Sukhbaatar Square

And -20C.  

In July 1921 in the centre of Ulaan Baatar, the "hero of the revolution", Damdiny Sukhbaatar, declared Mongolia's final independence from the Chinese.  In the middle of the Square is a statue of him on his horse.  As you face north, the large grey and blue building is State Parliament House, which, like every ger, was built to face south.  A statue of Chinggis Khaan is in the middle at the front.  

We braved the cold to get these pictures for you.

Christmas 2007

We started off with a birthday party on the 20th for one of Larry and Susan’s Mongolian “adopted” children. A family of three children whose parents died a few years ago. The daughter (also the oldest) in the family is looking after the two boys. The eldest boy had his 15th birthday, and with Larry and Susan visiting their children in Canada, we spent some time with Mandal-Sogt and Monkh-Erdene. We needed some help with the conversation, and Bodyo, our translator at ABTC came to help us for the evening.

On the 21st we had our annual Language School Christmas Party. This is the time when you have to introduce yourself - in Mongolian- and tell people about yourself with your teacher watching you. Well, what else can you do but just laugh at yourself making silly mistakes.

On the 22nd we had our CAMA Christmas party, for the workers and delegates from the different churches. Dennis and Marilyn’s told the group about how they celebrate the four weeks of advent. Gifts were exchanged, and we had lunch together. Pieter and I worked through twelve kilos of beef the previous night to make the biggest pot of stew which you would probably only see in an army kitchen.

Christmas day was a quiet day here. Well, Mongolia goes on like every other day during the year. We talked to family and friends in South-Africa (and one of my sisters in Kansas). What would we have done without Skype!!!

We had our Christmas dinner with our neighbours and friends. Batbold, Gerlee and their family. This was their first time they had a Christmas dinner. All six of them came in with a Christmas decoration which they hanged on our Christmas tree. We became friends a few months ago through their daughter whom I’ve always greeted outside the building. She came to our door one day and asked if she could come and introduce her mother to me. From there on, we became good friends and we especially appreciate their help with some problems we encountered so far. Gerlee speaks no English, but that does not keep us from having long conversations. Pieter and Batbold has conversations about fishing, mining (Batbold is in the gold mining business) and books.

Today, the 27th, we finally have some real snow. It actually starts to cover the brown hills behind our apartment. And I get the time to write. Finally!

Long Silence

You might have wondered what happened to us. We have been silent for so long because we have been traveling, and after returning to Mongolia we had to adjust to new schedules, routines and ministries.

Pieter was in South Korea for two weeks teaching at the Onnuri World Mission Center. He goes there once every six months to participate in the training of missionary candidates and missionaries on home assignment. As always this was again a wonderful time of fellowship and learning.

Haniki was in South Africa for about five weeks visiting our daughters and attending to some personal business. She also visited some of our other family.

Since returning to Mongolia, Pieter continues with part-time language study. Haniki will continue with part-time language study in January 2008. Since November we have started with our ministry at the training center. So far our time is spent mostly in getting some administrative things in order and set up. Pieter has started with the necessary research for the training program. He has also started with some small study groups for leadership development and ministry training. He meets weekly with our local church's worship team for training. He meets every second week with our church's cell group leaders for training in leading house churches, conducting Bible studies, and how to evangelize. Once a month Pieter and Dr. Nghia Pham are meeting with all the local Alliance Church leaders for leadership training.

Haniki has been helping Pieter at ABTC, especially with the financial management and organizing the support staff and maintenance. She is also helping Anhoa Pham with the CAMA Projects which is going through a transitioning period. We are handing over the current projects to local Mongolian leadership and management and plan to begin with new projects in 2008.

We are very happy that Sonja, our youngest daughter, has finished her first year of university very well. We are especially happy that she is able to visit with us now during the Christmas holidays, which is the summer holidays for South Africa. Unfortunately our eldest, Anri, could not come to visit. She is finishing up her course work to graduate from her program. She will continue next year with graduate studies. Please pray especially for her as she is finishing up her course requirements, and as she will be alone during this Christmas.

Now that things are being sorted out and our lives are getting into a new routine, we hope to keep you updated more regularly.

Painting and a Surprise.

I’ll have to explain this first. Green, gray and light blue are the “in” colors when it comes to wall paint. If you prefer anything else, you better mix it yourself. The light green and white walls of ABTC were in desperate need of a few layers of paint. Another color!! To help some of the college students attending Nikdovnixon Church at ABTC, we got five young men to paint most of the building inside. And here is the story I have to tell. We started on the Friday two weeks ago, and for that day all I could do was to try to remember the names of the guys. That Sunday, one of the guys, Baatraa was preaching. When we left, I told Pieter I thought he did it quite well. He looked confident, not that I understood much of it. A friend of ours told us later he did quite well with the content of the sermon. The following Monday, I felt I need to find out more about their backgrounds and what they are studying. Baatraa is eighteen, graduated from high school three months ago, and is starting his studies at the local college in September. His dream is to be a pastor one day. Can you imagine an eighteen year old student, with not much training at all, having to give the sermon on Sunday in the church you attend?

So, in future, whenever we would doubt our coming here, I will think of Baatraa. The church has many young people who need training and hopefully we’ll be able to help them a little.

In the second photo is Pieter. He worked during the summer with the same group of young people to clear ABTC's yard from tons of rubbish and stuff that collected there over the years. ABTC begins to look more and more like a training center and a nice place to be, learn and fellowship together. Our next project is to transform the back yard into a nice place where the MK School's children can play and students and staff can relax and have fellowships (during summer time of course!). (Note - the Missionary Kid's school for Darxan is located in the ABTC building.)

Suu avaaree!!!

“Suu (milk) av (to buy) aaree (please)”!!! Mongolians have pretty impressive voices, you can hear them announcing the arrival of milk even with the windows closed. Mongolians buy milk every morning, just enough to make some suutae tsae (boiled milk with some tea leaves and salt). The salt in the tea is probably the equivalent of a strong cup of coffee. They were quite surprised in the beginning when I bought up to 8 liters of milk at a time (one or two times a week), enough to also make yoghurt and cottage cheese. We strain the milk through several layers of cloth, and then boil it for 10 – 20 minutes. Quite an operation to boil 8 liters of milk. We’re just glad to again have “real” milk and not like in the Philippines where we had to make do with powdered milk. The prices range from $0,25 per liter during summer, up to $0.80 during winter.

High School Students

We were a little confused in the beginning to see so many girls with these black and white dresses, until we found out that they’re actually high school students. A good example of the fashion left behind by the Russians. They actually don’t call it dresses, but shirts, and all the while I was thinking they just want to see who can get away with the shortest dress. Just before the summer holidays, during graduation and the many end-of-school-year activities, they usually wear black stockings instead of jeans.

A Disciple's Heart

During July Pieter with Bernie Anderson, one of our team members, facilitated workshops and seminars at the local C&MA churches' annual church leadership camp. The theme for the camp was "A Disciple's Heart". Pieter's section focused on Servant Leadership - A Disciple's Heart, A Servant's Heart. He presented the seminars with the help of an interpreter, Bodyo (see the photo where she is participating in one of the group discussions), who is also helping with translation work at ABTC.

It was a wonderful opportunity to get to know the Mongolian church leaders and fellowship with them. Also, a great time for language practice and learning. The camp was situation in a beautiful area in the countryside between the mountains. We woke up every morning to a beautiful view. However, it was very hot during the camp. We did not believe that Mongolia could be so hot. Fortunately, it cools down during the night. Actually quite much. During that hot spell the temperature in Darhan was 40 Celsius on one day but the same night cooled down to 18 C!!!

As we were talking about discipleship and servanthood, we studied John 13 and one afternoon walked down to the river to have a feetwashing ceremony. See the second photo. We washed each other feet, and committed ourselves to serve God and each other. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and bonding.

On the last afternoon we had a special treat - five-organ soup (see the 3rd photo). A soup made from the organs of the goats which they slaugthered that day for the evening's special treat - an authentic Mongolian meal: goat meat and vegetables cooked with hot stones in a large milk (metal) container. The hot stones actually cooks or "barabeques" the meat. The fourth photo show some of the camp participants enjyoing the 5-organ soup!



The camp is reached the easiest by train. So after the camp it was back to Darhan with the train which was like a sauna since it had no air conditioning. During this trip Pieter shared a bench with a Kazakh. The youth which were with Pieter tried to explain the gospel to him but he became very aggressive. However, we continue to converse with him, sharing our lives with him and hearing about his work and life. It was a very interesting experience. I just wish I could understand and speak the language. Please pray with us that the language learning will go quickly and well, and that we will soon be able to become more effective in our ministry.

Apologies and Thank You!

First of all our sincere apologies to all our family, friends, supporters and prayer partners. We are sorry that we have been so quiet for so long on our blogspot. Although we can think of many reasons they are not really valid. This summer was busier and more confused than we anticipated. First Pieter went on a journey to the West of Mongolia with our Field Director and Jeremy Bergevin. The renovations at ABTC (Alliance Bible Training Center) involved much more than expected. Then Pieter was asked to teach at the annual church leaders camp. In between we had to prepare for and assist the new families that joined our team. Pieter planned and began also with the research project for the Theological Education and Leadership Development Program. More about each of these events and projects in the blogs following this one.

Secondly, we would like to thank our partners who have given towards the fund for the training program's vehicle. We have already received about US$1,600. We still have $28,400 to go. Thank you again for joining us in this. This is a real need and is becoming more urgent as we begin to develop the training program. Please pray with us.

Please come back and see the next blogs which will appear over the next few days sharing about the above mentioned events.

Desperately Needed

No joking! If we are not able to raise enough funds we may have to make use of the same kind of transport as our neighbor’s friend who visits our apartment building on his horse (see the photo on the right ). Not too bad an option, but very slow and extremely cold in winter! And no place to keep it in the apartment! Another option may be a horse cart (see the photo above). Same problem though!

In this post we would like to share with you an urgent and real need. We need to raise funds to acquire a vehicle. In September we will finish with our full-time language study and begin with our ministry. The training program will require much traveling as we will visit churches in other towns and districts to conduct training there. Many of these can only be reached by motor vehicle traveling over dirt roads. The roads here are very bad, and especially during the winter the situation is even worse when you have to deal with snow and ice. Much of the training will be conducted also during the winter months. Mongolia has only about 1,250 km of tarred or paved roads. The rest are dirt roads or just tracks. During winter even the main, tarred road between Ulaan Baatar and Darhan is at places and times only accessible to 4 x 4 vehicles due to ice and snow on the road.

So, to do our ministry effectively we really need a vehicle that is reliable and able to handle the road and traveling conditions in Mongolia. Unfortunately vehicles are very expensive here because they are all imported. We need around US$ 30,000 to acquire such a vehicle. Please pray with us for this need, and share it with your friends and churches. If you want to help us you can send contributions to one of the following addresses:

North American friends can send it to International Ministries, C&MA, P.O. Box 35000, Colorado Springs, CO 80935-3500, USA. Please designate your contributions for our vehicle fund as for Mongolian Field Vehicle. USA friends will receive a tax deductible receipt. South African friends can send their contributions to Ned. Geref. Church Zeerust Noord, P.O. Box 21 , Zeerust, 2865, South Africa. Any other friends can send it to either of the two addresses or if you would prefer to pay it directly into our bank account let us know, and we can send you the necessary details.

Thank you for your support. With your contributions you will be partnering with us in this very exciting ministry.

For the rest we are doing fine. Spring is now really here. We still have to deal with a few dust storms now and then but overall our days are very nice and mostly warm. Last week we even had rain here in Darhan although Ulaan Baatar had snow! The hills are slowly turning green and a few wild flowers are beginning to bloom. We are continuing with language study. This is really like eating an elephant, bite by bite everyday; step by step, and sometimes not seeing, feeling or hearing any progress. But we are keeping at it.

Take a Break

Looking out of my window at a very windy, dusty, snowy day. The last few days have been very nice - cool (very cold by South African standards), sunny and not too much wind. But today we have wind, rain and snow and before the rain and snow could wet the ground, dust.
We have a one-week spring holiday and are very happy to have this short break from language classes every day. We have finished the first book in our two-volume book series for Mongolian. We just started the second book, a much thicker book than the first one. Language study is going well but slow. We try to keep at it every day, learning new words and new grammar, and practicing to use these, hoping that one day we will get it under the knee as we say in South Africa. That is, knowing it well and being able to use it.
During our spring break we plan to do some work at ABTC (the Alliance Bible Training Center) to get the school ready for later this year when we will begin with our ministry there. There is much work to do. Some repairs, paint work, planning and buying some new furniture, rearranging and so on to make the school a nice looking place with a warm and welcoming atmosphere. We hope that some of the short-term missions groups coming here during this summer will help us with this project. Next week will be mostly planning the work and doing what we can do in the mean time.
In the photo: Haniki with some church members and workers in front of ABTC. The church we attend, Nikdovnihon, meets at ABTC on Sundays.

Introducing the Theron Family

This is our family. From left to right: Haniki, Sonja, Anri, and Pieter.

Anri and Sonja are studying in South Africa at the University of Pretoria. Anri is in her final year studying Information Design, and Sonja has just started her first year in Journalism. Haniki and I, Pieter, are living in Darhan, Mongolia, and currently studying Mongolian full-time before we will begin with our ministry here. Before Mongolia we lived and worked in the Philippines for 9 years, and before that we were in Zambia for eight and a half years.

After language study Pieter will develop a leadership development and theological training program for the local church. Haniki will be involved with some community development projects and youth ministry.