|  | | The Bible School team to Mongoliet. From the left: John, Christoffer, Veronica, Erica and Josiane |
Adventure in Mongolia In the end of February, several teams from the Bible School’s 2nd Year are going out on the mission field. For five of the students – filled with expectation – there awaits a trip to Siberia and Mongolia, and a meeting with people and cultures totally foreign to their own.
For weeks the team has been preparing and planning their four-week long trip, making contact with local churches and speaking with former Bible school students who have been to the same places. Team-leader, Christoffer from Edsbyn is well aware of the fact that not everything can be planned in detail.
“We don’t know exactly what we’re going to be doing everywhere we’re going, but that makes it a little more exciting, and we know we’re going to be totally dependent on God’s leading”, he says.
“Anyway at our first stop in Irkutsk, in Siberia, we know we’ll be holding a youth meeting and some kind of outreach.”
Irkutsk is located on the shore of Lake Baikal in southern Siberia. The team will be staying there for about a week, working in a Chinese/Mongolian church.
“That’s when we’ll be meeting Mongols for the first time, before we actually travel there. It’s going to be really great to meet the young Chinese people, too”, says Erica excitedly. She, herself is a missionary child and has a passion for people from other cultures.
Leaving Irkutsk, the team will be taking a train to Ulan-Ude, a city founded by the Cossacks in 1666. Here, they will also be staying for about a week before the train rolls on to the Mongolian border – a journey of approximately 30 hours. Their base for the remaining two weeks will be the capital Ulaanbaatar, which is by far the biggest city in Mongolia with its population of 850,000.
“Amongst the places we’ll be visiting is the ‘Living Word’ church, started by a former student of the Bible school in Abakan”, says Veronika.
“The church began as a cell-group and has grown to its current size of 1,500 members. Every Sunday they have five meetings attended by 2,500 at each session.”
‘Living Word’ has also planted several churches in other places in the country and the team will be visiting three of them.
“It will probably be possible to lend a hand in various areas in Ulaanbaatar, but we’ll be going to the women’s prison at least. And that’s going to be really exciting”, says Erica.
“We’re also going to have Sunday School in the 45 orphanages run by a German congregation. Many of the children in these homes used to be street-kids.”
Being homeless is a crime in Mongolia and many poor people hide in the sewer system under the city. It is a tough place for many of the children to grow up in and it is a great blessing for them to be taken care of in the Christian orphanages. |  |
 | | A prayer group in an Mongolian home. |
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The team will also be taking part in a conference attended by around 400 leaders from different places. Carl-Gustaf Severin, from Word of Life in Uppsala, will be the conference’s main speaker.
They have many expectations of this trip. For most of the team it will be the first long missions trip they are undertaking.
“I believe the trip’s going to change us a lot and we have an expectation that God is going to use us and what we’ve learnt during these two years at Bible school”, says John who comes from Holland.
“I’m both full of expectation and a little bit scared”, says Veronika with a laugh.
“It feels like this is a real adventure and it’s going to be exciting to see what God can do both in us and in all the people we’ll be meeting.”
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