Dear Friends,
This summer has been the summer of “not business as usual”. It started with outreaches, usually not many teams come during the summer because YWAM schools typically don’t have summer outreaches. But this summer we had four teams come, from other ministries, one after another!
Then a Pastor who has been struggling with some personal issues gave his church building and property to my Mongolian Pastor to use as a men’s rehabilitation center! Not business as usual! This just happens to coincide with two men from a Russian Teen Challenge center coming in mid-September to help assist us with the start up of our rehab center. Please keep this in prayer! See the “Men and Healthy Family Project” report on the sidebar for prayer concerns/needs.
This summer, with the increase in the mining business in Mongolia, the prices and inflation have sky rocketed (along with prostitution)! Our jewelry workers were really struggling to make ends meet but our jewelry business was also barely making it. In prayer I felt we needed to increase the ladies’ wages and trust God to bless us. My staff all said to me, “I thought you said we needed to run this as a genuine business?” But this summer, it’s not business as usual! The morning before, three young men from Kingdom Projects in Northern Ireland arrived in Mongolia, having driven all the way from NI to Mongolia (certainly not business as usual and they still tolerated each other)! They had found my website and wanted to connect with me. The day I made the decision to increase the ladies’ wages, they came back to visit having no idea of my decision. The night before they decided to take on two of our ladies’ salaries and to buy jewelry from us to sell back in their cafe in NI! They bought about $800 of jewelry from us, then shortly after, we received another order from Eternal Threads in the US for $3000! Amazing! Streams in the Desert Jewelry blog (Thank you Becca and Cyndi from GO ministries for all your help with the blog and business stuff).
Then about a month ago, a Korean Pastor contacted my Mongolian Pastor. He felt he was overloaded and distracted from his primary call to help orphans by also trying to run a church. Basically he gave our church the property (see the pictures in my photo album)! Again not business as usual! We had our first service there yesterday and I was amazed at what a blessing this is to our church and to the ten people from the former church that now can be part of a thriving church with a Pastor who has a shepherd’s heart.
Finally, last year we had tried to start a coal business, and it ended up, for many reasons, being a total failure so I wanted to sell our truck to recoup some of the money. A few weeks back some YWAMers approached me. They had started two businesses with the sole purpose of supporting Mongolian YWAMers who were on foreign fields and lacked support from the Mongolian church. They were also willing to pay the price I was asking but over a period of time. The day we were to make the sale, I had no peace. I was not sure if it was because my one staff had encouraged me not to sell the truck but keep it for the re-start of our men’s ministry or why.
I hate it when I do not have peace and I don’t know why. But I have come to realize I need to listen to that inner discomfort, so I told the them that I wanted a day to pray about it. The next morning as I prayed I sensed I was to give the truck to the YWAMers for whatever price they sensed from God! To be honest I was a bit afraid to do this, what if they said a much lower price? I told them and admonished them to really pray and listen to God (I think for my sake as much as for theirs!). They took this to heart and spent the next several hours praying, and then we met that night to share.
They shared how God had really challenged them through this about their need to pray about decisions etc. They told me how in prayer three of them separately sensed the same price but each rebuked it as from the devil! But when they shared with each other out loud, they were all shocked that they all had heard the same thing…the price: ZERO, the truck was to be God’s gift to them! They were afraid to tell me and it was a bit of a shocker! But in my heart I really sensed it was from God. To say the least, afterwards they were super encouraged about the importance of waiting on God and hearing/sensing His direction rather that just leaning on our own understanding. Not business as usual!
So as I reflect on this past summer, it seems God has really been teaching and demonstrating that Kingdom business is “not business as usual”, we operate from the vantage point of a living God whose business premise is giving, generosity, and faith. If I am willing to operate from that premise, it opens the door for God to do amazing supernatural acts of grace! It has been quite the “school” for me!
I also sense this Fall is a time of new beginnings: 1.) The church has a new building and I believe we will see God do many amazing things there. 2.) We will start a fresh in the men’s ministry and have the room and people now to do it right this time (please pray with us as there are still many challenges involved with this, see the “Men and Healthy Family Project” report on the sidebar) 3.) We will start a new eight-month outreach/training in September to reach the Ladies and help them with issues that pertain to their lives. But all the planning and programs without the help and anointing of the Holy Spirit are powerless, so please please partner with us in prayer. 4.) The jewelry business has grown and we need more workers, please pray that some new Ladies will want to leave prostitution and be trained in a new way of making a living.
One closing thought on “not business as usual”(sorry my updates are usually not this long). I often hear people say something to this effect, “You are such a dedicated Christian doing such a difficult ministry, in such a difficult place, I could never do that!” Business as usual sees missions as reserved for the elite super-dedicated Christians.
But the truth is I could never do this and I don’t do it out of some super-dedication and super-spirituality. Paul in Ephesians 3:7 says this; “I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.” Again in 2 Corinthians 4:1 Paul says, “Therefore since through God’s mercy we have this ministry we do not lose heart.”
I “do” this ministry as a result of it being God’s gift to me, an extension of His mercy in my life, therefore it has nothing to do with me being more dedicated or spiritual than anyone! In fact it may reflect the opposite, I am here because God knows I need to be here in order to receive and understand His radical grace! This “difficult ministry” is His gift to me! It is not something great I am doing for God, rather He in His mercy is doing something great in me, to me and hopefully through me, all as a demonstration of His grace. So please never feel sorry for “poor John” or any other missionary’s name you want to insert, who is in some difficult place doing such a difficult thing…no, all of us are where we are as a result of God’s mercy, His gift to us, a place of experiencing the radical grace of God, which at times may also include great difficulties (2 Corinthians 4:7-12). But no matter, at the end of the day, missions is a demonstration of God’s grace to everyone involved, not business as usual.
Thank you for supporting us!
Continuing in His radical grace,
John
Mongol Man
The Team
Oyuna
