John Koehler

Dear Friends,

Hope all of you are enjoying your summer. It was a really long and cold winter here but summer has begun and the land is green and the air is warm! Loving it!

Here’s what’s been happening in our project:

Oyuna, the first lady to respond to the Gospel and leave that life, is in the hospital with TB. Her son also has it but a milder case and is at their home on medication. Oyuna is responding well to the regimen of meds she has to take but will be hospitalized a minimum of one month and up to 3-6 months. As many of you know she was just recently married and also had a new job, so this has come as quite the unexpected interruption. Please pray for her, her son Erka, and her husband during this time.

One month ago was Children’s Day here in Mongolia. We had about 15 Ladies of the night and their kids come to the café we rent for a day of celebration and fun. It was a fun time of relationship building and sharing. Pray as we continue the long process of building trusting relationships with the Ladies of the Night. We now have 4-5 Ladies coming every day for devotions, jewelry training and a weekly Celebrate Recovery meeting. All of these women have left their former way of life and now come regularly to our church. They are growing but also have their struggles, so please pray for us and them as we serve them and guide them in the ways of the Lord. The jewelry business is just starting to get going to the point that we can pay some of the women. Please pray that it will grow so that we can pay two or three women a living wage every month.

The alcohol men’s ministry has had some real ups and downs lately. Some men are doing well and others have been getting drunk and fighting. Please pray we can find a different location as being in an apartment building is not ideal. We need a separate place with a building where we can better regulate who comes and goes. We also need a single staff who can live with the guys.

My Mongolian tutor became a Christian this year and we took time to study many stories from the Bible. Unknown to me she decided to write a small study book for Mongolians and Foreigners learning Mongolian to study twenty stories from the Bible, ten from the Old Testament and ten from the New Testament. She just got the final editing done and came to share the good news about her small Bible study book with me. Wow, I was so encouraged to hear this news. When we studied Ruth I told her that I felt one day she would become a woman of influence so I am really excited to see what God is doing in and through her life!

Some personal notes: I got a clean bill of health from a US doctor about some medical things that I had checked out. I had had a previous test that had raised some concerns, but turns out all is well (physically anyways. )

And finally after a few years of searching I have found and purchased my own apartment in Ulaanbaatar!! Thank you, to all of you who have helped make this a reality. It is an amazing gift from God. I had given up looking for about three months, just tired and discouraged after looking at terribly constructed yet expensive apartments. But last Thursday I felt I should look again. I asked Boka, the young man who lives with me, to get an apartment newspaper and pray we could find one in the building where a friend of mine has an apartment (I have always liked the layout of their apartment and the size of the rooms) but have never seen one for sale in their building. Boka came home saying, “There is one in your friend’s building”. We called for two days with no answer. Then this past Sunday afternoon the owner answered. We met the owner, saw the place (which I knew as soon as I saw it, this is the place I want) and agreed on a price and this past Tuesday I bought it! Please pray God will use this apartment for His purposes and glory.

Thank you for all your prayers and support!

Continuing in His Radical Grace,

John