We arrived in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, about 3 PM on Thursday, August 9th. David Beckett, our team leader, had made arrangements with one of the students he had led to Christ in Korea to meet us at the train station and take us to the guesthouse. We arrived at the UB Guesthouse a few hours later. It is in the heart of the downtown district of UB (short for Ulaanbaatar). We drug our bags up three floors to an old and crowded four-bedroom, two bath apartment. Each bedroom has bunk beds. Ours is one of the smallest rooms with two bunks that fill the room except for a very small table. It is crowded with four men, four bags, and four carry-ons.
We are exhausted after three days of travel in three airports (San Antonio, Newark, and Beijing) and two train stations. The bag that I am dragging around has now been on five mission trips and I have decided it was one mission trip too many. This will be its last one. One of the little wheels fell off in Newark.
The UB guesthouse is like the train and Beijing guesthouse, full of young people from all over the world. One of the young ladies that traveled with us on the train is staying at the UB guesthouse. The Lord had given us a couple of opportunities to share with her about her relationship with Christ on the train, and how, again, at the UB guesthouse. We also were given an opportunity to share with a young couple from Holland. Over the past three days, on two airplanes, one train, and two guesthouses we have been able to share Christ with young people from at least five different nations of the world. This has been a mission trip of its own. The young people that we have been around in these guesthouses and the train easily engage in spiritual conversations.
Thursday night was a bit noisy because the guesthouse was full. Friday morning we had a worship service under a little shelter in the middle of a small park in front of our guesthouse. We were reading from Matthew 6 about how God takes care of the sparrows and the lilies, when suddenly some small sparrows flew in under the shelter with us and were chirping and eating crumbs left by someone’s sandwich from the day before. God had given us a demonstration of the Scripture we had just read. While we quietly sang a few worship songs, Terry noticed a small boy, about ten years old, in the distance. He knew from his actions (going through some trash cans) and by the way he was dressed and from the time of day (very early) that he was living on the streets. We took up a quick collection and David took it over to him.
A few hours later we were on a shuttle on our way to the airport for our flight to Choibalsan, a mining town in far eastern Mongolia with a population of about 45,000. Our shuttle would have been stopped over here for “overcrowding” but there it was okay. We were literally sitting on top of each other, but again, the Lord gave us the opportunity to share our faith with people. I was next to a young Mongolian man who had a great interest in our presence in Mongolia. He described himself as a casual Buddhist. He said that he had heard about Jesus Christ but was unfamiliar with the story of the Bible. Greg had brought several small “God Story” devices. These small, solar powered devices have a 90 minute message of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation in three languages, Mongolian, Russian, Chinese, and Tatar. We gave this man one of these devices.
After a two-hour flight we were in the eastern corner of Mongolia. I have been in places that I considered to be “remote.” Choibalsan is by far the most remote place I have ever been. If we had taken a van it would have been an 20 hour trip because most of the way there is over dirt roads in poor condition. One of the pastors had heard a rumor that there was a church there but was not sure. Our plans were to find the church if it was there and encourage them. If not, we were planning to share Christ with people for a few days and see if one could be planted. More about it in the next blog. Stay tuned.
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