New births for the new year

Every person is different. God’s grace is sufficient for all, but man’s response to God’s grace—and I believe that God calls for a response from man—is distinct for each individual.

The first time that I met Burnee (pronounced Bur·nay´) was at our church’s summer camp. She came along with her two children as a guest of Gantuya (pronounced Gone´·toy·aa). We encourage visitors to come to our summer camp where the preaching is directed both to the saved and the unsaved. It is a friendly opportunity for new people to meet us; and it gives us an opportunity to spend some extended time with our new acquaintances.

But visitors who come to the camp do not always return to Sunday services. Visitors are not uncommon at our Sunday services—October 10, 2010 was a big day for visitors; but visitors that come back several times are unusual. The reasons for this are many.

So I was excited to see Burnee continuing to come to Sunday services after attending camp. Because our goal is always to see the entire family saved and growing, after the service one Sunday I told Burnay that I would like to meet her husband. It was not more than a Sunday or two before she came with her husband whose name is Battulga (pronounced Bat´·toll·luck). When she introduced her husband, I told him how happy I was to meet him. He was very quiet and seemed almost eager to avoid talking to me.

After that service, I told them that I would like to visit their home. Visiting people in their homes provides me an opportunity to talk privately with them about their faith. They are more open to asking questions and expressing disagreement which gives me an opportunity to overcome obstacles with Scripture. Also, they are more frank about their spiritual attitudes. I have observed that such open conversation enables the Holy Spirit to pull back the veil so to speak through the use of Scripture to answer their questions and overcome their objections.

They said that they would call me when they had free time and promptly disappeared for several months. It would not be the first time that an offer to visit someone in their home scared them from coming back to the service. But I was disappointed: here was a visitor who had almost become a regular attender who suddenly quits coming after I meet her husband and suggest visiting their home.

After many weeks, Burnee showed up again one Sunday with her husband. She explained that her husband and she had been working all these past Sundays and that they still wanted me to come to their home. By now, it was early December which is always a busy month in any church ministry. We made an appointment for a Monday night (one of the few open nights in the month of December for me, it turned out).

They had specifically requested that my wife come, and my wife and I decided that we would take our entire family on this visit. Battulga & Burnee lived across town. I have visited that side of town but do not know its landmarks as well as I know the landmarks on my side of town. Because Mongolians do not talk in street names but landmarks, that meant that I was at a disadvantage in finding the proposed meeting place. I will not bore you with a call-by-call account of my vain efforts to locate the place where Battulga was waiting for me. We both struggled for about an hour: he to describe over the phone the place where he was waiting for me and how to get there, I was struggling to understand where he was.

He would say, “Do you know this place?”

I would respond, “No, but I know where this place is.”

To which he would respond, “Yes, but that is not where you want to go.”

It took about an hour for Battulga and I to find each other. I finally asked him to meet me at the biggest and most well-known landmark in the area which he did walking through the cold without complaint holding the hands of two pre-school children in order to come to the landmark that I knew.

He then got into our vehicle and directed me to his ger. It was in a place I never would have located without his help.

We had a very pleasant visit at their home. They fed us large amounts of delicious Mongolian food, and their ger, like most gers, was warm and cozy despite the freezing temperatures outside. After the meal I brought out a Bible that I intended to give to them.

They very eagerly listened to a presentation of the Gospel. I have rarely had Mongolians listen so eagerly to a Bible teaching on the first visit to their home.

We agreed that I would come back to teach another Bible lesson on the Sunday after Christmas. They would come to church service on Sunday; afterward I would take them home and teach another Bible lesson in their home.

I was not surprised when they did not show up on Sunday. So many times just as I feel as if I am beginning to get traction with a couple, I get stuck in the mud. Relatives had come from out of town and prevented them from attending the church service.

But I saw them on Friday night at the New Year’s Eve service when they made an effort to comeout even though they live so far away. They seemed very happy to attend the New Year’s Eveservice and said that they would be at Sunday’s service. We arranged for me to come over after the service on Sunday.

So this past Sunday found me at Battulga’s ger eating buuz & salad and talking more about our great Savior. I try to be thorough in my presentation of the Gospel. We had started in Genesis and worked our way to Ephesians 2:8-9. I was using the Scriptures to show that we are saved by faith when Burnee interrupted with a question, “But what do we have to have faith in?” It is so exciting when the Mongolians are asking the right questions!

Such an excellent question leads back to Jesus Christ. I taught them that as many as believe Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God. I showed them John 3:16 and explained that whosoever believes in Jesus will not perish (the wages of sin) but have everlasting life. I explained it about three times and different ways how faith is the key ingredient to our salvation. God has already provided His Son Jesus Christ to be the propitiation for our sins. Now He calls us to believe in our hearts that He raised His Son from the dead.

In the end they both professed to put their faith in Jesus Christ. I visited them again today (Tuesday) with Ganpurev. As far as we can tell they are sincere in their faith. What a fantastic way to start the new year. Please pray for these two to grow in their faith.