On Top of Old Smokey

Ulaanbaatar is the coldest capital city in the world.  My friends here say that they have seen – 40C days.  We know from our time in Sweden that nose hairs freeze at – 14C, so at -40 there’s not telling what might freeze.

I mentioned in an earlier posting that there are a lot of people living in gers (round tents) in UB.  These people ALL burn wood and coal in the ger heaters-cookers.  

UB also sits in a valley with mountains surrounding it.

Put all this together and you have a situation ripe for a smoky atmosphere.  That's not fog in this picture below.

Indeed the first Saturday night I spent in UB, when I walked outside to walk home, I noticed the strong smell of wood smoke.  I love campfires, and I love the smell of wood burning.  For 7 years, Brenda and I burned wood to heat our home.  The smell of burning wood is a good thing, but this was a little too much of a good thing.

When I think of the smoke in UB, I think of the aroma of the prayers of the saints.

Psalm 141:2 says, "Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice."

“And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” (Revelations 5:8)

May the saints pray so much to the True and Living G^d that we fill heaven even as UB is filled with the smoke of the gers.