Students Engage in Service in Mongolia

Outward Pursuits professors DonnaLee and Paul Lehmann and nine CUC students traveled to Mongolia in May to help build a training centre and teach classes.  The team of 12 concrete workers, builders, teachers, and students worked in a remote northern area of Mongolia at a school that is operated by a lady who brought the first convert into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Mongolia in the 1990s.  The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Mongolia now has over 2000 members.

During their time in Mongolia, the team prepared, poured and finished 30 tons of concrete using shovels, wheelbarrows, pails, barrells and much brawn and hand work.  In addition to laying concrete the team also taught English as a Second Language classes, and workshops in basic math, accounting, first aid and compass navigation.

The team poses on the large expanse of concrete they poured and finished.

The team worked under primitive and demanding conditions.  They had to physically haul all of the water needed for drinking, washing and cement work from a well to the construction site.  "The well had been repaired by school personnel and is now used by the school as well as local herders of cattle, sheep, horses and goats," explained Paul Lehmann.  The group also had to carry in wood from nearby stands for cooking and heating.

In addition to the construction and teaching work, the team found time to lead a Week of Prayer, speak at a nearby church, play with the children, and do health visitations with local herders.  At night the group slept in the gers that serve as dormitories for the school.

Students set up the gers (yurts) that were used for housing.

"We designed this study tour to give students the opportunity to learn by giving to and serving others," said Lehmann.  "We did this because we fully believe what Ellen White wrote in The Desire of Ages, 'We can impart only that which we receive from Christ; and we can receive only as we impart to others.  As we continue imparting, we continue to receive; and the more we impart, the more we shall receive.  Thus we may be constantly believing, trusting, receiving, and imparting.'"