Pastor Paul writes: my dear friends Mark and Gill Newham first went to Mongolia in 1993 where they saw God birth His church in amazing ways. Since then they have been involved in church planting and also ran a business to provide employment for countryside Mongolians. Having handed the business onto other missionaries and seen Mongolian leadership in place in the churches they left in 2011. Returning to England they knew they wanted to continue to be involved in missions and returned to Asia, spending two years in Beijing before they returned to Ulaanbaatar in December 2014. Today they are involved in discipling pastors and supporting the new, growing Mongolian mission movement that is taking the gospel to the Mongolian diaspora. This is one of their letters home which gives insight into what it's like to be a missionary today.

Over the last few days it’s been hot and almost humid. The air has hung heavy as we’ve waited for the rain but often the lingering clouds have skirted the edge of the hills and slunk away full. Then with abrupt suddenness the sky has turned cellar-dark and begun heaving until a single icy finger of lightning touches the earth. Rain has followed, falling fast and furious, bringing with it a cooling deluge that has left the drain-less roads swimming in a whirl of grime.

Mongolians love the rain, they know it is good for the land and they are thankful. But after a few cloudy days they weary of the greyness and long to see the clear blue sky.
During the summer Mongolian missionaries return home. They come full of stories, with beautiful testimonies from places like Xin-Jiang and Qing-Hai, Inner Mongolia and Tibet. Bursting with enthusiasm they tell us about tiny churches that God is growing, or the bold new believers eagerly witnessing to the love of God in the dark places.
It is wonderful, but as their fervour subsides we notice weariness in their hearts and souls. Dollar’s mother died recently and, naturally, Dollar is grief-stricken. Nara has been experiencing fractured relationships amongst the team-mates she serves alongside and she's hurt, not knowing what to do next. Bold is discouraged too, as friends he made over the last couple of years have not been ready or willing to hear the gospel.

Disappointment has blunted their enthusiasm and the events of life have left growing traces of disillusionment. They came to us looking for answers, expecting us to fix their problems. We listened but we couldn’t change or fix anything. Ashen-faced they left us, unimpressed, wondering where God was and why He was letting this happen to them.

We asked ourselves, did we explain that life doesn’t always work out the way we think it should, or that inexplicable things do happen? Did we tell them that times of barrenness come? Perhaps we didn’t, or perhaps we did and they couldn’t hear us. But recognising that life’s insecurities are tripping them up and knowing they sense God is distant, we’ve watched them pull back and try to stand alone.

We’ve asked God what we should do next, because we too know what it is like to feel as though God has withdrawn and become distant. We’ve experienced the loss of the sense of Him in our hearts and felt like His realities were hidden from us. Of course the Bible tells us that we do not lose God, but it feels as though our relational experience of Him is lost and the things which used to bring us comfort and remind us of His presence do so no more. Somehow the world around us has crushed our hopes and darkness has fallen.

Despite our feelings we are learning that we must turn back to God and be honest. We must pour our emptiness before Him, telling Him what we feel, telling Him about our loneliness and His seeming abandonment. Doing so we’ve seen patterns emerge as we realise, yet again, that our hopes have been set on falsehood and things that cannot truly sustain us. Such clarity stops us, causing us to refocus as we deliberately choose to remember the wonderful salvation He wrought for us and His great unconditional love and kindness. Finally, we take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and preach God’s Word firmly to our own hearts. Our hope is in Christ.

A few days ago we drove out of the city and stopped for a coffee at a local beauty spot. We were seated quietly, reflecting on the busy time we’d just had and thinking about the way forward when an Asian lady sidled up to our table and started talking to us. It quickly became apparent that she was part of a short-term mission group and was eager to share the gospel with us. Realising we were Christians she left and returned to her group. We paid for our coffee and waved goodbye to the lady, who was now seated. At the same moment another one of their group jumped to her feet and said, “Hello Mark and Gill, I’m Sarnai.” We did a double take. Sarnai! We couldn’t believe it, we hadn’t seen each other in over twenty years.

She had been a zealous young Christian when she left Mongolia to train with SIL in America but a couple of years after leaving Ulaanbaatar we heard that she’d had disappointments and lost her way. Since then we’d heard nothing. But here she was standing before us and telling us what the Lord was doing in and through her. We marvelled. She is now married with two children and lives in Singapore, but even more wonderful than that, she has recovered her hope in God.

Alone or with the help of friends we don’t know, but Sarnai has found the way to overcome the difficulties. Through our conversation together it became clear that she has discovered how to speak the truth of God to her own heart and how to understand the reality that God never gives up on us. It is evident when we learn to preach the truth of Christ to ourselves we grow in Christ. Our faith grows stronger and we become more secure.

Our young Mongolian missionary friends are still struggling. They are looking to us for answers we cannot give but we know as they honestly wrestle with God they will find the way to recover the hope that is located solely in Him. In the meantime we pray and encourage them as we are given opportunity, reminding ourselves that, although the dark clouds of despondency and despair linger, God never lets go of us and in turning to Him He will restore our hope.