Introducing Erdenetsetseg and Bat-Orgil

In this post I am introducing two of my students who are seeking your prayers and support and want to share what they are doing. I will let them speak in their own words:

Greeting from Mongolia!

Hello, My name is Bat-Orgil. I am 26 years old. I live with my wife and a son. My wife’s name is Erdene-tsetseg. We study at Union Bible Training Center in Mongolia. We are both 4th year students this year. We live in the student dormitory of UBTC. We were married in 2011. And we had a precious son in June, 2013. Now he is 8 months. We take care him while we are studying.  That is a big job. We are studying full time, taking care of him and writing thesis.

We received Christ as Savior when we were teenagers. While we were studying at Bible College, we understood God’s calling for our family. Our family’s life goal is to live for God’s glory with our time, talent, life and everything. So because of that we are studying at Bible College in order to serve God’s people. God reveals His will through His word to us. Studying the word of God is a precious and important thing for us.

We go to the “Root of blessing” church. We are doing teens' and worship ministry at the church.

We are sharing our life, ministry and situation here and asking for your support.

Our prayer requests:

We want to finish our race faithfully

For College tuition fee and living expenses

For our son’s health

For our ministries

5 Points for Prayer

1. As those of you following Rachel on Facebook will know, we received our Alien Residence Cards this week. Contrary to what I had understood, they are valid only until mid April, as they are tied to one aspect of  the College's registration. Essentially this means that we are only currently guaranteed to be able to stay here until mid-April, at which time our registrations and permissions will need to be re-processed so that we can stay longer. Of course, this was the situation 6 months ago when we had to leave. The general atmosphere of registrations and permissions seems better at the moment, but obviously we don't want to be forced to leave again in mid-April

2 . As our last newsletter spoke about, I have quite a teaching load at the moment, around 14 hrs face to face a week. It take me at least 16hrs or more to prepare for those lessons. It also involves teaching a Hebrew exegesis subject which I am enjoying, but Hebrew is not a strong suit in my myriad languages. Another one of these subjects is a left-over from my incomplete last semester, and it takes considerable time to prepare (New Testament theology). It is scheduled to finish up in a few weeks before our Spring Break. But it will be replaced with a 4hr a week evening class for the second half of semester. In this regard you might pray for general endurance and ability to get my work done and not be overburdened.

3. We are involved in two churches here, an English-language and a Mongol-language church. Our English language church is currently in the process of re-registering. As you might have gathered, all this registration is burdensome and uncertain for practically every organisation we know of. We serve on the steering committee of this church, and registration at this stage is vital in order to issue a visa for a full time pastor who is scheduled to come. As a number of key leaders are leaving shortly, we would very much like this to happen so as to avoid me becoming some kind of de facto pastor of the church!

4. In March I will accompany a team of students from the college on a mission trip to Zabhan province. I am looking forward to the gospel being preached, believers being encouraged, and students engaged in ministry. I am nervous about a 10 day trip in the countryside living 'Mongolian-style'. It is well out of my comfort zone and dietary practices. Pray for God's sustaining grace, provision, and protection.

5. Lastly, and related to point 2, I am not only a full-time teacher here, but I am also a PhD student. So it's incumbent upon me to make steady and faithful progress in my research, which happened while I was back in Australia, but certainly I've achieved nothing in the last 2.5 weeks here. Please pray that I can carve out solid and sufficient time, and have very good mental focus to do some very solid research this semester, as I am at a point where some good forward progress and written material needs to be made.

~ Seumas

Returned to the land of ice

Yes, we are back in Mongolia.

After a fairly (relatively speaking) straightforward flight to Korea, hotel stopover, and flight to Mongolia, we were landing on a clear Saturday afternoon with the sun shining and the temperature in the negative teens. We had some apprehension about having only a document assuring us we would receive visas, but it turned out to be a straightforward process and visas were speedily placed in our passports!

And the first new thing to notice was that the conveyor belt for luggage has been upgraded in the airport. Modern living! We picked up our luggage and then headed out to be met by our friend Puje. He is the one whose son has ongoing health issues; the two of them had been in the US recently and the prognosis is looking good that one day his son might give up his medication and live a 'normal' life. Praise God.

It has been a busy week for me (Seumas) in particular. We had a very warm reception at both of our churches on Sunday, especially at our Mongolian church, which was very nice for us.

On Monday things were a little bit quiet. I went to visit the college but Monday is rest day so zero people were present. We also went to visit our Mongolian teacher, which was a good reconnection.

Alas, in the difficulty of getting into our apartment on the Saturday night (one lock had been changed and we had two sets of keys and didn't realise that the lock had been changed so it was confusing), one of my bags had fallen to the ground. When I opened up my tablet on Monday night I realised that the screen had been shattered quite comprehensively. Actually the touch screen still works, but the glass is cracked all over. I have some moderate hope of getting it fixed here but it seems unlikely. Also a tap stopped working so we had to get a building plumber to come and look at it. And my monitor didn't want to talk to my computer (we at least fixed this with a new cable). Lastly my printer doesn't like windows 8 and so now I have to print everything through Rachel's computer. Many frustrations!

On Tuesday I was straight into work. I discovered just half-way through the flight, in Korea, that I have to teach the second half of a course from last semester. Also I have to make up about 3 weeks of missed classes. So this week I taught 14 hours of class.

Also on Tuesday we went out to Immigration with the college secretary. This was to file our registration. It used to involve fingerprints and photos, but ours are on file, so it kind of went quickly, except that we didn't have all the right documents.

Then on Wednesday it was determined that I also need to have some medical tests for my work permit! So the secretary met me at school and we went off to a Mongolian district hospital. I was quite dubious about this. It was very crowded. Once we arrived she phoned a nurse she knew. Then the nurse led us into another building and we queued for some blood tests. They only do 50 tests or so each morning, and if you don't get a number, too bad, unless you are pregnant, or a foreigner with friends. Mongolia is definitely "who you know". I was quite pleased to see a needle come out of a sealed bag so at least there is some chance it was fresh and I won't die of blood-borne diseases. Then we had to go back to the main hospital building for an x-ray. A similar system seemed in progress but I was taken in as the last person of the morning to get an x-ray (at 9:30!)

Also I am scheduled to go with some students on some kind of mission trip to the North west. I don't really know anything about this yet. I suppose it will become clear-ish in due course.

On Thursday the Dean of Students approached me and asked if I could preach Friday chapel. So that was another thing to be done. Fortunately I was preparing to preach on Sunday and work through a sermon that I had previously done and connected with material I taught in class this week. I never enjoy preaching through a translator but it is the only way. Also there was some misunderstanding about one of my classes, so I had to teach a class (Ezra-Nehemiah) unprepared on Friday.

Then we had church music practice. Music practice is often preceded by choir practice so I inadvertently joined the choir! Musical instruction in Mongolian is an interesting experience. Rachel also came and sang. Band practice followed choir practice so it was about a 12hr day at college.

In other college news, there are some financial issues for the college at the moment. Please be in prayer for these. If you would like more details, email me.

Saturday we had a committee meeting for the International church. Since we left the country right after we were asked to join the steering committee this was actually our first time at a meeting.

And that's a week back in Mongolia! It's cold (below -20 most days), the air is very bad (I am wearing a mask to and from work), the people are pleased to see us, and life is busy like everywhere.

~SM

Returning to Mongolia, shortly

Sorry for not writing for a while. It has been an enjoyable summer here. We spent two weeks in Port Macquarie and surrounds over Christmas with Rachel's family. This was a good time for relaxation and reconnection. Since then, Rachel has been spending her days at an English language college in the city doing her teaching prac (and trying to resurrect her Mongolian with the Mongolian students there and not getting very far), and Seumas worked on a tan down on the south coast for a week. But now he too is back to doing important things like reading and writing and preparing lessons.

The latest news from Mongolia is that our visas have been approved. In fact, according to the documentation I have, we are able to get them at the airport on arrival. This seems unusual, but the documentation is very clear on the matter! So we have booked tickets and leaving on the 7th. We have already missed several weeks of semester, so there will be classes to make up indeed. This semester Seumas has the following subjects:

• 1 & 2 Peter (Greek Exegesis)
• Amos (Hebrew Exegesis)
• Ezra-Nehemiah
• Church History 4BC - 1052 AD (seems a strange year to stop, though I suppose it does relieve me from teaching the ins and outs of the filioque controversy!)

Also he is slated to go on a short-term mission to western Mongolia with the second-year students. Adventurous times!

Our apologies to any individuals we haven't gotten around to see. We have tried! Over the next few weeks we will be, as you can imagine, a little on the busy side. But not too busy we couldn't squeeze in a few more hang-outs.

We will be having a low-keyish sending-off service at Lane Cove Mowbray Anglican on the 2nd of February. You could come to the 10am or 6pm service to join with us; both will involve some commissioning of us as well as hearing me share from 1 Corinthians 12.

Please pray for:

- preparations for return

- settling back into Mongolian life, relationships, and ministry

- faithful and fruitful service

- the inevitable sadness of change

No news is no news

We've been back in Australia for over a month now, and are enjoying our time here, with plenty of opportunities for time with friends and family.

There has been not much news from Mongolia. The college has not been successful in re-registering at this time, and from our perspective not much can go forward for us until things go forward for them.

Visa News...

So this morning I spoke with the principal of our school here. The school itself is having a number of problems with its registration with the government and has been unable to have itself re-registered at the moment. This is causing a number of problems for the school itself. It seems like they will be getting a lawyer involved and wrangling with these issues.

For us this means that the end of the month is approaching and it will not be possible for our permissions to be extended. Technically we overstayed our last visa and paid a fine for this, and so today it was decided that we'll leave the country for a minimum of 3 months, after which time we will need to reapply afresh to return on work visas. We've been told that, in part because of the overstay issue, that during this time we won't be able to reapply to come back on other visas.

So as of the 30th we'll be saying goodbye to Mongolia for a little while. We are obviously disappointed to be leaving in this manner at this time. Particularly it will be difficult for the students at the college - I'm leaving three classes mid-semester and it's very unclear exactly how those courses will continue. For us there is the frustration of leaving on very short notice, the disruption to building relationships and strong connections here, interruptions to language-learning, and a sense of uncertainty about the future plans.

However it is not truly that great a hardship for us - we go back to a beautiful, rich country where we have many friends and family, and are well-supported, and look forward to the opportunity to return here shortly. So don't feel too sorry for us! Instead please be especially in prayer for the college and for our brothers and sisters in this country. The college in particular needs to find ways to go forward and overcome these bureaucratic hurdles.

College Picnic - Autumn edition

Today we had the college picnic for semester. We headed out to the same location that our church held our summer camp. Checking the weather forecast, it was 2 above, -2 with wind, when I left home, with a promised top of 11 and a 40% chance of rain. Not a great forecast for a picnic.

The way these things go is that I turn up at college and wait for people to tell me what's going on. So I turned up early, and ended up in a microbus heading out to Gachort, and we were there before 10am. It was indeed chilly. Others arrived over the next two hours, and proceedings began at midday. 

We started with some singing, including songs with actions lead by students wearing onesies. So bizarre. Anyway, then we had a short sermon from 2 Tim 4, it was intelligible to me and quite on target. Then we had a time, well, I need to go back to explain the next part. Students have been assigned other students to secretly encourage and leave gifts for, over the last few weeks. So today what happened (as I can figure), is that students lined up at the front with gifts, facing towards the stage, and then students who had been their encourager came up and stood behind them, then the first line of students would turn around and see who it was and give them a gift in return. Alas, some students were not at the picnic, and just the nature of running such a line up as well, meant that some would turn around to no one.

After this we had lunch. Mongolian food is not my favourite. Nonetheless, we divided up by year group and I joined in some lunch with my students. They always worry that I do not eat enough. Partly it is because I eat so little in general, and because I have breakfast unlike many mongolians. Still, we got through lunch and enjoyed our fellowship.

In the afternoon there was some playing of basketball and football. Also some organised games. One of these involved bible charades. And then there was a race by year group, with each person's leg tied to the next person's. Also there was what I would call a bush dance. Very similar to the heel-and-toe.

There were some falls

Bush Dance time!

After this there was more free time for the playing of basketball and football again. As you can tell these are critical sports here. Finally we wrapped up around 4:30 with a group photo and the drive home (which was surprisingly quick).

I always find these types of events interesting, because I am literally the only foreigner present. It serves both to remind me of how foreign I am, but also that part of me is localised. I am accepted and brought into local ways. And our unity is not in my mongolian language skills, but in Christ.