Mongolia, July 2006

As some of you may know I am now back in America. I returned and jumped right in helping my family with the next move. We will be leaving California September 1st and start driving across the country to the east coast visiting family and friends along the way. But I did not want to let you all down and not let you know the things that the Lord did in Mongolia the last few weeks I was there. So here are some of the things that you can continue to pray for. Even though I am not serving in Mongolia right now, God has planted seeds that I pray will continue to grow. The training of the World Vision staff is going well, recently some of the staff came up after the meeting and asked if they could use our Christian materials as they go out to the country side and use it as a tool to help reach the Nomads. Tim has started trying to get the overlays for our lessons, with the Mongolian and/or English, translated all the way so that they could purchase them at the cost it would be to make them. The translation work is going slow, we are down to one translator, Idree. Idree also has a family and other responsibilities, and cannot help with translating full time. But it is being done well. Pujee, one of our best translators, just had her baby, and so cannot help with translating for awhile. The baby's name, in English, means Fragrant Lily. She was born early but is doing well. She is a tiny adorable little girl. There have been meetings with the Mongolian International Institute about the classes the Character Training Institute is going to be starting this new school year. The leaders at MIU are excited about CTI coming and teaching, and many plans are being made to help the students to really learn, and not cheat. :-) The Trainings at the Children's Place are going well and strong. Mostly Tim is the one teaching, with Idree to translate into Mongolian. Please pray that this Christan Orphanage will be blessed with the teachings from Gods word. A few weeks before I left, Erin came up with the wonderful idea of doing some cooking and craft classes with spoken English for some of our students and friends who don't have as much to do during the Summer. This was a wonderful time of getting to know some of the Mongolian people we come in contact with more personally. They loved the classes! We shared with them some of our American culture through the food and crafts that we taught them how to make. We had all ages attend, from child to grandmother. I think they enjoyed the cooking classes the most. We made Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal cookies, Banana Bread and Apple Pie! On one occasion, Duma's sister and law came (Duma is one of My Christan Mongolian friends), I assumed that she was a Christan too, but she was not, and so I started asking her questions like what church she went to and such, Duma was very pleased that I was asking her these things and it brought up more opportunities for Duma to talk about the gospel with her sister in law. Toward the end of my time in Mongolia the Lord gave ma many neat opportunities to experience the culture. One of them was with Julie, a Mongolian girl that went to our church, she invited Erin and I out to the country side to stay in her Ger (a round tent like house). We had a relaxing time. It was neat to be with all the Herder families and their heards of horses. We climbed a mountain and viewed the wonderful scenery from the top. We also had our meals cooked over a fire and milk tea in the morning, and brushed our teeth in a nice fresh flowing river. While I was there I learned how to make a Mongolian dish called Hosher, I have already made it for my family and they seem to really enjoy it. Looking back on my time in Mongolia, I would say that my main ministry was discipleing young Christian ladies in their walk with the Lord. Many of them are new Christians, and I was asked a lot of things. Like, "How do I stop this life of sin I am living in, when I know it is disobeying God, but I just can't stop?" or just simple questions about how to have personal devotion time and studying Gods word. I am so grateful to God for giving me the words to say. Thank you all for your interest in what God is doing, and the support you have given me. There are many other trainings that are going on and that have started recently as well, so obviously there is much more that I could say, but I hope that this gives you a little picture of how you can pray for the country of Mongolia. May God bless you as you seek to serve Him. Naomi Lyons