Picture of the week

It has been too long since I sent out a "picture of the week." I wish I would have kept up with it. I am going to make an effort this spring to send out a picture nearly every week.

This week's picture focusing on the lunar new year holiday that Mongolians call Tsagaan Sar (or White Month). It is about 3-5 days - in the city, at least; countryside events last longer - of eating, seeing family and friends, and generally having a good time. Check out my blog and search "lunar new year" for more details.

In the picture Kristie is delivering the traditional greeting (which even has its own name) to Sol, Ganaa's mother. Younger people are to put their arms underneath the arms of their elder and ask, "Are you peaceful?" Sometimes the younger person gives the older person some money. The celebration started on Wednesday this year, and we have a few visits on Saturday that should wrap it up for us.

Early morning prayer meeting

Today is the first day of the new year according to the Mongolian's lunar calendar. They even have a special name for it, "Shinii Negen," which means "first of the year."

Many Mongolians will go to their local ovoo or special high spot to be there when the sun comes up. They do this because they believe that it will bring them good luck in the coming year. One particular spot is considered to be very lucky if one is there when the sun rises on the first day of the new year.

As Christians we wanted to do something different. We don't worship the rocks or false gods at special high places. But we want to honor the Creator of the heavens and the earth. So we decided to meet before the sunrise and spend time in prayer.

When we started it was still dark and cold outside. When we finished the sun was shining although it was still cold. It was time well spent praising our God, thanking Him for His goodness, and asking for his blessing on our lives and church for the new year. We need more prayer.

Bilgee's excellent devotional

Bilgee works at a company that has Christian founders. So several times a week the company gathers for a short Bible study and time of prayer. Recently, Bilgee was asked to conduct one of these Bible studies. He came to me to ask for advice.

He did most of the work, but we met three times for a total of several hours to prepare his Bible study. He chose to teach on James 4:1-3.

He did so well that when he prepared to close in prayer the other employees asked him some questions and suggested that he continue to teach. He said that the Bible study was very well received and that the time of prayer following was more fervent than normal. I was glad to hear that God blessed.

Bilgee said to me, "I prayed a lot and I prepared well and God blessed." I told him that is the key: prayer and preparation. Recently, Bilgee has seemed to be experiencing a spiritual growth spurt after many long months of spiritual stagnation. Please pray for his spiritual growth spurt to continue in his life and for God to bless the ongoing result of his Bible study.

We all need revival. Pray for it.

Sunday update

It has been a hard week. (Mongolians consider Sunday to be the last day of the week and Monday to be the first day of the week.) I came to Sunday morning after a long Saturday - two trips to the airport and an emotional, multi-hour meeting - wondering how I was going to make it through a Sunday.

But God blessed with grace and energy. We had 27 Mongolians, and with the return of the Pattersons there were another 13 Americans for a total of 40 people at the morning service. Both Ganpurev's preaching and and mine went very well. It seemed evident to me that the Holy Spirit was helping us.

In the evening we had 36 which is almost double the recent attendance numbers. There were quite a few visitors, including several people who had flown to Mongolia to celebrate Tsagaan Sar with their families. Bill Patterson's preaching was a blessing to me personally.

Thank you for your prayers. Despite my lack of human energy, God provided the strength and language ability needed. There are still many pressures in this coming week, and the missionaries in Mongolia continue to need your prayers.

Tsagaan Sar starts Wednesday which means lots and lots of visits to Mongolians' homes. There should be more posts than normal in this coming week as I blog about our Tsagaan Sar experiences.

Trouble cropping up everywhere

One thing we've experienced in the ministry is times of quiet and times of increasing stress. Right now seems like one of those times of increasing stress. We are grateful for all of you who pray for us and need your prayers especially during this time.

Bob has taken a step background, going out with drinking buddies this past week, and coming home drunk and in a nasty mood. A lady in our church who is estranged from her husband added a new wrinkle to her problem this week. And that doesn't even mention some of the greater burdens that we cannot share right now.

But we know that God is good, that He never leaves us or forsakes us, and that all these outward trials are but for a moment.

February prayer letter

A missionary has several goals for his ministry. One is the salvation of souls through personal evangelism and the public preaching of the Gospel. He has a goal of training the believers under his influence to be disciples of Jesus Christ. Another, often over-looked responsibility of the missionary is to encourage other Christians to consider what God's call is for their lives and to inspire especially young people to give their lives for Christian service.

It is for this reason that I urged two young men to join my family for nine months in Mongolia. I wanted them to experience missionary life in both glory and agony. Many young people have a chance to take a missions trip that lasts two weeks or perhaps a month. But that is much like going on a honeymoon with your wife. Of course it is a great experience! Everything is new, there are plenty of things to do, and the time is well-organized. The first month of any trip can be thrilling simply because it is an adventure. However, once the adventure wears off, the disillusionment sets in.

I wanted them to try their hand at learning a new language, one that was not an Indo-European one. I thought they should experience riding a bus with a hundred other people some of whom may be pickpockets and petty thieves. It would be good for them to shop by themselves in exotic bazaars and eat unusual foods and smell strange smells. They might find themselves challenged spiritually in conversation with people from diverse backgrounds. Most of all, I knew that only time would give them the opportunity to know the homesickness and help of God, only months would acquaint them with the frustration of language immersion and the fruition of laboring over a difficult tongue, only a long period would reveal to them the slow, brick by brick effort that is needed for a new work in virgin territory.

Yes, it has been hard. There have been those picked pockets and deceitful deals. Cynicism, discouragement, unfulfilled expectations, failures, grumbling, heartache, illness - all these have been met and conquered through the power of God's grace. I am sure that there have been times when they would have preferred leaving to staying. They still prefer using English to Mongolian. But they are learning and growing and understanding more and more. When they go to Bible college they will not just discuss what they think about missions, they will talk about what they experienced as ambassadors of the King of Kings in a strange land.

They have seen a habitually sinning church member almost come to church discipline before repenting and being restored. When a man for whose salvation I had been praying and working for six years was saved, they witnessed it. They have observed me preach with confidence in Mongolian and stumble to speak it at a restaurant. Thrilled, they found they could share the Gospel in Mongolian remembering grammar and vocabulary they had forgotten that they had learned. Frustrated, they have asked a language classmate to come to church again and again only to hear some new excuse with each Monday morning. Language learning has perplexed them and winter winds have assailed them. They have observed the baptism of first generation believers and watched disappointed as promising young believers leave.

While in Mongolia, they have taken turns with our children to wash the dishes. They have learned to wash, dry, fold, and iron their own clothes. They have learned to make meals and eat new foods. Missionaries have shared their hearts with them and missionaries have separated from each other while the young men have observed. House fires - they have extinguished them.

One young man came seriously considering the mission field and may leave convinced that has not the skills to be a good missionary. The other young man came to see a novel land but was planning to study engineering; he leaves wondering what God's call on his life is ... exactly. Both may end up missionaries or neither may ever leave the United States again (though I hope that is not true). But I am confident that God has used their time in Mongolia to conform them to the image of His Son.

Their time in Mongolia has fulfilled three Biblical commands. First, they have fulfilled the Biblical command to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. They have left behind family and friends to go to the ends of the earth. Second, we are told to pray that the Lord of the harvest will send laborers into his harvest. I have no doubt that their prayers for missionaries will be more fervent and more intelligent because of their time in Mongolia. Third, we are told to teach people to observe all things that Jesus commanded us; they have seen it in action and had it happen to them.

To me, their time in Mongolia has been an unparalleled opportunity to have a part in crafting young lives for Jesus Christ. I would be thrilled to see them study missions at Bible college and give their experiences to others. If God calls them to missions, they will be far more prepared than I was and far more focused in their studies before entering the mission field no matter in which country they may eventually serve.

Prayer meetings

We meet each Wednesday to pray. There are a handful of us who do so. We spend about 5-10 minutes in a very brief lesson on prayer, another 10-15 minutes discussing the prayer requests, and then about 35-45 minutes in prayer. 

The discussion of the prayer requests gives us the opportunity to discuss the most Biblically

 appropriate request. Sometimes we will even talk about a Scriptural promise to claim.

But the core of the evening is prayer. It has been rewarding to watch as the Mongolians learn to pray. Remember, many of these people know nothing about Biblical prayer. They often start

 with simple requests: asking God to bless a marriage or to save a loved one. As they spend more time meeting to pray they meet together to pray the more they begin praying Scripture back to God.

Recently, we have been focusing on asking for the power of God to work in Mongolia. There are so many needs here; we are completely aware that we can do nothing in our own strength. So we have begun to pray for a greater outpouring of God's power to be visible in our ministries.

Another cold weather update

I mentioned yesterday that we had a cold front move in. The high on Saturday was -13° F and this morning when I checked it was -36° F. I hope this will be the last cold, cold weather of the year.

One last cold spell

We are hoping that this latest cold weather system is the last one for this winter. The Mongolians are happy because many of them are making their Tsagaan Sar buuz and freezing them. How cold is it, you ask? Well, the weather station says that it is -33° outside right now. The high on Friday was -2° F. I doubt it was that warm today.

Quote of the week

"Lord, I give up my own purposes and plans, all my own desires and hopes and ambitions, and accept Thy will for my life.  I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee, to be Thine forever.  I hand over to Thy keeping all my friendships; all the people whom I love are to take second place in my heart.  Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit.  Work out Thy whole will in my life, at any cost, now and forever." – Elizabeth “Betty” Stam

We know that at a young age Betty Stam gave up her life for the cause of Christ.

Weekly update

God continues to bless us with visitors who come to our service. This past Sunday about three quarters of the way through our service a visitor came in. I found out later that her name was Gerlay. She has been attending the kingdom hall of Jehovah's Witnesses which is right next door to our church. She saw our sign and decided to come in.

After the service she talked to Kristie for a long time. She was impressed that the service was in the Mongolian language and asked Kristie more than once, "Do I have to learn English to study the Bible?" She says that at the kingdom hall next door they kept pressuring her to learn English.

We put both a Gospel of John with an explanation of the Gospel and a substantial Gospel tract in her hands for her to read at home and encouraged her to come again. Pray that God would continue to bring us visitors.

Quote of the week

Regarding preaching, one man said this:

"The man who feels he has arrived generally has not. Frustration [in the pulpit] has its benefits if it deals with pride which, according to Spurgeon, is the greatest danger in the pulpit and has felled many an occupant."

Technology and missions

A little more than two hundred years ago, William Carey left for India. It took him months to sail from England to his destination in India. Correspondence could take months. 

While on deputation we talked with missionaries who had been in Brazil in the 1950's. They could only call home once a year because it cost so much.

This past Monday morning we spent about an hour with our church, Westgate Baptist Church, using the internet to not only talk to the church but also to see and hear them. They were able to ask questions, and we were able to give immediate answers. All this cost us no more than the price of our monthly internet service which we had been using anyway.

The technology available to us today makes the whole world seem closer. Several years ago when my grandmother died, I was able to fly home to be with my father and family during our time of grief and then return to Mongolia and only miss a single Sunday. One hundred years ago, I would not even have received notice of my grandmother's passing until months after the memorial service.

These uses of technology allow us missionaries to remain an integral part of our churches and communicate regularly with our prayer warriors. However, the temptation is to think that technology will one day replace the men and women whom God leads to foreign countries. People on the ground ministering directly to other people can never be replaced by a face on a computer screen.

One of the reasons for our church's intense interest and unflagging prayer support for us is that we spent four years ministering in that church before beginning deputation. We formed friendships and impacted individuals such that now when we are thousands of miles away, we are remembered.

Yes, technology is a great tool when used correctly. But as long as our Lord tarries, missions will always require men and women, families who are willing to live in a different culture, learn a strange language, eat unusual foods, and be a light in dark places.

Weekly update

We need a nursery schedule! That may not seem like something exciting to announce, but to us it represents growth in families with children. Sunday there were nine little children under the age of four in the morning. After the service Kristie talked with several Mongolian ladies and starting soon we will have our own nursery schedule. It will be good for these Mongolian ladies to have opportunities to serve.

Pray though for Mongolian men. We had several ladies come Sunday without their husbands even though a couple of the husbands claim to be saved. Some of the husbands say that they are too busy with work to come; some were just not there. I am a firm believer that a church is not founded on women and children but is founded on families that are led by spiritually mature men. We need more of those kind of men.