Spring Evangelism and Summer Preparations

One of our evangelists took this on a recent outreach to Arkhangai Province

This update may seem a bit scatter-shot compared to other posts, as I'm trying to kind of catch up on what we've been doing this year.

 My students are tremendously excited about the US trip, and nervous at the not-unrealistic prospect that any one of them may be denied a visa to get in. They seem to have spent some time looking up different things in the wiregrass area, and next we focused on getting their application requisites in order. This includes scheduling their visa interviews, getting their parents to sign parental releases for them to travel with me (which has to be notarized and then made certified English translations through a civic translator), a letter of invitation from America, some sort of document affirming they have no criminal record, and Yaejin made a full calendar itinerary for them to show, which seems to have been quite persuasive so far. The interview itself only lasts 5-10 minutes before the consular agent makes their decision to grant or deny the visa! So far we are 2 for 2. The other three Mongolian kids will all go together on 6/10 (couldn't get earlier dates for them). We're encouraged by the results so far, and are praying they will all be granted entry. Since they are young, their families are here, and they'll be traveling with a citizen (with a decided interest in not damaging his credibility with US immigration due to having a wife who needs permission to enter for each visit!), and none of them have travelled anywhere before, I don't anticipate any reason they should elicit red flags.

The first girl to go for her interview (Emily) had a longer experience. She said the woman asked her about her faith: what kind of Christian she was, what sort of church she goes to, was looking up Harvest Dothan online; and in the end didn't give her an answer when she was sent home, saying that they'll look into it and decide! They called me 6 days later to say she was approved and we could pick up her visa. 
The second girl, Jamie, had a much simpler experience. The agent asked her questions we had told her to expect, and finished with "Do you know what this schedule says you'll be doing?" She was answering the various activities they'll be involved in when he cut her off with "Ok, you can get your passport in two days." And that was it! So either he was a les scrutinizing agent than our first one, or else they looked into the Harvest Youth Internship and know now that it is legitimate. 

The U.S. trip team 

I'd like to thank everyone who has taken an interest in this trip -- financially, spiritually, or in offering beds and/or some transportation help. I really think this can be a life-changing summer for these teens, and it is a huge deal for non-wealthy Mongolians to get to visit America. Praying for logistics, safety, and spiritual growth.

Other than that project, we have been keeping ourselves busy in other ways. Yaejin is always coming up with ideas to give experiences to the people around her, so she occasionally ends up giving herself a big project to help educate and/or entertain the school kids or the church members. For my part, I'm doing work for the English curriculum, co-running our church school and teaching about 2.5hrs per day, and doing my best to make sure Yuna gets plenty of attention and connection with me. She's a good girl, and continues to be in fun stages for various reasons, not least of which is her verbal development. She has mostly determined that everything should be spoken to me in English and often translates whatever she's just been telling Yaejin's family into English for me (or vice-versa).  For Yaejin she seems ok with both, but occasionally decides she needs to translate into Korean for her as well.

The youth group has been going nicely, and I feel that most of the students are in a place of willing growth. For the past month we've been just answering anonymous questions from them, which has led to some good discussion, which I prefer to them just listening to me talk.

Preaching to the youngsters

Preaching to the elderly

The evangelistic outreach continues to thrive, with numerous conversions each trip. On a recent trip they took, we also got a most welcome follow-up report from a local pastor who worked with our team. He had been in a small village, running a house church with almost no members. The Sunday after our team left, they had over a dozen people gathered together in their yurt-church for worship! (pictures below) That was great to see, because I often wonder about the follow-up with these people our team is reaching. 

Twenty years ago this man got a copy of our team's "picture scroll" which we use for telling the gospel, and he said he still uses it!

Thank you as usual for your interest in what we are doing. I hope to start that U.S. group on an online American High School course when we return, and be moving toward their graduation. I'm not sure what my main focus will look like after that -- whether I'll put more focus on my other job, or take on some younger class responsibilities, or (fingers crossed) focus on doing more writing. Thankfully we both feel quite clear that God is using us for these teenagers for this season, and they have shared that their faith has been directly impacted through our investment. Which is in turn a result of the investment of all you who have supported us and remain connected to us in spirit.

Summer 2024 Plans (requesting donations)

Teaching Yaejin and siblings to ski at Mongolia's one and only little ski park

Happy 2024, everyone!  
We almost had a quiet Christmas season this year, happily -- except for the school Christmas program, which Yaejin took on as the planner, coordinator, and primary director. This caused an intensely busy lead-up to Christmas for her. The hard work was borne out in the quality of the performances, but I'm not sure if we need such excellence next year, personally. Yaejin's brother Jakin and his wife came from Korea for the first time in 18 months, and another friend from Korea visited us for the first week of the new year. The break passed by quickly -- even moreso due to Yuna's sleep regression at the time -- but we are fortunate in having another break now upon us as the Mongolian Lunar New Year (Tsagaansaar) is early this year.

The evangelism work continues to thrive, as the ecumenical Mongolian Evangelical Association keeps gathering together to go on excursions to remote towns, to encouraging results. Just this week they've reported that about 460 out of the 2500 people they've shared with have prayed to accept Christ! Now we just pray for such ground to be gained here in the capital. I think there is something about the slower pace of life out in the regions that makes people listen more thoughtfully. Here in the city people are more self-absorbed and "material progress" oriented, so it's harder to borrow people's full attention.

New Years' Eve hangout in my office with some church members

I'd better not muse too much at present, however,  as I need to explain our upcoming project, for which we need assistance! 
For a while now I've hoped to bring some of our youth here in Mongolia to participate with the sizeable and healthy youth group at my home church, Harvest; in Dothan, Alabama. Various factors have aligned so that it looks like this summer will be the time it becomes possible! 

We have 8 students in our own little youth group (3 boys and 5 girls, Mongolian & Korean, aged 13-17), and the church leadership has expressed the idea that it would be healthy for them to have some experience with ministry and Christ-following young people beyond the context they've seen their whole lives. These are the children of our team's full-time evangelists. To that end, we are planning to bring them to Dothan this June and July to be summer interns with the youth group there. 

Yaejin and I, the church leadership, and parents think it would be a formative spiritual experience for these students to be part of a larger Christian community, and especially with kids their age who are actively following Christ, and to get more discipleship input beyond their parents and parents' colleagues and Yaejin & me. 

We also believe that it will be healthy for them to have some social interaction outside of our own group, as most of these kids really don't have much contact with people outside of our church or school. And that is why we are hoping to split them up into homestays with Harvest students their own ages for 4-6 weeks.

Their parents have been saving up for airfare, which for them is a large expense as their salaries come to about $300 - $600 (USD) per month. Yaejin and I have donated to this fund and we feel pretty good about our ability to reach what we need to get the kids to the States. The Harvest Church Missions Committee has also agreed to help to a generous degree. 

Of course, they will have many other expenses when they get here– such as transportation (we'll probably need to rent a 15-passenger van to get them to Dothan from the airport and probably to keep for taking them around), food and lodging, and costs for youth events. We also hope to take them to see some places besides Dothan-- a zoo or aquarium, theme park, and certainly to a nearby state park and to the beach, Mongolia doesn't have any of these things and the severely cold weather much of the year is extremely limiting. On top of this it would be nice if they have some money to buy something to bring back to their parents afterward. But ultimately we will still be happy for the minimum of just having them participating in the Dothan youth events if that is what the finances allow. That alone will be a lifetime experience for them. 

The challenge for their families is how expensive everything in America is (or how cheap the economy here is, whichever perspective you take - though it seems that America is becoming expensive even for Americans lately) so that what amounts to "affordable" by our standards is pricey to them. Still, we are committed to making this trip a success for them to have fun, learn about the world, and grow spiritually.

The youth internship involves them serving on Sunday mornings at church, helping with planning and implementation of summer youth events, daily reading, memory work, group discussion, and occasional sharing to the larger youth group or small groups therein; participation in the city-wide youth event WIRED (a week of worship, public service, and evangelistic outreach for teens from multiple churches in town), planning, preparation, and participation of the summer climax Harvest Youth Conference (4 days of worship, teaching, prayer, and mass games), and probably some other tasks that I need to confirm with my brother the youth pastor. 

If you would like to give to a mission project that will make a big impact, to help us in our work, and to invest in young people who will be influencing the kingdom of God in Mongolia, please join us in making this dream a reality.

Gifts can be made to Harvest Church, 2727 Fortner St, Dothan, Alabama 36305 and specified in the note as for "Mongolian Youth" or something along those lines.

You could also send directly to my US address and/or account
(I'll provide via email [daniel.yaejin@gmail.com] to any interested parties),
or through gofundme.

Students:    1. Andrew (17)    2. Jacob (16)     3. Emily (16)    4. Jamie (16)          
                        5. Hannah (15)    6. Merom (14)   7. Grace (14)    8. Joshua (13)   

Telling me how "Co~o~o~ld" it must be out there.

New Semester, New Circumstances

Villages of the Mongolian countryside

Longtime friends, whose children were great with Yuna.
I haven't asked their permission to post this though...
Let me know if I should take it down, blur faces, or anything, guys!

Greetings, everyone! I hope you've had a good summer. We had a great month in the States. Busier than we anticipated, but wonderful to reconnect with relatives and friends. During that time Yuna was able to start walking a bit and had her first birthday. We also exposed her more to the water, as no other outdoor activities were appealing in that thick heat. Yaejin also had a chance to work on her swimming, which was in a very rudimentary state, and made some good progress. The only negatives were the heat, limited time, and that we weren't able to make the scuppernong season! They were just starting to get ripe our last week there. We picked several, but it was hard searching for small bounty. The traveling was also difficult with an infant to manage. We flew 8 hours to Frankfurt, spent the night, and another 8 hours to Atlanta. On our return we didn't stay overnight, so it was a long trip. We arrived early Monday morning, slept most of the day, and started our church school back on Tuesday. So it was a lot. But great to arrive home both there and here. I'd like to express our gratitude for the hospitality, generosity, and encouragement extended to us during our time in the states.  It was a joy to be reunited with so many people who we very much feel supporting us in our lives. As always, we will be excited to hear from anyone who would like to reach out. The global connection of Christ's body is a major theme in my understanding of mission in the past year, and it is such an awesome thing to be connected not only in spirit but through technology in this era.

The most exciting thing going on in Mongolia this year is the positive response to evangelism we've been seeing! I sent a report about this by email to some people, and was able to share at my parents' church on Sunday, but I'll summarize and expound here. Our team contains about 12-15 full-time evangelists, who go out door-to-door most work days and take extended trips into far-off villages when the weather is good. For years this church has had people doing this work, but rarely in cooperation with any other churches, other than using them as a reference for people to learn more if they respond we to the gospel message (we don't actively recruit people to join our own church, but want to connect them with a local body). However, in the past 5 years or so we have strengthened our connection with other churches; and especially with a large interdenominational organization called the Mongolian Evangelical Alliance. The main pastor in charge of this group has been coordinating evangelistic trips in partnership with YWAM, BGEA/SP, and others; and our team serves as a key support in these trips. These other groups will often plan a "tent meeting" event, for which we hand out invitations while sharing the gospel door to door. This year they did these meetings in the two largest cities outside the capital. At the tent meetings they had 800 and 250 profess a desire to follow Christ! So there's a good highlight for the year, but it has not stopped there.

We camped by a canyon on the way to the evangelism site. 

At the beginning of summer we joined in such a trip with more than our regular full-time members due to school being out. We joined up with several other churches here in U.B. and traveled for two days in a caravan of about 100 people. This was the first outreach trip for my teenage students, and it seems to have been an emboldening and encouraging formative experience for them. I set out with them for the first few days and had to return early by bus (17 hours) since we were leaving for America. That was an interesting experience for me! Being the only foreigner travelling that long way through the wilderness. The bus stopped about every hour at first -- we had dinner at an inn restaurant -- but after dark the stops decreased. The bathroom breaks were a cultural experience because the bus would just stop in the desert and everyone would get off and walk forward until they felt suitably far enough away from other people to relieve themselves. I felt pretty uncomfortable about it at first until I realized that I wasn't really seeing or noticing anyone or what they were doing (especially in the night) so probably nobody was looking at or seeing me either.  But anyway, we later heard that the two nights of tent meetings from that outreach yielded about 300 people who accepted Christ.

Since we've been back there have been 3-4 more of these outreach trips in smaller towns. One of these reported 80 people, and just recently they had one in a place called Chinggis, Hentii; which was in a maxed-out venue of 600 seats. When they gave the "alter call" (actually just to come onto the stage to pray for salvation) about 1/3 of the people came forward and crowded onto the stage. This trip was fraught with setbacks at the forefront -- bad road conditions caused a car to flip and two passengers taken to the hospital; our supplies truck got stuck in mud and toppled over, and two other cars were damaged. I believe the results may explain the challenges, as often proves to be.

In any case, these positive results just keep coming, and everyone is pretty amazed. I think we all have an attitude that we don't know why this is happening now -- whether there is some social phenomena causing this receptiveness -- but we should keep pushing while this openness lasts!  One of our guys made a video about the summer trip, which I've tried to embed here but it isn't working so I'll email it to anyone interested.

Now, as for us here, we stay quite busy running the church school and partaking in our other jobs besides. This school year we have 19 students, including two new teenagers for our little youth group (bringing it to seven). These two are an interesting story, as their father was a pastor who wanted to just evangelize. So their family has come to us as a sort of career change. The son is 16 and the daughter 14. You may imagine how difficult it can be to change home and school at that age -- especially to a tight-knit group like this with kids who have seen each other nearly every day for 3-10 years! But they are doing admirably in spite of the difficulty. I am especially impressed with the boy's efforts so far, as he brings a good thoughtfulness to the youth group. This group of kids we have just started doing youth meetings. It's the class I teach, and they are really at an age where we can start engaging with them in more adult fashion.

Yaejin also ordered a small above-ground pool for the kids to use, which has been so-so, as the water is shallow and it doesn't get very warm for long here. Her second purchase, however, has been a smash hit: a trampoline. In keeping with the pattern we've seen in America, it's proving to be popular for kids aged 3-16, and is used pretty much every day.

    

My parents-in-law have been keeping a vegetable garden for several years, and this year they constructed a green house on one side. We were enjoying all the lettuce, mustard, and arugula (a favorite of mine and only mine, it seems) we could eat, until a freak hailstorm killed everything outside the greenhouse. Fortunately, Yuna loves the homegrown cucumbers, but I've had my salad summer cut short!

Before and after the hail

So, the long and short of it is that our visit to America felt like a sort of reset for our lives before starting a new semester, new youth group, and some other changes about how we're doing things day to day. I had the chance to share this at our home church in Dothan, but hearing these reports of God's move in the nation really gave me a wakeup call about my attitude toward our position here. I don't think it's any great secret that I don't have any love for Mongolia itself as a country to visit or live. At the beginning of this year I think I was in a doldrumesque state, feeling like my life's wanderings has brought me to a remote, desolate land with few opportunities or benefits. I was feeling disinterested in and disconnected from my surroundings, and imagined the world is full of more vibrant and exciting places. But God has pulled me from that feeling in two ways. 
First, I've been able to see my hometown again; which, while excellent, still has its little shortcomings and run down things which my yearnings had glossed over. Secondly I have seen that God is doing mighty works here, and He's allowing us to play a supporting role. Considering that my gripes about weather, dust, litter, remoteness, etc. clearly display their triviality. I've had phases of life in which I enjoyed comfort and beauty without much observable purpose or accomplishment. Now we are enjoying special roles that make obvious differences in people's lives, while still protecting our own comforts and leisure time. I wish upon all of you that you may have both! but it is far better to have the former, as mere comfort leaves one with only meager results to look back upon. 
We are happy in our work, and some of the aspects which were straining us are beginning to subside as we've gotten great new support for our schedules. How much of our relief is internal vs external? It's hard to say, but both are certainly improved. 

As always, we thank you for your prayer, support, interest, friendship, etc.

Until next time!

Catching Up in 2023

I hope everyone has had a great holiday season! Our work-related activities kept us busy right up until December 23rd, and we flew to Germany early on the 24th to take a little holiday abroad and see somewhere new. Much of our time went in to school Christmas activities -- especially Yaejin's, who ended up overseeing the student Christmas performance on the 23rd. This comprised of performances from each of our three age groups in the four languages they learn (Chinese only had a single song with all the kids, since we are inbetween treachers right now), as well as a nativity play with all the kids, a Mongolian traditional dance from two of the girls, a little performance from the women's small group and from each of our two remaining Russian families here. After the performances the Korlianov family had planned out an elaborate activity for the kids to "find" their presents which had been stolen by three pirates (of which I was one) who will give a map fragment when satisfied with a challenge of some kind, leading to an "adults vs children" competition back at the school for them to win their presents. It went very well and the kids had a great time. I also had fun being a pirate.

As I missed such a large chunk of time between updates in the latter half of 2022, I'll try to catch up on some of the highlights here:
The next big activity after Yuna's birth was the first marriage of any of Yaejin's siblings, Jakin. As I'm sure most of our readers know (and can learn about in my earliest posts here if so inclined), our wedding was replanned to take place in the U.S. due to Mongolia's extremely stringent border policies during the pandemic, and for the same reason her closest brother Jakin was the only member of Yaejin's family who was able to make it, and who gave her away during the ceremony. Well, he had reconnected with a lifelong family friend in Korea and were able to have their ceremony here. This was very exciting for all of the family since it would be the first family wedding they would attend in person. And the Mongolian church members were excited because it meant they could dress in their finest and sing traditional songs and so on. It was also exciting because of the international guests we had around from Jakin's past. Everyone was excited to see eachother, about the wedding, and also to meet our month-old baby!

Dad doing the proper tourist thing, as did I!

Just about a week after the wedding guests had all gone home the Sigler parents came to visit us here at the ends of the earth (I just heard in a youtube video that Mongolia is the most sparsely populated country on earth per sq km -- even more than Canada and Australia!) to see our lives and baby. It was a short visit which made things a little busy, but we had a great time with them and they got to see a good amount of our church and the surrounding city. It was great to spend time with them since we hadn't been together in-person for over a year.

After that a noteworthy highlight was our "school" field day -- I employ the quotation marks because this was a school event in name only, as the events featured all of our church members and school members divided into three teams and competing in various games and activities together before having a big cook-out lunch together. It was really interesting to see the adults playing these different games and the whole dynamic was a nice time to see different sides of people. 

In September, Franklin Graham hosted one of his BGEA Festival events here in U.B. Due to the baby we had not been involved in the preparation at all (though many of our church people were -- in fact you can see the head of our evangelism team and his wife making an appearance in the pictures BGEA posted about the outreach here. And several of my siblings-in-law were involved from earlier on.) We both ended up volunteering just on the second day of the event. 

With our volunteer badges

This is my third time participating in a BGEA event, though admittedly my involvement in the 2012 Miyagi festival was minimal. The impact of this event was a subject of speculation as one can rarely quantify the spiritual. Being from a church founded upon and dedicated to evangelism, Yaejin was especially keen to be involved. As we drove to the venue, the crowds and police support made a statement that resonated with her that this was something special. We stood in line for a bit but ultimately weren't able to get inside the 4000+ seat venue. There was a sizeable overflow area with live feed outside, but unfortunately this placed viewers directly staring into the sun until it set about an hour later. While this did lead to a somewhat negative experience, it was encouraging to think the attendance was strong enough to cause this. Yaejin in particular felt that this was a significant moment of her family's prayers bearing some fruit.  As her father later explained, "If all the local churches decided to team up and host an event, there would be government/bureaucratic opposition, marketing issues... it just wouldn't be able to happen. It's only because of this Franklin Graham being an internationally known person, and because of the good will Mongolians have toward Samaritan's Purse, that this kind of mass Christian gathering is allowed to happen." That said, what are the results of such an event? Most westerners know about the large Billy Graham Crusades throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, but are they the real deal in other cultures, languages, and eras? Would nonbelievers come to a large gathering when they might not know the name Franklin Graham? 

While we still don't entirely know the answer, I can tell you from my past work with BGEA that they do not take it for granted that people are going to just show up and believe of their own accord. They invest a lot of work in the local churches and congregants beforehand, emphasizing the event as merely an opportunity for the members to invite and focus on the lost around them. That said, at this particular event we initially had some concerns about the seemingly large percentage of Christians in attendance, illustrated by the fact that much of the room seemed to be singing along with the worship songs before the message. At that point there was a bit of a feeling like "is this actually reaching many people, or is this a 'preaching to the choir' scenario?" From that perspective, it is an awful lot of work, money, and preparation for something that won't accomplish its assumed purpose. However, we believe there is another critical function of the event in a place like here. Most Mongolian Christians are accurately aware of their abnormal status and will never be in a room with over 1000 other believers at once. Whatever its effectiveness in evangelism (and to be clear, that was not zero), the Festival had to have been a significant encouragement for the local believers -- not only due to the number of people praising God and affirming His word, but also from the legitimacy afforded by this accepted gathering and imperative to reach out to those we can, while we can. In the U.S. you have these large gatherings for Christians to be empowered, so this bore that function as well as the efforts to share the gospel with those who don't know it. So ultimately we did feel that it's a positive and significant event for the Churches of Ulaan Baatar and doubtlessly reached people with the gospel.

Hiring a car for the 2hr drive between towns 
meant we were packed next to a stranger.

In December I had my first multi-day business trip with the company here. A coworker accompanied me to the western cities of Ölgii and Khovd to work with our clients in those two cities. I've written about Ölgii before, when our evangelism team went out that way last summer -- Kazakh/moderately Muslim area. Khovd is less unique in that sense, but our client there has many more students and they were much less accustomed to seeing foreign people there and my presence at the school generated some interest.

It just so happened that we gained a second client in Ölgii in January, so I actually have just recently returned from yet another visit out that way -- and this quite soon after returning from our holiday travels, so it felt very good to be settled back at home afterward. 

This brings me to our winter holiday trip! Due to certain US immigration policies we did not think it feasible to enter the states for Christmas as we had planned. Upon discussing this with the family, they floated the idea of meeting up in a different location, possibly close to America since there are only three of us and eight of them. However, most of the nearby countries seem to be in peak tourist season around the Christmas and New Year holidays, and it didn't seem very reasonable to see that plan through. Meanwhile we purchased direct flights to Frankfurt, thinking we'd get the second leg of our trip once everyone decided where to meet up. In the end, it was too costly and troublesome for all of them to leave the US during that period, and we decided to just have a little holiday ourselves in Germany. 

We got settled into our rented apartment around twilight of Christmas Eve, and soon heard the most welcoming sound of multiple church bells ringing from all around the city, calling people for Christmas Eve services/mass.

It felt like a true Christmas welcome and Yaejin encouraged me to go out for a look around while she settled in with the baby. I ended up following my ears to a large candlelight mass and joined in for 2-3 hymns before heading back to spend the holiday together with my own small family. The following morning we joined a small Lutheran Congregation in the center of Frankfurt's old town square for Christmas worship. Though we didn't understand the message, the elder announced that he would be doing the scripture reading (Luke 2)  first in English "for the benefit of our guests from Mongolia and the US" and then again in German. This was a very hospitable gesture, and our participation in the Eucharist was also meaningful. After the service we socialized a little with the aforementioned elder and the pastor before going off to Christmas lunch next door. 

All in all, we managed to have a unique and comfortable Christmas together, and enjoyed the recovery time once back home. Yuna was a great little traveler, only getting troublesome when we kept her out in public after dark, to which she loudly objected. She had a difficult time readjusting to the time zone when we got back to Mongolia though (it always is harder to adjust to travelling eastward than westward, I find). Due to my second work trip and a teacher-training seminar, I've been forced to somewhat neglect my own students, but this week I should be with them fully.

Our Evangelism team has continued to go out here and there. They have multiple churches joining with them each time -- both from here in U.B. and locally at their destinations. This past trip was mostly people from various other churches, as our team sent about 15 people but they had around 75 going house to house. It's edifying and exciting to have this kind of cooperation from other churches, because for many years this group was more or less self-contained. Finally we have a sense of acceptance from and teamwork with the local churches, who respect our group's longstanding dedication to preaching the gospel with no strings attached. In church last Sunday they were mentioning that it can be hard working with other groups who maybe don't work as efficiently, diligently, or with focus; but it's less important to just "get the word out" than to remember that this process is teaching other churches and believers how they can be preaching the gospel to those around them. That will have greater and longer lasting effect than just our own small church on its own. Mongolia is a very non-Christian land, but we hope and believe that the church is ripe for growth and greater cultural impact.

In other news, there have been numerous mass protests against the government this past year. Generally everyone is fed up with the bureaucrats lining their own pockets by selling off the natural mineral resources to foreign parties while the average citizen remains in poverty. One perspective I've heard is "If you ask young people in Mongolia about their dreams or future plans, pretty much all of them will answer that their goal is to live abroad. That's because no one feels that there is a meaningful future for them here. Yet the land is rich in natural resources, and only the politicians are obscenely wealthy." So... while we are not involved in political matters ourselves, it does seem to be a healthy movement that is trying to take root, and I pray for any societal shaking to serve as tilling the earth for the seeds of the gospel to take root and flourish.

We continue to be involved in the church school and enjoying our daughter as she continually learns new things! Thank you all for your interest and care. 

The Birth Story and Planned Resumption of Regular Updates

Well well, my good intention of resuming regular updates just keep getting more ridiculous. I may be able to manage it better this time if I don't try to catch everyone up on the past four months all in one update!

First off, the birth was a great success -- fast and intense, so that poor Yaejin hardly had time to catch her breath once we got to the hospital, but we did feel God's hand on many of the details of the ordeal.
We were blessed with a truly expert doctor -- her reputation in the city is second to none (a coworker asked me after the fact where we had had the baby and when I told her she looked it up and said "Oh, I don't know this hospital but this doctor is famous."), and after our experience we wholeheartedly agree that her reputation is well-merited. We had actually gone that morning for a regular check up and she said "I think you'll be back tonight." She was right about that. She also seemed to know all the ways to facilitate a healthy natural birth without injury to mother or baby. 

We could not have asked for a more ideal time for baby Yuna to come to us. I alluded before to concerns about hospital access. Essentially our private hospital is undergoing expansion and was planning to close down from the 18th and we would have to be moved to the public hospital across the street if the baby came after that (later they told us they would try to work it out for us to still use their hospital unofficially). When she ended up coming on the 15th, the hospital was already closed down except for previously scheduled patients like us. This meant that there was hardly anyone else in the hospital when we went -- indeed, when we arrived around 12:30am I was afraid we'd have to wait for the doctors to drive over and let us in, as the front lights were out and the door was locked! But when we knocked a nurse came from a back office where she had been expecting us. Thanks to the unusual status of the hospital we never saw anyone in the hospital who wasn't employed there, so it felt like the building was devoted to us.

Another aspect of our fortuitous timing was that it took place right in the middle of Mongolia's big summer holiday, for which most Mongolians take off work for a week or two and flee to the countryside (true nomads at heart, the Mongolians feel cramped in the city and jump at the chance to get back to the sparse plains when they can). For that week or so the traffic is amazing (or, as we'd consider it in my hometown, normal) and the drive to the hospital that usually takes 45 minutes could be done in 15!

All of these conveniences turned out to be crucial blessings, because in the end we barely made it to the birthing room in time. After the nurse checked us in, we had to take the stairs up to the fourth floor! (The elevator was down for the construction, naturally). And it was at this point that Yaejin's contractions started kicking into high gear. At each little landing where the stairs turned she would have to stop and double over at a 90° angle while holding onto my shoulders or arms for support. When we made it upstairs and got out suitcase in our room we thought we'd have a while before needing to move to the birth room but pretty much as soon as we got there Yaejin was experiencing perpetual contractions with hardly time to recover between. The doctors were trying to ask us questions about this and that, but I could only understand the most basic ones and Yaejin was in a delirium of pain too much to comprehend what they were asking us. The nurses too seemed surprised that she wasn't getting any breaks to recover, but predicted (correctly) that it meant the birth would be quick. Of course the downside to that was the intensity of that shorter period. Leading up to the birth Yaejin had been watching many informative and vloggy videos on the internet about birth, and we were fully anticipating to have a long night ahead of us with breaks between contractions, but it wasn't like that at all, as Yaejin recounts: 

"All the videos I've watched and blogs I've read seemed to say that moms got contractions, but they had breaks in between. They had time to put on music, to get some water, to talk with their husbands; some even take short naps! But mine was so different and I was very scared that it was going to go on [that way] for hours, and I really thought I wouldn't be able to do it. When the doctor asked me if I wanted an epidural I said yes, but she checked me and said, "Nope, it's too late! The baby's coming very soon. You can do it!" I didn't know how "soon" it was going to be, but it actually was pretty soon. They told me if I felt like I wanted to push, I can start pushing, but I never really felt like I wanted to start pushing! I just thought pushing means this will stop soon, so I just started pushing and they told me I'm doing great, that she's right there. After several times of that, they were shouting, "It's really close! You're doing good! You can't stop now or else the baby's going to have a hard time breathing!" So then I just pushed as hard as I could a few more times and amazingly she was born, our little Yuna Lynn! I don't remember everything too clearly after that, as I was in a state of shock [and/]or exhaustion"

All in all, the baby was born right around 2 hours after we first knocked on the door of the hospital, and had we been 15-20 minutes later i'm not sure how I could have gotten her up those 4 flights of stairs! So it was truly providential that there was no traffic and no waiting at the hospital.

When we were in the birthing room but before they got Yaejin in the bed/chair thing she was doubled over hanging on to me for pretty much the entire time. It was starting to be strenuous for me holding her up like that! My back was in pain and toward the end I was really concentrating on staying upright and not wobbling, but I told myself no matter what happens there's no way I can tap out or say anything while my wife is half-dying in agony right in front of me!  Still, I admit to being relieved when they told me to help her onto the operating bed/chair thing. From that point it was quite a harrowing experience as I would lift her head up when she pushed and she would be straining her whole body and like holding her breath so that it was difficult not to imagine what it might look like if something went wrong, which made it a genuine relief for me each time she inhaled again after laying back down.

One of the earlier pictures

Well, I suppose those of you who have been through this already know all those sensations, and those who haven't probably aren't too interested in the finer details unless you're soon to undergo the trial yourself. For any such reader my advice would be to be prepared for the different possibilities, but don't rely too much on your experience being quite like anyone else's!
Toward the end of the labor I was hot and parched as can be, and I presumed Yaejin must be even more so. I thought several times of running for water, but there was never a moment I felt I could step away since the bouts would come every 20-30 seconds. Finally after the baby was born and the nurse was wiping her I ran to our room to get the bottle of Pocari Sweat (a Japanese "-ade" style electrolyte drink) we had brought and it worked wonders for me and positively revived Yaejin from her limp and wilted post-partum state. Yuna was born at 2:35am, and we probably got to sleep around 5:00ish or something. I'm not sure -- the first day there in the hospital was a real daze. We had brought all sorts of things to have there -- a book we were reading together, some games to play, etc. -- it seems quite ridiculous now! We pretty much had no desire to do anything but tend to the baby and sleep.  

Because of the semi-closed state of the hospital, we pretty much had the floor to ourselves, which was nice. The downside was that it meant that there was no kitchen making food! So Yaejin's parents sent us a big bag of things to put in our little room fridge. But we didn't really have a table and were kind of eating out of tupperware, so I ended up hardly having anything at all but thankfully Yaejin was able to replenish herself with it. The next day a nurse gave Yuna a bath and some shots (which she hardly reacted to) and checked Yaejin out so that we could go home. In the end we were able to be picked up around 12:30pm -- about 34 hours in the hospital, and it was such a huge relief to get back to our own apartment and eat and nap and just feel comfortable!  For the first month she was about as little trouble as you could possibly ask from a newborn -- cried rarely and slept often. In fact, for the first week we were actually a little anxious about her oversleeping, as it was very difficult to wake her up to eat! In the second month she started being much more work though, sleeping less and growing more opinionated about how she wants to lay or be held.

A final reason that the timing was perfectly ordained was that Yaejin's closest brother would be getting married at the beginning of August, so we needed time for baby and mother to heal and adjust before having numerous international guests coming for that. All in all we were richly blessed in the whole process (not to make light of Yaejin's ordeal, by any means!) and are have been enjoying our little charge for the past four months. 

She has become more vocal and is quick to smile and laugh at anyone she identifies as trying to "play."
As for us, it is surreal to consider our new categorical identity as parents, but in practice is it surprisingly natural to fulfill those roles. She's just the cute and helpless baby we have and when she needs something we are the final responsibility to provide it. But it isn't as dramatically awesome in practice as it is in concept. Although I will say that during this Christmas season I feel more impact and wonder at any lyrics regarding Christ coming as a helpless infant to the earth. It's moving to compare that to our own helpless, sometimes crying pitifully little thing.

I think I will leave this part of my updates as its own section here, and write what happened throughout the summer and autumn in a second post.
Preview of those activities: Wedding, Sigler parents' visit, Yaejin taking charge of our church school, churchwide field day, Franklin Graham festival, housing Russian expatriots due to certain geopolitical reasons.

As I post this on Thanksgiving day, of course our greatest sources of thanksgiving are the obvious things -- God's faithfulness, our little daughter, both of our families and friends, and all of you as part of our family of God for your prayers, encouragement, and support in all forms! It is an honor to be united with eachother in the mission of redemption for this dear world and all its people, and we pray for the Lord's blessing to be heavily upon all that you are facing and that He is preparing for you to accomplish. 

Final Weeks as a Family of Two

My new favorite U.B. café, Macaroon 153.

Happy summer, everyone! Hot weather arrived late but abruptly this year. We had two weeks of stifling heat before returning to the very temperate days we are enjoying now. The elevation and dry air means that summer feels awesome in the shade but the direct sunlight is intense and can burn much faster than I'm used to. Baby Sigler is coming along well, and we've enjoyed feeling (and now seeing) her pushes and kicks. Both school and work have entered into a summer break, so I'm finally compiling the report I've been wanting to give for a long while now.

The most exciting development around here has undoubtedly been the efforts of our evangelism team -- which I am not even part of, as my teaching and training duties keep me here in U.B. For the majority of May, our group partnered with a couple of local churches to make the 3-day cross-country drive (camping along the way) to the westmost province of Bayan-Ölgii. This region is the most "foreign feeling" in Mongolia, being the only province with an ethnic majority other than Mongolian as about 93% of the 108,000 residents are Muslims of Kazakh descent. [info on Bayan-Ölgii]
The team had some adventurous roads in the final stretch once the paved highways gave way to rocky streamside paths. In Bayan-Ölgii they partnered with some local Christian groups and churches (familiar among them to Western readers will be YWAM staff), and started systematically knocking on doors in the 14 small towns throughout the province.

Camping along the way

Based on our team members' reports it seems to have been a mission of great contrast － warm hospitality from the local people who were receptive to the gospel (though at times suspicious about whether this activity was approved by their Muslim clergymen) and would invite our people in to their home for tea and snacks － and opposition and harassment from the local police who seemed  concerned with preserving the Islamic status quo. 

Our team had prepared Kazakh tracts and Bibles since many of the people there aren't fluent in Mongolian. They tell us that when they gave out full-sized Bibles the recipient would hold it in front of them with both hands and raise it above the level of their head. This signifies that they are receiving a valuable gift and feel honored. Middle- and lower-class people tend not to have much reading material in Mongolia, and I assume that's even more the case among the Kazakh-Mongolians out in the far west. While there was some variation in the level of opposition they faced from village to village, almost everyone who answered the door invited them in and listened intently to their gospel presentation. There were even a few who asked our people to repeat it for a friend of family member who arrived after they had already told it once. Once in a while someone might ask, in a mildly accusing manner, "Who told you to do this?" or "Who translated this stuff into Kazakh?"  One of our guys said that he just answered "our clergyman" (using the same word they use for local Muslim leaders) and then they'd be ok with it.

One of our younger guys knocked on a door and was greeted by several men wielding knives who asked "what do you want?" I have been told that the Mongolian stereotype of Kazakhs is that they are always stabbing people. Our guy answered "I'm here in Jesus' love to share between we Mongols and the Kazakh people." One of the men brandished his knife while stepping toward him, demanding "What did you say?" So he repeated himself at a higher octave while backing away. This exchange repeated a couple times until our guy just left some tracts and backed his way right on out of there. Such rebuttals were few, however. Another man was stopped by a guy on a motorcycle and asked "who gives you the right to go around doing this?" he answered with some quick thinking: "Well I'm a Mongolian citizen, and Article 2, Section 4 of our national law says that I'm free to do this." The motorcyclist seemed satisfied with this answer, saying "Oh" before driving off. In essence, our guy's claim was true in that Mongolia does officially espouse freedom of religion, but the law he cited to the man was completely made-up. 

Sharing at a home

Distributing concise Bibles to students

Toward the end of their trip, and particularly in the largest town of the province, the police started causing more overt trouble, claiming that there had been complaints that they were disturbing the peace of the town and threatening to post pictures of our vehicles and faces on Facebook so the Muslims would know whom to attack. Fortunately, this final confrontation came at the time when they had pretty much finished going to all of the homes in the town, so our guys decided to just say "Alright, we'll leave." Besides the fact that they had finished all the homes in the main town and 11/13 of the villages in the province, they were concerned about the local churches and ministries who were partnering with them in the work. Our team will leave and head back to safety, but the local church and ministries might have to deal with consequences from the agitated local authorities or religious leaders.  So they decided to pack up in the night to get out of the province by morning, so that those local Christians could say the evangelists had already left/been sent away. Our people all said as soon as they drove into the next province (still days away from the capital here) they all felt "back home," even though they hadn't actually left the country. It was a hard but rewarding expedition for the team, and they came back full of excitement for what they had done and how the people had responded. There were some locals who remembered our team going there previously, about 10-11 years ago. One such man said "You're still saying the same thing you did way back then. I think this must be the truth, because people don't keep their story the same for so long when it isn't the truth."
The people throughout Mongolia tend to be impressed when they find out that we aren't trying to recruit them for any particular group (though of course we encourage anyone who believes to get connected to a local church) and are clearly just interested in giving them this crucial information about judgment and salvation.  They also reported several cases of people asking to pray for salvation, which is always exciting though of course we have to pray for the Holy Spirit to protect this step through what will likely be a dry and challenging spiritual climate.

Paved highways mostly just link provincial capitals

Various challenges on the rough country roads

Fell through the ice

When setting up camp between villages, a strange cloud formation appeared as a two-pillared arch above them, touching down before and behind them. This was encouraging to our team and recalled God's direction of the Israelites in Exodus.

Sharing about the evangelistic trip
during Sunday morning church.

A couple of weeks after the team's return they set out on a shorter mission to partner with a sizeable local church in Mongolia's third-largest city (about 85,000 people), Darkhan. This trip was a mixed bag in a different way from that of Bayan-Ölgii. They joined with some other churches here in UB and drove the 3-4 hours to Darkhan, where they would stay at the church and go house to house alongside those church members throughout the entire city. Altogether they had a team of about 100 people going door to door to share the gospel and invite people to an event at the church at the end of the week. So on the positive side, it was a big team working together and having communal worship each morning, who got to visit about 4,500 homes, talk with over 18,000 people, and pray with about 900 to accept Christ. The Saturday event attracted more than 600 people to the church which exceeded its actual capacity.  

On the negative side, several of our people felt that they were having to do a lot of the work and the local people would show up at meal times expecting to be fed or even given extra meals to take home to somebody! Our people felt like the Darkhan church members were shirking work and expecting just to be "ministered to" rather than partnered with. So despite these amazing numbers (which in itself can never guarantee the breadth of sustained transformation) several of our guys came back feeling exhausted and mistreated. Nevertheless, when you look at the big picture we feel that it was an anointed trip in which God transformed possibly hundreds of lives. 

One of our guys shared that the Darkhan church assigned his team to specifically  visit homes which were known to have Christian relatives. One man he visited was drunk and angry and said that instead of listening to Jesus talk he was going to beat him up. Our guy responded, "If you're going to beat me, at least listen quietly to what I have to say first. Listen without interrupting me, and if you still want to beat me up after I finish I'll let you." So he started sharing the gospel and had to remind the guy several times "Hey, you said you'd listen without interrupting!" when he started mumbling and saying things. But when he got to the part about heaven and hell the man calmed down and gave rapt attention. Then when our guy finished he said "Ok, so that's what I wanted you to hear. Do you still want to hit me?" The drunk man said he didn't. Instead he wanted to know if he can go to heaven too, and if so, how! 

Another house had a guy with a bad leg who also responded angrily when our people came and told them to get out of his house once he heard what they were there for. But our guys just said "Hey you need some water. How long have you been sitting here?" So they got water for him and made sure he was okay and then just told him the gospel. He thanked them, apologized for being angry, and showed up for church the following Sunday morning!  It's hard to see the forest for the trees when you feel personally misused, but we trust that it will be more than worth it as God tends the many seeds which were planted that week. And hopefully clearer communication with the local church next time could alleviate the pragmatic troubles.

Besides that, our church team has experienced some changes. I think i recently wrote that we had been enjoying a season of growth without loss, but it looks that we may be entering a phase of change here. While a new family of four has just joined us and another family of three are expected to come after the break, one of our largest families may be on the way out as they have become embroiled in legal matters, are being currently held in government housing for protection, and their future involvement with us remains unclear. They are a family of eight, with two in my English class and two more slated to join our youth group this autumn, so as far as the children are concerned this development weighs heavily. The parents have long been known to be of dubious character but we always wanted to do our best for the six children and pray that the whole family could be transformed. We still pray for that, but the future arrangement is tenuous.  Furthermore, the other English teacher has moved away to be with family after working here for 11 years. Originally she planned for me to succeed her but in this past year of delay in her departure I took another job and can no longer accept her mantle in full. We originally thought to hire another teacher alongside me, but it's come to light that our NGO will not be able to sponsor a visa until another year or so, which leaves us having to fill the role from within. Normally Yaejin would be the perfect fit, but with a newborn that will have to be off the table! 

My class (minus one boy) on my birthday

On a lighter note, July has brought about an exceptionally calm and quiet phase for us, as almost all of the Mongolians retreat to the countryside for summer break and five of Yaejin's siblings have gone to visit relatives abroad. This leaves only her parents and the three youngest (11, 12, 15) alone here with us as the summer vacation entertainment! Most of the time we are enjoying it. We had them spend the night, I took them to my office to help me with an unfinished project, we play frisbee, soccer, etc. and have Mario-Kart or movie nights at our house. They usually have a very demanding schedule for school (learning 5 languages with extra time for mathematics and Bible) so it's good to see them enjoying some free days of fun.

I hope to post another update sooner than this one. The content is already largely evident in that we'll have our baby daughter with us! Praying all goes smoothly and quickly -- before the 18th if I'm going to be allowed in with her, due to some odd hospital issues --  and that the doctors are right about her being a daughter, otherwise we will have to come up with a different name!

One of our clients asked me to be a judge for their "Got Talent" styled
English recitation contest.  It was a great event for all involved.