9 days 12 hours and 1,000,000 memories later...

Greetings from D-7...

We just returned from our final Mongolian meal. We had a group dinner with members from Eternal Light Wesleyan Church. We actually went to a Mongolian Barbeque, much like those in America, but this one claimed to be the original (founded in 1206).

But before I go any further on that, let me update you on our last two amazing days in this wonderful country. 

Eternal Light Wesleyan Retreat Center in Gachuurt:

Though our hearts are longing for home, we had an incredible time at the men's retreat in Gachuurt, and today at the two church services we were a part of.  Starting Saturday morning we traveled out to Gachuurt with Geelge and Belgel (who was to be our translator), Belgel was a real answer to prayer. He had spent a few years working as an english translator for a local Christian TV station, and was very very good. 

Once we arrived we got a plan together and headed down to the river to spend some time swimming with the men of the Gachuurt Church. 

Towards the end of the time at the river our group was confronted by a group of drunk locals who wanted to fight. Apparently they didn't like outsiders using the river by their town. They accosted our translator Belgel, trying to make him say things to us, but he was unwilling, which angered them further. But lucky for us, Tapa one of the elders of the church talked to them and they quickly became apologetic. Thank the Lord we avoided a minor international incident. 

After the time in the river we returned to the church and played some basketball with the Mongolian Brothers. It was fun, though we proved just how out of shape some of us were. 

After playing for a  while we had a late lunch of mutton, rice, and root vegetables. 

Then Mike and I taught about Christian brotherhood, and relationships between men. 

After teaching we went back outside and had another meal of a great beef soup and rasain tea that we each had tons of. Then we played volleyball till it was too late to see, and went inside to teach further. This time Dan taught on the different stages of a man's development and how they effect his relationship with women. 

After the teaching we all were quite tired and went to bed. We had a limited night sleep, but were ready to get moving in the morning. In the morning we enjoyed some time with the men, and a nice breakfast. This was followed by preparations for the morning service in Gachuurt. Dan was going to be preaching both here and in Ulan Bataar as we felt the spirit moving for Dan to share the same message to both groups.  The people and service in Gachuurt were really amazing, prayer was a really unique time, and we took time to share testimonies. Really powerful time. 

Church in UB was also a blessing. We enjoyed some great singing and prayer time. We had a chance to share our testimonies and also bring greetings from our friends back at SLWC. It was a very moving time, and Dan again preached on the same topic, which was very well recieved by the people in attendance. 

After the service everyone wanted to take pictures with us before we headed to dinner. In particular we wanted to take a picture with Geelge, Pastor Naara's husband. He had been by our side throughout the week, and truly exemplified the servant leader. What a great man of God. 

We left the church with Geelge and met Naara and part of our work crew from the week at a "Original" Mongolian Barbeque...very good meal, lots of fun laughs and a great way to end our journey with our new Brothers and Sisters from Mongolia... We exchanged gifts with our hosts and parted ways with many new friends, memories, and examples of Christ's servant heart. 

So in 7 hours we'll board a plane here in Ulan Bator, then fly to Seoul (about 3 hours), change planes and fly to Chicago (about 13 hours) then change planes and fly to Grand Rapids (about 28 min). All told we'll be traveling for about 24 more hours, and then home. Its been an amazing journey, and we've really appreciated all the support and prayers by our family and friends. 

We're about to wrap up our debrief process and look forward to sharing with each of you the many things that God has done in each of our lives....

We'll list a few final things to pray for over the next day and a half as we journey home:

1. A successful finish to the debriefing. 

2. Safe, speedy, and uneventful travel.

3. Each of us would be able to sleep on the plane as planned (we're pulling an all-nighter tonight, in an effort to get readjusted to home quicker). 

4. That we'll be able to process what God has done in each of our lives and make effective changes to our daily walk where needed. 

more from the road home...

Dave

Head'em up and Move'em out...

Its early Saturday morning, and we're a few hours away from moving into phase 2 of the trip. Last night we wrapped up all but about 2 hours of work at the Building 28 apartment. All the windows have been set, their new marble sills are in place, the furniture and trash has been removed, and the bathroom is completely torn back to bare concrete and ready for the Sumpters to have tile installed. 

We spent most of Thursday on our own as our Mongolian Brothers and Sisters were spending the day with a Korean team that has been in country at the same time we were. This gave us some good time as a team to really focus on our projects and laugh a lot about how helpless we really are. We also ended up having to re-cut all of the marble window sills ourselves, as it seems some of the measurements were "lost in translation".

Friday we had our team of helpers back including another Mongolian sister who had great english skills. Her name was Deborah and her english was excellent. Between her and Ingke we were able to communicate just about anything with just about any one. Most of the day was spent moving old furniture out of the apartment, plastering the window surrounds and setting the new window sills. It was a long day of work, but good to see some tasks comming to fruition. 

After we finished up we went to dinner with Ingke and Deborah, then had them lead us on a quick shopping excursion to the "Black Market" for some suveniors for our families. The black market was pretty crazy, pretty much the worlds largest flea market but with all new stuff for sale. Anything from Levi's to China to burlap bags could be found there. 

Today we're heading back to the apartment this morning for some finishing touches and then around noon we're off to Gajuurt (pronounced Got-jurt) for the men's retreat today. We'll be teaching and sharing with the men, and also preaching at the church in Gajuurt on Sunday morning. 

After that we'll drive back to UB and preach at Eternal Light Wesleyan in the afternoon and then continue our debrief process. 

Here are the current needs from a prayer perspective: 

1. That we will continue to have energy and health.

2. That we'll be in tune with the holy spirit for what God has for us to share in Gajuurt. 

3. That our travels to and from Gajuurt will be safe. 

4. Protection for our families at home. 

5. That we finish strong!

More later,

Dave

 

More updates...as the days move on...

So its Thursday morning and I wanted to publish further updates on our goings on for Wednesday and Thursday. We're doing pretty good. We're pretty deep into the rennovations. Here's a quick overview of what we've been up too, along with some great stories.

First we've had the most awesome group of helpers from the Church! They just rock. They have show us how to remove paint in record time from a ceiling. They also have taught us a lot about humility, having a servants heart, and faith beyond compare.

We also have been show how much we need to rely on God. A number of times we've had to deal with "renovation issues" that have required a lot of reliance on God.

One of the areas God has gone beyond our expectations is in translation. We found out early on Monday that translators were going to be a problem for most of the week. We were blessed to have one of the women of the church who understands a good bit of english (Ingke) to join us on Tuesday and she has been a Godsend. Each time we need to go shop, she will go with Geelge and two of us, and we are able to communicate through her for most of what we need to figure out.

So as for rennovations I've attached a couple "before" pictures and some "in progress" pictures. We have all the new windows in, and are working on finishing them, which involves building up the concrete and plastering around the seals of the windows. We also are going to begin renovating the electricity today, which should be kinda interesting. Also today we're going to be continuing to rebuild the bathroom. We're having to fix a good bit of the concrete with fresh mortar, and then hope to try to put in tile tomorrow if possible.

Funny story, we ordered new marble window sills on Tuesday, which was an experience in and of itself. We were told to return on Wednesday to pick them up around 4:00pm. Mike, Ingke, Geelge, and I went to the construction district to pick up the sills at the appropriate time to find out that they hadn't been started. We went with the "owner" to see the "factory" where they were making them. We followed them up a couple of alley-ways to a couple one room marble cutting buildings. Once we arrived construction began and we spent the next two hours drawing and helping in the making of the sills. Amazing to watch the Mongolian craftsmen work and craft with limited tools. They produced good results. At some points in the process Mike and I were pretty sure we were about to start an international incident and that one of us was going to end up on the marble saw. They weren't particularly happy about us watching, and intervening...at least until we brought them some bottles of water from a nearby shop, then we became the "cool americans".

Because of the length of one of the sill's Mike and I got to carry it home to Building 28, about a 15min walk. We got some great looks, I'm sure the folks looking at us funny were thinking...Gee didn't they see the truck drivers that you could hire for that?"

After we got back, we joined Geelge, Ingke, and the rest of the Mongolian brothers and sisters for a Wednesday evening prayer service. What a wonderful time together. We shared about who we were and spent some time singing praise and worship together. It was a great time and allowed us to meet some more of the Eternal Light Wesleyan church body. After church we shared dinner with the group and it was great. Mongolian traditional foods that are much like Russian and German foods. Lots of meat and potatoes...Midwest eating at its finest. And just so you get a sense of the difference in $$$ we fed 17 people last night for about 45.00USD. Yup, you can barely feed 4 in the US for that, and the food was incredible!

So with that I'll close, and will add more either tonight or tomorrow. Continue to pray for our health (a few of us are dealing with some intestinal issues). Pray for our progress on the rennovations. And pray for continued preparation for the men's retreat.

More later...

What an amazing couple of days...

Greetings all. Its about 9:00pm on Wednesday and thought I'd try to post some about what we did the past couple of days. I'm doing Sunday and Monday tonight, and will add Tuesday and Wednesday tomorrow morning. (also will add pictures from Monday tomorrow morning).

Sunday

We awoke early and enjoyed a quick breakfast and a cold shower (later in the day we found out the hot water is more reliable late at night). We met with Ewen and his family at 9:00am and set out for church at one of the sister churches (Eternal Pillar Wesleyan in the city of Nalik sp?).

Dan and I drove to the church with Naara and her husband Geelge. Had a nice time riding with them and trying to learn some Mongolian. Once we arrived at the church we spent a few minutes meeting the family who's land the church is on, and got to share tea and some jam/bread with them in their Ger (traditional Mongolian home).

Once finished, we moved over to the church and began the service. Great time of praise and worship to start and then a time of testimonies by the locals about how God had been moving in their lives. Very powerful. Then we were allowed to share. Dan, Ross, and I shared brief testimonies, followed by Mike delivering a sermon on prayer. Mike did a great job, and the people really connected with his message.

After the service we loaded up the vehicles and headed out to the countryside for a traditional Mongolian afternoon by the river. It is hard to do justice describing how beautiful the countryside is here, so I'll go back in this post tonight and add some pictures, but let me sum it up by saying its like a cross between Montana, the Badlands of South Dakota, with a dash of Yosemite thrown in. A pretty mountainous countryside, with wide valleys and great views. We drove for about an hour, and made a stop at the top of a mountain pass for some great pictures and a little rock climbing. We then drove on for another 20 minutes down to the river where we found a spot and unloaded for the afternoon.

The traditional Mongolian afternoon by the river is quite nice. Peaceful, quiet, and relaxing for sure. We ate a traditional Mongolian picnic of "Hobhoc" which is a lamb, root vegetable meal cooked in a milk can on the fire with hot river stones placed inside the can. Once the meat is done the stones are removed and passed out to all, so you can "handle them" which is supposed to have a beneficial medical effect (kind of like a hot stone therapy). The food was delicious and the time was great.

We spent the next couple of hours swimming in the river and climbing the mountain right behind our chosen spot. Incredible views and really enjoyed to time with our Mongolian friends (Naara, Geelge, and some of the church leaders from Eternal Pillar). It was also a great time to get to know Ewen and Pia, and their boys, who were excited we were all willing to get in the water.

After about 4 hours there, we loaded back up in the Land Cruiser and drove to another "picturesque" spot called Turtle rock. Reminded me of one of the major rock formations in the west. Like a combination of Black Hills South Dakota, Yosemite National Park, and Montana all rolled into one. Very beautiful and picturesque. Dan and I befriended a heard of goats, and worked on our Mongolian Goat herding/calling.

After that we drove home about an hour and change, returned to the Building 28 apartment and spent some time journaling and talking about our day. Then crashed and went to bed.

Monday

Today we awoke early and had a quick breakfast. We went over to Ewen and Pia's apartment to learn a little bit about how the windows were to be installed. We also learned a huge prayer request was answered in that we personally weren't going to have to put the windows in, but just removing the old ones. We headed over to the apartment and spent the morning pulling out the windows. Just before lunch Ewen, Geelge, Ross, and I went to the "Hardware Market" to pick up supplies and get educated on where to find things. This was a pretty interesting place. (i'll add some pictures later). Imagine what you'd get if a Home Depot married a Antique Mall, and produced a child...this hardware market was that child. 100's of shops, all selling a rough mix of "hardware" antique mall style.

It was really fun to see all the shops and get a lay of the land. Of course this brought a little fear cause Ross and I realized we were going to be on our own in these shops the next couple of days once Ewen left.

The rest of the afternoon we worked on getting the other windows out and beginning the removal of the tile from the kitchen and bathroom. We also had a great group of helpers from the church who began helping Dan, Ross, and I with scraping old oil based paint off of all the ceilings. They quickly put us to shame in speed and efficancy.

After we called it a day, we took Geelge and Ewen and Pia's boys to dinner in order to give Ewen and Pia some time to pack for their trip to Switzerland the next day. It was a good evening, and upon our return we readily crashed as we were all exhausted.

Tomorrow i'll write more on Tuesday and Wednesday. Please continue to remember us in your prayers, here are some specifics you can remember:

1. Prayer for the upcomming men's retreat, both the men who will attend, our ability to find a translator, and for the message that God has led us to share.

2. Continued prayer for our health and saftey.

3. Continued prayer for our families at home.

4. Our day tomorrow, ton of work to do.

5. Prayer that the tile we need comes in early tomorrow.

Look forward to sharing more tomorrow.

We've arrived...

We made it to Mongolia last night about 9:00pm local time (9:00am EDT saturday), and collected all the bags.

We met up with Ewen, Naara, Geelge (Naara's husband) and a few others from Eternal Light Wesleyan, and proceeded to Ewen's apartment to drop off the Sumpter's bags. We met Ewen's wife Pia who was kind enough to hook us up with some Corn Flakes and Milk for breakfast.

From there we drove to Building 28 and got the first look at our home for the next couple of days. We settled in, got some sleep, and are getting moving this morning.

Today we're headed about 30km into the countryside to one of the sister churches which is in Nalaikh. Mike is going to preach, while Ross, Dan, and I share our testimonies. After that we're headed out for an afternoon in the countryside, where we might get to do some horseback riding.

Keep us in your prayers today, and keep praying that the words we share would be Christ's not our own.

More later...
Dave

20 hours down and 5 hrs to go...

So we've made it to Seoul, the plane ride was relatively uneventful, and we thought we'd include some pics of the journey thus far...

First some shots of us on the plane...

and Dan claims he never can sleep on a plane...7+hrs of sleep later...we're not believing him.

And lastly, the 2 meals on the plane weren't enough, so we grabbed some Korean and Sushi.

Hope the day is beginning well back in the states...

More later....

Looks like we've made it!

Well to Chicago at least!

But we've already had a positive prayer answered...

When we checked in at GRR we were told in Korea we'd need to claim our bags and recheck them. This was a little crazy because we only had about 50 min between flights and that was going to cut it pretty close, especially since we had 8 bags each about 50lbs. Prayers were lifted and we took off for the first segment.

We arrived in Chicago, and at the Korean Air counter when we were checking in, Ross asked if they could transfer our luggage by chance for us directly to Mongolia?

They were more than happy to make sure all of our bags were retagged and now we're saved a lot of extra steps in Seoul.

God is good...all the time

We board in about 20 min, so more later from Seoul...

Let the Journey Begin...

So its about 8:15am and we're getting ready to meet to head to the airport. In a little over 24hrs we'll be landing in Mongolia. Keep the prayers on our team as we travel, but also on our families as we are apart.

More later

This time tomorrow we'll be...

A. Boarding a flight, to another flight, to another flight
B. Wishing you were here.
C. Asking "Are we there yet?"
D. All of the above.

Hey friends and family,
We're under 24hrs till we depart and preparations have hit a frenzied pace. We are each wrapping up last minute detials. Keep praying that we're able to get it all done, and also able to have some great quality time with our families this last evening together.

More later....

Four Days to go...

Quick update for our partners out there...We've got 4 days to go, and are each busy getting the last minute details together. We've got a 7:00pm meeting with the Go-Team tonight, in preparation, then packing will ensue!

Continue to pray for our families, our preparations, and begin covering our travels in your prayers.

More later -
Dave

Prayer requests for the trip

Here are some initial prayer requests that you can lift up for the trip:

• Final Trip preparations.
• Packing
• Travel on August 8th - August 9th (multiple flights, a few layovers, and about 24hrs later we'll be there).
• Wives and Children who'll be here in our absence.
• The people who we'll be interacting with during our travel and once we're there.
• The renovation project.
• The Men's retreat.

We appreciate all the prayer support and look forward to updating as the trip progresses.

Trip overview and Team Introduction

Hello - this site is designed to help share about our team's upcomming trip to Mongolia. We'll try to update it periodically during our journey so that those that read can learn about what we're doing, and how God is working in our lives.



This trip came out of an adventure we each undertook a little over a year ago, when we were invited by our Senior minister Dennis Jackson to do a leadership small group with him. This group would help us develop our own personal leadership approach, and culminate with a short term mission trip at the end of the year.



The year was a great experience of learning and growing, and each of us have really felt God moving in our lives. As the year progressed we began to discuss where our trip was to be to. We spent time in prayer and through the work of the Holy Spirit it became apparent that Mongolia was where we were to focus.



Our Trip is going to involve two parts: First we will be conducting rennovations on a church owned apartment "Building 28" so that it is ready for the arrival of Chris and Tiffany Sumpter. Chris and Tiffany are heading there to join the work of Eternal Light Wesleyan Church and the apartment is in definate need of rehabilitation. Second we're going to be conducting a men's retreat with the men of the local congregations and others. Both parts of the trip will give us an excellent opportunity to partner with our Mongolian Brothers/Sisters in the work that God is doing there.



Our team is composed of Dan Haverstock, Mike Sale, Ross Smelker, and me (David Detar). Each of us is excited about the journey before us, and look forward to sharing how God works in our lives as we go.