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.