This is the short story of an adventure that the Lord took me on full of growth, difficulty and excitement from Taiwan to Mongolia.

The decision and God’s provision
This all started when a leader on the base here in Taiwan came to me and told me that the SBS in Mongolia needs someone to teach a book in October. He asked me if I would be interested and/or willing to go teach in Mongolia.
My first thought was, “oh man that sounds so interesting but I don’t have the money to just fly out there to teach and secondly, what book was it that they wanted me to teach?”
My leader said that it was 1 Corinthians they needed a teacher for and I immediately was intimidated by the idea because that is a book that needs some serious study and good teaching since it is a book that covers so many issues in the church and has many controversial issues in it. (I just wanted to be able to teach it well and wasn’t sure that I was the qualified person to have teach it)

I responded by saying that I will think about it and pray about it…
I didn’t tell anyone about it but just kept it to myself and prayed about it, and after a week, I was walking with 2 friends and told them about the opportunity, about the financial inability, and the inadequacy I felt, and that God was telling me to do it anyway, so I decided at 12 noon that day to say yes and go teach in the school.
Later that day, I checked my messages, and someone had randomly deposited into my bank account all the money that I needed for the flight and accommodations in Mongolia at 10am!! I hadn’t told anyone of the trip yet at all!

God knew that I would say yes and provided every dollar that I needed 2 hours before I had even said yes! He had a plan and I am so honored to be a part of it!

That is only the start of it….

The preparation
So 3 months before the teaching, I start studying and preparing. I had a goal to read the book at least 35 times before starting to write the teaching notes and so I got to it. Each day learning, absorbing and understanding it more – along with my other responsibilities in Taiwan. It was all going great and I was continually not sure if I would be prepared enough to teach it in time. I studied the original language (Greek) and the background of Corinth and read 3 books on Corinth to gain a more thorough understanding. I read documents on the difficult passages and saw that there are 40+ interpretations for some passages in Corinthians.
God was teaching me something big and stretching me in ways I didn’t know I would be stretched.

All of a sudden I had a major emotional breakdown and seemingly crumbled into little pieces on the floor under the pressure and because God had revealed something very big about myself that I had not understood previously. I won’t go into specifics but lets just say that I was forgetting where my value came from and where my identity was. It is interesting to me to see how anyone, no matter where they are in life, can forget this. Everyone needs to be reminded of this and encouraged always in their value and identity. The laborer, the student, the pastor, the teacher, everyone. We all need to be reminded of the gospel over and over in our lives.

Anyway, in that broken place, God repaired a part of me that was in great need of fixing. I am still continually in a process of growth as we all are but throughout the stress of preparing 1 Corinthians and other things in Taiwan, I had changed so much in only a few months. I am so thankful to have had my friends/family in Taiwan to lead me and guide me throughout that time. God is so good and has blessed me so much.

I spent the rest of the time before the date of leaving to Mongolia completing the teaching and continuing to study the book to be able to communicate it well and then after even more personal growth, the date arrived and I was on the plane to a nation I had no idea what to expect in. (Except cold lol)

The Arrival and first night
So I arrive to Mongolia and as I said, I had zero expectations for when I was there and then God poured out blessing upon blessing on me.

My first night there I learned so much about Mongolia, the people and the culture there. I tried my best to learn some basic words in Mongolian and they seemed to understand me which was encouraging.
I learned that they are a young church in Mongolia with only 1% Christian and otherwise it is a Buddhist and Shaman country. Yet, those who are Christian are passionate and eager to preach the gospel to the entire nation, move to different places throughout the nation to plant churches and get the name of Jesus across the nation. It was impressive to see their strong desire to evangelize and I was so encouraged by that.

The first night that I was there, we all sat around a big table talking, and we drank this national drink that was the most different thing than I have ever tasted. The tradition is that each person drinks from the same bowl and then sings a national song of their country… lol. It came to me and so I drank the entire bowl which I found out was the first time they had ever seen a foreigner do and was very impressive to them (Also shows respect from what they told me) and then I sang “Oh Canada”.. but I am embarrassed to say that I butchered it and forgot a line lol… so it was all very funny for everyone..

The very cool thing about all this was that I heard each Mongolian person go around and drink some, and sing a different national song and everyone else joined in on the singing. They have so many national songs and they all have amazing voices as well! I was so impressed by how thick their culture was there, as I can only think of one Canadian national song but they each had a different song when they sang. So cool! (Yes I have videos too)

Dancing in the Snow
The next morning God had another surprise in store. I got to wake up my favorite way, with a snow covered ground and flakes falling from the sky! I had not seen snow for a long time so the brisk cold and beauty of the snow after living in a hot and humid climate for a long time was a wonderful blessing!
As if I had not already been impressed enough, they continued to surprise me. We went to church around noon and not only was the worship team incredible and passionate for Jesus, but after worship, they spent about 20 minutes doing a big cultural show with young men and women dressed in traditional wear and dancing national dances of Mongolia! It was so fun and amazing! I still have been watching the videos I took and cant help but have a big grin stuck on my face.

Teaching
On that Sunday night, the base leader asked me to speak the next morning in the base meeting time and then afterward we would go to the SBS classroom and have our first day of teaching. I accepted and wasn’t sure what I should speak on so I asked God and He led me to speak on faith. So in the morning we had base worship and I spoke for 20 minutes on faith and the goodness and faithfulness of God by using Abraham as the main example and hoped to just be an encouragement to the people. I also shared some of my own testimony of God’s faithfulness to me continually with regard to everything but financial provision primarily and the call on my life.
Later that day a woman came and told me how she felt like God was using me to speak to her as it was exactly the thing she was struggling with in that morning. It is always a blessing to be able to build someone’s faith up.

I began teaching in the class at 10am that morning and I think I had little to do with the teaching. God made everything come out so clearly (through translation), people understood and He just led me to speak about things that later the students told me were so growing and challenging for them. Praise God that He used me here. The other days of teaching went similarly as God changed my course and plan and had something else for them to hear specifically. We often have our plans of what we will say and how we think things will go but then God steps in and moves our tongue for us, for His purpose, not ours. How humbling, challenging and encouraging the time was for me and for the class. Each day the time was shortened due to various situations but still I was able to get through all of what I had planned and even more that had come up throughout the week. There are so many details but overall, God just came in and used me the way He wanted and spoke what He wanted to speak. What an enormous blessing.

At the end of the week, the school honored me with a gift of Mongolian chocolate, and a traditional white copper bowl that they used for the drink I spoke of on the first night along with a card and some students shared what they were encouraged and challenged by.

Adventure Preaching!
One of the days that I was not teaching, a man named Chinzoh offered to take me up into the mountains to a Nomadic area where we could preach the gospel to a small family that lived in a “yurt” (a small collapsible house). This sounded wonderful so we first spent some time at Chinzoh’s house with him and his wife and the two of us spend a bit of time praising God before heading out.

We got into a van and 5 of us drove out in the snow to find this nomadic family of 3. When we got there, they were wonderfully hospitable. They invited us in and cooked some lamb for us along with a few other things and we spent about 4 hours with them. They had a horse and let Chinzoh and I have a ride on it, and Chinzoh even rode the man’s motorcycle in the snow lol.
They had a little boy as well that was so cute as I have on my facebook profile picture now 🙂
After some time of preaching the gospel to them and spending time together, Chinzoh and I each spent some time praying for the woman and then for her husband as well. The relationship built between that family and us was growing strong and they will be visited periodically to continue growing toward Christ. I am praying that they are saved that they all will go out through Mongolia to preach the gospel and reach the whole nation with the love of Jesus!

Heading Home
The end of the trip came and I grew a huge love for the Mongolian people and their culture and their country. They were so hospitable, encouraging, teachable, loving and friendly! They are deep thinkers and passionate people who take action! I was honored to be able to teach there and to preach and just be a part of their lives for a short time.

I ate at least 10 different foods that I never ate before, saw and heard things that were brand new to me, got sick twice and was blessed greatly. God has grown me so much in this not only from the teaching and study but also grown my heart for yet another nation. Praise the Lord in everything!

They have asked me to come back and teach next year so we shall see what God has in store at that point!