We are back! What an incredible trip! It is so amazing to look back on our adventure & I want to devote this blog to tell you about how this whole journey came together & what happened during the two weeks that we were gone.
God’s total provision was all over the entire process, from start to finish of this journey. He provided exactly everything we needed in His perfect timing. It has been a dream of mine for several years to visit some of the last reindeer herders in the world: the Tsaatan community in Northern Mongolia. I always thought that some day, I would take a trek to visit such a unique culture & setting, & see the untouched landscapes of wild Mongolia. While we were in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan I started to research to see if it would be possible to take a team on this excursion with me while on the race, why not right?! Not only would it be an incredible adventure, but it would be an opportunity & an honor to share the love of Christ with a people group who have never heard the name of Jesus. At the time, I was juggling teaching English, planning our Parent Vision Trip, and a debrief for the squad coming up and after an hour of researching I basically gave up, discouraged by the cost of such a trip that would not fit into our World Race Budget. If it wasn’t for my friend Shea, we most likely never would have made this trek! Here is what happened:
Typically these treks cost about $70 per person per day. After sharing my dream with one of the racers on the squad Shea, she totally ran with the idea and sent out tons of emails to guides in UB to see if we could find any way to go & see the reindeer herders. Shea researched for hours about the best ways to trek, how long we should go, the cost, etc. etc. She became somewhat of an expert on the best places in Mongolia to see, & what you need to get there. She finally found a woman who we came to know as Saraa who agreed to a price of $20 per person per day for a two week trek to see the Tsaatan community. This is still twice the amount of our daily budget, but we decided to pitch our idea to leadership at AIM anyway & they loved it! 1. A reasonably priced trek with guides to take us to the Tsaatan people: Check! We calculated that we were about $1500 short of what we would need, but during our call with AIM, two of our mentors spoke up saying that their church in Wichita would like to give us the additional money to support our trek to this unreached people group! 2. The funds to get us there without having to pay any extra personal money: Check! How the Lord provides!
Saraa told us that going on this trek would be incredibly difficult without a translator, which she could provide at $7 a day. At this point we had no wiggle room in our budget for this, but there was no way we could manage without one. We prayed for a miracle, that God would provide us the funds, or a translator at no extra cost. The very next day, Matt, Emily, & I were walking alongside a highway making our way back from the Mongolian Immigration office into the city. A prius pulled over with two locals inside who said, “would you like to hire a taxi?” We all hopped in & as we made our way into town, we got to talking about what we were doing in Mongolia. We never told them that we were in need of a translator, but as soon as they found out that we were doing a two week trek, the woman said, “I have a seventeen year old daughter who wants to travel abroad, but I think she needs to see more of Mongolia first. Maybe she can go with you on this trek? She speaks excellent english & can translate for you.“ 3. Translator at no extra cost: Check!
A week before leaving UB for our trek, my co-leader Matt visited a local church service. After the service there happened to be a presentation by the Mongolian Union Bible Society, which explained that only portions of the bible had been translated into Mongolian. It wasn’t until 2013 that a full translation of the Bible was available. After the presentation, Matt connected with the speaker & was able to get 30 copies of the New Testament translated in Mongolian for us! 4. God’s word, in a language that the Tsaatan community can understand: Check!
It took us eight whole days by horse to arrive in the Tsaatan village. We were told that we would be able to spend 3-4 days with the people there, but when we arrived we realized that with such a large group, we wouldn’t be able to stay that long. After we decided to stay just the one night, we left our teepee and realized that many of the people in the village had left with most of the reindeer to let them graze! This community had at most twelve teepees, & by the time we decided what we were going to do, there were only families of 4 or 5 left in the community for the day. We could hardly believe that after eight days of trekking, most of the community had left for our last day to visit with them. However this made our purpose crystal clear! We had exactly the right number of gifts (tea, candies, toothpaste, etc.) & bibles for the people who were still in the camp. We spent the afternoon visiting with some of these families, drinking reindeer milk tea, & giving them these gifts & bibles.
One of the most incredible things that I learned during this trek was through some of my teammates, Shea, Lauren, Emily, & Matt. They had a conversation about how they had realized how incredibly important the word of God is. God values His word so much that He brought us 14 days into the wilderness of Mongolia to simply deliver His word into the hands of people who have never heard it before. It says in Isaiah 55:11, “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” We know that even though our time with this community was short, that the word of God is alive & active, & that He is moving powerfully through out Mongolia!
I have so many stories from this wild adventure & I will leave them for another time! If you would like to see more of the photos that I took, I would definitely recommend you to take a scroll through the journal I have at this link.
On another note, I am now in the last 10 days of this World Race journey! We will leave UB on Tuesday & head to Beijing, China! I won’t be posting anything on this blog until I arrive in the United States on June 21st, since China has very strict government regulations on what you can put online. Thank you all so much for following along, for supporting me, & for supporting what God has been doing all over the world for the last 11 months! I can hardly believe that my time with this squad is coming to an end, & I am so excited to see all of YOU so soon in person!
Love,
Emily
Prayer requests:
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As you know, I will be leaving again for five more months at the end of July to lead another squad & still need to raise about $3500. It would mean the world if you would consider continuing to support me!
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Pray for the Tsaatan people! That they would come to know & understand the truth, & that the Lord would continue to send people to bless them!
The team! From the left: Preston, Catherine, Sondor, Me, Shea, Emily Spencer, Lauren, Matt, Jacob
When we first arrived at our starting point, we realized it would be much colder than we anticipated. Luckily, our guides came prepared with traditional Mongolian robes for all of us to wear while riding to the Tsaatan people. We felt goofy to be wearing these heavy jackets all the time, but we wouldn’t have been able to stand the cold without them!
Emily Spencer, Catherine, & Preston riding their ponies alongside Khovsgol Lake on our second day.
Me & Lauren on our faithful, yet slightly unpredictable ponies!
We had a total of 23 ponies, nine for our team, six for the guides, and eight pack horses. These are most of our ponies tied up for camp one night. Usually the guides would unload the pack horses so that we could set up tents. Then the guides would enjoy their tea & cookies over a fire, then hobble them or tie them to long lines so they could graze for the night.
Camp!
Three of our guides taking a break with tea. From the left: Hunda, Neema, Kevin
We arrived at the Tsaatan community on the night of the eighth day. They all live in the valley in teepees that look similar to this one with their reindeer tied nearby.
The whole team with our guides!
A local couple that we spent some time with during our visit. We stayed in their teepee! From the left: Gamba, Matt, Me, Poudaway, Shea.
The reindeer! This time of year reindeer antlers usually have fallen off & they begin to grow new fuzzy ones. This reindeer still had one antler on that will come off soon. Luckily for us we still were able to see a few reindeer with massive antlers, & lots of newborn reindeer that were small enough to be shorter than knee height.
