What a rollercoaster it has been already. After spending a few hours navigating the streets of Brooklyn, passing out on a flight to Beijing (that was re-routed for a few hours), barely making the flight to Ulaanbaatar, and then quickly purchasing water to rehydrate us from the past 50 hours of traveling before catching a bus to drive us six hours to our final destination…man…it was quite the journey.
How grateful I felt to finally put my bags down in one place for more than a few hours.
My team was greeted by lots of unfamiliar faces trying to feed our exhausted bodies. There was soup (the first bowl of many to come in the following days), candy, soda and little dough balls. As grateful as I was for their hospitality, I was even more grateful to be sitting in the place the Lord had assigned us, regardless of how tired out of my mind I was.
We were quickly cultured with a warm welcome to our humble abode for the next week, a ger. You might be more familiar with the term “yurt.” It’s basically a large tent with a door. All of the girls (there were six of us) stayed in one together, and the two boys joined two YWAM missionaries in another. It was quite the experience. It was fun, hard and very very wet. My teammate, Emily, and I slept on the ground and the other four took the beds that lined the walls. It’s still up for debate whether the beds or the floor were more comfortable (haha).
Luckily, the view made every “hardship” fade away. Our gers overlooked the entire town that resided in the beautiful countryside. Every morning we got to wake up to God’s masterpiece. Pretty incredible.
Our ministry schedule was as follows:
7am – wake up and spend time with Jesus
8am – get picked up (give or take a few minutes, I’m convinced the U.S. is doing it all wrong 😉 ) & breakfast
9am – worship, prayer and commission
10am to late afternoon – hit the streets with a group or maybe just a Mongolian that may or may not know any English – it always made for a good time
Then we’d evangelize and pass out invitations to the tent revival the church was putting on in addition to the book of Mark. It brought me to tears almost every time a man, woman or child would hear the gospel for the first time and invite the Lord into their life. So cool.
Sometimes it wasn’t cool though. I’ll just say…you never know what situation you’re about to walk into when a Mongolian opens their gate to their backyard. I’m definitely considering being a full-time vegetarian. I’d love to be that missionary that is strong enough to embrace all aspects of every culture and have a smile on their face. Unfortunately, I wasn’t blessed with that gift. I’m learning it’s okay to have limitations as long as you have a good heart and work hard to please the Lord. #prayforBai
At some point in there we’d eat lunch, and at night we’d meet back up to have dinner at the tent followed by a service or the actual tent revival itself.
The tent revival was INSANE (in the best way). There was dancing, a concert, clowns, the Extreme Team, preaching and even a raffle! It was very cool to join alongside a church that has such radical faith and believes in sharing the good news in everything they do. It challenged me to question why I’ve been so hesitant to give sick people the cure in the past. They made it look so easy despite the rejection that came alongside the victories.
I know. You’re probably thinking…that was all done in less than a week? Yep. The Mongolians waste no time. And now we’re in a different city about eight hours away wondering what ministry will look like for the rest of the month. It’s nerve-wracking and scary while exhilarating all at the same time.
These are just the highlights of ministry, however. Stay on the lookout for my next post to see how I’ve failed, how I’m struggling and how you can partner with me in prayer.
He’s doing good things friends.
-Bailee
