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.