Deans' May prayer letter

The diversity within any given church is amazing to me. God has given His gifts and set the members within the church as it pleased Him. While I am away, Faith Baptist Church in Mongolia is discovering some of those gifts among the members.

This spring Bill has been teaching a beginning Greek class. There are ten people who are regularly attending. The church member who has been most eager to study Greek is our oldest member: Tsendee. (To pronounce a semblance of his name say “to send day” really fast with the emphasis on “day.”) He has taken to studying Greek as a duck takes to water, I have been told. The best student is Ganpurev’s son, Bilgoon, who is only 13 years old. I am glad that he is attending the Bible institute classes with his father and excited to hear about these Christians developing their talents for the Lord.

Bill and I would like to see the Greek classes continue in next year’s Bible institute in addition to other classes that I would like to teach. It will benefit the Bible translation effort to have Mongolians who know Greek and later, Hebrew.

I have observed that you never know what God will use to bring glory to Himself and conform His children to the image of His Son. Several years ago when my pastor visited us in Mongolia, he purchased a ping-pong table to give to the church. That gift has become a focus of church fellowships. Most Mongolians thoroughly enjoy table tennis with a passion that I have never seen in the United States. It is not unusual for people to stay late fellowshipping in order to have an opportunity to play a few games of table tennis.

Tonga, Dashka’s wife, is a lady for whom we have all been praying. She had her stomach removed because of cancer last summer. When I recently asked her husband how she was doing emotionally, he remarked that she talks as if death would be better than life. That is a terrifying thought for a woman who is not yet reconciled to her Creator. Continue to pray for Tonga’s salvation and for Dashka to have the love and wisdom to break through his wife’s depression to bring her to the Source of our hope and joy: Jesus Christ.