Cooper's Mongolia
Updates!
MID-APRIL UPDATE FROM MONGOLIA
Dear brothers and sisters,
The work is going along great and we can see the leading of the Lord but we can also see the hand of Satan trying his best to hinder. Satan definitely does not want the pure word of God translated into Mongolian. One of the things that Carolyn and I noticed upon arriving here was what can only be described as a darkness on the country. Buddhism, shamanism, communism, and evolution had been the only religious teachings in Mongolia for many, many years. Satan has a stronghold in this country and is not pleased with those who are preaching Jesus. It looks like we have another translator coming on board later this month, please pray the Lord to send more translators to us.
I wanted is use this update to list just a few of the things that we have found to be both interesting and strange about this country and culture. We have just passed 8 months being here and things that we once thought strange now seem normal or almost normal. When we first arrived we had to learn to walk all over again. Nothing is smooth or level. Even in larger stores the floors will have a four inch drop without any warning. The sidewalks are all broken and uneven, as are the many dirt roads and paths. It was about a month ago that Carolyn and I noticed we were not tripping near as much as when we first arrived. We can walk now without having to keep our eyes on the ground at all times.
One thing I have found unique is any electrical item that you purchase will be assembled, if needed, plugged in and tested to prove that it operates. This goes for a single light bulb up to a refrigerator. We have installed electric water heaters because of the unreliability of the city supplied hot water. The small vendor had to order it, so when we went to pick up the heater they had installed it on the wall, plumbed it and had ran electric to it. So after a demonstration that it produced hot water, it had to be drained a bucket at a time, removed from the wall and repackaged again before we could take it from the store. So to go and pick up our order took almost two hours. We have installed or replaced over 100 light fixtures, these were purchased 6 at a time, and from many different venders. This was due to vendors only carry a few of same item. When we would find a light fixture that would work we would buy all they had. Then each light was taken from the box and we were shown that they worked before we left the store.
Cell phones: almost every Mongolian has a cell phone. They do not have calling plans like the states. Here you purchase a SIM card for about $15 then go to where all the cell phone vendors are and purchase your phone. The SIM card will activate any cell phone. The phones will cost from $5 (refurbished from states) to $ 1000. All the teenagers and young adults can send text messages blind folded and with amazing speed. From what I understand a text message costs about 1/2Oth what a call will cost. They do not throw cell phones away; they repair them. One entire floor of a large building is packed with individual owned repair booths. The picture screen went out on my Motorola V3 phone so I took it to one of these repair booths and while I waited he completely stripped my phone, replaced the screen and checked if for any shorts. From the time I gave him my phone till at was repaired and back in my hand was about 15 minutes. They repair printers and most every computer, when something breaks they don’t think of throwing it away, just getting it repaired.
One thing that I have still not gotten used to: using a common eating utensil. One day we brought lunch, horshores and a type of potato salad for the crew. The salad came in a plastic bag and was placed in the middle of the table with one spoon placed in it. As the meal went on everyone that wanted potato salad took a spoonful of salad and eat it then replaced the spoon in the salad. No one had any problem sharing the spoon even though several at the table had coughs and runny noses.
When you get to know the Mongolian people it is very easy to become attached to them, most of them have a very difficult existence yet do not show a negative attitude toward life. They are easy to smile and can show joy over the smallest of things. They don’t complain about the weather, or uncomfortable chairs, or crowds, they just deal with whatever comes up.
We are getting ever so close to moving into the sanctuary. At that time we will have enough room to start some of the outreaches to the university dorms next to us. The room should seat over 150 with room to seat more on the balcony. Our new church chairs should be arriving by the end of this month, from China.
Here is a road sign we saw on the way to Darhan the other week. I had never seen one of these before. What do you think it is telling you? Answer will be next month.
Thank you all for your prayers and support,
Bill Cooper
MID-MARCH UPDATE FROM MONGOLIA
This past weekend we took the opportunity to drive our Missionary, Brother Agi and his wife Olsee, to Choir for the mission’s services. We left early Saturday morning for the 3 hour drive wanting to have time in the afternoon to look at possible meeting places, and possibly a building that would be available for purchase.
The 240 kilometer drive is mostly slow rolling hills, dotted with very small clusters of gers and people herding their sheep, cattle or goats. We pasted many dead horses along the way, this past winter was very cold and a horse disease has cost the lives of over one million horses throughout Mongolia.
There was very little rainfall last year and even less snow this winter so most of the land is parched and very little food for the animals. Mongolia grows and harvests very little feed to store for the winter so the animals depend totally on natural grasses. Dust storms are very common in the fall and spring, they are especially bad this year because the lack of vegetation holding the soil and sand in place.
We spent most of Saturday afternoon looking at 4 buildings available, none of them would suite our need of a large enough place to worship as well as provide a living place for Agi and Olsee. The one on the left used to be a Russian Military Barracks and in need of much repair.
This building came with no land and would be barely large enough for a sanctuary. They want 20,000,000 tugrug for this building, about 19,000 dollars.
Choir is on the edge of the Gobi desert and very little vegetation anywhere. What keeps the town going at is a train stop on the Trans Siberian Railroad. From China to Russia.
There are no paved roads and most homes do not have indoor plumbing. In the morning you will see many people carrying 5 gal water jugs to be filled. The picture to the left is the main street in Choir. It doesn’t look like it, but they say 8 thousand people live here.
This Sunday they had 9 children present for Sunday school. Sunday school goes from 9:30 am till 11am.
Sunday morning there were 9 children present for Sunday School and 16 adults for preaching. They only have a 12 x 12 foot room to use so they hold Sunday School for the children from
At 11 the Adults come for preaching until 1:30pm. This Sunday there were 16 adults in attendance.
After services 10 of us piled into the van and we drove 20 kilometers out into the country side to Bottomhahn’s ger.
Bottomhahn 74 year old and was saved last year and baptized while we were here on our mission trip. There is no road to her ger and you just follow a trail, you can see how the trail has changed over the years. As one trail gets too rough they just keep moving off to the side until a new trail is made.
We arrived at Bottomhahn’s to find that most of her family was there celebrating “Women’s Day”. This is a pretty big holiday in Mongolia and they were treating Bottomhahn like a queen. With about 26 people present Brother Agi, with the permission of Bottomhahn, told her family about Jesus and about a God who loved them and made a way for them to receive eternal life. They paid attention and several questioned why Christianity was any better than all he rest. The seed was planted and we were all invited back for the next family get together to talk with them some more.
This is Carolyn and I standing in front of our hotel in Choir. There were 2 rooms, the window to the left and the window directly behind us was the entire hotel.
I love to complain to Dennis about everything so I took a picture of our mattresses. I think it was a blank folded in half and a slip cover put over it. The sheet under my Bible was covering bare wood. One blessing, in Mongolia you don’t have to worry about bugs in the winter. The only bug I have seen this winter is a tiny moth.
February 18th 2008
Baptisms finally a reality in our new building.
The glass is in, the hot water is plumbed and the sealer is holding. This was the news last Saturday as the men of Rich Heart Baptist Church put the finishing touches to the baptistery in the new sanctuary. Sunday morning started out with a 
brisk temperature of –22 F. When Church services started it was a balmy spring day of –5 F. (I know it’s not spring, but in Mongolia spring began a week ago Friday, we also know its spring by the ice on the inside of the windows is beginning to melt) By the preaching hour the future English Classroom was packed with 92 people. The parking lot was not, with only one vehicle, this meant almost everyone there had to walk or take the bus to nearby Peace Ave to make it to church services. In Mongolia you do not hear anyone complain about the weather, they just deal with whatever comes.
Services were absolutely wonderful, even without knowing the language Carolyn and I could tell there was excitement in the air with the prospect of having a baptistery of our own. Now we will no longer have to schedule baptisms once a month, and will not have to take the church by bus to another location to baptize. Only 4 people were baptized, the other 3 had hindrances and could not make this Sunday, but the baptistery can be filled with warm water in less than an hour so this will not be a problem.
This week English classes began, these are needed to keep our visas to be in the country. We cannot be here as Missionaries but as a NGO (Non-governmental organization) we can get 3 year work visas. They had to hold their first class in a smaller classroom due to a schedule conflict with the Bible Institute. We have worked that out and they will have the large English Classroom from here on out. Our NGO provides free lessons on Abuse Classes (Alcohol, Anger management, etc) English as a second language classes, and in the future basic computer classes. Charlotte and Carolyn team teach the English classes. They meet 4 times a week, 2 hours per session and expect to level out to approx. 40 students. These classes are used as an outreach into the community. We are not a legal church and as such cannot do any open evangelism but they have no problem with us sharing our faith during these lessons.
The work on the translation of KJV Bible is in full swing we have employed 3 translators, other than the 2 that we already have. They are working on this project full time, and we come together daily for 3 to 4 hours in the continuing process of defining words. Once we have completed the dictionary then we will meet to go over as a team what each translator has translated and discuss improvements and needed changes. We will be contracting with a company to back translate the Mongolian into English and then we will need help from you. We have only 5 people who have volunteered to read these English back translations and compare them to the KJB for content and context. Please pray about being a part of this tremendous work. If you don’t have the time but would like to have a part in this, the cost of a translator for one month is $420, maybe your church would like to help in this area. If so, send your offerings to Martinez Landmark MBC 391 Arthur Rd, Martinez, CA 94553, marked for projects.
We were also contacted this past week by “First Bible International”. A group of independent Baptist came to Mongolia to check on the progress of translating a good Bible into Mongolian. These men had met a year ago and had tried to put together a team of about 5 independent Baptist missionaries to translate a good Bible. They came this year to find that the teams had pretty well fizzled out to nothing but one missionary working on the book of John. They heard from another independent Baptist church about our work and asked to come and met with our team. They worked with us for 4 sessions and have offered their expertise in the Greek and Hebrew language. Bill Paterson was one of these men and is presently a missionary in India. He has had experience in translating the Bible in several languages and speaks and reads both Hebrew and Greek along with several other languages. We don’t know what direction this will go but ask your prayers that God’s will is done and that there be no compromise of Scripture. As Bill Paterson left he was headed to his sponsoring church in Washington state to seek their permission to come to Mongolia and work on a Bible project for one year. He hopes to put together another team and compare and exchange translated works and come to agreed translation. They presently have a printing press in Mongolia and have offered it to publish a good Mongolian Bible when it is ready. We plan to publish each book as they are completed. Pictured to the left is Bill Paterson with our translation team working on defining words. A long and slow process.
Thanks for reading this update and I will be putting some pictures of the baptism, English class, and Bible translation work up on our web site soon. I’ll let you all know when they are up and ready to be viewed. Also be looking for some great news from Chingeltei.
Bill Cooper
