when I do get my bag back!
Our ministry host this month has hooked us up with a cute little apartment in the city and we are just a couple minute walk from the church and family center with the cutest little coffee shop! We will be teaching English to kids & adults here most days and are starting to lesson plan for that now.
