This morning I had the opportunity to meet with the President of the Mongolian Evangelical Lutheran Church (MELC), Pastor Puje. We spent about two hours together as he shared about his history with the Christian faith and Lutheran theology, as well as his hopes for the future of his church and country.
Christians make up a tiny minority of Mongolians. Due to many years of control and influence from the former Soviet Union, many Mongolians are atheists. Those who aren’t are at least nominally Buddhist. And as with most peoples and places, some adhere to older forms of spirituality such as animism. Christians are at best 1% of a population of about 3.5 million. There has been much growth, but there is still much room for sharing the Gospel!
Nomin, the vicar I taught in the Philippines and who I’ve come to see in action firsthand, is part of the MELC and upon graduating in a few weeks will hopefully be ordained in the MELC. He will then have the challenging work of launching a new church site, probably on the western side of Ulaanbaatar. The family we visited for Bible study is willing to donate a bit of their own land to build a church building on, and that will likely be Nomin’s church plant. Most MELC congregations are not able to support a full-time pastor, so Nomin will likely continue his work as a civil engineer and do his pastoring on the side, much as he’s done his vicarage work.
The MELC has launched a Bible college teaching the Christian faith and offering certificates and undergraduate level degrees. They hope to offer graduate coursework someday if they can find the necessary instructors. Their courses are in-person, online, as well as hybrid. They have a dormitory capable of housing about 25 students at a time. And they have an impressive setup for streaming their instruction real-time!
The work of determining church fellowship is, thankfully, far beyond the scope of my work. I see it as my work to try and provide opportunities for working together and strengthening the MELC in their work of planting Lutheran churches and sharing the Gospel with their neighbors. Hopefully there will be the opportunity to do some training or teach course intensives through their Bible school, equipping others to better articulate their faith in Jesus Christ.
The Nelson Family Indonesia 