Greetings From Mongolia

Since our last newsletter, we arrived to Mongolia safely on August 8th from Fiji. We had to stay an extra few days in the capital city of Ulaan Baatar as we worked on our visa to stay in Mongolia. We are currently studying under the 'student visa' and will be taking Mongolian language classes starting next month. We were surprised at some extra expenses this visa incurred, including monthly class fees but are confident God will provide to keep us here in this beautiful country. We spent one week at the Darhan YWAM base, and were busy looking for apartment, running errands, setting up classes etc. We were happy to take a break from the business to take a base outing to the town of Selenge to see the border of Russia and enjoy nature (despite the poor weather). Alissa has been adjusting to the new culture, trying new foods and repeating Mongolian words. We made our way over to Eredenet to staff the YWAM 'Titus' school (www.titusproject.com). We were so encouraged to start with just a few participants but have 19 show up on the first day, with three more following the second day. A mix of pastors, church teachers and YWAM staff make up our participants and they are passionate about laying a firm foundation of Biblical teachings in their ministries. The church in Mongolia is only 20 years old so the importance of accurate teaching is essential during this time. The participants are spending three weeks in class with a focus of being equipped to effectively teach the Bible, followed by an outreach period later this year. We are thankful for the support team including us, Jeanine from Dominican Republic, Bogi from Mongolia and Pascal from Switzerland. Manasa spoke last week on “Inductive teaching” and was well received. There will be more teaching the next two weeks.

Here is an overview of the purpose of this school: “Titus Project was born out of a vision to bring Bible training to areas of the world where there is great need, great hunger, and limited opportunity to receive Bible training otherwise.  We aim to provide training for pastors, church leaders, and church planters passing along tools for Inductive Bible Study so that they can more effectively study God's Truth for themselves and then in turn pass that along to their congregations.”




Prayer Points: One of our great prayer needs right now is for continued protection. This week we've faced a few spiritual attacks in the physical form. While Alissa was walking home from grocery shopping she was confronted by a lady who grabbed her bags and stole the snacks that were for the YWAM students. That night we also had pounding on the door (probably teenagers). Last night (Saturday) the pounding at the door reoccurred and Manasa called a few church friends to come and confront the young men. Each of those instances provided us an opportunity to thank God for the chance to be in this country and increase our heart for the natives here. We don't believe it a coincidence that each of these occurred on the evening before Manasa was to teach or preach.

A second prayer need is that we are still searching for an apartment in Darkhan. The one that was to be provided for us required the entire year's rent payment and as we live on a monthly budget we were unable to meet that request. We are still currently looking for a safe apartment within our budget for our return in two weeks.

A third prayer request is for our computers. Manasa's computer has been acting up recently and we are faced with the usefulness of our computers in our ministry. We keep all our training and correspondence as well as research on our computers, using it daily. We pray that God will provide what is needed for us to continue to be effective in our ministries.

We are asking for continued prayer for our finances as we are trusting God and being wise stewards of our blessings. Please let us know if you would like to be a monthly donor, or if you would like to receive more information about direct deposit into our bank account or through “Paypal”.

We appreciate all who have kept in touch with us and most importantly those who cover us daily in prayer.

Manasa & Alissa Qaranivalu