Some prayer requests

Ganpurev spent much of yesterday seeking medical attention for Aya, his mother-in-law. She is not doing well. I don't understand all the medical terms that he is using, but it seems to me that the cancer is starting to severely affect the regular functioning of her body. It is a testimony to God's grace that she has been with us as long as she has. Pray with us that God would give grace to the family and peace. Also, pray for Aya to be comfortable.

Tomorrow, Enkhtuul expects a decision to be handed down from the judge regarding her husband's request for a divorce. For us who have been praying for her, it seems like the moment of crisis. Legally speaking, there is no reason that the judge should not grant the divorce as I understand Mongolian law (which is to say, I don't). Let's pray that regardless of the judge's decision Enkhtuul will have peace. Also, pray for her husband Ganbayar to desire to return to his family.

This is a quote about Great Britain, but I think it has application to most of North America which shares a common heritage with England.

"We are a nation whose ideals were founded on the Bible. Also it is quite impossible to understand our literature without grasping this fact. That is the strong practical case for ensuring that children at school are given adequate instruction in the part which the Judaeo-Christian tradition has played in moulding our laws, manners and institutions." —Margaret Thatcher

April prayer letter

I really enjoy teaching. I have taught at a Christian high school, taught English as a second language, and have taught American Literature in a college. But I love to teach the Bible best of all. Since founding the Bible institute of Faith Baptist Church, I have taught a variety of Bible institute classes. More than simply giving Mongolian Christians knowledge about the Bible, the goal of the institute classes is to impart to them a love for the Bible and a desire to pass on the knowledge that they gain to others. The classroom environment with homework and assignments also gives Mongolians an opportunity to develop self-discipline. In the end, I purpose to develop godly men who know how to study the Bible for themselves and have a desire to teach that Bible knowledge to others.

Teaching a Bible institute class in Mongolia is a challenge. It starts with materials. A teacher does not simply go down to the Bible bookstore and pick out a book. Usually, there is not a textbook on the subject he wishes to teach, because Mongolian, as a language, has few speakers. There are dozens of languages in India with more speakers than Mongolian has around the world. So while there is a growing library of theological and Bible study books available in Mongolian, it still is a very small amount. A second issue is that often books here are given one (very small) print run. Which means that once a book is sold out, there is not another opportunity to buy it. Even in cases where I have found a book that would work for a class, by the time I arranged a class and returned to buy the needed books, they were gone. That means that for my Bible institute classes, I am translating material from English into Mongolian. Diagrams, charts, maps—all of these must be recreated and translated into Mongolian.

A chart of the Hebrew calendar I re-created in Mongolian for the class

This spring, I am teaching on the life of Christ. The focus on our Savior, His teachings, His miracles that prove His deity, His substitutionary death, and His marvelous resurrection has been a welcome one. I have four books from which I am pulling material and a variety of extra materials which I have prepared and been giving to my students. At the beginning of the class, I gave them a small notebook in which to keep the material that they have collected. Recently, two of my students told me that their notebooks were almost full. In addition, they are memorizing verses every week and outlining the book of Mark as we go along.

Students of the Bible institute class

It has been gratifying to hear that students notice the amount of material that they are learning about the Gospels and the life of our Savior. Several of the students have commented that they did not realize how much there was to learn. But I am excited to know that regardless of how much they may learn from this class, there is always more that they can learn.

Sudan

One of my friends in Mongolia and a man for whose salvation I have been praying has been deployed to South Sudan as part of a peace-keeping mission. I'm not sure what part of South Sudan he is in but have heard a lot about the fighting going on there. My friend's name is Erka. His wife is a member of Faith Baptist Church.

I made a point to go and visit him before he was deployed. He listened to me present the Gospel again. He even said that he believed in God. But he still is not willing to accept that he needs a Savior from sin.

Deans' weekly update: spring tiredness

They call it "khawriin yadargaa"; roughly translated it means, "The tiredness of spring." Not everyone in Mongolia is affected by it, but it seems that most are. I would describe it as a feeling of malaise that leads to carelessness in work and family. People feel like sleeping all the time, they are listless at their job, they frequently seem to be sick, and the excuse is "the tiredness of spring." I, too, have felt it. Though in my case, I think the tiredness stems from back pain that I have been experiencing at night that has interrupted my normal sleeping schedule.

The result spiritually can be dramatic: Christians quit reading their Bible, they quit coming to church because they slept in, they are careless in their relationships resulting in hurt feelings. It is at this time that a pastor must encourage the people God has given him to be reading their Bibles daily and to be fervent in prayer. Pray for the Mongolians to be eager followers of Christ and not just call themselves Christians.

In other news, we not only had Mongolians and Americans at the Sunday morning service this past weekend, we also had a lady from Singapore and another from the Ukraine. These two ladies were friends of Enkhtuul and had come to meet her church. It was an encouraging day to realize that though we come from many backgrounds, we all serve the same Savior.

Appearances can be deceiving

Appearances can be deceiving, especially in a society that does not follow God. In many cases, there is more concern for how things appear than what they really are. Today I came across two examples in one afternoon. 

We went to visit Ganaa today. She teaches the Mongolian language at a private  high school. Her school is somewhat unusual in that mostly of the students are foreigners. For almost all of them, Mongolian is a second language. But because the school is registered with the Mongolian Ministry of Education they are required to have the students study the Mongolian language including the Mongolian Old Script. 

Her students have not been doing well. They don't study; they don't apply themselves. All of their other classes are in English. For many of them, their primary exposure to Mongolian is in Ganaa's class. Many of them do not intend to continue their studies post high school in Mongolia. So according to Ganaa when they take the tests they do not score well. 

Well, it must be that poor test scores make the school look bad. The school's headmaster recently called Ganaa in to tell her that her students scores needed to improve. He did not tell her that the students need to be motivated or must do better on the tests. Instead he recommended that she give her students higher grades. She needs to score the tests so that the students receive grades that allow them to earn a certificate even though they haven't mastered the material. The headmaster's reasoning was that the students don't need to really learn Mongolian but they do need the certificate. Appearance is more important than reality. 

We left that visit with Ganaa to see a new store. I heard that it was a wholesale store, a branch of the Nomin stores that are common in our city. Hearing that it was a wholesale store, I imagined a larger than normal store with "wholesale" prices. Because Nomin stores are often competitive with other stores already, I imagined that the prices might be cheaper than the other Nomin stores. 

I was amazed at I walked into the store. The facade out front was impressive enough, but the store extended for some distance. It was laid out very similarly to a Costco store in the United States: high ceilings, a large area of clothes and books in the center, frozen goods towards the back, items still wrapped or boxed as if in a warehouse. 

Next I was surprised to note that the prices were the same as at the other Nomin stores.  For those of you who live in the Pacific Northwest it was as if Safeway decided to open a warehouse store and copy the interior of a Costco but keep the same prices. To the American mind, it doesn't even make sense. But to the Mongolian mind it's understandable. After all, it's the appearance that matters. 

Quote of the week

"When God looks at us, He does not see us so much as we presently are as for what we can become through His work in our lives. …He may love us as we are, but He also loves us too much to leave us that way." —Gary Inrig

Poverty in Mongolia, really?

There is no doubt that there is some serious poverty in Mongolia. But I am concerned that people think there is more poverty here than there really is. Today I came home from a meeting and looked out my window to see a Hummer limousine parked below. While I took a few pictures it was passed by a second Hummer as you can see in the first picture.

A few minutes later, I went down the stairs to take a picture from another angle. In the minute or two that I was down there the Hummer limousine was passed by a Mercedes SUV. And remember, financing a car purchase in Mongolia is not as easy as it is in the States. Many of these vehicles are bought with cash.

Weekly update

The weather is increasingly warm in Mongolia. After months and months of experiencing cold, one rejoices in temperatures above freezing. Somewhere I saw a report that it may be as warm as 73 F on Wednesday, but the same place predicted snow and temperatures below freezing on Thursday. Those of us from the Pacific Northwest are not used to such dramatic changes in weather.

We had four visitors Sunday night. I received a text on Saturday asking if I would pick someone up at a hotel downtown. It turned out to be a Filipino who came to work in Mongolia. He ended up being a friend of a friend of one of our regular attenders. Also, the Filipino man and I talked during our trip to the church meeting. He gave a clear testimony of salvation. In addition, a young Mongolian man who comes occasionally came and brought three relatives with him. After I helped him this past week he told me that he would come. He brought his brother and two cousins. I was preaching on the resurrection of Christ and was preaching the Gospel. Please pray for the salvation of Mongolian men.

But not only do Mongolians need to be saved, they need to grow in steadfastness. Please pray for this.   Many times we respond to God culturally rather than Biblically. For example, many Americans attend church because their parents attended church. They have no relationship with God that motivates them to gather with His people. They attend out of cultural habit. Similarly, many Mongolians only visit a Buddhist temple or go to see the shaman when they have a difficulty. They end up treating God the same way: they only attend church when there is some difficulty. Breaking the pattern of thinking that one need not attend church when things are going well is part of our work here. It's work that we are privileged to have but that we need the power of God to see progress.

How about you? Do you maintain a religious front because of cultural pressure? Do you long to skip a church service but worry that someone might call you to ask what is wrong? Do you attend out of a sense of duty? Examine your own heart and see if your relationship with God needs to be strengthened!

Small victories

Sometimes it's the small victories that encourage us.

This past week, Ganpurev and I met with another church member to pray. At this prayer meeting this church member mentioned that he had another engagement on Sunday that would keep him from church. Some fellow parents at his children's school had signed him up for some sort of sports contest and he wouldn't be able to come to church.

Ganpurev pointed out that by baptism and claiming to be a follower of Christ, this member had signed up to be at church. And I added, I would immediately sign him up to serve on Sunday morning. Actually, this fellow already has a place of service every Sunday but has often been careless and not fulfilled that role.

It's Sunday morning, and I just heard from this man that he will be at the church meeting and in his place of service. Praise the Lord! I know this means that he will disappoint others who were expecting him to be at the sports contest. I also know how difficult it is for him to disappoint people. But I would rather he disappointed people to please the Lord. I think the difficulty for him is that people are so close and sometimes the Lord seems so distant.

Pray for these Mongolians to take seriously their commitment to Jesus Christ.

Apatheism

"Giving the impression that you believe in God but don't care much about Him is not only the supreme insult to God, it is the supreme failure of love and friendship." —Gary Inrig

Are we telling our family, friends, and neighbors about Jesus Christ?

Mongolian ice

I was driving along the river bed that forms the boundary between my district and the next district to the west. It is often a dry river bed in the fall and is always a frozen river bed in the winter. Spring and summer, there is usually a little water flowing through it.

I noticed as I was driving by it today that the ice has not yet melted from winter. So I took a few pictures. I would estimate that the ice was about a foot and a half thick. And it's April 12!

Deans' weekly update

Have you ever had first-time visitors come to your all-church cleaning day? We have an annual tradition of an all-church cleaning day the Saturday previous to Resurrection Sunday. This past weekend, my family and I were a few minutes late to the cleaning day and were surprised to find that we were the first ones to arrive. We even arrived before the watchman who lives on the property; we teased him later that traffic made him late.

When Ganpurev came he brought with him his sister, brother-in-law, and niece to the cleaning day. It was the first time that they had been to a church gathering. They returned the next day for our Resurrection Day services. Ganpurev’s sister and niece are in the city seeking medical treatment. Please pray for their salvation. Their names are pronounced Boy•nah (sister), Bold (brother-in-law), and Buy•rah (niece).

I wish I could tell you that we were bulging at the seams on Sunday with people standing outside the door or even listening in at the windows which would be something amazing to see since the auditorium is on the second floor. Significantly, we did have two new families at Resurrection Day services. I don’t know if it was the eagerness to preach well or the weight of the day on me, but I did not speak Mongolian well on Sunday. I was too self-conscious about speaking the language well, I guess.

In the English service, the choir did a good job with their performance except for the soloist. He struggled a little on the first verse before the choir joined him in the chorus. Other than that I was pleased with the music. It has been such a blessing and a help to have the Ritchie family assisting us this year. He was responsible for all the music both at Christmas and Easter.

Quote of the week

Sorrow and grief replace my bliss,
I have no wish that any joy should be,
I have no room for any thought but this,
That I have sinned, have sinned, and grieved Thee.

—Jonathan Goforth

Building a missionary-minded church on the mission field

A great tragedy is occurring among churches around the world. The tragedy is that churches are not supporting missionaries. I am not talking about churches in the United States. I am talking about churches planted on the mission field who do not support missionaries.

I was at a missions conference while on deputation. It was a dinner along with the pastor and another missionary. The pastor asked us when we thought it was appropriate for a new church plant to take on missionaries. Specifically, he wondered if it was possible and appropriate for a new church to take on missionaries before it could fully pay. The salary of a pastor. The other missionary mentioned that if the church followed a faith promise missions model, the ability to pay or not pay a pastor's salary was irrelevant. The people could give their tithe to the church and give to faith promise missions. I thought that was a good answer.

But when I first began gathering people on Sundays I forgot that conversation. Initially, we did not even take up offerings. My missionary partner and I paid the cost for everything. This continued for a year or so until that partner left and I partnered with another missionary who wanted to take an offering. He was right. But I still could not shake the feeling that these people were too poor to give.

Then I met Bill Patterson, my fourth partner in ministry. As an aside: the fact that we had four different partners in the first five years of ministry should illustrate that missionaries do not stay very long in Mongolia. After our first two I warned our third partner that it seemed that as soon as we teamed up with a new missions team partner, they left. Sure enough, within eighteen months of that partnership, that family had to leave Mongolia for medical reasons.

But back to Bill Patterson—he grew up on the mission field of Mexico when there was serious poverty. Some of the people to whom they ministered where extremely poor. But his father had a policy of encouraging people to tithe. They saw how people in deep poverty sacrificed to give a tenth to the Lord and how God blessed them. He encouraged me to place a greater emphasis on Christians giving at least a tenth and more to the Lord.

Bill was also the one who urged me to support our first missionary: Jim Peterson in Ghana, West Africa. He said every church should support a missionary! And he was right. So the church began to send monthly support to the Peterson family. About that time, the church needed new chairs. A church in Spain joined with a church in the United States to provide chairs for the church. It seemed to me a direct confirmation that God blesses churches that support missionaries.

I also emphasized tithing more. Yes, these people are poor. But before I was doing them a disservice by neglecting teaching and preaching on the issue. After all, we serve a wonderful God that could take five loaves and few fishes and feed five thousand. He is a God that wants to bless those who give to Him. He said, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." He also commended the Macedonians who gave in their deep poverty. So I preached on tithing, taught on giving to God, and urged them to show their faith in God by giving joyfully to Him. I have been glad to see God bless them by providing liberally for all their needs.

Still, I also wanted to implement faith missions giving with a Mongolian missionary whom we could support. Speaking frankly, it was not easy to find a Mongolian with similar doctrine and a heart for missions whom we could support. One fellow went to a town not far from the city to start a church. I waited a few months to see if it would last. I regret to say that it did not. He moved back to the city.

About a year later, I finally found a Mongolian man and his family who had left the city to go to a small village and work with an American missionary who was planting a church there. When I had him in to speak to the church they were all blessed by hearing his passion for Mongolians to reach their own people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I had found the man.

So a month or so later, I mentioned to the church that we would be supporting Erdenebileg regularly and encouraged them to pray about what they could give each month to missions. The next week I taught, or so I thought, on giving to missionaries above and beyond our tithe by faith. At the end of the lesson I asked if there were any questions. No one had a question. Good, I thought.

I passed out some sheets asking the Mongolians to commit a certain amount each month to Erdenebileg. Immediately, some one had a question. Remember, when I had just asked if there were naysay questions no one had any. Now that I was asking for a commitment there were questions. The Mongolian said he thought that we would just take the money for Erdenebileg's support out of the general fund. No, I responded, I want each family to bear the responsibility of giving to missions. So I told them to take the paper home and pray about it that week. The next week we started taking two offerings. One offering was for the general fund. I instructed the Mongolians to give their tithe in that offering. The second box was for the missionary. I instructed them to give their pledge to God for missions in that offering.

One by-product of faith promise missions that I was not expecting was church members now talk eagerly about the day when one of our own church members will go as a missionary. They are supporting a Mongolian directly and through that have seen the possibility of a Mongolian going as a missionary. We have not yet sent out member of the church but look forward to the day when we will.

Bible institute class

I've been teaching a Life of Christ Bible institute class and have had five faithful students. Baysaa and Ganchimeg recently mentioned to me that they are learning a lot in the Bible institute class. "We didn't know that there was so much to learn about Jesus' life," they told me. Really, I've not been able to get as detailed as I would like to do. But I'm glad that the students are learning from it.

Deans' weekly update

This Sunday is Resurrection Sunday, commonly called Easter. Unless, of course, you are Greek Orthodox in which case you will be celebrating Easter on April 15. You didn’t know that there was a difference between Western Christians and Eastern Christians about the proper date for Easter? Well, it has to do with the Julian calendar … oh, you say, you don’t want to know the details. All right, then …

I was talking just this week with a man whose job involves organizing elaborate meals at hotels and restaurants. He says that most of those who attend his meals are expatriates, foreigners who make Mongolia their home. I thought that was curious because Mongolians enjoy eating as much as anyone. But he pointed out that Mongolians do not like to plan ahead. His meals are so elaborate and often involve special foods that he brings to Mongolia. (By the way, I have never attended one of these meals because they cost more than $50 per person). So he must have a count of how many people will attend ahead of time. Mongolians, he said, like to decide the night of the meal that they will attend which is too late for him. So his meals are mostly enjoyed by expatriates.

I tell that story to explain the reason that we have waited until this week to start inviting Mongolians to the Resurrection Sunday services at Faith Baptist Church. This Saturday Mongolians will have a day to clean the church building and invite the neighbors to our services. Last year, we had 16 visitors come to join us on Resurrection Sunday.

The English service has already begun inviting folks to our special Resurrection Sunday service which will be held at Millie’s Restaurant as the Christmas service was. We have a choir of six members, a choir director, and our pianist Kristie who have prepared special music specifically for the occasion.

Please pray for these events and our witness to others. This Sunday should be a time of joy as we remember the resurrection of our Savior.

a couple of prayer requests

I would like to mention several prayer requests for those of you will read this blog regularly. First of all, we are planning another special service like the one we conducted at Christmas for Resurrection Sunday (Easter). We are planning to have it at Millie's as we did at Christmas but seem to have run into some miscommunication. I am still awaiting final approval (which I thought I had) to have the service at Millie's Restaurant. Pray specifically that Densma the co-owner would grant her permission for us to meet at Millie's next Sunday.

Also, Kristie has not been sleeping well. Please pray for her to sleep at night.