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Because of the sensitive nature of our work, please do not post this newsletter on the internet or pass it on without our permission. Standing Strong as Families In Mongolia, the summer is a difficult time for ministry. Many of the winter village sites are visually deserted as the nomads travel the countryside with their flocks and herds and the seasonal workers tend crops near the rivers and mountain valleys. The life of the church in Western Mongolia was stressed even further this year by our family’s long absence to the United States. So, I did not know quite what to expect last week as I made my first visit in four months to the churches on the far side of Mongolia. As I suspected, many of our small groups and churches had only been gathering intermittently throughout the summer months. I had also heard tales that our elders had been arguing among themselves, something never healthy in the church. However, even though these rumors proved true, I was overjoyed to see the elders had worked through some of their disagreements before I came and were eagerly awaiting my visit. They are hungry for the Word of God and the fellowship of Believers found in our Lord’s Church, and eager to again serve the outlying small groups and home churches that have been largely neglected over the summer. To this end we decided that the best way to move forward was to restart their weekly elders’ training. As we began to lay out a plan for the training, two of the elders said they had been discussing a weakness in our previous training. As I listened, I was happily surprised by the maturity of their observation. They argued that they need to serve as families—that if their wives are not onboard, then the church responsibilities are all the more difficult to keep up. So their suggestion was to include their wives each week in the training, so they could be discipled together and have ownership in the ministry of the church. The difficulty they saw in this was that each family has between two and five children. Gathering several couples each week is one thing. With all the children included, the weekly meeting could easily become difficult to manage. Here, Chimgee, the local Mongolian deaconess, came to the rescue! She has been working to support and encourage the Kazakh ministry since the very beginning of our church, and is always happy to contribute to the effort. I suggested that she have a weekly program for the children during their training. With a true servant’s heart, she happily agreed without hesitation. The end result? What started out as a need to restart elder training has turned into an opportunity to build up their whole families, and to provide some needed fellowship and bonding among the leading families in the church. We pray that this will help to unite them as families, and also help the elders’ families have a united front in leading the church. THE BAKER BULLETIN DAVID, RACHEL, JULIA, TIMOTHY, DANIEL & ESTHER BAKER SERVING THE LORD WITH THE LCMS IN CENTRAL ASIA ————————————————————————————————-———- PRAYER REQUESTS ★ Praise the Lord! We have been united again as a family in Mongolia! Please pray that we can continue to serve here uninterrupted for the next two years. ★ Although Rachel and Timothy were both cleared by their doctors to return to Mongolia, please pray that they would continue to heal completely. ★ Pray for our church lay leaders, who are themselves still growing in the faith, as they serve their fellow Christians. ★ Please continue to lift up Azamat and Hamit, both of whom have a lot of responsibilities as they study while working to spread the Gospel in the eastern half of the country. ★ Join Rachel, our church leaders, and me as we pray for direction for the next steps in our ministry here in Mongolia. So much has already been done to establish the church here, and so much is still left to do. May the Holy Spirit grant wisdom and direction as we prioritize our time and efforts. OCTOBER 2019
