Jun/091
Flying to China this Morning
Thanks to technology I’m writing a short update on the bus ride to the airport this morning. We left Ulanbataar on Monday and arrived in Seoul, Korea, early Tuesday morning. Without much sleep, we spent the day shopping, sightseeing in the city, and then visiting prayer mountain yesterday afternoon. For those of you that don’t know, a very large church in South Korea has built a retreat area on the highest point of South Korea where prayer has been taking place for the last 30 years. We each spent 45 minutes in a grotto – our very own tiny, individual prayer room. It was really a peaceful and amazing time. Last night was our first official re-entry into American food. I ordered Pizza Hut for the entire team!
About 15 minutes ago, we left Zach Graham, Pastor Dick, and Pastor Susie at the curb of the hotel in South Korea while the rest of the team slept. We’re off to our next destination – Beijing, China. We’re really excited! John Staub is taking this short little vacation with us. We always love having him with us as he is part of the family.
Today we plan to arrive after a two-hour flight and then check into our hotel. We’re going to be visiting sights close to the Hyatt including Tiannanmen Square, the Firbidden City, and the historical part of town In a rickshaw ride. Then we’re going to be really cultural – we have dinner planned at TGI Fridays!!
Our shedule has slowed now that we are by ourselves, and our hotel should have some decent Internet access so I hope to upload some pictures soon.
Love and miss you all. 
Jun/091
Sunday in Darhan, Mongolia
It’s Sunday morning in Mongolia, and I’m sitting here in the church that we have been ministering in for the last few days. Our hearts have been so connected with them. I’ll give a few family updates.
First of all, Charlene has been assisting our children’s ministry leader for the trip with Vacation Bible School. Working with children definitely isn’t her passion, but she definitely has had grace. She’s served more in an assistance role and helping with details. She also had the opportunity to teach Friday night at the Encounter here at the church. She taught on The Father’s Love and did an incredible job. She’s also been a huge blessing to me as well just helping me be able to do I’ve needed to do on this trip.
Samara has been her easy going self most of the time unless she’s extremely sleep deprived. It has been really cool to watch her help lead the other kids even though she can’t speak the language. I walked by the other day and saw her grabbing kids by the hand and pulling them toward the direction she wanted them to go. Another touching moment was one evening during worship when one of the little girls came up to her and grabbed her hand. They stood there hand in hand singing. I wish I would have had my camera in hand.
Selah is doing great. Of particular significance is that she is doing a GREAT job with the food here. We were pretty concerned because she has always been so picky. But to our great pleasure, she has embraced the culture and pretty much eating everything! She has helped me by playing the drums for worship as we’ve trained the worship team here at the church. She also had the opportunity to lead the kids in worshiping to How Great Is Our God. She played piano and sang and did a great job.
I am loving this trip. I have been on several mission trips but nothing quite like this one. The unity on this team has been incredible. I’ve also not been on a trip that had so many things going at the same time – children, worship, construction, and medical. There has been a supernatural synergy among all of the teams. I have been particulalrly energized helping to teach and train the Monolian worship team. Our hearts have been connected. It was great to see them last night and today implementing some of the things we taught them this week. They are all hungry hearts wanting to learn more.
Tonight we have our team dinner celebration with the Mongolian leaders. Tomorrow we leave for Ulanbataar and then Korea. We spend Tuesday in South Korea and then fly to Beijing on Wednesday morning. I checked out the weather in Beijing for this week and Thursday is supposed to be 100!! The whole family (including John) is really excited about the final leg of the trip. Continue to keep us in your prayers.
Pastor Jon Plotner
