One last post

After eleven years of focusing on ministry in Mongolia, we returned to ministry in the United States in August. It has been a transition for us. I think my wife and children have transitioned to the United States much easier and quickly than I have. In many ways, I still miss our ministry in Mongolia.

This week, Kristie and I are visiting Mongolia. I have several opportunities to preach and many opportunities to meet with our friends in Mongolia, both nationals and foreigners. Among these opportunities are many incidental chances to minister. I am writing this at the offices of FirstBible Mongolia and while writing this am assisting with translation questions about the Mongolian Bible translation. I miss these chances to work with the translation work.

Faith Baptist Church of Ulaanbaatar is doing very well. Kristie and I are confident that the church is doing well. The Mongolians are basically doing all those things that we were doing before we left. Ganpurev preached an energetic and Biblically sound sermon yesterday as he has always done. His teenage son did an excellent job leading the children's class.  There was a good spirit among the people of the church.

I will be updating my blog for the brief time that we will be in Mongolia. That will probably be the final time that I will be updating my blog.

Thank you for your faithful prayers for the Christians of Mongolia. May God bless each one of you in your places of service.

No Competition in Foot Washing

some more prayer requests

I talked to Ganpurev on the phone yesterday and wanted to update you all on how they are doing.

The Sunday service was well-attended. It's their first Sunday without me in several years. I think that the church will do just fine. However, we need to continue to pray for their growth and that they would reach out to others. Ganchimeg mentioned at prayer meeting last week that they hope to reach out to their neighbors in the area immediately surrounding the church. We have had activities to reach out to the community previously, but such outreaches were initiated by me. So it is particularly encouraging to me to hear that the Mongolians comprehend their responsibility to preach the Gospel to their neighbors. I am convinced that they will do a better job than I did of presenting our Savior to their fellow Mongolians.

In family news, Ganpurev said that Ulzee is out of the hospital and doing better. But Aya has been doing poorly. She has been on morphine for some months now. The news Ganpurev had for me was that Aya is in a good deal of pain even though she is taking powerful painkillers. There are several other indications that Aya's health is deteriorating. So pray for Ganpurev and his family as they care for Aya.

prayer request

We have returned safely to Oregon and are currently staying with Kristie's parents. We will be here until we can find a place of our own.

I heard from Mongolia that Ulzee, Ganpurev's wife, is in the hospital. She's had some problems like this in the past. Please pray as it is evident to me that God is already allowing their faith to be tested. You can expect updates at this blog as they become available.

Picture of the week

Bro. Delaney, Baptist World Mission field director, me, and Ganpurev before the service on Sunday

pray for us

We find our time in Mongolia rapidly coming to an end. Our items to be shipped back to the United States were taken from us today. Our tickets are for next Monday's flight. By this time next week, we will be in Seoul, South Korea. Lord willing, by next Wednesday we will be able to see those of you at Westgate Baptist Church.

Just this morning, Bro. Delaney, Baptist World Mission's director for Asia, and his friend, Ronny Marino left Mongolia. We had a wonderful visit with these two brothers in Christ. They were able to meet several of the church's Mongolian families and the fellowship was so encouraging to all of us. We only wish that they could have stayed longer.

Kristie has had trouble sleeping. There is certainly some amount of stress and tension whenever one makes an intercontinental move. That is part of it. Now today they took our bed to be shipped to the United States. I suspect that it will be hard for her to sleep in our temporary bed. Please pray for Kristie to sleep well.

Living with another family's stuff

Our neighbors bought our apartment, and we are preparing to move out. But our neighbors had to move out of their apartment before we left ours. So they asked us if they could put some boxes in our entryway. Feeling sorry for them, I agreed that they could. 

Have you ever heard the parable of the camel who put his nose in the tent? Well, I should have taken that lesson to heart.

The next day they asked if they could put a couch and a TV stand in our house. But we ended up with a whole lot more than a couch and TV stand. So now we are sharing our apartment with many of our neighbors household items. I've included a picture of our living room filled with stuff.

I've highlighted my office in the corner (ringed in red). I'm trying to maintain my work while working out of a literal cubby-hole. We leave in nine days so I hope to have a regular office soon.
Keep praying for us.

Quote of the week

"To be broken means to have no rights before God and man. It does not mean merely surrendering my rights to Him but rather recognizing that I haven't any." —Roy Hession

Deans' weekly update

What a week it has been! Last week, I wrote to ask you to pray for the shipment of our items to the United States. I had contacted five shipping companies. But as of last Tuesday when I wrote that, I only had an offer to airfreight some of my items for an exorbitant amount or to ship by ocean freight to Seattle. From there it would be up to me to move my items through customs and to collect my household goods. I asked you to pray. I, too, was praying that God would lead me and give me clear direction by last Friday.

Thursday, three companies contacted me. I followed up with them, and it worked out that one of the companies would ship our things by ocean freight all the way to Portland. They also claimed that they could pick up those items in the next week or two.

Today (Wednesday) they came by to create a packing list. That involved weighing all the items and coding them. They are now working with Mongolian customs agents to export our household goods out of Mongolia. Please pray that everything would go smoothly and quickly. In two weeks time, Lord willing, we will be with you.

Which leads me to remark on a Biblical understanding of prayer; that is, our prayers do not change God, our prayers change us. Last Wednesday when we prayed, we did not alert God to a situation with which He was unfamiliar. Nor did we convince Him against His will to help us. Nor did we change His all-knowing, perfect mind. Rather, God knew all along about the timing of this shipment. He allowed the companies to delay and delay until I finally asked you all to pray. Once we agreed in prayer about this subject, God had aligned our wills with His. With our wills now aligned with God’s, God acted. And now He gets the glory for arranging all the details.

Recently, I read this verse in my personal Bible reading: “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.” What a promise! Within that verse is also a command to glorify the Lord. So join with me this week in praise God for His goodness and thank Him for answering our prayers.

Picture of the week

Many of you have been praying with us for Aya. Kristie and I visited last Saturday and took this picture while we were there.