Mongolia Mission Trip; Part VI

We arrived at Ganah’s apartment and found the three pastors waiting for us. Nine of us crowded into Ganah’s small living room and started the “quiet time.” They began by singing some praise songs in Mongolian. Some of them we recognized. Then we had a brief time of prayer, each person praying out loud, but softly. Then, the main pastor spoke to me through the interpreter and said, “We have been meditating on the parables in Matthew 13. Please share with us your thoughts on their meaning.”

 I began by explaining the Greek word for parable, which means to throw down along side of something. The parables were simple stories with the eternal truth of God for anyone who was hungry for a word from God. Jesus said that He taught in parables so that those who had a hunger for God’s word would want more and those who did not would only talk about what a nice story it was. Then I began sharing the eternal truth found in each story.

About 15 minutes into the lesson, I noticed that Terry Taylor, who was sitting next to me with the door between us, had put his head down and was silently weeping. I did not know what was wrong, but kept going. After a few minutes he lifted his head back up and others began to ask questions and to respond to the lesson I was teaching.

After about 45 minutes of questions and discussions we sang and prayed again and concluded our “quiet time” together. Then the pastor of the main church in Choibalsan spoke to me again through the interpreter and said, “We would like for you to come and teach our church leaders, tomorrow if possible. And we want your team to conduct the service today at our church after we go out into the community and invite anyone who may be interested in knowing about Jesus Christ.” We accepted their gracious offer.

The pastors left and Pastor Amara, the Mongolian pastor on our team, said that what happened was very unusual. He said usually the Mongolians take much longer to trust outsiders. Terry spoke up and said, “I will tell you what happened. About 10 minutes into the lesson, suddenly, I felt the Holy Spirit fill the room and unite our hearts with theirs. I do not know of any other way to describe it except the Lord united us together with them. I was overcome by it and began to weep.” It was a wonderful experience that God gave to Terry and to us with them.

That afternoon about 25 of the church members met at the church, divided up into teams of two or three, and went out into the community to invite people to the service we were planning. About 4:30 PM the praise band (about 5 young people from the church) began to play and the teams started coming back, along with the people. By 5 there were about 50 people in the room, by 5:30 about 75. By the time Pastor Amara began to preach the room was filled to the back with about 100 people, 70 or more from the community.

After Pastor Amara spoke, I shared the gospel, then others from our team spoke sharing testimonies and Scriptures. David Beckett was the last to share. When he concluded it was about 7 PM. Everyone was still there. He asked for the pastors to come forward. About nine of us spread out across the front of the church. Then he invited anyone who wanted to receive Christ or to ask for prayer to come forward and speak to one of the pastors. Before the youth praise band could start playing, the people started coming forward and for the next 30 minutes we ministered to people one by one. Many of them came in tears.

None of the ones that came to me could speak English and I did not have an interpreter. They would look at me and speak in Mongolian. I did not have a clue what they were saying. I would say to them, “I don’t know what you just said, but God understood it and I am going to pray for you to be saved, or healed, or whatever the need may be in your life, to be fully met by Jesus Christ.” Then I would begin praying and they would too. What a time we had. The whole front of the church was full. Each of us pastors were praying and ministering to people.

Finally everyone was seated again and started singing. Our team left to go back to the hotel about 7:45, but they stayed. We learned the next day, that they stayed and sang for some time after we left.

The next morning, Sunday, we met with the church leaders early and taught from the New Testament words for “servant,” from the Greek. The Mongolians have a gift for learning different languages and they loved the Greek word studies. We connected. I felt the Spirit and revival just like I have in Uganda and in Indonesia. By the time church started the place was full again and with the Spirit of excitement and revival.

Our team left the church at noon to get catch the Mission Aviation Fellowship plane that was to pick us up at 2. Their church service was still in full swing when we left. They were having revival and we were grateful that God had allowed us to get in on it with them. What a time we had in Choibalsan. Next blog; the flight in the Mission Aviation Fellowship plane to the camp with the training for the pastors of the “remote” churches in eastern Mongolia.