Weather in Mongolia

I have not updated you on the weather in Mongolia recently. We have had very pleasant weather since our arrival: not too hot and not too cool. But cold weather is already coming. This week temperatures are predicted to be below freezing at night, and forecasters are calling for snow before the end of the month. It makes growing anything outside difficult here in Mongolia because the frost-free days are so few.

Quote of the week

"America's Founding Fathers knew full well the kinds of troubles experienced by ancient Greece and Rome [where republics were first founded]. They knew how fragile [a republic] could be. A lady once asked Benjamin Franklin after the Constitutional Convention had drawn to a close what he had given the nation. The old man replied, 'You have a republic, madame. If you can keep it.' The founders knew that keeping a [republic] is often more difficult than starting one."

—Arthur W. Hunt III in The Vanishing Word

Rain from above

We appreciate rain here in Mongolia because it is a dry country. But we do not appreciate rain inside our apartment which is what happened this morning.

I had been up for some time, had finished my devotions, and was preparing to leave for work. Before I left, I choose to check my water meters since the water meter reader would be coming any day to ask for the readings. For some time as I finished my devotions and prepared to leave for work, I had heard water running, but I did not think much of it because we often hear the water running.

But minutes before I would leave Elsie pointed out to me that water had begun to run down from the corner of the kitchen. Soon we had water dripping from all over our kitchen and living

room. In some cases, the water dripped directly on the plants which meant that they would need no watering that day. But it was also "raining" on the piano, piano books, pictures, and stereo. Charissa and Elsie assisted and we began bring out pots to catch the water, move delicate items out of the way, and mop up the mess that had already been made.

I went up stairs to talk to the neighbors. Some pipes below the sink had become disconnected and flooded their entire kitchen and living room area before flowing down into our apartment. Wow!

They soon had the water stopped but not before some damage had been done to our apartment. I posted a picture of the most heavily water-damaged corner.

Weekly update

We are so grateful to know that you pray for us. Without the help of God our ministry in Mongolia is vain. Let us spend extra time looking to Him this week.

A praise: the English service on Sunday nights has been packed out. This past Sunday we had 45 people in attendance. There were only two empty seats in the whole place. I had the opportunity to preach for which I was grateful. The Pattersons returned last week, and Bill will start preaching again. We are grateful to God for their good help.

First prayer request: we will be having a church business meeting of sorts with the Mongolians to remind people of their responsibilities. While many aspects of the church ministry went well while we were away, there are some programs that need shoring up. Also, I want to present some new possibilities of ministry and challenge the church to continue to move forward.

Second prayer request: Kristie continues to spend a significant amount of time feeling ill. There have been several and various viruses and germs making people sick in UIan Bator just like there is sickness everywhere. However, Kristie has had something that has been lingering for some time. Please pray with us for substantial relief and strength for her.

Work begins on the interior

They began work today to build walls in the interior of the building. Those of you who are planning to come and help with construction work in the future: don't worry. We will leave plenty for you to do.

Quote of the week

"When in our churches we have money, we have what money can do. When we have education, we have what education can do. When we have culture, we have what culture can do. When we have organization, we have what organization can do. When we have size, we have what size can do. But when we have prayer, we have what God can do."

Weekly update

To those of you who faithfully (and maybe not so faithfully) pray for us:

Some of you may wonder a little bit at this week's greeting. It is not intended to be an insult to anyone. I am well aware that some of you intercede for us; you spend much time each week lifting up us and our relationships to the Father. To say that we and those Mongolians who are impacted by God's power are eternally grateful is no exaggeration.

But I also know that some of you may only be curious about our ministry here. My intuition tells me that some may even be a little skeptical: perhaps you disagree with my method or mock my results or question my sincerity. Whatever brings you to read this update, welcome! May God use this update to inspire your love for God, increase your love for souls, and instill greater interest in Central Asia.

Sunday night after a long day of ministry, I thanked the Lord for His goodness in letting me minister in Mongolia and asked Him to take my human efforts done for His sake and multiply them. In other words, I considered my ministry outside of my family to be done for the day. We locked the front door and began to spend some moments together as a family before retiring for the night.

There came a knock at that door. One of the children going to check the door thought it was Buren. She called me, and I went to the door to talk to Buren. Only it was not Buren, but a fellow that I met once on the stairs of our building. I believe that at the time he was casing our apartment building looking for things to purloin.

To make a long story short, he had come to my place to ask me to forgive him for stealing a Bible several years ago when he had visited my house. He admitted that he stole it to sell it for money. He then stated that he needed help. It seems the police are looking for him because of his involvement in crime. He also tells me that he wants to be saved ... from the police, it seems. Despite meeting with him three times in the last three days and presenting the Gospel clearly multiple times, he tells me that he does not want the salvation from sin that God offers because he is afraid that he will be forced to turn himself into the police.

He was waiting for me this morning when I left for a meeting with another missionary. I truly wish that I could help him, but he does not seem to want the help that God offers. Please pray for me to have wisdom to deal with these difficult situations. One never knows whom one will meet when he goes out his door in the morning.

Praising God for His goodness and His wonderful works to the children of men,

Scott Dean

Interesting article

My friend, Dave Janke, who serves in British Columbia sent me this article about Mongolia. It seems that there is some xenophobia here.

I was talking with an expatriate yesterday and was able to quote the verse: "The heart is deceitful about all things and desperately wicked." In some respects, people are the same everywhere.

Quote of the week

We look back upon history, and what do we see? Empires rising and falling. Revolutions and Counterrevolutions. Wealth accumulated and wealth disbursed. Shakespeare has written of the rise and fall of great ones, that ebb and flow with the moon. I look back upon my own fellow countrymen, once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world, most of them convinced, in the words of what is still a popular song, that the God who made them mighty, shall make them mightier yet.

I've heard a crazed, cracked Austrian announce to the world the establishment of a Reich that would last a thousand years. I have seen an Italian clown say he was going to stop and restart the calendar with his own ascension to power. I've heard a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin, acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as wiser than Solomon, more humane than Marcus Aurelius, more enlightened than Ashoka.

I have seen America, wealthier and in terms of military weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put together, so that had the American people so desired, they could have outdone a Caesar, or an Alexander in the range and scale of their conquests.

All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind. England part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running our of those precious fluids that keeps their motorways roaring, and the smog settling, with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam, and the victories of the Don Quixotes of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate. All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind.

- Malcolm Muggeridge

...and I helped him carry his bags to the far side of the street

This is going to be an unusual post. I don't plan to give you the actual names of people involved to protect their confidentiality. So I'll give them Western names: I'll call them Jack and Bill. And the second unusual thing about this post is that it actually happened several years ago. It has taken me a while to publish this post.

Several years ago, Bill, a member of Faith Baptist Church where I serve, was caught in public sin. When confronted he initially appeared to reject counsel but within a few days made the right decision.

Not long after those events, Bill came to my house bringing Jack. Jack is a Christian that I have known for some years but is not a member of my church. He attends another church one of the largest and most well known congregations in my city. On a Thursday afternoon Bill contacted me asking if he could come over to my house. I was planning to make a visit Thursday night but was able to re-arrange my schedule so that I could meet with Bill. When Bill came over on Thursday night, Jack was with him. Jack and Bill visit my house a couple of times a year. Usually, there is some Biblical topic of discussion that gives me the opportunity to teach.

On that Thursday evening we talked until after 9 o'clock but not about anything important. Jack told me that he had a girlfriend and that he had not been planning to come over that night; however, when he and his girlfriend argued over her plans for school Jack stormed out and ran into Bill. Bill who was coming to my house suggested that they both come over together. So they did.

We talked briefly about his girlfriend whom I had never met. (Let's call his girlfriend Sandy). Then Jack said that they should go and suggested that we pray. We prayed about some needs that they mentioned. As soon as I said, "Amen," Jack said, "There's something else I want to tell you. I've been living with my girlfriend ..." This statement started a discussion that went well into the night about a Christian's walk. His said that his girlfriend was a Christian, and they moved in together initially because they both needed a place to live, etc.

Though it was already late this led to a long discussion about what the Bible says about marriage and purity. Jack readily admitted that what they were doing was wrong and wanted advice on what he should do now. I told him frankly that he needed to at least live apart from his wife, refrain from any intimate activity, and ask the forgiveness of his girlfriend Sandy and his parents (who are not saved) and Sandy's mother (who also is not saved). I told him that because he continued to live in sin he was hurting the his testimony. This was the reason that he should approach his parents and Sandy's mother (her father has passed on) and admit that he was not living according to the Bible.

In the end, I offered to meet with him and his girlfriend. He said that the two of them could meet me on Saturday. He then went back to the apartment that he was sharing with his girlfriend and told her that they would have to sleep in separate beds without telling her anything else.

On Saturday night, I headed over to the apartment that he was sharing with his girlfriend to talk to both of them.

Every couple my age and younger in Mongolian that I have met and become acquainted with in Mongolia has lived together before they were formally married. Usually, a couple will live together until the woman becomes pregnant at which time they will get married.

Jack and Sandy were no different. They admitted that what they were doing was wrong but made various excuses. It was obvious that Jack was trying to soothe his conscious through a variety of stratagems. He and his father had asked for Sandy's mother's permission for Jack and Sandy to marry in September. In November they had announced to their friends that they were engaged to be married. Then since the Thursday night that I had approached them they had been sleeping apart but in the same apartment. It was obvious that they both felt guilty about what they were doing and were looking for ways to assuage their guilt without actually living apart.

Cultural, it is very appropriate to spend the first ten or fifteen minutes in light conversation even if both parties know exactly why they are meeting. (It used to be a real burden for me to talk for ten or fifteen minutes about nothing of consequence when there were bigger topics looming on the horizon.) After the initial small talk we came back to the reason that I had come over: what were these two Christian young people going to do. I expressed it this way to Jack: "Are you completely convinced that living God's way is best or not?" We kept coming back to this over and over that evening.

Jack first told me a well-known Mongolian joke about an alcoholic that goes to alcoholic rehab for treatment. After a period of treatment the doctor comes in and says, "You're cured. Now don't drink any liquor for 56 days." To which the recovering alcoholic responds, "Can I drink beer?" When I heard the story, I understood the Mongolia cultural milieu in which the joke was born. If I cannot have whisky, can I drink beer? Jack then proceeded to suggest that he could sleep on one side of the room and Sandy could sleep on the other. I laughed out loud at first both at the ridiculousness of the concept and because I thought Jack was trying to be funny since his suggestion came immediately following the joke.

We dispensed with that possibility rather quickly, and I think it is superfluous to the story to explain how I dealt with his idea. Suffice it to say that both of them quickly realized the impossibility of maintaining their Christian testimony and living in the same apartment. I pointed out to them the need for Christians to "flee youthful lusts," not merely find ways to accommodate them.

His next objection was that people would misunderstand why he had moved out. They would think that he and Sandy had quarreled and think that their engagement was off. I went back again to my initial question: "Are you completely convinced that living God's way is best or not?" I stated that all his objections could be overcome if he truly trusted that living according to God's word was best.

He had other objections: where would he live? - I told him he could live at my place if he really needed a place; what if their love for each other waned while they lived apart? - I asked if their love was really that weak.

Then I went back to my original question, "Are you completely convinced that living God's way is best or not?" When they finally agreed that God's way was best, I asked them what that admission meant. How were they going to live out what they knew was God's best for them? People around the world are the same: we can easily fall into the trap of admitting truth but claiming that it we are somehow the exception to the rule.

Jack suggested that he needed to move out.

"When?" I pressed.

"Soon"

"Why not tonight?" I asked.

This led to another round of conversation. I won't bore you with the details, but in the end Jack and Sandy agreed that he would move back in with his parents. I watched as he packed his things and then helped him carry his bags to the far side of the street to catch a taxi.