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!