Team Mongolia

Whew... I don't even know where to start for blogging about my trip! Most of you visiting this blog probably are already aware of my upcoming, six week, missions trip to Mongolia. We will be flying from LAX June 17th at 1:40am (luckily I'm a morning person) and going fifteen hours straight to Beijing China, and from there will skip on over to Ulaanbatar Mongolia!

Its hard to believe that in a little over a week I will be half way around the world... literally, in a land where very few people know english, (the only language I would say I'm barely fluent in) and where my sense of style be quite outlandish. Already, my style has been altered for my trip. I had very little "backpacking" gear or clothes, so I've been on one big shopping spree buying this and that for my trip. Thankfully REI was having a huge sale which saved the team and I a ton of money, but I'm guessing you really don't care about that, so I'll tell you about the team.

Team Mongolia '11
We'll be eight (8) men strong heading into the "Mointain Forest Steppe Zone" of western Mongolia for four (4) solid weeks witnessing to the nomads in north western Mongolia around Ulaangom. Team leaders are Kyle Don and Miles Bocianski with team members: Geoff Nelson, Stefan Carlson, Jeremy Driggs, Frank Muldonado, REI Kyle (he's our wilderness guide/expert who is going with us. He works at REI and I currently do not know his last name), and me (You can facebook stalk these guys if you want, they're all pretty cool). We'll be in Mongolia June 17 - July 31 backpacking through the land meeting the nomads at the homes, which are called Ger's. Google them, they're pretty sweet, they're supposedly one of the most efficient buildings built by man! There's so much other information I could tell you but it would all come out in fragmented sentences that would make sense to me as I type them, but you would probably get lost, like when I try telling stories to most of my friends and family, so over the next week or so I'll try and make a few posts about cultural, political, geographical, and especially spiritual information on the people of Mongolia!

Team Verse: 
"Be strong, and let us use our strength for our people and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to Him. " 1 Chronicles 19:13


Vision Statement:
Together, we will contribute to the further ushering in of Christ's Kingdom, preparing our hearts for service through prayer and fasting - rooting ourselves in prayer for the Mongol people. In simply being present and sharing the joy we have in the Gospel with the nomadic peoples of Mongolia who have never heard, it is our aspiration to make Christ known where He has been unknown, glorifying Him and further reconciling our own hearts and the hearts of Mongols to the FAther. It is by submission to the agenda of the Holy Spirit that we will live and move among the unreached Nomads of Mongolia; consecrated by the Spirit we will do only what He has appointed for us to do, no more, no less. As the Spirit gives boldness we will go and preach the Gospel, disregarding our personal comforts, with focus devoted entirely to our soon returning King.

Goal Statement:
It is our goal to speak the Gospel boldly in Christ to Mongolian Nomads, as men of sincerity and as those commissioned by God. It is our goal to carry ourselves in a manner worthy of the calling we have received, and therein shine the light of Christ into every Ger we enter. Christ glorified by hearts reconciled to the Father. It is our goal to honor and love one another so that we may act in the unity of the Spirit. It is our goal to completely relinquish control to the Holy Spirit, so that He may do what seems good to Him: that by our strength He may be glorified as we trek far and long to find unreached peoples; that by our attitudes He may be made known as we learn the secret to being content in all things; that by our love He may be revealed as we sit and learn from the least, the last, and the lost.

So this is where we sit as a team, and I am so excited to see how God is going to use us. I wish I would have started this earlier so that you could all have seen the physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual journey I have gone through just PREPARING for this trip. Its been cool to see where our team is being tested, because through that testing, we have and will continue to persevere and will be made strong in Christ. This has been training us for the reality of the mission field we will be going into. I'm just so pumped to see what God is doing.

I feel like I'm rambling, so I'll wrap up my first 'official' post on my blog, and I hope you all are blessed by this blog, and if you would like to support our trip, go to https://connect.biola.edu/NetCommunity/SSLPage.aspx?pid=530. Thanks everyone and God bless! Feel free to leave some feedback!