Bayambaa's baby's picture

We were honored to be the first guests at Bayambaa's home on Friday to see her and her new baby girl. You might be wondering why I post so much about this little life. One, I like babies; and two, we've been a small part of her pregnancy: I've taken her to the hospital for check-ups and false labor (and real labor) multiple times, we've watched her son while her husband is at work and she is at the hospital, and we've been over to her house to help with little things now and then. So it is a joy to us to welcome this little life and present you all with a picture.

P.S. I've not told you what they named her because they haven't named her yet.

Death comes unexpectedly to those around us

"It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart." Solomon's warning is one that most Americans ignore today. We would much rather go to a fellowship with good food, wholesome singing, and happy talk than to go to a funeral. But life continues to remind us that death is never far away.

My American partner in this work, Roland Gay, just two weeks ago stopped at a wreck minutes after it happened. Several Mongolians were severely injured and several dead were still in the vehicle when he arrived. I am certain when they left that morning that did not expect to be in an accident, but death comes unexpectedly.

In June a unusually dry spring resulted in many wildfires. Mongolia has a corps of firefighters that do an admirable job of fighting these types of fires. Recently while some firefighters were traveling from one fire to another, the helicopter that was transporting them crashed. Although the government knew immediately that the helicopter had crashed it took three days to find the crash site. By then 14 of the firefighters had died. Later the pilot, a nationally recognized helicopter pilot, also died. Only a few men survived.

Then two days ago, I met my neighbor waiting for the elevator to take us to the ground floor. After the customary greetings, I asked him where he was going. A friend had died he told me, and he was going to help - another death, another reminder of its inevitability.

Yesterday, I met with my language helper. He told me of a Norwegian student that he had. I must have met her during my studies at language school. She was a 36 year old, single doctor who loved Mongolia and talked of becoming a citizen. Sunday night she had sent a meesage to my language helper saying that it had been a long time since they had been together. Wednesday morning she did not wake up - another death, another reminder of death's unexpected visits.

I plan to preach this Sunday from the passage that I mentioned. I anticipate having several unsaved Mongolians in attendance. Please pray for the salvation of Bob and Buren and other unsaved Mongolians who will come. They think that they have lots of time, that death is far away. Who knows? Only our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord for our salvation from sin's penalty!

Bayambaa's baby!

Bayambaa had a little girl this afternoon and seems to be in good health. I'll try to get a picture to you in the next few weeks. She weighed 3.4 kilograms or about 7 1/2 lbs. for those of you (like me) who don't do conversions in your head. Continue to pray for her husband Mandaa's salvation.

Buren's visit

I had a chance to visit Buren last night. After last Sunday's message on the sinfulness of man's heart, I was curious to see if he understood it. He said he understood it but the conversation did not go any further. Continue to pray for the conviction of the Holy Spirit in his sin-filled heart.

Bayambaa's baby soon?

Today may be the day that Bayambaa (this Bayambaa) finally has her baby. She called about 8:20 this morning asking for a ride to the hospital. I'll update the blog as I have more news.

Sunday update

Summertime here is like summertime in the States in which lots of people travel. Some simply do not come to church because they are enjoying the warm weather. In fact, it has been unseasonably hot here recently in the high 80's and 90's. That's about 20 degrees about normal for this time of year. Can you say "global warming"?

So I was encouraged Sunday to have a good group of nine Mongolian adults out yesterday. Bob and Buren were both there and part of the sermon I preached was on the inability of man to please God. I plan to follow up privately this week with both of them. Buren has started to be busy with work again. Still, he made time on Sunday to come, leaving after the service for work. Bob has a rather far-fetched scheme to make a bunch of money and cannot seem to think about anything else. So I may have trouble meeting with them. Please pray for both of them to be saved.

Bayambaa still hasn't had her baby. She is due this week, I think.

Missions quote

People who don’t know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives … and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted. – Nate Saint

Father's Day in Mongolia

There is no Father's Day in Mongolia; but being Americans, we observed some of the traditions of the day. My children and wife made me cards, everyone wished me a "happy Father's Day," and Kristie made a special cake to celebrate the day. I enjoyed the love and attention very much.

Attendance was down some today. I suspect that summer has something to do with it. The roads are seeming more and more empty as people leave the city to go to the countryside. Mongolians in government jobs often get a whole month of vacation and use it to leave the city. There is a general exodus out of the city as workers and many of the college students head to the countryside for the summer.

Just an update, Bayambaa (be - yim - baa!) still has not had her baby. Her father Tsendee (tsen - day!) came to our church services today for the first time in weeks. He had been in the countryside looking for a sheep. He starts work early in the morning and then comes directly after work to the church service. This morning he fell asleep during my lesson. Last week, I got lost will illustrating a point I was making and this week I had someone fall asleep during my lesson. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this speaking Mongolian thing.

Brief guide to pronouncing Mongolian names

Some of you are trying your best to make heads or tails of these Mongolian names. I forget that I've been in Mongolia struggling with these names for six years now. So to help you with some names that you find often in this blog, I am posting this guide.

But first, let me make some observations. Because Mongolians vowels can be quite different from American English vowels some of the pronunciations won't be quite accurate. But just say them with confidence. Like someone once told me with pronouncing Bible names, "Just say them with confidence and no one will challenge you about it." Also, the r in Mongolian is a trilled r much like one would encounter in the Spanish language. So say all the r that you see as if you were trying to pronounce a Spanish name. Also, the a should be like a in father.

Here's a list. The '-' will separate syllables and a '!' will indicate which syllable should be stressed. If there is no '!' in the name, stress the first syllable.

Buren = boo - ren
Sonin = sun - ing
Ganpurev = gam - per - ev
Ulzee = ull - zee!
Ganaa = gan - aa!
Bilgee = bil - gay!
Enkhee = ink - hay!
Bayambaa = be - im - baa!
Mandaa = man - daa!
Dashgaa = dash - gaa!
Tungaa = tone - gaa!
Ganbold = gam - bold

I think that covers everyone. I'll try to put together another update for these folks and post it soon.

I wrote two other attempts at pronouncing Mongolian names back in June and May. I think that reading all three together would be more confusing than helpful but am posting the links in case it helps you. Over the next few weeks, I will try to pull all this together and present one definitive guide and update. Pray for me.

Khongoroo

Khongoroo (Hung - graw!) was one of my first English students years ago. She was one of my hardest working students too. After I left English teaching she took over some of my classes. Dorothy was a friend to her, and so she used to come over quite often. We talked several times about Jesus Christ, and I thought that she was a Christian. She was attending church then.

For several years we lost touch, then a couple of months ago she called me to ask if I could help her with an English class that she was teaching. I agreed, and we had a chance to meet again. I found out that she had recently moved in with a fellow and that they were not attending church as regularly because she moved quite a ways from their church. She expressed an interest in attending our church services.

Please pray for her and her boyfriend Tamiraa (Tam - raw!) and for me as I seek to minister to them.

Got lost "in-sermon"

Attendance was a couple of people off last month's average on Sunday. There was some sickness, some traveling, and probably some lethargy. The hot weather slows everyone down here. Mongolians don't see weather in the high 90's very often.

Something also happened to me for the first time on Sunday. I had began to flesh out my sermon outline extemporaneously when I forget where I was in my sermon. I had to ask the people, "Now why did I say that?" And one person said, "You were talking about ..." That's the first time it's ever happened to me while preaching in Mongolia. I don't know if it's a good sign or a bad one ...

Bayambaa still has not had her baby yet. But when I talked to her recently, she said that she'd have her baby soon. Her mother came from the countryside to help her.

It's hot!

It looks like we're going to break records here. It was 99 on Wednesday, and the forecast calls for 102 tomorrow! Every place you go now is hot because there are very few places with air conditioning in Mongolia.

I had a good Bible study with Ganpurev and Ulzee on Wednesday. The whole family went and the children played while I taught. Tonight I'll be visiting Enkhee. Pray for Enkhee because he is struggling to make choices that will strengthen his faith over choices that weaken his faith.

Weather update

I usually don't give a weather update unless we are having extremely unusual weather. Here's the scoop. The average high temperature for this time in June is 69° F. Today's temperature is in the mid 90's, and tomorrow is going to be even hotter they say. I understand that the all-time high for UB is just over 100° F. We may break that!

Prayer update

Attendance continues to be good, and more men than women continue to come. One continuing improvement is in the congregational singing. We Americans have always sung enthusiastically ("if we don't, who will?"). Recently, however, the Mongolians have started to equal the foreigners in enthusiasm and volume.

It has been a while since I have been to Ganbold's place and taught a Bible lesson. I understand that part of it is because they are really busy and part of it is because they do not like the Bible lessons. I would guess that it is a combination of the two: in other words, they did not think the Bible lessons were productive enough to make the time to listen to me teach the Bible. As someone whose entire ministry revolves around the word of God, I am always bothered by young men who think it is a waste of their time to study the Bible. Because of sin, this world is a dangerous and painful place. Only a relationship with Jesus Christ brings meaning, joy, and peace to an otherwise very difficult life.

Bayambaa (there are two, this one is the newer Bayambaa) went to the hospital expecting her second child. We watched her 18 month old son all day, all night, and part of another day this week. She has been having some difficulties this last month of pregnancy - something with her thyroid. We were hoping that she would have her baby this week, but she has not had the baby yet. Please pray for a healthy baby and for her husband Mandaa to be saved.

Pronunciation guide

Someone wisely asked me to attempt to provide a pronunciation guide for Mongolian's names. I wrote a general post about pronunciation of Mongolian but doubt that it was helpful in deciphering the names in the blog. So after giving it some thought, here is the new system. Names that I leave without a hint to pronunciation are either so common (for example, Bob) or easy (for example, Mandaa) that they do not need a pronunciation guide. Some names (for example Buren) are familiar to some of my regular readers that I won't always give a pronunciation. When I do give a pronunciation, I'll include it in parentheses after the name. The dashes (-) indicate the syllable breaks and the exclamation points (!) indicate the stressed syllable(s). I try to use standard American English syllable to indicate pronunciation. It won't be exact but it will be far easier for those of you, like me, who are not linguists. So, as an example, Buren's name is boo!-ren. I'll try this for a while. Perhaps after a few weeks, some of you could give me some feedback on how it helps or detracts from my blog.

Also, look at the post below for an example of how it worked with Irmuune and Bayambaa.

Helping out ... with a baby

Sunday night, Bayambaa (bee-yim-ba!) asked us if we would watch her one year old son Ermune (ear-moon!-ay) on Monday because she was going in to see the doctor. We agreed, and Monday morning her husband Mandaa dropped him off at our house. Later that morning, we heard that Bayambaa had gone into labor and was probably going to have her baby sooner rather than later. We waited and waited for someone to come and get Ermune but in the end he spent the night at our house. As of Monday night late, Bayambaa's baby had still not been born. I am guessing that Ermune may be here for a couple of days.

Missions quote

Let people call you eccentric (because you are doing the will of God). Eccentric means nothing more than out of center, and if you have got a new center in God, of course you are out of the old center of the world. Let the world’s machinery move around the old center. You have begun to move about quite another pivot than that around which the world moves. – Keith Falconer

May prayer letter

During May we scheduled several days of special meetings. It was the first time for our fledgling group to hold anything like that. On Monday and Tuesday we heard special speakers. Then on Wednesday I shared my vision for this church.

One of my major concerns with such meetings during the week was whether anyone would attend or not. Some Mongolians work seven days a week, and all of our members work regularly. I wondered if they would let their jobs keep them from coming. I should not have wondered. Twenty-five people came out the first night and almost as many the other nights. With attendance on Sunday running about that many, I was glad to see people make it a priority in their busy schedules.

Many good things came out of these meetings. First, the people enjoyed the extra preaching and fellowship. I am certain that they are looking forward to doing it again. Also, it was a blessing to hear from several of our men who gave their testimonies during the meetings. Several unsaved Mongolians were there and heard how God drew these Mongolian men to Himself.

I gave the Mongolians my vision for our church on Wednesday night. In short, I reminded them that they are the church, and ultimately it will be completely Mongolian without any foreign help. Of course, I do not know when that will be … but it will happen. I reminded them of their opportunities to serve within the church that we have. It was encouraging that the following Sunday, Ganpurev preached in my place. When we talked about it, I told him that I did not want him to take this preaching responsibility as from me. Instead, I wanted him to preach to us because he knew that it was his responsibility from God or not to do it at all. Not by coincidence, his boss asked him to work that Sunday. He made the choice to be in church and fulfill his responsibility to preach.

For me, the short fellowship that we held on Wednesday night was the best part of the meetings. Usually, I feel as if fellowships revolve around my family. Everyone who comes knows us and the conversation seems to center on us. This last fellowship was different. Everyone worked to bring food. They all chatted among themselves and seemed less like a group of people who know the Deans and more like a church and fellowship of believers.

It is steps like these that move a group from a small gathering to a church. I praise the Lord for His presence and help during the month of May. Do not forget that your prayers are an important part of our ministry.